If you're a teacher, do the PTA annoy you?

[RunAlexRun]

I have been into my DCs school this morning to help with a craft event organised by the PTA. I am not a PTA member but help out occasionally at things like sports day if I'm not working.

I, and the other volunteer parents, have spent the whole morning being spoken to like shit by teachers! Not all the teachers, I hasten to add, but some of them.

I was told by the PTA chairwoman to go to X classroom and that the teacher was expecting me. When I got there I knocked and entered the classroom only to be shouted at and told to wait in the corridor, and made to wait there for 20 minutes.

There were various other incidents over the morning where us volunteers were spoken to badly. If you are a teacher or work in a school, do PTA helpers annoy you? Would you prefer there was no PTA? My child is year 5 so not too long left at the school and I certainly won't be helping out again!

Sounds awful. I wouldn’t help out either.

PTA member, not a teacher.

I think practically anything in school time that is organised/driven by the PTA as opposed to the school will be a pain for the teachers.

It interrupts them from teaching the curriculum, distracts teaching and children.

That's not to say these things are inherently wrong to do, but I can see what a pain they could be.

Whenever we as a PTA did anything in school we tried to be as un-obstrusive as possible and made sure we told the teachers how appreciative we were. And we definitely tried to do this kind of thing as rarely as possible.

I can totally see how it would be annoying/distracting for the teachers. It was organised by the head teacher though. I just don't think there was no need for them to talk to us like we are the scum of the earth.

As a former teacher and parent of two DC, I've encountered several teachers who spoke to everyone as though they were small children being naughty during carpet time - parents, volunteers, other staff - everyone, basically. Always drove me up the wall as I wouldn't never speak to another adult the way some former colleagues and some of my children's teachers do. Well, I wouldn't speak to a child like that most of the time either tbh.

I have friends who happen to be teachers at dc school (as in we were friends before my children went there).

They can’t stand the PTA but then they have always been a very particular type of parent on our one.

I just throw money at them when they come begging and ignore them for the rest of the time. I never go to PTA events! But I believe they’re like having teeth pulled.

I do know some schools have great stuff going for them so perhaps we’ve just been unlucky.

But yeah, the teachers I know consider them a not always necessary evil.

I admit to going in the opposite direction when I see some of them coming.

Oh blimey I had no idea PTAs were hated quite so much! In all fairness though, our PTA is tiny and has lovely people on it, I wouldn't describe anyone on there as one of 'those' parents.

I'm just going to avoid helping at anything from now on.

As a teacher the PTA never really bothered me, it’s nice if someone is going to organise things so that I don’t have. Ours always asked for teachers to volunteer at things but there was never pressure if you couldn’t

It’s a difficult relationship. On one hand you know they’re giving up their time and raising money, but on the other- they organise the disco, feed the children e numbers and then expect teachers to manage behaviour.

But tempers are always frayed in schools leading up to the half term. You shouldn’t take it personally.

To be honest, as long term volunteer and PTA member I can see why it happens. I noticed that after a while of being in and around the school it is easy to start feeling quite familiar and as if you were in your own workplace, you get to know people a bit, know where things are, that sort of thing. However you aren't part of the staff and you need to take great care to not overstep the mark. I entered a room that I really shouldn't have once (it was normally fine, it was the library which was a throughfare) and got bollocked as SATS tests were going on in there that day. It was a bit humiliating and I couldn't have known that the rules had suddenly changed. I have also been made to wait around at times. You have no idea what's going on in a particular class on a particular day even if you regularly help there and know the teacher. It can be hard when you feel that you are giving up your time to help the school but there are immense pressures on school staff. Now obviously if this was your first time helping you weren't suffering from over familiarity, but it might be the case that others regularly overstep the mark and the staff are so tired of it.

I didn't take it personally as such, as I saw others being spoken to in the same manner, however I refuse to put up with being spoken to like that - whether it is personal or not - so I won't be helping out again. The PTA has recently spent thousands kitting the library out with new books, as well as other numerous other things that the teachers have requested for their classes. A little politeness or respect isn't too much to ask.

I wouldn’t ever speak rudely to them or anything, but yes, they can be a bit annoying (there’s another parent helper mini group who are more so!) Very grateful ind ed for parents who wish to help & are so engaged, but they seem to have their own agenda that’s often at odds with what the school actually needs...

