To not want to get too involved with school life?

[Pinkrosesarebest]

Just that really. My twin sons are in Reception. So we are only at the beginning of our school journey really. I will help out in the future I am sure but haven't so far. I always send in money when asked. However 2 mums talked very loudly near to me and quite pointedly today and said it's always the same ones helping out, signing up or organising PTA events. Surely it is a choice rather than an obligation?

redsky. where is the noticeboard? is everything on the noticeboard also on the website?

Partridge, I think the issue on this thread has been the negative experiences of some posters have been dismissed by those with positive experiences

I really haven't seen PTAs in general being berated too much, simply people sharing both positive and negative experiences - and some took the negative experiences/perceptions as an attack. I won't go down the rabbit hole of those posters who have only talked about the 'mums' who don't join the PTA, though that to me signals a potential significant problem with the approach and expectations of that PTA.

From my own view of having run volunteer groups, if an organisation is finding it hard to recruit volunteers, blaming the volunteer pool is very easy but it's a trap. What is the organisation doing to change the way it looks to the outside world? Does the perception of the PTA from the inside (we are lovely and welcoming) match the outside (they are all mates and all socialise together so I feel an outsider)? Is the PTA willing to change it's ways of working to accommodate those who work full time? What is your volunteer recruitment strategy? How can it be improved?

It's clear from this thread that there are some amazing, thriving PTAs and some that are struggling to stay afloat due to lack of volunteers. I suspect quality of the volunteer pool is sometimes not the only factor.

I help out in school, but without going into my kids classroom - I'm a firm believer that the classroom is their environment to learn away from home & away from the opinions & influences of mum & dad.

I bake cakes for the school cake sales, man stalls at the summer fair, sell glo-sticks at the school discos.

I have to confess that i'm not, however, a huge fan of parent helpers going into their own child's classroom to help out on a weekly basis - sadly at our school, this always involves the same mums (stay at homes, they seem to have the most spare time to do this) and they do adopt a semi-official persona, saying hi to teachers on first name terms, telling me stuff about my kids in class that I would rather hear from a teacher, coming into the playground with their parent-helper badges swinging round their necks, and then feigning forgetfulness about dropping it back at reception.

However my biggest bug-bear is them assuming that they should get first dibs on all school trips because "we are the ones who help out in classroom every single week so its only right that we should do the fun stuff too".

Arghhh - touched a raw nerve, it drives me mad!

ps I would like to caveat that i'm not saying all mum parent helpers are like this, just those in my very limited experience

They think school trips are fun for the adults? And so do you? You must have better places to go to than we do.

Ghastly, ghastly, ghastly, I always sent money if they asked for it but
there was no way on earth I was ever going to get involved with cakes, quizzes car boot sales and all the other more effort than they raise activities. For those that really can't face the tedium of this crap perhaps they could just pay £10 pm not to be bothered.

Well brecon, thats what the regular helper mums tell us 'non helping' mums in the playground.

To be honest, when the adult to child ration is 1 to 4, I can't really see what it so sodding difficult or unpleasant about a school trip (for parent helpers anyway, I can understand its more stressful for teachers)! I have 3 kids myself and I cope doing day trips completely alone, I can't see how having 4 primary kids, all of the same age, is that difficult.

I think you're fine not being involved if you don't want to, I'm not, but then no-one in my DD's year's parents are involved either, it seems to be run by year 4 parent group. I go along to the quizzes too. I do, however, volunteer to go on school trips which is always appreciated and means that I get to know DD's teacher and friends. I think when your DSs are in reception you can take your time a bit before committing to anything.

as pp's have said, I find this whole calling teachers/heads by their first names a bit tricky. What's the etiquette here?

YANBU to not get involved. I used to teach and I made a decision specifically not to get involved with anything like that at the school as I'd had enough of politics.

I have sent things in when requested. I have offered one or two extra things for events that have been accepted. But I do not go to meetings, or get involved hands on. It does seem as if it is dominated by a 'few' but they dont seem that bad really as people.

I have a toddler and a DH who works long hours so it is hard for me to commit my time to anything including stuff for myself.

I think it is mean spirited of those people to hold everyone else up to their standards and choices when they dont know everyone elses circumstances - personal and domestic.

Oh and I really enjoy the school trips too! The children are great fun.

sarf - some teachers at our school do tell parents to call them by their first name. So does my GP to that point, but I still feel wierdly uncomfortable about it - too informal? I don't know, still the school girl stuck in me

Gawd sugar me too - too much school trauma in my past!

In front of the children I think it has to be Miss Smith etc.
What about at the pub if you bump into them?! [Minus children].

Of course it's a choice whether or not you get involved but just don't be surprised or disappointed if certain things don't get done or get cancelled due to lack of parental help. I recently volunteered to help out with swimming lessons at my DS's school. It was clear from the letter we received that if no one volunteered to help, the lessons would not happen. I was the only parent in the year group to volunteer initially! Luckily, after a second plea went out, a few more volunteers stepped up (again, the usual faces).

I bet if the school had had to cancel the swimming lessons, the other parents would have been in uproar, and there would have been a lot of disappointed children.

I would then probably still say 'Miss ___ ' and then if they said 'oh call me Mabel' then I would. I probably wouldn't stay and get bladdered with them though!

sapphire in the pub it would still be 'Miss Smith' I think!!

