Did schools used to be like this?

[spiderslegs]

DS started school FT in January & ever since it's been a constant stream of missives, announcements, edicts & raised brow questioning from his teacher.

The first week he was there I had a constant battle with his teacher because I was sending him to school with a padded body warmer on, not a coat, every day she asked me if he 'has a coat, because we play out every day, even when it's drizzling' & yes, you do, but not WHEN IT'S PISSING DOWN. In which case his arms will get slightly damp, as will his legs & face, how would you like me to mitigate against that, full dry suit & mask?

It was warmish & sunny, biblical floods were not on the horizon .

Consequently, EVERY CHUFFING DAY it's been something, last week was battle of the drinks, they have a school issued water bottle (irritating in itself) which I sometimes put in, he has milk at break & a drink for lunch, I was taken aside twice for not giving him a drink - I had he just didn't arsing drink it, maybe they should have asked him to look in his bag again?

Would you like me to pop in a few times a day to ensure he has fulfilled his government recommended level of fluid intake - WOULD YOU?

On Friday the lovely mum that drops him off sheepishly told me teacher asked her to mention she did NOT LIKE HIS SHOES, they are difficult to do up apparently - I'm sorry, I'll get him some M&S footgloves shall I?

Today's final straw was the letter from the eco-co-ordinator that asked me to reduce waste in his lunch box & that they would be speaking to the children about waste in their lunches THEN COLLECTING & COMPARING THAT WASTE - so you'd like to make my son feel like a miscreant & social pariah because he has a Baby-bel rather than a dried up hunk of cheddar planed from a block would you???

So AIBU to want to run through the school screaming - 'I AM A FREE BORN HUMAN BEING - MY CHILDREN ARE FREE BORN HUMAN BEINGS - I WOULD LIKE YOU TO TEACH THEM MATHS, & READING & SPELLING BUT LEAVE THE REST OF IT TO ME PLEASE'

Am I ?

By the way, those hats are about £80 each

Very funny in parts this thread , but i do agree with Op to some extent , there is far too much interferance from schools now and i think the lines have become a little blurred .

My school provides us with a list of what food items are deemed unacceptable , although they regularly hand out sweets and have cake days ) lunch boxes are regularly searched for offending items , and i have been invited in many times to listen to advice on healthy eating from the lunch time staff .

My ds has been given a food diary that he must fill in with the whole familys meals , ive had leaflets on healthy eating , and better still , leaflets suggesting exercises that MUM could do with child , as clearly i am so fat and unhealthy i never exercise and need school to tell me what to do .

Diggs your school offer lectures on healthy eating from lunchtime staff??! Does anyone attend this or do they just talk to themselves? Who would go? And as for exercise leaflets for parents, words fail me. Do they think that you are their student??

They do yes . I went once as i felt i ought to . It was a big lecture on how to avoid frying things , ie , poach an egg instead of frying it ect, and how to make sugar free jelly and the like . All delivered by a grossly overweight lunchtime superviser . I found it offensive and patronizing .

They dont do exercise leaflets for parents , they were for MUMS , and had interesting cartoons of mum skipping with child , or mum doing sit ups . Only mums get fat you see . Its probably all those left over chicken nuggets they eat .

YANBU. I'm with you OP. It's not that any of these things individually (except the Eco-lunch thing) couldn't be raised in the right manner if the teacher were pointing out it made her job difficult in some specific way. But that's not the issue is it? The only thing here that actually makes her job more difficult is the laced shoes when your DS can't tie his laces (which you've come round to - & I'd guess would have seen sooner if it hadn't been part of a pattern of interference). The rest is all about you kid not fitting into some ideological vision of a school child being being "properly" looked after. I am concerned about the degree of conformity schools (and it would appear, quite a lot of parents) seem to expect from children and their parents.

