to think that schools assume we have nothing else to do?

[Bogeyface]

Easter assembly today with egg/hat parade and parents are invited to attend. Fine.

Except that this has never been done before, it has always been just the children and they gave us 2 days notice. The same happened at Xmas, we all knew the nativities were due but didnt get the actual dates until the Friday of the week before. The school secretary was very pissed off as she wasnt allowed to tell anyone until they were confirmed. She is a really lovely woman and imo, treated very badly as she has the field the complaints due the heads refusal to give more notice.

It happens with almost everything, star assemblies, school trips, sports events. FFS, people work, and have lives and doctors appointments (the reason I couldnt go to the assembly today) and responsibilities!

My neighbour couldnt go either but she wasnt bothered and I think she thinks I am over reacting, so AIBU at the schools apparant assumption that none of us have any calls on our time and are at their beck and call?

sorry for typos, on my tab

YANBU. They should give more notice.

YY we have this at our school, drives me mad

Last years Nativity, they gave out dates. But I found out after booking off the afternoon, that my DD class wasn't doing an am and pm performance as they normally do, hers was am only

Sports day was changed at short notice but managed to get DH to take time off.

And dont me started on parents evening! The last appointment is 5pm, so no chance for working parents to make it without taking time off. They used to do them 6 til 8 but the new head changed that too, and the scuttlebutt is that the teachers werent too happy about it either!

That is unaccetable by a long way OP. I wonder if a group of parents could get together and write a letter of complaint. It must be incredibly frustrating and counterproductive....they are hardly going to get lots of parents attending if they don't tell you till 2 days before. Annoying for the kids and their parents.

Bogeyface just read the bit about parents evening!!! That is outrageous!

No. They don't assume. It's part of an evil and dangerous plot.

Everyone knows that the "Staff Room" is actually "Control Centre". In this semi-secret HQ, teachers, TAs and other random staff sit around plotting what is, in actual fact, the main business and purpose of schools: How To Make Parents' and Carers' Lives Hard.

All that "teaching" business is just a front.

The true point and purpose of schools lies in the seemingly innocent business of Mufti Days and Easter Hat stuff.

In fact, many teachers are the advance guard of an alien invasion force. The schools were taken over years ago. the secret plan is to get everyone really disoriented and confused, so that the child-rearing fraction of the population (as significant part) are all hopelessly distracted creating Easter Bonnets and cobbling together Favourite Book Character costumes and just don't notice when the aliens come.

One minute you're wondering if "The Return of the Jedi" counts as a book, and if a karate outfit and dressing-gown will do. The next minute you're wide-eyed and flatly intoning: "I will obey" to a large, jelly-like blob with two eyes and four arms.

Seriously - I realise you're just ranting and letting off steam but ... I don't think they do it on purpose. Most schools have a million, serious things to organise themselves, and this sort of dressing-up stuff is not meant to be taken very seriously by the pupils or the parents. It's just a bit of fun.

That may be true, but many of the children do take it seriously if we don't show up. And our bosses take it seriously if we do.

Animula, you took the words out of my mouth. People - stop taking everything so SERIOUSLY! My daughter's Easter Bonnet took 10 mins to do last night and she loves it. But it will all be forgotten by tomorrow!

Mentioning special assemblies/performances/mufti days the night before (usually no note, the children are told) is usual here, poor DD often has nobody there . I teach elsewhere so I have no chance on certain days but, given a few days notice, I can arrange for someone else to go to see whatever it is.

Things like parent's evening - told in Friday's newsletters for the following Tues/Weds normally.

Drives me quite batty.

It's obviously all down to the way the school calendar is managed. Our primary sets the dates at the start of term. If you're not happy, raise it with the Head. If you're not happy with the response, raise it with the Chair of Governors.

I once raised my concerns over 7 days' notice to pay £50 for a trip. A letter of apology was issued to parents and now much more notice is given. If you don't raise issues with the people able to do something about the problem, there's no point in moaning.

All school do this though, probably because there isn't really space for all the parents, I just explain to my kids when I can't go, which is quite a lot as they have a no sibling policy at most things....