Canshop - no I don't think there would be uproar at our school - if its made clear that something can only happen if enough parent helpers, then no reasonable parent will be 'in uproar' if there aren't enough and activity is cancelled. Its usually extra curricular stuff anyway - my sons friday afternoon baking was cancelled in the end due to lack of parent helpers. We knew the score, we couldn't get cross due to lack of parents wanting to help.

Its always the same people that help out because, generally, they're the parents who don't work / can arrange their schedules to help. The rest of us work and so just can't commit to regular weekly sessions. Simple as that!

queenmab the noticeboard is immediately in front of you as you walk into the school. You will have to walk past it if you go to the school office, school hall, attend a parents evening, any school event or pick your DC up from after school activities or the after school club. You would have to try extremely hard to never walk past it.

The info is also on the school website, and pertinent bits on the PTA newsletter (which comes out once a half-term and is both emailed directly to parents and sent round in paper copy). We have tried to make ourselves accessible!

I've been both sides of this fence as a primary teacher and as a parent of (a lot) of kids! Must admit as a teacher it was the culture to dislike parent governors/PTA types. As a parent, I never got dragged in. In fact, I didn't do any chit chat at school gates - ever. In the olden days I wore a Walkman (iPod now!) so I didn't engage with other parents. It's just a load of petty crap. Schools should be adequately funded by LEAs/government. Every pound a PTA raises, gets the people who should be paying off the hook.

One of my worst moments, in my time teaching was when the PTA did a stupid money raising fete thing after school and at that place, it was expected all the teachers turned up. Now we weren't on overtime. We were put on stalls - and then had parents whinging, in my case that I made the orange squash too strong... Go swivel. I spent 4 years at uni so I could do this job, and then have to give up hours of my own free time unpaid, essentially so the Head and PTA can wank about raising five bob to build or do yet some other unnecessary crap? (Same school I had to buy pencils for my entire class and chalk to even write on the blackboard, so the PTA raising money for crap were pretty redundant in those circs with that LEA).

So yes. As a parent too, I never got involved. I have friends who have - one who goes into school to listen to kids read, helps out every school production, etc etc - she had an only child and I thought she was naive, really. Now her kid is in secondary school she realises I was right. What a waste of time that was!

I love it when my kids hit secondary school. No more boring class assemblies, no blackmail to help out with this, or do that...

I did volunteer for a whole year to run a crafts group and found it a thankless task. The following year I was mysteriously 'indisposed'.

It is all wank, truly. Once your kids are 11, OP, you will realise you were being reasonable and did the right thing.

redskyatnight People probably assume that other people are getting involved so they don't have to. Maybe just invite everyone to the pub on the first Thursday of each month for some fundraising fun - rather than making it sound like a chore. You could invite a few key parents and get them to bring their friends... I would get more involved if it was out of work time, and more likely to be fun.

Sugar hoops - I appreciate that there are people who work/have young ones and can't fit in helping but I refuse to believe that in DS's school, I was the only parent in the whole year group who actually could commit to helping. I am also damn sure that there would be quite a few of those parents who would certainly moan if swimming was cancelled, however unreasonable that may seem. A parent questionnaire flagged up how important swimming lessons were to parents and how much they wanted them to continue but when push came to shove, no one wanted to commit to helping.

i prefer not to get involved really as round our way the ones involved are the most gosspiy back stabbing people in the playground!!!

they all bitch about each other

and moan they do everything

and go on and on and on about how much they do

um so not the typs i like to hang out with

rather go out for lunch with a good friend
and donate money to the school

I see what you mean Jassy, and I have seen the nastier side of "queen bee" alpha types at a playgroup I used to go to. However there is quite a lot of nastiness on this thread too - dismissing all fundraising activities as crap (I'd rather give a tenner) - join in and do something better then... It can honestly be truly thankless and whilst I don't want accolades it would be nice if people were a bit more supportive.

PTAs can have an important function too. Our Victorian primary school is falling down - we have danger signs erected by the council everywhere. One of the dads on the PTA attends a working group for PTAs and has highlighted this so that a facilities manager from the council has been to survey the building. We also had a long gap without a lollipop person and thanks to a campaign to lobby the council run by the PTA we managed to get a temporary road traffic officer for our dangerous, inner city school crossing.

SarfElasticated good suggestion, but actually we get fewer people at pub trips than normal meetings! (maybe people are put off by "having" to be sociable). And everyone on the PTA has already recruited(or tried to!) all their friends!

We also do a tea and biscuits type social thing for new parents, I think 2 turned up last year.

"Every pound a PTA raises, gets the people who should be paying off the hook."

Absolutely this

TBH if I'd walked into a pub when I was teaching and spotted a parent - I'd have walked right out.

Most of my colleagues would, too. Unless you live in the same village and can't avoid em but even then I guess you'd just go drinking somewhere else. Friend of mine was head of geography at a very, very posh school. She is the friend I spent the most time holding back her hair while she vomited/got alcohol poisoning, when we used to go out. ;o) There's no way you could be yourself with a load of parents hanging round. Must admit I'd never have let them call me by first name. (Although I once worked in a school where the kids were allowed to call us by first name and that was great!)

But no. If I walked in a pub and saw parents - I'd leg it.