To have judged about half of my daughters class

[fernie3]

Or their parents that is. They are 6 and they came home with a letter saying could we cut the labels off foods so that the children wouod make a map of where the food they eat came from....with the implication being that they needed to bring a little bunch each as they were going to have their own maps.

So i spent a week peeling labels off things which looked interesting for her to take, she came home that day and she had only had one label to stick on her map because the teacher had had to share her labels out to people that didn't bring any - so that means at least 10 children hadn't brought any at all.

Now I know it's stupid and petty and maybe i just have label rage from spending so long trying to peel labels off jars without ripping them or making the writing hard to read but it's not that hard is it just cut out a label or two and drop it in the book bag...

The teacher couldn't have done the original plan without the labels and the children get the message that it's optional to do these things.

AIBU to feel a bit judgey?

This could been me forgetting something do try and remember but juggling 4 d. And ds3 is disabled and does not sleep much so sometimes I forget things and if I don't have them in I'm dam well not going to go out and buy it

for example for Friday the kids been asked to bring bag of straw for scacecrows this all well and good but we don't use straw there's no shops here and I'm on crutches so that bag of straw would end ip costing ne £5 on buses plus another £3 or so .

I don't have that to spend on useless stuff and won't be sending dd with any

I always give ds loads more than he needs so they can be given to children who have forgotten. That way I feel less guilty when I forget.

At least your daughter got to do the activity!! we had the same request in Year 1 and I dutifully sent in labels (with food pictures on for non-readers). And they never even did the activity, from which I deduce I was the only one who actually sent any in. Doesn't make me feel like bothering next time

Activate thank god for you

Some sense

Definitely would not call that "silly stuff" but can see how it is easy to forget.

thedollshouse, I will remember that strategy for next year.

I'm curious, those of you who think that getting the labels is pointless (I've paraphrased, not sure anyone said exactly that), wiuld you be cross if your child came back the next day saying they hadn't been abl;e to take part as they didn't have the required equipment.

(I appreciate in reality teachers are unlikely to let this happen in this age group.)

activate
"last night I was driving DS3 around supermarkets trying to get fucking strawberries that he mentioned at 7pm and needed next day"

he mentioned it at 7pm. not the teacher. i assume teh teacher told him at school and he was out of school from around 3ish?

i don't understand this problem people have with educating their children. i really don't. if it isn't your job then whose the hell is it?

my parents both worked full time, my mum doing 12 hour shifts as a midwife. i remember her spending the days she should have spent sleeping taking us round the roads looking for aluminium cans for recycling. we lived in the country, there were not alot of cans, it took ages and she was exhausted but she did it because she is the parent. that's what you do, it requires effort.

sorry but yanbu, your daughter ended up with one of her own labels, my dd would have been really annoyed, and so would I.
Yet i would have also explained that it was nice to share ( with my fingers crossed behind my back) !!

YANBU

but the teacher is, sorry (have taught a similar lesson so am being judge judy)

she should have

1. brought spares/photocopies if everyone doing an A4 size one

or

1. started a collection tub of labels near school entrance 4 weeks ago where labels are being brought every day by anyone and everyone (also shows how much recycling is accumulated)

or

1. done one big huge fuck off map for the latest class display and collated everybody's (allowing your DD to show and tell hers/let her pass them around to be read/guessed where from etc and get class to point out/discover where countries are. DD could glue some on/choose peers to) - but it takes a lot of effort to make such a huge map in advance.

What she did reeks of naivety (NQT?) or bad planning. The idea itself doesn't suck (introduces notion of 'air miles'/local produce/import-export and particularly where fruit/veg grown -climate etc)

but you always need a plan B.

Judgey pants far too tight now ;-)
That said i usually give my kid double stuff so she can share and do a good deed/feel generous. And yes i also fuck up lots too (8.15am OMG! where did these homeworks appear from? what the...)

There is just no point judging it is a waste of time. Parents who don't will bring the whole class down. in reading, everything. So lessons have to ne designed to take account of that. If they don't care, if they can't do it, the reasons don't matter. If you want to rescue a child from a don't care parent you have to educate without parental input. it's just a fact of life.

So it looks like 2shoes kids will be missing out on the 'silly stuff' like responsibility,homework,class work, fitting in with the other kids,revision and ultimately GCSE coursework.What a rosy future for your kids 2shoes.In fact are you always bothered to find 2shoes for your kids or can't you be bothered with that silly stuff?

Hey.. in my opinion pushing hw at this sort of age is positively counter productive. Nonsense about gcse.

What a shame! I'm not that keen on hw at that age but that could have been fun.

You are both YABU and not YANBU - some of those parents are lazy feckers who can't be arsed, but then some of those parents will have all sorts of pressures and stresses in their lives which you are unaware of and consequently they have simply forgotten to do this

Bit catty there,dexifehatz..
Amazing as it might seem,failure to send in food labels with your six year old doesn't necessarily indicate total disregard for your child's education up to and including GCSE.

booyho (sorry, can't remember how many 'o')

Re: "last night I was driving DS3 around supermarkets trying to get fucking strawberries that he mentioned at 7pm and needed next day"

he mentioned it at 7pm. not the teacher. i assume teh teacher told him at school and he was out of school from around 3ish?

I actually agree with the poster. Some children are rubbish at remembering this sort of thing (some with good reason like my ddd who has dyslexia and poor working memory). Our teachers are brilliant - they recognise these problems and thus send a notice to parents via parentmail warning us about what they require, with ample notice...rather than relying upon are deeply fflawed but very lovely children to tell us

The child of lazy feckers shouldn't lose out though. Or we'll have another lost kid on our hands. Not fair on them.

No I agree - of course!

Of course you can judge, must have been quite shit for all the children whose parents didn't bother.

Ffs take can or jar and peel off label.How hard is that? I mentioned GCSE coursework because, even though it is far in the future, getting kids into the habit of taking responsibility for their schoolwork begins when they start school.

ahhhh - I dream of being one of those parents that remembers to do stuff like this, or to send the slips on letters back on time.

The infant school are into their 6th year of me now (still got another 3 to go as they've got DS3 to go through yet).

I think they've given up on ever improving me - thankfully the secretary is lovely and often accosts me in the playground, or when I go in to do assembly once a month to remind me of important stuff.

I struggle even to remember whether I've paid for trips/events.

One memorable occasion last year I marched into the office with the 2nd letter they sent out reminding parents about the pantomime money. I was feeling rather smug as it was only the morning after getting the letter (and the first one had gone out early with a "you don't HAVE to pay now, we'll send out another letter closer to the time if you'd rather wait".

I had the money £12 irrc in my hand, and the slip all filled in.

She looked at me , got her list out.....and pointed out to me that I had allreay sent the slip back AND the money

I'm a teacher and I would have spent the week cutting out extra labels myself for kids who didn't have any and also probably put all the labels everyone brought in together and divided them up.

It's great that your DD got to share her labels with the others. Some kids don't get notes home when they should go home - it's just the way it is... others may have had busy weeks or something happening in their family - possibilities are endless.

dexie, rubbish, too much pressure can be very off putting and create a sense of failure from a very early age

himc of course in this case the child of not lazy parents lost out -- the only solution is to make sure all kids are on an equal footing in the classroom by not relying on parents in the first place

parental input should be extra not essential

YANBU - Harlem said it all perfectly.

Some of the attitudes on this thread are really strange.