Fair enough, an Easter Bonnet can be pulled out of one's arse at short notice. Heaven knows I've done it enough times.

What bothers me - like the OP - is short notice for attendance at events. It matters to my dd that I'm there, but with little notice that is much less likely to be possible.

It is true about the difficulty of squaring involvement with school - at the level of actually being there - and work/other commitments though.

School is a hugely important part of children's lives - just in terms of quantity. As parents/carers it's kind of important for us to actually be there, physically, sometimes - to acknowledge this huge part of our children's reality and to "check it out" too (if only so that we know what they're talking about).

Squaring that with paid work (for eg.) is hard. Personally, I think the world of paid employment should be the area learning to give a little. Not the schools. Which are, by and large, doing as much as they reasonably can to accommodate working parents/carers.

Just my little opinion.

Mirrorball please share the secret of your 10 mins Easter bonnet. I need two for next week.

OP - YANBU, especially at short notice for events. It just smacks of disorganisation and not placing any value on parents' time.

I can pull last minute fancy dress outfits out of the bag no problem, but what I cant do is re-schedule a long arranged client visit for example, or let my dad down on a lift for his hospital treatment, and so arrange for someone else to attend school in my place if I only have 24 or 48 hours notice.

I know that these things arent serious (well parents evening is but ykwim) but as someone else said, they mean alot to the kids and I know that they are disappointed when I cant go. What makes it worse is that these days they dont expect me to be there, and that breaks my heart :(

Sorry for being so flippant. It is horrible. i spent about a year once unable to attend anything at dd's school. The memory of 12 months of a sad, disappointed face looking into mine is not a happy one.

The thing that really annoys me (well used to, no longer at primary) is that they put so much emphasis on parental involvement, how important it is etc - which of course it is - but then by not giving you enough notice for events make it almost impossible at times to do the 'supporting your child at school' thing.

How difficult can it really be to organise some dates with say at least two weeks notice??

I'd be tempted to write to the school head/governors and ask if you can be given more notice and make constructive suggestions.

Some schools give out a calendar at the start of the year with key dates on etc. Yes I know there will be changes but most school seem to have set events - nativity last week of term etc. Do they use parentmail?

DD's school is good at giving notice but on one occasion put a tiny slip in the book folder announcing a random non uniform day the next day. Two of DD's then reception class didn't see it and were in floods of tears. Rather than having a moan in the playground I rang the school and they always give plenty of notice now eg in newsletter plus parentmail email/text.

wow, YANBU about your school, you should get a lot more notice than that!

I don't know if YABU about schools in general.

The school where I work is the total opposite (or maybe that's just the teacher perspective!)and we have to be at the total beck and call of the parents as well as put dates into the advance diary a whole term beforehand wherever possible.

Eg - I have had to schedule meetings with parents at 7.30am before ("because we do have to work you know"), our parents' evenings are 6-8 and have a creche, if we are unable to take a parents' call and haven't returned the call by the following morning we can be disciplined, we were unable to move a school performance from 7.30pm to 6.30 pm (as the children were getting tired during final weeks of rehearsal) because 'it was already in the diary and parents have to get back from london' and we have to give average class marks on reports 3 times a term because parents want to know where their child is in relation to others. I could go on.

I don't think we are wrong as such (school is private so parents are paying after all). I think it is therefore right that we are parent centred over being teacher centred but I sometimes worry that the parents are also coming before the children!

We are very lucky with our school; usually at the start of each term we get a letter detailing all events of that term, basically everything from school plays to parents evenings to easter egg hunts. Parents evenings offer appointments up until 8pm, and we get free after-school club for our school DCs and younger children whilst parents evening takes place.

Our school does it all the time. Part of the problem here is that "everyone" has a live in maid, so if you happen to be the mother who can't get child care for tomorrow evening then you are clearly BU. this week I had 2 days notice that DD2 needs to be at school for 7am on Saturday because the volley ball match is at the coast. Not a problem, I just have to make DD1- currently off sick- get up extra early in the morning