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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think Primary schools should ask less of parents?

138 replies

wonderstuff · 16/05/2013 12:00

Supporting education is vital, reading, supporting maths, spelling homework in general I'm cool with.

But today I got an email that requests next Thursday I dress dd in a green top and brown trousers so she looks like a tree, all the children are having a tree themed muffty day. They are having an Eco day, guest speakers all fantastic stuff, it's a great school, but short notice, very specific requests like this are frustrating dd doesn't have a green top, I am fortunate in having the means to go get her one, but it seems a real imposition.

AIBU to be annoyed by this?

OP posts:
SaggyOldClothCatPuss · 16/05/2013 12:04

At least you get a week! Its not unusual to be asked this kind of thing the day before!

Be prepared for an awful lot of people to pile on and tell you that schools are never wrong and you should shut up and appreciate they get an education, blah blah blah...

MoaningMingeWhingesAgain · 16/05/2013 12:04

That is a very specific request. My DD doesn't have brown trousers or a green top TBH, and I wouldn't be inclined to buy them for a day at school.

I would make her into a flower or something Grin

TBH my school asks very little of the parents. Too little probably. I actually feel a bit jealous of those schools with lunchbox rules et al - ours has people having sausage rolls, pints of Mars Bar milkshake and sweets all the time so DD thinks I am mean to not let her have a massive pile of crap every day.

ImTooHecsyForYourParty · 16/05/2013 12:06

No. It used to drive me bonkers. come in a red spotty top tomorrow. pull a costume out of your arse for wednesday. spend a tenner at tesco to buy cakes that we'll sell for 25p... I am very pleased they are now in secondary and it is just a case of go to school. learn. come home. homework. done. Grin

but I am sure the kids love it. And it's a very short time before they're out of primary. Scarily short! My tiny baby born only the other day celebrated his 14th birthday yesterday!

Original poster
wonderstuff · 16/05/2013 12:10

The lunch box thing I guess is supporting parents who are making positive choices, we have lunchbox rules, and I had never really thought of them as very positive, but you make a good point.

OP posts:
SaggyOldClothCatPuss · 16/05/2013 12:11

HA Hec, with secondary school comes £800 trips to god knows where for 'educational purposes skiing!

LifeIsBetterInFlipFlops · 16/05/2013 12:12

I know what you mean, but we always manage it somehow. The kids love it though...

ImTooHecsyForYourParty · 16/05/2013 12:14

True. Grin I won't let mine go on the ski trips. Far too scared of them breaking every bone in their bodies!

their primary had a residential in y6 that was over £400! Shock

Original poster
wonderstuff · 16/05/2013 12:15

I feel under pressure, I think that's what I resent, DD needs to fit in and be the same as her classmates, I don't want to let her down. But I also don't want to spend the weekend looking for a green top.

OP posts:
TantrumsAndBalloons · 16/05/2013 12:16

YY to secondary being a lot better. There is major angst over what to wear on non uniform days but thankfully that does not involve me.

hecsy my tiny baby born the other day is 15......I do not believe it.
and both teenagers are taller than me and have a much better social life than me, I honestly cant believe how grown up they are.

ImTooHecsyForYourParty · 16/05/2013 12:19

Terrifying, isn't it? My 14 yr old towers over me! My 12 yr old is the same height as me. They're massive. and I close my eyes and they are the tiny little babies it seems they were only yesterday. I honestly don't know where the years have gone.

Wonderstuff - do you have a green top that she could wear with a belt or something?

EarlyInTheMorning · 16/05/2013 12:20

I don't think that's a lot to ask actually, but more notice to source items and perhaps being less specific would be helpful of course. What do you expect the school to do instead, a. ask you for the money so that they can provide the items themselves, b. never do anything special for the children?

OneFingerSjupesUpTheYoni · 16/05/2013 12:20

I gave up by primary 2 -dress like a fish - this was 2 days before they wanted it and not even a week after she was a pirate with 3 days notice get us luckily Hmm the school she is at now get that parents don't always have time/money/ inclination / shops with the right stock to do this pish stuff.

SaggyOldClothCatPuss · 16/05/2013 12:36

What do you expect the school to do instead Paint their faces like trees? Spend time making their own tree head dress? Collect leaves to pin on themselves? Anything that doesnt pass the buck to the parents?

