to ask why some parents have to speak to the class teacher every morning?

[MarysBeard]

Especially when the general rule is to communicate via the reading book, the office if a routine matter, or if you must, to speak to the teacher at the end of the school day, and if it's something that takes more than five minutes, make an appointment.

I would expect it in reception, but by Year 3 surely parents should know not to be standing around monopolising the teachers' attention in the morning, delaying the children getting into school. Also (apart from in reception) the kids are meant to line up and the parents stand behind some cones after the bell has gone. Yet some parents still hang around the lines of kids after the bell has gone, sometimes getting in the way of the lines of kids getting into school. It's always the same people you see doing both, in spite of repeated reminders in the newsletters. I often feel sorry for the teaching staff in the mornings & wish that some parents would just let them get on with it (as most do!)

We have also had two escaping children in the younger years this year, so the school is getting much stricter about parents not taking up the first 10 minutes and the teacher's attention for the start of the day. If you going on about your child's problem is allowing another child to escape (which is what has happened), it's not fair on anyone!

However, I do get that some schools don't have great procedures for home commuication, in which case I think it's fine to pull the TA over if it's a pretty urgent matter that has to be communicated that day.

Aww, the whole thing is difficult.

If you need to talk to the teacher every day and don't have the pushtastic, yappified mothers in your class, you are probably feeling got at.

If you mostly don't care but do notice a couple of pushtastic, yappified mothers grabbing the teacher every morning then it can be amusing/annoying/fascinating or several other things - and the suggestion that you are sneering at vulnerable children is far from the truth.

I will bugger off. Whatever anyone says, someone is feeling got at.

I've said the legit medical/the need to know stuff is good reason,no contention
the inane blether and yapping isn't fine
it's a pushy parent monopolising time for no other reason than they always do

I don't think a sweeping generalisation about ratios of 'genuine' parents to 'needy' parents is either helpful or accurate.

I don't want to pick on you Couthy, but to respond to your specific examples:

How is it inane blether if you are talking about SN's
do they change overnight?

about bullying issues
Can that be dealt with in a quick chat?

about lost PE kit when they have PE that day
school will cope, they won't be the only ones without, there's usually spare kit, not urgent info. Child who can't do PE due to overnight injury could be urgent. I asked at door to have DS kept in at playtime a few days due to head injury.

about a poor night's sleep that may affect their concentration
If it does they'll soon notice, no need to explain in advance.

DS needing to go to the office to take his steroids and can he please be reminded as he can't tell the time yet
Important yes, especially if it's a one-off; if it's daily then a reminder at the door not as effective as a long chat after school & a reminder to the school in writing.

reminding the new class teacher to warn me a week in advance when they will be doing cookery so that I can provide GF alternatives for DS1
Again important but can it be dealt with in after school time? Your DS1 knows not to eat anything you didn't provide, right?

asking them to avoid cross contamination with DS1 and food
Does that need reiterating to adults daily, and always before school starts? Is your son new to the school, maybe, the school still getting used to his needs?

telling the class teacher that due to SS involvement, my DS1's dad isn't to pick him up from school for the foreseeable future
I understand having words at the door as it's a sudden change, but even more important is putting it in writing to HT, and perhaps they shouldn't just take your spoken word for it, anyway. Could also be completely handled by phoning the school separately & emphasising how important it is that child is not to be released to the Dad any more, consent withdrawn, etc.

some parents think if they arse-lick they'll gain an advantage for their children. buying presents for teachers is another method they use.

Crikey, Lovebunny, that's just nasty.

Most of the examples of morning chat in these posts should be communicated in writing.

Administration of medicine should be organised and controlled by the office - a teacher should not be responsible for this. What if s/he forgets? The parent should take instructions to the office for the dosage and the office staff should keep a list of all children requiring medicine each day.

The teachers should send out a letter before cooking activities, which will ask for permission and check for allergies. The form returned to school will tell the teacher of the child's needs. No need to speak to the teacher orally.

Any SS issues MUST go through the person in charge of child protection, who will inform the whole staff about the situation. It's not exactly a subject for 'just mentioning in the 10 minutes before school'!

Parents should make appointments to discuss any other issues such as bullying and worries about progress, to give the teacher a chance to prepare properly for the meeting in order to give well-considered information and advice.

IMO, morning chat should only be about things like little Johnny going home with Frankie, or when they need their wellies in - specific questions that the teacher will be able to answer in a couple of words.

certainly didn't intend to be nasty. but i have observed such behaviour, as a school-gate parent and as a teacher.

