Oh to be a parent in bygone days

[Whoateallthesoddingbiscuits]

Imagine the scene. You’re a parent of primary aged children. They bring home their PE kit once a week. Books and stationary are provided by school. They can take a non-specified pencil case if they want. Heck, they can even wear a yellow pony tail if they want instead of a navy one.

Homework might be a project on animals or transport over a term. Obviously, you’d still do things like reading, spelling, times tables. You can do maths or English with them if you want, without being told that there is only one way to skin a cat. If they know a great way to skin a cat, you accept it, rather than
confusing/boring the wits out of them by teaching them another ten ways.

There is no Google classrooms.
There is no email.
There is no WhatsApp.
There aren’t several additional messaging apps to check.
Instead, every couple of weeks there is a letter in their bag.

THERE IS HARDLY ANY ADMIN AND NO LAST MINUTE AD HOC REQUESTS

My favourite homework was making a graph on squared paper showing how many of each colour there were in a packet of Smarties.

As a parent I wish school information still came home on a newsletter every Friday. My youngest is out now. I was so happy to stop getting the constant authoritarian mass text messages and emails about absences, hoodies and punishments.

My parents never read or did school work with me. I was left to get on with it (1950s). Their main preoccupation seemed to be in getting me out from under their feet. I grew up playing in the street with my school chums and learning from them how to fit into a group. Forming and keeping friendships, knowing the rules and concepts like fairness were learned in situ. When I did bring anything home from school - usually to do with collecting money - my mother was quite grumpy about it. I dreaded having t ask for anything and preferred to go to my grandmother.

Im thinking in partcular of those horrid little envelopes where money was collected for "children in Africa" or somesuch. The teacher would call you out and humiliate you in front of the class if you didnt return it with a coin inside.

Yes and no
there was good stuff about them days but other things was bad. .

You skipped the parts where teachers was allowed to hit kids, shout at them , make sexist comments, and humiliate them.

In my school (the 80s) -

1 child was told to bend down and the teacher smacked his bottom about 10 times. All cause he was being a bit silly and talking.

1 child died at my school cause of a lazy and uptight teacher

1 child was told by the teacher she end up having babies at 16!cause she not fit for nothing else!

1 child was locked in the cupboard over something miner like giggling

I could go on 😡

My DC are 21 and 17 (youngest left school over a year ago) and what you describe is what I had as a parent. By the later years with DC2 we did have online portal things (mainly came about for schoolwork during Covid) and newsletters came out via email then Sway but that was it, I wouldn’t exactly call it bygone days.

Primary school still has some of the good stuff where I am (not in the UK). No uniforms so don't have to worry that they're wearing the wrong thing, everything is provided - books, stationary, lunch. I have only been asked for money twice in the whole time DD was in primary school, once for a class trip to an amusement park, and another for a trip to a chocolate factory - there's never any random donation requests or anything like that. DD never even took in a PE kit, they did PE in their normal clothes (but DS's PE teacher has requested they bring in shorts and t-shirt when they start doing indoor PE later in the autumn).

There is daily homework but its homework the child should be able to do by themselves except for reading out loud to someone.

Only one app for communication. DS's teacher so far just sends out a message each Friday summarising how the week went, and what they will be doing the next week, which I like because DS tells me sod all about what he did in school. But there are occasional general messages from other members of staff about random stuff, but not enough to get annoying. Only admin I've had to do was fill out media and religious education permission forms.

You don’t say what country your in !

Finland.

In my day (80s, not UK) we didn't even have a PE kit, PE was in our uniforms! Madness now I think about it, but we changed shirts maybe once or twice during the week when sweaty and washed the pinafore and cardigan at the weekend. Homework was the child's concern, parent involvement wasn't needed. Other than the occasional note home about extra money for a school tour or whatever, I don't think my parents had any involvement whatsoever. No consent forms to sign, no admin. I walked with some neighbourhood kids, there was no need for adults to bring us. If I had extra curricular things on after, I walked home alone. I did drama in a different venue 10 mins away so once a week from about 8 i walked there and then home. I don't think my Mum ever had to collect me or do anything really. I was a very well looked after child and my parents were more protective than most at that time. I often think how easy they had it!