It really worries me. I'd like a school system that encourages children to think for themselves, carve their own life out of the commercialized culture we live in and be entrepreneurial. The state system seems designed to knock that out of them and most independent schools only seem to be interested in the first really.

But schools always been like this, or at least my schools 20+ years ago were. For eg my secondary school us to wear our blazers until we were on the bus going home, regardless of the weather. Teachers were actually positioned along the mile long road to the bus station to enforce the rule. If they caught you more than once taking your blazer off they gave you a ticket to take home that parents had to sign and return to the school stating that they were aware if school rules. My primary expressly forbid slip on shoes and anyone wearing them was told to wear their sports shoes instead. White soled trainers were required for indoor play, those without weren't allowed to join in (stockinged feet were considered too slippy and bare feet too unhygienic).

All societies rely on conformity to function, even the supposedly free thinking ones. have no idea why you think independent schools will be any different.

The coat thing could also be to do with poverty markers - I don't know if it's still the case but not having a winter coat used to be used as one of the measurements of child poverty. It's just possible the teacher was trying, clumsily and misguidedly, to help you

Just read this, mad school - maybe suggest they concentrate on teaching? Having said that had 2 texts from school today, maybe a sign of the times. I remember going to school in uniform, no water bottle, lace up shoes etc...

(sorry to go on but this kind of rewriting of history really grates ) as regards the dietary advice, my mum was hauled into school 3 times and accused of making up the diet diary she had to keep on me for a fortnight because the school nurse was convinced I was anorexic. My mums reaction was not dissimilar to yours OP although she swore a lot more

See, for me Miranda, that would be a parenting issue.
Don't drop litter. Ever.

So deeply engrained in us that my brother absent-mindedly tucked a fruitbar wrapper into my mum's bag last time we were together. Because he was about to cycle home 40 miles, was wearing lycra with no pockets and couldn't see a bin.
Why should schools have to teach children not to be slobs? Dropping litter and food waste on the floor? When is that ever OK?

Diggs that is hilarious. Join the PTA and insist that the leaflet wasn't clear. You need the lunchtime supervisor to demonstrate the exercises. Otherwise, who knows how fat you might become? And THEN WHAT??? Family average BMIs should probably go towards UCAS points or something.

My 7 year old's teacher said his shoes were not quite the right shade of black????? My little darling looked at her with his big brown eyes and said "Get a life, my shoes are nice" Honest...his exact words, couldn't have put it better myself.
YANBU

I think generally schools ask a lot more of parents now than they did 30 years ago. I get a lot more involved than my parents did - partly voluntarily because I'd have liked my parents to be more involved, partly because there is so much more to remember and do - homework for one. I never had homework in infant school and rarely in junior school, not until year 6 in any regularity or quantity. I feel like the school is expecting us to be part of formally educating our children. Of course education doesn't stop at the classroom door but I see my role as a parent to informally educate, not as an overspill for things the teachers don't have time to do in the classroom.

I don't necessarily blame teachers or schools, I think it's as a result of the massive national curriculum and national tests and other such interfering by central government. There is too much box ticking and not enough creativity and individuality allowed in the teaching profession IMO.

olgaga - DD's prep school has a formal uniform with boaters in the summer and felt hats in the winter, along with coats to go with them. The hats aren't £80 here, but they are not cheap.

'I AM A FREE BORN HUMAN BEING - MY CHILDREN ARE FREE BORN HUMAN BEINGS - I WOULD LIKE YOU TO TEACH THEM MATHS, & READING & SPELLING BUT LEAVE THE REST OF IT TO ME PLEASE'

'I feel a passive/aggressive, sweetly smiled "Goodness, when do you ever get time to actually teach?" coming at the teacher/s. No, scrub that. I don't feel it coming on, it's arrived, singing, dancing and screaming and it would be asked!'

the answer to both of these is simple

"I will teach your children after:-

I have done up their shoes.
I have helped them put on/taken off their coats.
they have stopped squirming and moaning due to them being wet.
I have given up my lunch as they don't have the correct clothes to go out in.
their parents have stopped moaning at me and send their children in in appropriate clothes, equipment, and the good manners to listen to instructions."