The thing is, in most professions, if we started speaking to visitors to the workplace like shit, we'd be disciplined for it, but it's ok for teachers to do it?

What sort of agenda, @Bonbonchance? I mean that as a genuine question. It's never occurred to me that parents that help the school raise money have their own agenda, so I'm curious.

I'm a teacher but not a school teacher. I absolutely hate being disturbed by anyone when teaching because it distracts the students and can be hard to get them back in the zone, especially more so if I'm not warned.

It's possible the PTA organiser thought it was ok to disturb the teacher without actually checking. Plus, just because the head teacher organised the event doesn't mean the teachers are on board. Many times, managers have great ideas which causes more work for the teachers (that may not actually be reality but what they think).

It wasn't nice of them to snap at you, but try not to take it personally. School teachers are under a vast amount of stress with barely any free time except for holidays.

I don’t think anyone said it’s ok for teachers to speak to people like shit.

Our PTA/teacher relationship is generally pretty good, although when we tried to change the day of our summer fair from a friday evening to a saturday, the teachers lost it.

How dare we be cutting into their weekends, it's fine for us, we're just SAHMs, etc.

None of us were SAHMs, and were just trying to fit fundraising in around our work. And if it wasn't for us, the school would have no iPads, climbing frames, stage, sound system, and so on and on and on.

I quit not long after that.

I don't blame you for quitting, Estrella. Like you say, if it wasn't for the PTA then there is a lot of equipment that schools would not have.

I’m a teacher and chair of the PTA at my son’s school (different from my workplace)

The PTA in my school and all others I’ve worked in are great. I have no problems supporting them and was teacher liaison for one group. They are only there to help and if they are there at the wrong time or in the wrong place, it’s only because the school haven’t communicated things well enough, IME.

In my chair role, I actually find the teachers are pretty good. It’s the parents who expect us to do all the work and whilst their children benefit that annoy me tbh

That said, I’d never expect a teacher to give up their weekend to support PTA events.

I don’t blame the teachers for not wanting to give up their weekends tbh.

Our PTA never organise anything for weekends.

I'm not a teacher but involved in the PTA. We rarely organise events that run during the school day, usually any involvement from the teachers might be the kids making the odd poster or something for the Christmas fair or them having to clear the hall. Events are mostly after school or weekends/evenings. Just after Christmas we got the 'wish list' from the head, most of which was approved, so the school now has 18 i pads, travel expenses for all trips, loads of new instruments, copies of the 25 must read books for each class, £100 for each class, 10 new benches for the grounds.....loads of great resources. I have no idea what the teachers think of the PTA, I'm not sure most of them have an opinion at all, they love the i pads though.

The PTA at our school is great to a degree.... They raise a shit load of money, buy loads of great equipment and are relentless in their ideas and do work really, really hard. However...… they are a small team of people who have no idea why no one wants to join them. No one wants to join them because they are a "clique", think they no it all and look down their noses as people who can't commit, even though people can't commit because of them. They are bossy and try and control everything. I have run a particular stall at the fete for longer than they have been parents and they always give me advice that is not needed as it is common sense and I am not stupid. I.e You need to make sure you give the right change etc No shit sherlock!

I work in a school and am a parent at another school. Neither schools organise PTA events during the school day unless it's something aimed at parents like a refreshments stand at a sporting event. The only things the teachers are forced to get involved with is handing out disco permission and competition letters and getting them back to the office. So whilst they shouldn't be rude to volunteers I do think it's strange you are there?

We thought we'd offer to trial it because:

a) they all moaned about having it on a weeknight
b) the local school who have theirs on a weekend do really well and make a shit on of money as they have more time, and in nice weather families will stick around longer

I'm not a teacher but I fairly regularly put myself out for my employer - an extra hour or two here or there, etc. The preciousness of some of the teachers blew me away. How dare we, didn't we know they had children they wanted to spend time with at weekends?

Well, so did we. But they obviously had a view of us as bored middle-class women looking to amuse ourselves.

In reality, we were two self-employed people taking time out from running their businesses, a university lecturer and a marketing manager who travelled all the time.