children excluded from a Fair Trade 'family' event because parents couldn't attend

[AnxiousElephant]

Dds school held a Fair Trade craft type event this week. They sent out a news letter detailing the day/ date but no times about 3 weeks ago. Then about 1 week ago a letter was sent with a return slip to send in 'I am attending the event with my child'. I was working and due to my job could not change the hours (clinic in the morning to run and no other staff member to cover). Therefore, I didn't send the return as there were no other options to return.
I ensured dd knew that I couldn't attend and told her to enjoy it anyway.
I get her back home from the childminder in tears because not only was she upset that I could not go but that those children who had no parent there could not attend, more over and to add insult to injury, the children who could not attend had to do extra maths ...........instead of perhaps an enjoyable activity (as per dds perception, I appreciate some children like maths but she doesn't). She now feels punished for me not attending the event and said 'it is all your fault'.

Sooooo........ am I being unreasonable to be angry with school for discriminating in this way?????

I spoke to some of the parents and it appears that most of them had read the letter as I had and assumed that parents were just invited into the classroom to join ALL the children with activities. It is only because their children didn't mention it that they were unaware. They are also annoyed now that they know.

Dear god! It's getting to the point where children won't be going to school without either a parent or parents wallet, with them!!

How do school expect working parents/lone parents etc to find the time for something like this? sounds a crappy activity too

Quirrel it may well be a 'red tape slip up' but I can assure you it really isn't nice to have your child accusing you of being a bad parent because of a school decision.
It isn't about long term 'scarring', more that schools harp on about lack of involvement from parents but they do stupid things which don't help participation i.e. lack of prior planning, notice of events with timings and details about what will happen at events. This has been ongoing from when she started. School are in locus parentis in my absence and should be including all children in all activities during school hours. Not excluding them because the parent can't be there

Our school does quite a lot of things which require parental involvement for the child to take part, but far less than half the parents go (reading kidnaps, art gallery etc). So in that sense it is not exclusive as the majority are NOT doing it.

They shouldn't be arranging events in school time that insist on every child only being allowed to do it if their parent was with them.

What about looked after children, children in care?

And they should be giving more than a week's notice of parental activities in school time.

What hula says YANBU OP.8

Thank you for your support in this all ...............I thought at first that I was being precious, but the more I thought about it the more cross I became and the more I think it is unreasonable. Not sure if anything will change but at least it is off my chest

YANBU and as hula said.They are thoughtless twonks.We get stuff like this as DDs school.We had 2 days notice last week to come and see a show of craft activities DD had been doing in an after school club. It was at 4pm and I finisnh work at 5. I really wanted to go as I didn't want DD to be the only one with a parent there. Fortuatley one of my kind friends stepped in.

I meant without a parent there!

Our school sometimes hosts activities from council or similar - usually related to literacy or numeracy. School continues as normal (as it did for your dd) and those parents who wish to attend the activity with their child are able to take their child out of class for an hour or two. They are usually activities designed to promote 'family time' and 'parental involvement' so the whole point is that the caregiver not the childminder of friend's mum take the child
Perhaps this was similar?
You couldn't have gone anyway so no need to feel bad. My kids have guilt tripped me over a few of these days though! A better worded letter would be handy

Our school sometimes hosts activities from council or similar - usually related to literacy or numeracy. School continues as normal (as it did for your dd) and those parents who wish to attend the activity with their child are able to take their child out of class for an hour or two. They are usually activities designed to promote 'family time' and 'parental involvement' so the whole point is that the caregiver not the childminder of friend's mum take the child
Perhaps this was similar?
You couldn't have gone anyway so no need to feel bad. My kids have guilt tripped me over a few of these days though! A better worded letter would be handy

sorry, quirrel, but ANY decision which just makes an arbitrary decision about who can/can't do something, based on things beyond their control (parents working, they aren't physically able, skin color etc) is discrimination. That pretty much IS the definition of discrimination.

The school can't just subdivide into groups based on what their parents do, then say 'this group goes, this group doesn't.'

They could say, 'it's free choice, go if you wish to' and not make them all go. Or they could say that everyone goes whether they wish to or not. But they gave the children no choice, and kept them aside based on a means test that gave them no chance to succeed.

Yanbu

Reminds me of this thread which made me cry

It is horrible to treat children this way.

DD's school had a Fair Trade event this week. It was organised well and the school kids watched a presentation by a farmer from Malawi, they sampled Fair Trade food and made stamps during school time. There was a separate event held for parents and the local community AFTER school, in which parents and local residents were invited to watch the same presentation and speak to the farmer from Malawi.

OP, I am aghast at what your DD's school did, it is discriminatory and downright horrid