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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think schools should know where their pupils are?

194 replies

stickeywicket · 02/11/2011 11:12

tried to drop off son's (year 8) lunch today that he had forgotten. Receptionist said she would 'do her best to get it to him - we do have 1500 pupils here.' What?? Surely they all they need to do is look at their timetable and know where he is that way. I wouldn't have minded but her manner was so passive/aggressive. She just kept repeating in a very stressed angry way 'we'll do our best'. I left it at that as my son has just started there and he'd die if he thought I was making any kind of fuss. Should I take it up with the head?

OP posts:
NinkyNonker · 02/11/2011 16:29

What else are staff there for...hee hee hee. Teaching, deciding curriculum, managing discipline, recruitment etc etc, oh, and making sure Jonny in Yr 8 gets his lunch and that the receptionist makes sure she lets the OP know she is pleased as punch to organise it. Obviously.

natwebb79 · 02/11/2011 16:30

I teach in a secondary school and if this happens we have a messaging system where the child receives an electronic message via the teacher to go and collect their lunch from reception. It's no big deal, they're teenagers for goodness sake! :-)

soandsosmummy · 02/11/2011 16:31

Receptionist was being difficult. I had to drop something off for DD the other day and there was no problem getting it to her

manicbmc · 02/11/2011 16:31

What Hilda said, to the letter.

complexnumber · 02/11/2011 16:32

You do know the reason the Deputy Head was able to be lovely and reassuring was because (s)he was remembering how (s)he'd just spat in your son's sandwich, don't you?

Hullygully · 02/11/2011 16:33

Schools are not separate closed off operations that run in a vacuum - or shouldn't be. They are dealing with thousands of children, and therefore should be capable of answering the phone, or opening the door, to the wider world that concerns those children and being pleasant about it.

They are not prisons, nor are they doing us a favour by having our children there.

Hullygully · 02/11/2011 16:34

That's nice complex.

zippadeedoodaa · 02/11/2011 16:35

So you were there the other day "dropping something" for DD and again today for DS Hmm maybe she's sick of being your personal messenger service instead of being able to get on with some work.

manicbmc · 02/11/2011 16:36

I think you should get your kids better organised.

OrmIrian · 02/11/2011 16:38

Actually she didn't need to be rude. She could have said 'I'll do my best' without the attitude. Just as long as you didn't expect her to say "Yes, of course MrsParent, I will drop everything right aways and sort it out!"

OrmIrian · 02/11/2011 16:39

But reading the OP again, the receptionist wasn't really rude was she?

manicbmc · 02/11/2011 16:40

Orm is right. I think the OP was actually quite rude as the receptionist had already said she'd do her best.

AMumInScotland · 02/11/2011 16:41

Wow. The Deputy Head. Just - wow. Really.

noblegiraffe · 02/11/2011 16:41

How many teachers have a phone in their classroom? Confused

And I wouldn't get the email until well after little Johnny had left my lesson because rather than sitting checking my email, I'm rather busy teaching little Johnny.

I must say, it really pisses me off when parents swoop in to rescue kids in secondary school who have forgotten their lunch/homework/PE kit/food tech ingredients. Teach them a sense of responsibility instead. They are bloody old enough to remember or live with the consequences. You are not doing them any favours in the long run and just creating more work for the school.

JamieComeHome · 02/11/2011 16:42

Am actually grinning at this. I hope it's a joke thread.

The school receptionist has probably got a hundred better things to do than take your son his lunch

Hullygully · 02/11/2011 16:42

Yeah, because adults never make mistakes or forget anything, do they?

OrmIrian · 02/11/2011 16:43

Thanks manic! I am a bit confused as to what I think so I am glad to be told I am right Grin

Hullygully · 02/11/2011 16:46

Look a school is just a large building filled with people paid by our taxes to contain teach our children while we earn the money to pay the taxes to pay the wages. They are not special or different to any other office or institution and should not be tiptoed around as if one was still a pupil.

Whatever human being is employed as the public interface, they should be able to be polite, pleasant and reassuring. As one would expect from any employee be it a post office counter person, a bank counter staff person etc.

Why do schools get a special dispensation? I reckon you all still tiptoe as a hangover from your own schooldays.

JamieComeHome · 02/11/2011 16:46

she did say she'd do her best. And she probably sounded stressed because she was stressed

Hullygully · 02/11/2011 16:47

We're all stressed Jamie, but we're not allowed to show it, and nor is she.

HelloShitty · 02/11/2011 16:51

My office is next to our parents' reception and we have dozens of parents every day coming in to deliver PE kit, dinner, medication, etc. but it's not the receptionists' jobs to chase after dozy teenagers.

And in answer to your thread title - I'm certain they know exactly where your child is (or should be). In an emergency I'm sure they'd be more than happy to locate him for you.

It's a good job I'm not a school receptionist, because I think I'd ditch the passive and just be aggressive Angry

JamieComeHome · 02/11/2011 16:51

I used to be a receptionist and I would do my level best to be calm and polite. Sometimes, however, I might be tipped into stressy by someone coming in and expecting something of me at a bad moment, and in certain manner (which I am, admittedly deducing from the OP's tone on here) which would pee me right off.

teacherwith2kids · 02/11/2011 16:51

He's Year 8.

If he forgot his lunch, he goes hungry.

My children are 8 and 10. It is their responsibility - and has been since I started my current job going on 2 years ago - to make certain that everything they need for the day, and for after school if they are going on directly, leaves the house with them at 7.15 am. There is no chance of anyone rescuing them after that point, DH and I are at work. If they have forgottedn anything - musical instrument, football kit, homework, ballket kit for after school, they take the consequences...

Regardless of the receptionist, your being there was unreasonable.

JenaiMarrHePlaysGuitar · 02/11/2011 16:53

If I forget my lunch, I can nip out buy some (I always have my purse with me, being an adult) or nip home to get it.

Children in school don't have that option.

I really don't see what's so outrageously precious about dropping their lunch/lunch money off to them at school once in a while.

OrmIrian · 02/11/2011 16:54

I don't know about "Whatever human being is employed as the public interface,". I don't see school secretary as a customer-facing role in the same way a GP's receptionist is. The 'customer' is the pupil not the general public.