Don’t no anything about it.its not a country i hear that’s good for food /fashion/famous for stuff .

What are the flip sides of living there tho? 🤔

education is a wonderful thing Emma

Parenting these days has become an art form. Too involved. Very hard on working parents.

Flip sides are increasing unemployment, especially for non-natives, very difficult language to learn as an adult, and the weather can be frustrating.

It is rather famous for its education system though, and the whole happiness thing.

Thanks for sharing…… What about the food? What about housing cost’s ?

I don’t agree about the schooling part tho. Schools are still better in Britain. It’s not perfect but still better then Europe schools

I hate the apps (or at least the overuse of them- I don’t need 20+ notifications a day detailing every time they change my daughter’s nappy or give her a drink/snack). We have 2 because I have one child at nursery and one at school. There is also an additional school portal
and we still get multiple emails per week. I can never keep up with the important information because I’m so overloaded with whole school emails.

There also seems to be a lot more non-school uniform days that require a particular outfit or costume. My 18 month old doesn’t need to wear a pink shirt for breast cancer awareness 🤦🏻‍♀️.

I’m more than happy to do some homework with them (reading, spelling etc), but some ‘optional’ tasks require a lot of time and resources- we’ve recently been asked to build and decorate a model boat that floats out of household materials.

Also, when I was little my uniform was just a polo shirt with a logo. We could wear any navy cardigan and grey shorts/skirt/trousers. PE kit was just a white t-shirt and navy sports shorts. Apart from the polo shirt everything was generic and could be bought in a supermarket or M&S. Now everything is school branded and has to be purchased from the uniform shop, it’s much more expensive (and sometimes terrible quality), it feels totally unnecessary and just creates an additional barrier for kids to access school.

I’m definitely not someone who thinks everything was better in the 90s (I massively struggled as a girl with undiagnosed ADHD) but the there does seem a lot more unnecessary admin and expense associated with school that wasn’t there 25 years ago.

Jesus Christ

That's pretty much the experience I'm having as a current primary school parent. Except for the WhatsApp groups and I like those. They aren't overused and are perfectly friendly.

Quite.

I don’t remember getting homework until i went to high school at thirteen. Bar the occasional school play or dress up day at school my parents did not interact with school at all

I went to school in 1980, I don't remember anyone being hit. We did maybe 40 minutes of maths 3 X a week and a spelling test. One morning a week we swam, one afternoon we had games on a field, another PE in the hall, drama, music, dancing, art. Secondary school was a shock.

It's not all schools. Mine does pe twice a week and on those days the kids go in wearing their pe kit which is great as stops the losing of items, and also ties in with the day he does after school sports. Homework once a week, plus reading and timetable Rockstars. One app for communication (dojo), one for paying for dinners and wraparound etc (arbor), no Whatsapp groups. Never been asked for money other than trips and optional things like Christmas fayre etc.

If it makes a difference it's a small school. Around 130 pupils year R-6

Ours only bring their PE kit home every few weeks in the holidays. Much better than the going in wearing it as I don't have to remember what days it is on.

We didn't even attend most of year 11 and our parents never found out. No thanks to that!

Finnish education system has slipped down the rankings in the last few years.

I was a Primary school child of the 70s. Apart from sports day, school play and parents evening I don’t remember my parents having any involvement with school. I got the school bus too so parents never did school run either.

Interesting about some posters saying they don’t need to know about every nappy change etc at nursery. Some parents really struggle with the reduction of such detailed information when their child hits school.

For all the communication coming from school the level of communication from parents has increased. Again, my parents would rarely have contacted school. I think one of the only times my mum did was after I had a collision with another child at school, clashed heads and then knocked my head on the playground. Ended up with concussion and a black eye. I was sent home on the school bus as normal, which involved a half mile walk home on my own from the bus stop! School didn’t phone or send a note home. My mum got quite a shock when she saw my face when I got home. She did complain to school on that occasion

My primary schooling was good. But I recently spoke to someone who was given the belt any time they answered a question wrong. Glasgow in the 50/60s. A man, I doubt they belted the girls as much.

In my primary school, East Anglia 1960s, girls got the slipper, boys the cane, but either was very rare. We didn't take a bag to school unless we had swimming.