to be irritated or should I just accept that primary schools are disorganised?

[deaconblue]

1. Ds' school has been doing a reading challenge. He is 5. He was supposed to read as many green level books as possible in a 4 week period. Week 1 half term= no books sent home (we read some of his own books but they don't count as part of the challenge). Week 2 = no books sent home despite me asking 2 TA's and leaving a note with the secretary for ds' teacher. Week 3 = lots of green books as I went in to ask for a pile of books. Week 4= challenge completed, I sent ds' sheet in along with his sponsor money, neither has been collected in. I'm annoyed that they insisted that he could only read green level books for the challenge but didn't send them til I got annoying and then haven't bothered to take in the stuff and congratulate him on trying hard and raising some money.
2. homework is so rarely marked on time. Ds hates writing but 2 weeks ago he had to do a shape poem. He spent ages on drawing a ship and tried really hard to write a poem in its sails. This has still not been marked and by the time it is marked he will have forgotten doing it. These are 2 examples of what I see as lack of organisation. Now am I BU and should I cut the school more slack or is the school a bit crap with its organisation?

Primary schools, all the thousands of them?
The whole school, however many classes?
Or perhaps just the one class?

Have a relaxed word with the teacher - mention that your ds enjoyed the challenge and the homework task but was looking forward to it being marked.

YANBU. Teachers are supposed give encouragment and feed back. Yur son isn't getting either .

that's my question really Blu - is this level of disorganisation normal for primary schools? I taught secondary and wouldn't have dreamed of leaving work unmarked for 2 weeks. (Also wouldn't have considered the comment "good work" to be an acceptable standard of marking either but that's another story)

DD2 has just started primary school and they seem deeply organised

I think that the things you talk about in your OP seem very lax

my sons school is the same, they only send things back quickly if it has something to do with them getting money.

homework ect takes weeks, money the next day!

DSs/DDs school doesn't mark homework.

For a 5 year old that is too much - writing a shape poem fgs

I thought shape poem was ridiculous tbh but he really got into it and wrote more than he's ever done willingly before. Would have liked her to have noticed his effort. Reception teacher was fab so I wasn't sure if I was being too critical of this teacher in comparison.

As your DS is only 5 I would strongly recommend not getting stressed about this. There will be so many other things to wind you up:

• fetes worse than death
• compulsory voluntary donations
• school trips on the road to nowhere
• lost clothes clearly being worn by other pupils

Primary schools operate on the assumption that you have absolutely nothing better to do than support their activities whether financially or practically.

I was a governor for a few years and never once did anyone say thank you or even off me a cup of tea.

I had a similar situation with my daughter at the same age, one weekend she read her book but I forgot to sign the reading record, cue sniffy comment from the teacher re signing reading record.

It hit a nerve and I went into meltdown DD's homework hadn't been marked or acknowledged for 9 weeks. I thought about it carefully over the weekend and then acted.

I penned a snippy letter reminding them that homework a contract between school ad home and if DD gives up her time to do it the least they can do is mark it stapled it into her reading record and waited.

Cue all her homework marked up to date and no nonsense again. Ironically I work at the school now