To be disappointed about lack of communication from child’s school?

We get weekly newsletters, updates on tapestry at least once a fortnight I’d say and yeh teacher is always there at pick up and drop off to speak to if needed. We have reading records we have to fill out and they put a little note in them every week too.

Honestly I feel that I get too much contact from school. I wouldn't want a daily update and happy the staff just teach to be honest.

Mine are at our village primary with just under 200 kids. In September each year's curriculum is sent out, then parents evening, plus a couple of extra open evenings where we can look at books, reports in autumn and spring, a reading record, weekly school newsletter etc etc....

If we need to contact the teacher we can email the main office to be passed on to the class teacher. Most of the teachers live in the village so know how each family lives and their backgrounds anyway.

I remember finding it a bit of an abrupt transition from nursery so I do understand your feelings.

But none of the schools around here do the sort of updates you're talking about. My younger son is Y2 and has a lot of friends with younger siblings in reception so I don't think I am wildly out of date or anything.

What you get here is weekly whole school newsletters and a chance to speak to the teacher at pick up if you want. And obviously parents evenings.

Do you teach at a private school?

Ours used Tapestry in Reception but we only got about 1 photo per term sit it was a bit pointless. Ours does open classrooms at the end of every half term so you can go and view their work, and 2 x parents evenings a year. Beyond that it definitely seems to be more of a 'no news is good news' approach like @Qb2654 says. DC1 had a lot of issues in the first 2 years of school and we were called in a lot for meetings.

From the people I've spoken to who have DC in (state) schools local to me, the school you work in is the exception rather than the norm OP.

Pretty sure teachers have better things to do than that? They'll phone you if something's wrong 😊

Abd tbh how personal are they?

My husband is a secondary school teacher and he often says that you tell most parents the same info - because most children follow the curriculum just fine.

OP what you're asking for seems like a lot of work for both the teachers and the parents. We get a weekly whole school newsletter to update us about what's been going on in school. Judging by the comments in the class WhatsApp group I'm in the minority in reading it.

I would FAR rather a school that allowed teachers to teach rather update a parent with progress. 5 mins twice a week per parent is 300 minutes. 5 hours potential teaching time wasted.

I laughed out loud at ‘I’m not there at the school gates’ coupled with ‘they should be building a rapport with parents’ what on earth do you want them to?!? Come round of an evening with an update? And then, later on you post ‘we build a rapport at our school at drop off and pick ups’ !!

What you describe sounds normal to me, and what you're hoping for feels unrealistic for over stretched teachers. Do you teach in a private or state school? I would expect more interaction from a private school, as being available to parents seems to be part of what people feel they're paying for, but what you desrcribe seems normal to me from a state school. It is a big adjustment after the level of info you will have been getting from a child's nursery.

Perhaps if all parents did their part and schools did not have to deal with lack of basic parenting and entitled parents, more time would be available to update parents.

I have a non verbal son so really value his communication book and am eternally grateful to his TA for filling this out, I wouldn’t know what he was doing day to day at all without it! I don’t expect anything like this from my NT DS who can tell me what he did himself…

Often there are issues like safeguarding meetings/issues that come up much more often than people realise. And a lot of staff absence, for obvious reasons that didn't apply when we were at school in the 90s.

Do you have concerns about your child? If so you should contact the school. If not, then I can't really see the issue. Surely it's better the teachers are teaching than doing website posts.

Yeah I think the key is support staff. As I’m sure you know these have been cut back a lot, or they’re tied up with dealing with children with additional needs that traditionally might have been able to get their own LSA.

I very much appreciate any update I get though, yes my son can tell me himself but a) he’s five and most of the time just tells me things like they saw a cat in the playground or Ilias was badly behaved and put in the calm corner. Of course I’d like a bigger picture of his day and any way I can help support and further his learning at home- we painted pumpkins with dots the other day for example as I knew he’d been learning about a Japanese artist at school and her work.

b) it just helps to have an open line of communication with the environment he’s now in 30 odd hours a week.

Why are some parents not grasping that if in 2006 if I, as a teacher, had one hour available to teach, I spent that hour teaching. Now in 2026 with that same hour, I need to have a meeting with Mrs A to talk me though the bespoke language that will get the best out of Bob, a meeting with Mr and Mrs B who need to explain to me that Sophie will best learn through a visual demonstration, and taking photos for CoffeeThen. I now have ten mins left to teach. So we achieve as a learning cohort far less than 20 years ago. Then that’s every day. Why are then parents surprised come exams ‘you didn’t cover fractions in lesson.’ ‘No, we didn’t have time, my time was all taken up by parents’.

let. Teachers. Teach.

We also felt the drop in communication from pre-school to reception was huge. We went from having a weekly update with 5-10 photos of the class and what they were up to and a way to message the teachers for any child specific questions on the Class Dojo app, to now getting an update every half term with a few photos but no real description of what they were doing, or how he is.

Our first parents evening is tonight and we get 10 minutes only, so really hoping to get an understanding of how our son has settled in as we have had zero feedback since September and him (along with most of his 4 year old friends) don't give much of an answer to 'what have you been doing at school today'. My son is also a picky eater outside of home, and often tells me he doesn't eat his school lunches because he doesn't like them but we never hear if this is true or if he is actually eating an okay amount. Do they monitor if young children are actually eating their lunches or being hungry all day? A 4 year old is still very young and can't always adequately given accurate information to their parents about their time at school.

It totally varies between school's and teachers. With my second child I got way more photos on tapestry than with my first and assumed they were told to send more but then I spoke to parents in other classes and they said they hardly got any so it was just this particular teacher was making the effort to send them.

👏👏👏

My son’s teacher told us they have a list of children that regularly don’t eat much at lunchtime, and this is flagged up at parents evening (obviously varies by school but I would think at reception age there’s a fair amount of monitoring across the board to be honest)

I think this is right, even if it seems harsh.

Teachers need to spend their time teaching.

And it’s hardly their fault that you’re rarely there at drop off and pick up - I think being there at least sometimes is key in gauging how your child is getting on.

I don’t think the parent / teacher relationship has to move to putting more pressure on teachers just because so many parents now work - and I say this as a parent who has always worked full time (dc are 18 and 12)

A lot of this should be handled by a SENCO I’d have hoped?’

Or it has been at my DS’s schools (12, has SEN that does require some meetings as you discuss)

Tapestry isn’t used beyond nursery at DC’s indie. Very little updates online, they have letter/sound sheets sent home to practice in R and reading books, with a planner you can use for communication.