to think schools should know where their pupils are?

[stickeywicket]

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?

Parents who drop forgotten stuff off for their kids at school are
a) performing a useful service and the school should have a system in place and allocate staff time to ensuring the equipment reaches the correct student
Or
b) infantilising their child/teenager and wasting the time of the school support staff who have better things to be doing than running around handing out lunches.

Schools are there to educate children, not pander to them.

He can come home hungry if that were mine, then no need for the bollocks of me taking time out of my day to deliver the food he forgot, getting grizzled at by a harassed receptionist and then unwittingly embarrassing myself by taking a minor issue up the chain of command. Haha.

The only thing I have delivered to my DS in school(yr9) is his musical instrument which I part with hard cash for him to have lessons. Everything else tough.

I find all this really bizarre.

We are all human beings, we are all fallible, no matter what our ages. Why shouldn't we help each other out? Drop off a forgotten item, take in a parcel for a neighbour etc etc. It seems to me there is almost a gleeful "serve the little bastards right" attitude here. If an old person kept forgetting their glasses, would you be saying, hah, that'll learn em, good job if they can't see all day?

Schools are there to educate our children, but I would hope that mine learn flexibility, helpfulness, kindness etc as well as French verbs.

Whatever happened to a holistic education?

Hully, a kid forgets his kit. He has to sit out of the lesson and get told off by his teacher for lack of organisation. He learns to take more care when packing his bag and making sure he's got everything with him in the morning.

A kid forgets his kit and mum helicopters it in and harrasses the receptionist to personally deliver it to him. What does he learn? That no matter how disorganised he is, he doesn't have to face any consequences, his mum will sort it out for him and people will run around after him.

If people always swoop in and rescue him, he will also never learn how to sort out his own problems.

Now that kids tend to have mobiles it's dreadful. 'oh don't worry, I'll text my mum and she'll drop it off'. And the mums wonder why their kids can't get themselves organised.

I left my sarnies on the side this morning as I was in a bit of a rush. AIBU to ask my teenager to stop by my office with them on her way into town?

YABU - starve, bitch!

It's not about helicoptering (well, not always). It's about doing someone a favour. I'd much prefer my son to learn to cut others a little slack here and there than to say "tough" when others need a helping hand.

It is not a choice between bringing the lunch in or the kid starving.

There is a big difference to every now and then dropping something in, to a teen with an organisation problem who needs to learn - DD2 used to forget things almost daily, and it wasn't an innocent 'oh bum, left that at home', it was a 'I can't be bothered to find xyz' then only rang us when the teacher made it quite clear that she was going to get a detention for it. We had to get strict on it as it was getting ridiculous - the receptionist knew exactly who we were and which DD was ours within a very short space of time, we saw her so much!

What about all the teens who have parents who work full time - they don't get to have their parents at their beck and call every day - their parents are in work, and can't just leave to pick up the pieces of whatever their teen has forgotten. These teens learn that they need to be self sufficient, and not rely on others to sort them out.

And your son might well learn that his mates are kind enough to give him a bit of their lunch or lend him some money. I've seen it often enough.

receptionist probably deals with this thing daily -but no need to be rude.

I don't see a problem with dropping off something forgotten- I do this if I can and it's not massively inconvenient. It's the assumption that the school will ensure it gets to the child I fund mind boggling! And that it is part of their job to do this that I find even more mind boggling. I deliv to the office- it's then up to the hold concerned to get it.

Spoke to the deputy head (suppose that makes me looks a 'tit'?) but what else are staff there for?

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Um, to TEACH your child. One lesson might be, if you forget something, you will go without.

What if I had an urgent message I had to get to him (he doesn't have a mobile) or if one of the staff wanted to contact him.

Then the system for getting urgent messages would have kicked in.

Some people, seriously...

Oh, and when you're back on here after parents' evening asking if the staff were 'looking at you funny', let me assure you that THEY WERE!

Nudge, nudge... "that's the woman who called the deputy head about a packed lunch"... "really?"... snigger.

I suspect the parents who don't see a problem with it don't have to deal with 1500 children who have never had to pick up after themselves.

notjustme if I thought ds was doing that (and I suspect he will tbh) then no, I absolutely wouldn't be dropping stuff off.

