To think headteacher shouldn't tell children what time their bedtime is?

[Butterkist]

My dd's headteacher today told the school in assembly that their bedtime should be 7pm, 7.30pm at the latest.

Now my dd takes what the teachers (esp the HT) say as gospel, and I always try to ensure there is no conflict of messages between us and the school.

But my dd comes home from school at 5.45, requires dinner, needs to do music practice, reading and homework, and on a couple of evenings a week (including tonight) does out of school activities that finish at 7pm.

Bed time for us is 8.30pm, with lights off at 9pm, this is what works for us. My dd is up for school in time in the morning, and leaves home at 8.15.

Tonight she has missed her out of school activity as she's got to be in bed by 7pm for 7.30pm, so that she can answer correctly if the HT asks her tomorrow. This is her words. She suffers from anxiety and is a perfectionist so will only do the right thing.

AIBU to have a word tomorrow, and say that bedtime are the parents call not the school's?

Depends if she is 5, 10 or 15 really ......

7 infant school

you are the parent! Not the HT.

I would be rather at this too, but you should be able to get the point across to your DD that you decide her bedtime, not her HT. They are in charge whilst she's at school, and you are when she's at home. How old is she?

Yanbu. If your child does well one that schedule it is none of their business. My kids have started going to bed at 8 on week nights as they were struggling with 9. There would be no chance of an earlier bedtime as we often don't get home from swimming until 8.

Definetly your call. You know your child best and what they are capable of.

The head teacher shouldnt be sticking his nose in.

That would wind me up something rotten! I'm another one who believes that parents outrank teachers, but it's sooo difficult when kids are at the stage of believing otherwise.

I'd be having a word with school in the morning, and very sweetly dropping in that if an activity has to be missed, it will be the homework!

7.30 isn't an unreasonable expectation. I would have thought that fairly normal?

X-post. She's old enough to understand that different people make the rules depending on where she is, and that her teachers can't decide what happens in your home.

i think it's your call. Maybe he just said it as a throw away comment on hearing that another child went to bed at 10 or something. But I was a very anxious child and would have paniced like you DD has so I know where you're coming from. Maybe just try and convince your DD that what YOU say goes rather than school being the first port of call...

BarbarianMum not drip feeding, but the reason I didn't do the talk tonight of mum knows best, is that dd is seeing a psychologist due to her anxiety, and we are working on this with her.

But I just wanted to see if people thought it was school's call bedtimes, or not. I can get a bit defensive over what causes dd to be anxious.

Do you know why your dd suffers from anxiety? I think 9 is quite late for a 7 year old, but if she's not tired and gets some time to relax its completely and totally your decision. I would imagine the advice would be aimed at children with no bedtime at all, rather than ones with routines.

Sorry x post.

to be fair to the HT - there are a lot of very tired children at school in the morning that when you ask are not going to bed until very late. This sounds like a general assembly to get all children thinking about their bedtimes rather than a direct order (maybe your DD took it out of context?)

TBH - you werent in the assembly - if it were said in a jocular tone and 99.9% of the children realise that .... then it's just the .1% who has ten it as literal.

I'm impresed with a Head who has the time to go round questioning pupils though. That's a rare novelty.

Because we work full time, and don't finish work until 5pm. Then there's travelling time to school, then home from school.

As a teacher I've been in situations where parents have asked us to intervene in telling a child to go to bed. Some other children are clearly exhausted at school and have chaotic home lives, which has an impact on their attendance, behaviour and concentration. I don't think it's that unreasonable for HT to talk about bedtimes; there must have been a reason for it cropping up.

I'm sorry to hear about your dd's anxiety issues, good luck tomorrow. I hope she gets some support in managing situations she finds worrying.

I think the HT telling the children was BU but I know why they are concerned. There is an issue with overtired children and schoolwork. Children need a lot of sleep and it is sometimes not seen as a priority. They can need about 11 hours sleep so if they are going to bed at 9pm and need to be at school 8am ish, where is that 11 hours fitting in? It's not is the answer. Academic performance has been shown to decrease dramatically with loss of sleep as has behaviour. It is a big problem here (Canada) because children do things like hockey practise before school so they are losing sleep both ends.

It's a small school, and they do get questioned about things in assembly - e.g. recycling, "so littlebutterkist how many cans have you managed to recycle?" etc.