Frustrations with school - wwyd?

[whyschoolwhy]

My son goes to a school that teaches from reception to sixth form. It is rated outstanding and is known for having excellent results and instilling good behaviours from day one. DS is happy there and the teachers have done wonders with helping him settle in.

However, my gripe with the school is that they do little to nothing in the way of parental inclusion. In reception there was a nativity play, and we get to go and watch sports day each year, but that's been pretty much it in terms of opportunities for parents to see what their children are doing. At the end of each school year they do an excursion and ask for parent volunteers, but only accept around 6. And in year one my son happened to join a dance club so I was able to go and watch him do a short performance with them. Otherwise, nothing. We don't get invited to assemblies or to do any activities with the children.

I don't want to be a pain in the arse for them - I know teachers are under a lot of stress these days and have to do all sorts of paperwork and reports and other work besides teaching. But I can't help but feel they could do something? Let us join an assembly once a term? Run a Christmas craft event for parents and children? Sing some carols for us? I just feel there's such a short time that they're little and parents get the opportunity to see them in the school setting, and it bothers me that I'm missing out on these things.

I'm not really sure what to do though. I don't want to be kicking up a stink and don't know that it would achieve much anyway. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[post edited by MNHQ for privacy reasons]

In three very short paragraphs your post went from interesting point to superfluous and inaccurate drivel. Though I might steal that last line and add it to my work email signature.

Yes it does and I think I might need to get involved.

That does not sound like most schools. That is a low level of parental involvement. Though many parents at this time of ,carol services, nativity plays, fairs , parties, christingle, film evenings etc etc, may well envy you!

wtf?

at our school we have a class assembly once a year, plus a school christmas play and a few sports events. I don't think any of them have been linked to behavioural issues and I hope to God you're not a teacher at my kids school.

My children's primary school (State school) has many opportunities for this, class assemblies, themed assemblies throughout the year, class trips, Church services for those interested, after school events that are tied in with the curriculum. Plus coffee/tea mornings with the head teacher. Many opportunities to try to accommodate whatever parents/carers can manage. It sounds very minimal to me OP, what your school is doing.

Good for them!

My daughter's primary had parents in very regularly and it was awful for those kids with 2 working parents who struggled to get time off. Then having to sit and watch 3/4 of the class with a parent or grandparent there feeling left out and too young to rationalise it.

Just the opposite in fact, allowing some flexibility within a well running routine is emotionally sustainable and healthy for staff and children. The rigidity you suggest is what aggravates behavioural issues.

A state school that goes from reception to sixth form? Well that's very unusual - assume a free school that has modelled itself on a private style model. In which case maybe you chose the wrong school...

I can see that is hard for the little ones. There are constant efforts at the school to ensure they are building a school community around everyone, so thank you for this point as it is very important to the school that this sort of unintended effect doesn't happen and I can take this point away for reflection.

Can you offer to a teacher to listen to readers a morning a week / join the parents committee or fundraising committee / offer to organise and run one of the types of events you'd like to see?

The main thing your son is happy.

For context, our school does nativity for younger kids: reception, y1 & y2. With older kids singing along. Parents can attend to watch. During school day.

There is a Christmas fayre, for 1hr after school. Parents are to attend and basically buy about £10-£20 worth of stuff.

I think that's it for parental Christmas involvement.

They host sport day.

The host 2 family fun nights throughout the year with games setup outside and parents expected to buy £10-£20 worth of stuff.

If you want to do crafts together can you check out library, they normally do things like that.

Side note: PTA are the ones who run the Christmas fayre, family fun nights so they don't get to attend the event with their kids as they are manning stalls. So might not be what you're looking for.

It sounded like a private chill as it’s a through school to 18.

Parents and carers usually do get quite a few events to go to. Our primary school had open school in the evening and one year every class did something on a different country in Europe. It wasn’t obligatory to go but lots of parents did and pta did catering. (Wine mostly!) This brings in working parents but obviously is hard work for teachers. My DDs only had nativity in nursery. After it was a play. Nativity is phased out in non CofE schools.

I felt newsletters and info from school was great and didn’t want to be in school all the time. In infants they did do one parent assembly but none in junior. I think that’s enough really.

Some schools, particularly larger ones, find it much harder to have parents in school during the day as it requires additional staff to ensure they are all in the right place and supervised from a safeguarding perspective. Some schools also have a higher proportion of working parents, as a pp has said, that means that there is a stark divide between kids whose attend everything because they are able to and those who never have anyone with them because they are working / have younger kids that they can't take along.

You only have to look at the number of threads on here from parents who feel that they are letting their kids down by not attending the miriad options of breakfast / reading / craft during the working day.