Fakebook · 16/05/2013 12:40

You have a week. I've been given 2 days notice to dress dd up in "sports" clothes this Friday. She doesn't have any sports clothes apart from a swimming costume and her P.E kit.

Mumsyblouse · 16/05/2013 12:46

Am I being a bit silly, but why do you have to dress like a tree to learn about trees? Are there no trees on the school site which you could inspect, rub bark, look at rings, classify leaves out of a book?

The current fashion for dressing up does not advance education in the slightest, I don't think children who dress up on World Book Day do better than those that don't at reading because I don't think children make the connections between wearing a fairy costume and, say, watching a production of the Nutcracker.

I don't see this as special, I see it as unnecessary.

NotEnoughJamOnTheBread · 16/05/2013 12:57

Teachers plan their lessons though don't they, they're not just winging it every day so I think its reasonable to give the parents more notice. I get well and truly sick of it.

bubblesinthesky · 16/05/2013 13:12

YANBU. Your dc are clearly at the wrong school. You all need to send them to dd's school who gave me a weeks notice that tomorrow they are having an odd sock day (the odder the better)

Now THAT I can manage

OhLori · 16/05/2013 13:23

What Mumsyblouse said. Creativity and understanding requires imagination and thought of the child, like Saggyclothes says. Not the parents going to shopping centre at w/e, frazzled and irritated to spend money on special coloured clothes for one day. I think the teachers must live in a very odd world.

BoffinMum · 16/05/2013 13:29

I refused to pay out for a £300 trip where the kids were going to be 15 miles away for 3 nights sleeping in a county owned hostel in rooms of 20.

i mean, £100 a night???? Shock

The school wrote me a snotty letter and invited me to come in to talk about my financial problems.

I later found out they had marked the trips up by over 100% for a select group of parents, as we were supposed to be subsiding a load of other parents, in a top secret unofficial means testing initiative based on how rich people looked. Shock So half the class were asked for £300 each, and half the class were encouraged to go for free.

Nothing was said about this until later.

DS didn't go in the end, and they took it out on him something rotten.
I was singularly unimpressed.

One of the families that benefited from a free place subsequently went on a family holiday for 5 to Greece. Lovely for them and all that, but at the time holidays like this just weren't an option for us. I was even more unimpressed then.

hettie · 16/05/2013 13:36

boffin Shock dear god....
We have had dress up as a roman, a bird, an Aztec, and a book character already this term..... I had thought this a little unthinking (cost and effort for all those parents who can't afford the time/money). But on the back of Boffins post I count myself lucky!

Manyofhorror3 · 16/05/2013 13:55

Boffin that's DISGRACEFUL!!! Did you complain to the LEA/governors? I'm honestly flabbergasted! Tell me more!
(And if our school did that, we'd be receiving food parcels cos we look like tramps but do fine financially!)

KevinFoley · 16/05/2013 13:57

I know they mean well but the whole dress up as a book character with one day notice does get bloody annoying. Feel bad for DD going as Hermione in my old coat and glasses with her hair unbrushed while others are sent in a in full home made regalia while preening mums stand there looking smug.

mixedpeel · 16/05/2013 14:03

I've started to think that schools must think there's no point giving parents much notice, as they assume everyone does it at the last minute anyway - it is the only reason I can come up with other than complete incompetence for the consistently short notice for these things.

Not all the kids like it, tbh. Both mine are much more comfortable in their uniform. Younger son will still dress up though, older hasn't done so since Y3 or 4.

Startail · 16/05/2013 14:08

Specific coloured clothes are really shit if you have a pink/purple traditional girl.

DD2 may play football and tag rugby, but her choice of out of school clothes is as far away from navy and grey as she can get and while we might have red or blue. Brown and green, no!

dementedmumof6 · 16/05/2013 14:15

Mine have to wear onesies one day this week, that after being pirates 2 weeks ago , having to pay money for a non uniform day, and sponser for something or another ever 2mths and £250 for a 3 day residential trip.
The high school is as bad £950 for a 4day ski trip, was going to be £550 for a 3day maths trip to Disneyland paris that got cancelled because most parents said no-way , and a 4 day trip to Europe at £600 for history

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