to think the school shouldn't expect me to print off, sign and return letters to them.

[grumpypants]

Honestly. I keep getting emails with attached letters, requesting that I print off, sign and return the slip. EG school trips/ photo permissions etc. They have just become an academy and I assume this is a cost cutting exercise. I don't have a printer (it's for dh work, and I don't think I should do this at work either.

The reasonable thing to do would be to reply and ask them to send letters home with your child as you don't have access to a printer at home.

This bugs me too. We don't have a working printer at the moment either. It's supposedly to make the school greener - fat lot of use to the planet though if someone else is printing it off!

yes, i think if they're sending out emails, then they should expect to receive confirmation of permission through email too.

yanbu

We don't have room for a printer here. If our school tried to start this I think they'd be rather disappointed.

As a total geek (and yes I know this isn't practical) I would probably be perverse and scan in a copy of my signature, attach it to the form and email the damn thing back in a passive aggressive point-scoring exercise then if they needed a paper copy for their records they could print the damn thing off themselves

Same with our school. They bang on about being green so not sending letters, but actually the same volume of paper is required, just that the parents are providing it and the toner.

I got fed up of it and photographed my signature and uploaded it to my computer and then paste it on to their letters and mail it back

xpost Rubber

I can see the point of it for newsletters, our old school did that, but if it is a permission slip then they should send a hard copy home.

YAY Olympic - did they accept it as a proper legal record? I think technically they probably shouldn't and they might be on dodgy grounds accepting it.

I did ask them when it started in Y7 shatners and was allowed to sign the planner - this now seems not to be working as dd gets asked where the slip is etc. rubber - not such a bad idea...
It's also just another job and expense for me - log on to email, print off letter, etc.

I prefer this as DS has a habit of forgetting to bring stuff home binning it

Fairly easy to do. I'd use a touchpad as I have one, but if you have a digital camera, just take a photo of your signature straight on - nice thick black pen on white paper with lots of space around it. You don't need fancy equipment to get a copy of your signature.

Of course, legally, there's nothing to say that you signed that document - it could just be your kid copy & pasting your signature onto letters, so I think if I was working at the school, I wouldn't accept a digital signature like that.

I wouldn't mind at all. Paper letters just vanish in this house.

However, on a good day we have three working printers, which I agree is excessive.

for things like this, there's no reason why they can't accept it.
You have proof that you have confirmed.

I should mention that in our school we have an opt-in email correspondence system and anything which needs to be signed gets sent in paper form anyway, which I think is far more sensible.

Very annoying.
Many companies do this as well and pretend it's to make things more convenient for you
Plus not everyone has a printer so where's the accessibility etc.

UANBU to think schools want too many sodding permission slips as do Guides and Scouts.

You know my address, you know my phone numbers and DHs. You have her Drs. Phone number. How many more times do I have to fucking write this junk.

If she didn't have permission to go on the trip, I wouldn't have brought her to the middle of nowhere in hiking boots with a packed lunch

Our school does that for most things now; they did a survey and parents preferred it! Far fewer pieces of paper to get lost/sodden. They will happily give you a paper copy if required though.

Yanbu. Seems a very odd way to go about it. Not everyone has a printer.

Obv I am quite happy to get email newsletters etc. I don't want to get two letters this week asking me to click the link, print and return the slip by 8 march.

A lot of schools are starting to do a blanket permission thing at the start of the year - something like all trips within school hours within the city/county. Then they just email us to tell us it's happening - but of course we still have to send in the voluntary contribution. It makes much more sense than permission for every individual outing - could you suggest that?

Yes, I think I will. I shall email and ask for a written reply ...

Just tell them you haven't got a printer.

As a governor, I get loads of things emailed to me that I'm supposed to print off and bring to meetings but I don't have a working printer...so they print them off in the office for me.

I would have loved this - when I (inevitably) lost the letter, I could have just printed another off.

Unfortunately universities don't communicate!!