But very often SEN children don't change overnight, do they? Mine certainly doesn't. I have said that our school doesn't do this thing of queuing in the playground every morning nor letting parents in the school and yet information still gets to the right person at the right time. SN parents aren't immune from the inclination for inane blether either. Just because a child has SN doesn't always mean that every approach to a teacher is automatically valid and necessary.

If there is an issue that requires a daily update then there should be a better structure and lines of communication in place than catching the teacher in the the playground in the morning. There shouldn't be this sort of daily disruption. Most stuff can wait until after school when everybody has more time and you aren't holding up a whole class starting their day.

I don't do it DAILY. The cross contamination thing and a week's notice of cookery (my finances mean I need a week's notice) with DS1, as I have discovered, needs to be reiterated each time he starts a new year with a new teacher, they never seem to read his fucking file.

The bullying thing was in DS2's last class, the governors complaint is about the fact that his previous teacher refused to mark it in the yellow slip that goes in his file (!) so I HAD to inform the new teacher, so that DS2 wasn't sat on the same table as his bully.

The PE kit thing with DS2 I had to check before I bought him a fucking new one - I can't afford to buy one needlessly if it's hiding in the classroom, and if I was going to buy one, it would have to be that day.

Again, the steroid one with DS2 needs to be told to the teacher each time his dose changes, because the office take about 3 days to pass a message on. Not very fucking helpful, but essential for the teacher to know, as is the fact that I need a phone call immediately if anyone in the class comes down with chickenpox.

The thing with DS1's dad - it's a bloody good job I told the teacher that day, because the office hadn't bloody passed the message OR the note to the class teacher, despite me telling the office AND handing the note in on the first day back, and it being a week later when I told her.

Once again, our school INSISTS on this stuff bring done in the mornings. Getting an after school appointment takes about 3 weeks - not so good for something urgent.

Maybe if this school wasn't so bloody difficult and useless with communication, I wouldn't need to do this.

Most of the time, they go over to the school on their own from the bus stop, I ONLY go if I have to tell the teacher something.

Couthy, I think you should suggest to the school that the office keep medicines and administer them. A teacher cannot be expected to remember that along with everything else. It's an easy office job - keep a list, fetch the children and give the medicine.

I certainly wouldn't get information about a child from reading a file. I haven't the time (nor the inclination) to wade through 25+ files, making notes on each child's allergies or problems. If we do cooking, we send a letter asking about allergies; if we go to the woods, we send a letter asking when the child's last tetanus jab was; if we go swimming, we send a letter asking what swimming level the child has reached; if there are bullying issues, we have a formal meeting.

The SS issue is appalling. That should have gone through the child protection officer (usually the HT), as I said. All staff should have been made aware of the situation. Pictures of your ds should have been put up in the staffroom, together with instructions about what to do if ds's dad turns up.

I really think the school should get its act together.

Have had a child on SEN register (twice).

I mean whole point of the thread isn't that some at-the-door morning comms aren't useful & reasonable & required, just that some looks a bit, er, greedy. Makes it difficult for anyone else to have the chance of the occasional at-the-door morning exchange.

Xpost, If you don't do it daily, Couthy, then this thread isn't about parents like you .

In my DD's year 1 parents do it when its home time.. so its even worse!! It drives me mad. You have kids and other parents waiting because one selfish parent cannot wait until everyone has been collected. I had to make a comment last week to one of the parents.. Very unfair

Alcofrolic, you and me both, you and me both. The school, frankly, don't know their arse from their elbow, are bloody useless with SN's, claim bullying has to happen EVERY DAY for it to be classed as bullying, there have been numerous incidents of cross contamination when they do cooking for the first time, they are useless with ALL allergies except nuts.

If I could move them I would. Not an option at ANY school I can reach by public transport though.

I have experience of 3 other primaries my DD attended, and none of them had anything like as many issues with lack of communication.

Because some of the parents are planning a bank robbery next week. It seems that the lease for the gerbil that some of the parents and the teacher signed was written by the Mafia. The small print contained a clause whereby the teacher and parents had to carry out a hit on the Cornish President. It seems that the Mafia have issues with Cornish ice cream being sold on the streets of Italy, usually cut with cheap Yakult. The teacher and parents successfully carried out the assassination (Covered up by the government Which is why you've not heard about it) but are now being blackmailed by Victoria Coren. They are planning to rob a bank to get money to hire a hit man of their own to bump her off. The parents have to talk to the teacher often to make sure she's organised the shooters and the guns and risk assessments and things.

did you cut & paste that from elsewhere?
was is it humour
it's certainly unusual

It couldn't happen at our school unless the teacher happened to be on playground duty. After the first term of reception the children go in on their own and parents cannot enter as there are TAs guarding the doors.

SM, It's just reading between the lines, putting 2 and 2 together, and a bit of male intuition. Obvious really.