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?

You know, I don't think anyone is rude or unpleasant to people who won't/can't help. Irritation and exasperation- but not unpleasantness. However the sheer nastiness directed towards those who do just takes my breath away.

There seem to be three types of women who are fair game on Mumsnet- old women, MILs and people who are on the PTA!

you did well not to strike her imho.

dd2 hated sports day with a passion from age 4 (although eventually was on the hockey team). i always gave her the day off after 4 years of stress.

To be fair, Hak, several posters have described non-volunteers as 'lazy'. And the OP was all about (mild) unpleasantness which isn't actually going to encourage people to join in.

It does cut both ways but a lot of people in this thread, on both sides or the debate, seem determined to have their backs put up. PTAs are neither inherently bad nor inherently uncriticisably good. Mostly just organisations muddling through like most charities, and like many volunteer-run organisations some will take even the most constructive of criticism personally.

(I'm assuming you hide your irritation and exasperation by the way.)

Great post Sigyn.

In my day .... I don't think PTA's had been invented. We didn't feel we were missing out though.

A couple of people using "lazy" on one side........and on the other..........?

queenmab said

I don't do the school run.
This is the bit that people like you just don't grasp! No matter how many times you are told you just don't get that "mums" (always mothers) don't all have schedules that allow them to pop in and out of school in school hours!

So to clarify that the "people like you" will be people on our PTA - who are mostly FT working parents that don't very often do the school run? Granted, most people at our school who do this use the school after school club which meets on school premises, so do have to walk past the noticeboard. I do this myself, but even then I only pick DD up once a week. Yes, that's right, I only go near the school once a week, and don't randomnly pop in ever. So funnily enough I do get that mums don't all have schedules that allow them to pop in and out of school in school hours. But even without this once a week I pick up DD from ASC, I have managed to go to school quite a few times this year - school assemblies, school play, parents' evenings, meeting about curriculum. I accept that if you don't go to any of those things then, yes, you won't see our noticeboard, but you can still look at the website (which has all the names of the committee, multiple ways to contact us, and lists of forthcoming events and how to help), email us or read a newsletter without going anywhere near the school.

But I suspect your problem is that your interposing the problems of your PTA onto all others. Just wish you hadn't chosen mine to gripe about as actually we've bent over backwards to accommodate parents who find it hard to get to school.

Sorry to be pedantic sigyn, but actually you have to have a PTA to be part of the groom that meets city-wide where you can discuss issues like the walls falling down. And rightly or wrongly, we had more clout lobbying for a lollipop person as a "committee" with a constitution and all that implies.

I know this is largely irrelevant to the issue being discussed, but on the other hand I am demonstrating that the PTA at our school had a demonstrably useful function.

Group, not groom. Sorry for all my typos tonight . Not really chair material .

Yep, Queen Bees. Posters on both sides being rather inflammatory, using silly generalisations, in about equal numbers to my quite neutral eyes if you separate out those talking about their own, valid experiences from those talking in pointless generalisations.

Though you'd probably acknowledge that Queen Bee alpha-types exist, though obv not in your PTA, and further that the perception that PTAs attract Queen Bee types is something PTAs should actively work to dispel if they want to attract more volunteers? The perception alone seems damaging.

I've found this thread quite depressing, especially Joffreys assertion that she avoided PTA/Governors-type like the plague and would run a mile if she saw a parent in a pub.
I am a parent who does help out at the school for trips & PTA quizzes (because I actually enjoy it). Now it seems that the other parents will think I am a queen bee!

I just thought (naively, obvs) that the place where my dd and her friends spends such a lot of her formative years, was a place that I would help where I could. Who knew it would attract such bile!

Totally agree Sarf it's very sad.

I have made my best friends through getting involved at a parent level. Thank fuck I did.

How does one become a queen bee? Sounds fun having everyone quaking in their boots! Not sure I have ever seen one - the parents at our school are boringly normal and everyone painfully polite and careful at pick ups.

I think being confident and having friends at school puts you in the danger zone.

Become a governor, and then the PTA leave you alone!!!

Whilst I ranted posted about parent helper ishoos, I don't actually find our PTA members anything but lovely. Yes there are queen bee types in our playground, but they're not necessarily anything to do with the school, either as parent helpers or PTA members or governors. If someone is going to be a queen bee type, they'll do so wherever they are - workplace, church, playground, toddler group, friendship circle.

I would certainly never avoid school events or the school playground as some suggest, I really miss the school run when I have the rare day away from it.

Ive never helped out pta,nor will i.haven't got time or inclination

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

Absolutely spot on.

In my time teaching, the best most supportive parents I ever had, was a class in a certain area of the city which meant the vast majority of my mums (not all but most) were, er, working girls. No-one interested in PTA or being a governor but my god those women were brilliant when it came to going along on school trips. I once swear I had about 20 odd of them turn up for one not very exotic day out. They were fantastic. The snobby, middle class hot-housing style parents I had in some other places... just vile. And no practical use unless it was swanning around some ridiculous fete.

My husband was a governor for years - not a parent governor but a political appointee. He was a trained teacher though. He also formed a similar opinion of parent governors to many teachers I know... They'd be mortified if they knew. Heads love them, though.

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

Not true.Or, if it is true, then your PTA is using the money it raises inappropriately.

Hak, explain? What does the PTA pay for that wouldn't come from the government if schools were properly funded?

Ours used to raise funds for extras. Nothing that the LA would fund. That was the point to out PTA.
Extra play equipment, extra sports equipment, extra funded school trips, extra dressing up stuff. That sort of thing.

Money raised by the PTA should only ever be used for "extras". I suppose it depends on how you define "extras" but it should never be spent on anything that should be provided by government funding.

x post!

So, for example, at our primary, the school allocated some of its funding to provide a basic lighting rig for the school hall (a very keen "drama" school) but the PTA decided to fund a a super duper rig instead. And the PTA paid for a circus to come to the school for the day and teach circus skills.

Currently helping to raise money for outdoor table tennis tables at a Secondary.