Really weird incident happened my my daughters new school so I wanted some insight and reassurance it’s not a sign of things to come:
We have a WhatsApp group set up from an event in May where all parents are already in and not much activity apart from “did everyone get their forms in” type questions and “does anyone know what clubs the school does” it’s all very casual and parents with older children already at the school have been helpful.
yesterday we found out the form classes our children are in and we met our form teacher in person. Someone in main chat suggested this is a good time to create sub groups for forms and people started posting for example if you are in 7Xyz then join the group. All very friendly and nice till this mum let’s call her Q started ranting and saying “please everyone be patient, when I get home I will sort out” others just questioned that we’re here in person now so easier to set up but her response got very annoyed and said I said be patient. No one else responded on there so I assumed everyone okay with it. I wasn’t bothered right then and thought let her crack on if she wants to take the lead.
after a few hours she created a new community and then sub communities so the new main one for whole of year 7 and then 6 for the forms. She then asked a rep for each form and gave them admin rights, herself too being an admin in EACH form class! She then made it so the community couldn’t post in the main one but had to go though the class admin each time, so I couldn’t just post in the main one I would have to go through my rep who would then post on my behalf!
she then wanted us all to prove we were who we were saying by taking a picture of the name sticker we were given at the event yesterday which has our name, child’s name and form class. I’ll be honest I binned mine and didn’t keep. I was feeling very uncomfortable with all this especially as she kept shouting people down who questioned what she was saying.
I already know 2 mums there as our kids in same primary school so I messaged them and asked what they felt about it all - they just responded vaguely snd not much bother so I thought okay most people don’t care.
Another mum spoke up who I don’t know and questioned why she’s an admin of every sub tutor group when her child is only in one to which lots of people responded saying yes why plus why we can’t post in the main group for all year 7’s. She didn’t do in the way I’m explaining it was more being really nice to her type questioning like she’s scared of her. Q still got upset and said she said she was just trying to help. But I feel it was all rather crazy and wasting everyone’s time. She’s not in my form group thank God. Is this a sign of things to come? DD is my eldest and we’ve had WhatsApp groups in primary but not to this level of craziness! I should avoid Q at all costs and pray our kids don’t become friends yes?
it all feels really bizarre to me like why do all that when it was actually quite simple to do and she made it a million times more complex. Plus why did everyone just go along with it for so long and start posting pictures of their name tags? It’s like one person who I didn’t meet or know suddenly became our leader and everyone went with it. Only when sub group reps realised how much work it will be for them to get each member plus be the go between did one speak up and then it was just really nicey nicey. I really wanted to post how crazy it was but DH stopped me and said don’t do it.