Tell me what random requests you've been sent by school this term

[listsandbudgets]

About an hour ago I got a notification there was a new message on the school app so as I had time I checked it.

DS is apparently doing a play IN FRENCH tomorrow and with apologies for the short notice school would like us to practise their lines with them (fine for us DP's French is almost fluent)

And please could we send DS in with :

A toy dog (probably got one somewhere in the loft)
Some Euro notes and coins (luckily we went to France in the holidays)

And best of all .......

An inflatable hammer

We knew about the play but until now we had no idea about props and DS certainly hadn't mentioned them. Anyone know how I can acquire an inflatable hammer by 8am tomorrow?

@MargaretThursday sensible and historically accurate response, I think!!

I'm so pissed off. I might actually take the sodding pumpkin in on Friday and in the style of a grumpy teenager tell them they can sodding well do it seeing as it was their idea.

Many years ago DS was a coveted role in the school nativity - as a rat
But as he was a 'brown rat' he needed to wear brown tights and a brown polo neck jumper - the tights I had but not the jumper maybe if it had been the 70s!)
In the end a TA lent him one!

Oh this is priceless. A 'brown rat' 🤣
God bless schools & their creativity!!!!

‘I can’t see the issue with this?’ … ‘it was the last thing I needed’. There’s your answer.

Also we never seem to have any cash in the house as the PTA is about the only body that asks for it any more. Thankfully even they had a card machine at the disco (the kids love it but it means taking and collecting three times over the course of an evening).

I had to track down some yellow opaque tights for a school play, not as easy as it would seem.
Alsi, DS informed me he needed a brown fluffy jumper as he was one of the 3 bears (?) in the nativity play! I went to watch and he wasn't in it, he'd decided to help with the lighting! 🙄 That was 2 and half hours sitting on a chair to suit a 5 year old that I won't get back!

Went to a primary open evening the other day. Teacher proudly declares that they do cake sales every week. School has gone to the bottom of my list!

Bloody hell, a cake sale every week. I thought schools tended to have healthy eating policies.
I always avoid cakes from cake sales because I don't trust everyone to be hygienic bakers.

@Whenwillglorioussummercome

Yes the last thing I needed but not the school's fault and not unreasonable - bring some cakes & cash to but some. It's quite standard.

It was also fine in my DC school to bring shop cakes; mine loved bringing in home made, I like baking when I've time - so it was a bit of a pain after a long day / evening with no help. But it's always a lovely event so I was happy to do it.

“Don’t forget to bring a potato for world book day” - at the end of the class newsletter with no explanation 🤷🏻‍♀️

The worst was always the scramble for the sign up sheet for the class party- if you didn’t get there in time you got landed with the pile of ham sandwiches, or cheese and sodding pineapple
sticks!

Yep, quite standard. But short notice and pressure for homemade is no fun for those of us who don’t find baking relaxing at the end of a long day, or reliably even have the ingredients to hand. After finishing work at 7pm and getting the kids sorted, the very last thing I want to do is start baking anything.

Luckily they are not a thing at our current primary.

I've been doing this a long time (3DC with a gap before youngest)- my mates & I know the shop bought cakes that can be removed from packaging, bashed slightly round the edges, bit of icing sugar sprinkled carelessly & wrapped in greaseproof paper, to BINGO appear home-made. (Tips from one mate whose DC's private school only accepts home baking 🙃).

In the course of one month, I will have had;

Dress as your future career day
Dress completely in green (Macmillan bake sale day)
Dress as a favourite sports star (sponsored run)
Halloween (obvs)
Dress in luminous clothes (Traffic awareness day)
Dress as a word of your choice (literacy day).

FFS! For the final hurrah on literacy day, I feel like dressing DS as 'irritated"

@Whenwillglorioussummercome

All of this true for me too! I like baking but it wasn't even at 7 - my kids do a lot of sport so I'd be baking at 10 pm or 6 am. 🤪 (I still have primary school kids but they are d enough with their older siblings to bake themselves, thankfully).

My point was the school's request was reasonable ... and a worthwhile event for the kids. I certainly think it's a small one compared with 'inflatable hammer' and 'carved pumpkins' 😀

@EarringsandLipstick it all depends on notice. Plenty of notice, doable!

Ours was the ‘Ugly Bug Ball’ aka a party for moving up to KS2. We had to supply a home made bug costume “we look forward to seeing an array of diverse and imaginative costumes” which took about £100 worth of materials and a week of stuffing polystyrene cups with newspaper, then painting them and threading together to form the spine. Ping ping balls stuck onto a headband and wings made from net. DH & I had an incredible row about the wings refusing to stay up as intended (and DS potentially taking someone’s eye out every time he turned round).

As well as this, we had to send a ‘bug themed’ food box (which would be judged with a prize to the winner), complete with bug themed food. So I was up until 1am the night before, sticking chocolate drops onto strawberries, icing silver balls onto mini meringue nests, strawberry laces onto Oreo cookies and trying to coax jelly worms through an apple (which had turned brown by the time he left for school).

I actually had a very rare Facebook rant over that school request.

Not quite in the vein but my daughter was required to attend a play in London .
Cost loads and it was a play , in Spanish, that hadn't been covered, prior to exams as it was felt that seeing the play would suffice (?)

The play was a mime, with an Iranian commentary.
Might have explained her drop in grades !!!

And no,,, complaints weren't accepted.

😂😂

I'll be puzzling over that "hatch" all night!!

OP have you got an inflatable anything in your house like a buoyancy aid/ pool toy / actual paddling pool? If so inflate it and draw a hammer on it and send it to school. That will make an excellent point and when staff members trip up over the inflatable alligator/ double lilo/ 4 ring paddling pool they will learn a very valuable lesson about not making ridiculous requests at short notice

Also a potato!! Turns out the potato request is more common than I thought!

Nursery pumpkin-gate took a new twist this morning. One child took her pumpkin in today and another child had an absolute melt down over it because she hasn't done hers yet. God, I felt sorry for that mum. I'm sure it was well intentioned but I wish they'd think twice before suggesting such things.

Non uniform day for harvest, wearing colours of your favourite fruit or vegetable! My eldest son literally won’t lie and we didn’t have any green clothes for ‘candy floss grapes’ 😑

@Paramummy3 Or our kids all go to the same school!

“LashesZ · Yesterday 21:35

Current project is a treasure box containing 3 of their most special, valued items, but something they won't mind if it gets lost. “

I’m speechless 😂 WTAF

Wow some of these are actually mad. I thought schools were a bit more wary of sending out lots of these requests these days.

We get the occasional dress up day but with plenty of notice, and certainly never multiple times in one month.