But a one off, if I wasn't doing anything else (unlikely as I've worked FT since he started school), and I would.

Over the course of the school year the receptionist will most likely have to deal the the parents of all 1500 students, who will truly believe that their precious little one is the only important person in the school and the receptionist is of course only there to be a personal delivery service.
Sorry but YABVVU. She's a receptionist not a courier service and will probably have to deal with this sort of thing daily/hourly along with other messages for teachers, and things that are actually included in her job description. If she was arsey then I'm willing to bet that you wouldn't let the matter drop and she was trying to get rid of you.
Sounds like you have a very poor opinion of receptionists tbh, are they beneath you in some way?

Reference Hully's point at 10:41:

"Don't you think, Bella, being on the front line and all, that this sort of thing should be expected and built in by the school (all schools) as part of its modus operandi? It is a building full of children, after all.

It is unrealistic of schools not to make provision of one kind or another."

I don't anybody is saying that schools do not make this provision; it's just that making the provision is time-consuming, wasteful, avoidable and never-ending.

Of course we all forget things from time to time - and yes, regular offenders in our school are roundly chastised by the receptionist or tutors when they come to collect their items (usually along the lines of "Your poor mum has had to traipse all the way in to drop this off for you, and I've had to stop what I'm doing to find you")

Teaching kindness and helping each other is already a part of the curriculum; even large secondaries will have some sort of Personal, Social & Health Education, or Citizenship, or assemblies that deal with these issues.

Despite all of this, there is still a small minority of parents whose attitude towards school staff is truly unpleasant - the ones who seem to think that their child is the only one in existence.

I shall never forget the words of a mother to a colleague of mine a few years back - her daughter (Year 11) had not bothered to register when she had arrived late at school that morning; the parent had received the standard absence message and had called back stating that her child "was bloody well there, why don't you go and see". On discovering the errant offender in class, my colleague telephoned the mother with the happy news. Mum's response:

"Well, if you'd got off your fat arse in the first place and looked for her before texting me, you would have known that, wouldn't you?"

Ok, this has now got a little mad...

To clarify:

1. Parents who are rude to the receptionist or any other member of staff or any other human being should be taken out and shot.

1. All human beings, including receptionists, should be polite if their job requires it.

1. What I am objecting to is not that little Johnny might not have his lunch one day, but the gleeful "serve him right" attitude. Of course children learn resourcefulness etc from all sorts of situations, but to not take in an occasional forgotten item when one can, is not nice or kind.

1. Realistically this IS going to happen so schools need a plan, rather than getting irate. Stuff goes to the office and is to be sought by the child for eg.

1. Some humans are more forgetful than others. My dh was at a boarding school and he was regularly beaten for forgetting. Guess what? He still does. As my ds (who takes after dh) says: The trouble with forgetting is that you've forgotten, so you don't know that there's something you should have remembered.

But you didn't say that the receptionist was RUDE- you said she was flustered and said she'd do her best. What did you want her to do- drop the phone and run out of the office with his sarnies?

Some people may be more forgetful than others- however, it is not a charming little foible, it relies on other people picking up the pieces. What would your son do if you worked full time on the other side of town and couldn't get his lunch to him?

Hully, some humans are more forgetful than others so they learn coping strategies. They learn to make lists and put post-it notes of important stuff on the front door. They write everything down in their diary and have a routine of checking it.

Or, their mum follows them around reminding them and carrying all their stuff for them. How long will that strategy work?

I haven't read the thread yet but I work somewhere that schools visit and I often have to call schools to find out if a group who is late is actually on their way. We are always amazed that the secretaries, 9 times out of 10, have no idea whether 60 odd children have left the school premises that morning or not. Isn't there a central diary or planner?

They do, Noble, they do. Sadly, they often forget that they have made a list, or that they need to look at it.

Mostly I am too far away/busy to help, but I do if I can, because he makes sterling efforts and he isn't doing it On Purpose.

And as for the future, obviously the wife I choose for him will have double management capacities..

I forget to make a list, let alone look at it.

I understand Jenai