I wish that all these 'free born human beings' understood that their freedom takes away the freedom of others. OP wants herself and her DC to be free, but does not care that about the difficulties it makes -as outlined by BoneyBackJefferson.
There are other children-you do need to think of them overall and not just your DC.

I don't want training, I don't want my children trained, we're people not dogs. I would like them to be TAUGHT.

Very narrow minded OP. Most of the early years curriculum is about teaching life skills - call it training if you will.

You sound like a real bore in your posts - all this 'we are free' stuff.

We are not bloody free, we conform in all areas of life from driving on the correct side of the road to paying taxes to putting the bins out on a particular day to queuing at a supermarket to wearing particular clothing at school or at work... I could give you a million examples.

You are doing your DC no favours teaching him that its ok to fight against school.
Sounds like the teacher has got the measure of you.

Our school is the other extreme. They expect 6 year olds to give parents messages like, "The school choir has disbanded so please come get me at the normal time on Wednesday" (which tbf, my DD DID tell me, but I responded by telling her it must be a mistake, because surely they'd inform parents by letter for something like that, as it involved a change of pick up time, not expect all the children to be 100% reliable. They like as little to do with us as possible I think.
OP - YANBU - bloody nanny state...grrrr....

I would love one of the 'free human beings' to be left in sole charge of 20DCs to see how they manage! (bearing in mind they need to be fair to all the DCs and not just concerned about their own)
IMO if you have 20 free spirits, the strongest and more vocal get their own way-it is a survival of the fittest!

OP - it's not just about you and your child though is it? You may think that it's fine for your son to run from the car to the school without a coat in January but you can't expect his teacher to keep track of how 30 children get to and from school. And it is the teacher's responsibility to ensure that all the children in the class go outside appropriately dressed when it's freezing/wet. Is it really asking too much to expect you to send your child to school with a coat and in shoes he doesn't need help with? What if every parent decided to embrace the 'free born human being' argument, what if the teachers did? Surely the school needs the parents to send their children dressed appropriately so that they don't need to faff about with that and can get on with the day. If you don't like it then maybe home educate? Then you'd have plenty of time to teach tying up laces.

We had regulation pants and socks (that had to be the exact shade of fawn and only available from a specific department store) when I was at school, years ago. Weird that, it was called uniform.
OP I suggest you don't opt for private if you want to remain a 'free born human being'.
And my dd is also in reception - she goes in with buckled shoes which she can do up and undo because otherwise it would just create more hassle for the teacher.

It makes me smile to think that anyone thinks that private will be freer.

At the moment where I work we are clamping down a bit on coats and making sure all children put proper coats on before going out in the cold and wet.

Why?

Because we have a parent box where they can put notes in for school attention and twice we have had complaints recently that they are seeing children without coats playing out and this is not good and it is possibly even neglectful. So, we are avoiding more complaints from parents.

Well I feel much less ranty now, chocolate digestives have helped soothe my fevered brow.

Much of what wrote I was with my tongue firmly in cheek, I would have thought that obvious, but my central point still stands which is illustrated by Kittyfane's post;

Very narrow minded OP. Most of the early years curriculum is about teaching life skills - call it training if you will.

Indeed & at what point did this come about? When was it decided that small children, instead of being taught the rudiments of education needed training in life skills? They already have people in their lives who are more than capable at doing that, I believe they're known as 'parents'.

& yes, I appreciate the fact I am not completely free & that I have an obligation to function in society as a good & responsible citizen. I fulfil this obligation admirably for the most part. I would however, like the freedom to bring up my children as I see fit.

Coats & shoes are just a distraction from this point really.

It seems on this thread there is a clear division between two types of people, sensibilists & non-sensibilists & to all the sensibilists I give thanks.