Schools need to balance all types of families and I feel that no matter how they approach this, they can never please everyone all the time!

If you want this so you can spend more time with your child, perhaps think about how you can change the time spent outside of school. If you genuinely want to be more a part of the whole school community, join the PTA or become a governor - you get to know staff, other parents and what is happening generally at school much more this way.

I think it's within the spectrum of normal, particularly for a larger school. Schools around here with a 3/4 form intake generally only do Nativity with EYFS whereas smaller schools have more year groups involved in the production and so children might be in it every year. Schools connected to a church probably are more invested too, it's quite multicultural and I don't think many parents would be interested in repeated nativity performances (I certainly wouldn't have been and my kids found the ones they did boring).

My children all had annual class assembly when you could see them perform in primary. But by secondary they didn't even have assembly in school because there was no room that fit them all in so would have occasional year group sessions instead. Whole school events like sports day were hosted at local sports ground etc so spectators weren't invited as logistics were already complicated enough.

For every parent who enjoys these occasions there is another for whom its a logistical nightmare and often a disappointed child.

It’s not normal to have parents involved in everything. In primary school the parents came to the Christmas play. That was it.
In secondary school, nothing. Totally normal.

It might be the type of school your child is at, and more specifically the sheer size of it.

DD's school did harvest assembly, meet the teacher, reading breakfasts, Christmas play, mother's day assembly and various other things.

However, all these things take time, organising , practicing, resources , and time away from actual learning. If you do it for one year group, you have to do it for all of them or replace with something similar. It's tricky enough for 200 kids, imagine having to do it for thousands.

It sounds like the school is doing well & your child is happy & likes school. Sometimes adding in extra activities creates extra work for the staff & unless you have taught you would not know how exhausting it is. Also the same kids will get parents or grandparents every time there's an event & some children will have nobody - maybe parents work full time, single parent, grandparents aren't local, parents don't work but can't be bothered.

Maybe you should join or set up PTA & you could suggest running some events after school to raise funds.

Have you got Mum friends through the school? Maybe you could also try to get to know them better & organise a social?

Thanks for all the comments and perspectives on this.

I feel I should clarify that it's not that I expect a nativity every year. It's just that it would be nice to be able to see the children do some sort of performance once each year, or to do something with them.

I do take on board the comments about children whose parents can't come. At the first welcome evening we were told that they do events like "bring your dad to school day" which I did think could be very tricky in that respect. However that's another slightly odd thing - we were told at the outset that there would be opportunities like this but it never happened.

I suppose my query has been answered really - it's a big school and all of my friends' kids go to smaller schools/village schools/primaries (as opposed to this all through school).

As some PP have said, the main thing is that my son is happy.

The school isn't there to entertain you. Inviting parents into school during the school day means planning special activities, changing routine and dealing with upset children whose parents can't come. It also requires plenty if adults to supervise as there are then safeguarding issues to consider.

Our primary school is the same thinking about it.
Do you work full time ??

Both my husband and I work full-time in London, and we already feel guilty about relying on a childminder to drop off and pick up our child from school. We’re out the door super early to be in London by 8 am and don’t get back until 6 pm. There’s just no way we could leave work early enough to attend even more activities that require parental involvement.

I bet schools do keep in mind that many working parents, like us, can’t attend activities scheduled in the middle of the day. There are so many families in the same position, working full-time and relying on childminders or someone else to manage drop-offs and pick-ups.

With that in mind, it’s already incredibly difficult to make it to things like sports days or assemblies. Thankfully, they now stream online assemblies, which allow us to watch remotely, but it’s not the same. I can’t imagine having even more events to attend—it would be impossible for us, and I would worry about how that would affect our child.

At the end of the day, I believe that as long as children are happy, learning, and making good progress at school, that’s what truly matters.

We have tried to run events for parents during the day and got a barrage of complaints from families saying, ‘we work full time, how do you expect us to get time off during the day?!’

Schools can’t please everyone.

PTA sounds an excellent idea if you want to get involved with things.

Definitely PTA, I felt like I was there all the bloody time when I was Chair, plus I got to reserve front row seats at Nativity (although DD was never Mary).
Having said that my DC probably missed out as I often had to be serving drinks etc instead of doing stuff with him, although we did try to cover for eachother when our DC were performing or similar.
If there is no PTA start one, we did

I was going to say something similar. When mine were little neither my husband or I could take time off to go in for the events in the day. Both teachers ourselves. I explained it away by saying we had all the holidays together and they didn't have to go to holiday clubs in summer. Sometimes I could get a grandparent to go (6 hour drive away, so had to be timed with a visit) or asked if they could join a friend and their partner. I did feel bad for them.