To think that secondary schools should not make children do desk duty

[ReallyTired]

My son's school gets each child to spend a day on the front desk on reception doing errands. They miss a whole day of lessons to do the job that frankly should be done by paid staff. I feel its wrong that parents get fined for taking their children out of school, but schools are allowed to waste children's time doing cr*p.

It sounds like a lot of fun to me

Chill out ffs

And They miss a whole day of lessons to do the job that frankly should be done by paid staff

Yeah because the paid staff will take a day off instead of supervising the kids...

jellyboats - our front office manager is a FB friend. I've just let her know that you think that an 11yo in her office 'smacks of free labour'.

It does, though! When you go to high school you go to learn your subjects. Not get pulled out of classes to man desks. Why? Is there not enough staff, or something? I suppose it would be easier to get the kids on there manning the phones. You don't have to pay them
How is that conducive to learning your topics/subjects for exams if you have to run the front desk occasionally too?!
There's enough to do at school learning your stuff for upcoming GCSE's without being an unpaid receptionist too!

jellyboats what kind of school? One who impresses those visitors you are on about,with pupils working on reception as experience.

'Pulled out of classes'

Hahahahaha!

Love it

Coolas talks about the skills they are learning from doing this 'job' and I was merely pointing out that they could be developing their cleaning or cooking skills too. Why stop at developing their 'office skills'?

That's a good point, actually. Why is it some regard office skills as fine to learn as life skills and be pulled out of lessons for, but if you extended it to being a cleaner of toilets, they'd scream?
They're both perfectly acceptable jobs.

Worra where else do these pupils come from?

DS's school does this and it works a treat. 1200 students, staff and visitors with around 5 office staff and a year 7/8 helper taking messages to staff members, showing visitors to where they need to be and in DS's case showing a new addition and her family around the school. We got a phone call from the HT about that one - the family were very impressed with him and he has become firm friends with her
It gives the students a sense of responsibility, a good impression of the school to visitors (helpful students) and is probably covered by some OSTED guidelines somewhere.
Plus, it's one day out of a whole school year.

I would have loved the opportunity to do this!

'Pulled out of classes' Hahahahaha! Love it

Enlighten me then, Worra. What else would you call it if you were TAKEN out of classes to man desks?
No idea where you hail from, but here 'pulled out of classes' doesn't mean dragged out by the arm and wrestled behind the desk to answer calls if that's what you're thinking I'm meaning.
It's merely a turn of phrase meaning "being taken out of class learning time to partake in some extra curricular duties on the reception desk."

I think it's a fantastic idea.

Year 10's go on work experience for 1 or two weeks at the end of the year. I think that's very useful for giving them some perspective, even if you spend the day in an office stuffing envelopes, filing and doing the tea run (like I did).

I've never heard of this being done but I hope they do it in my ds's school.

Only it's not extra-curricular it's instead of the usual curriculum.

Idontsee using OFSTED as a justification for this is double nonsense.

When you go to high school you go to learn your subjects. Not get pulled out of classes to man desks. Why? Is there not enough staff, or something? I suppose it would be easier to get the kids on there manning the phones. You don't have to pay them

when my children go to high school they'll be going to learn their subjects & also preparing for adult life.

It's two hours, twice a year, in which I think they'll learn rather a lot, with an expectation that they catch up with class & homework missed.

There's no question of it reducing the office staff's workload - they like having the kids in, but it's definitely an extra call on their time & patience.

As a teacher & year 7 tutor, I think it's a great learning opportunity (& believe me, it makes extra work for me, too, to organise the rota!). As a parent, I'd absolutely support my own dc having this experience.

But if you disagree, I'm sure you could decline the opportunity for your own child to be involved. As I previously said, this very occasionally happens where I teach, & is in no way a problem.

I'm guessing Jelly - that they have people queuing up to volunteer, rather than being 'made to' go to do the job.
That's how I read Worra's post, nothing to do with any physical pulling, but just pointing out you wouldn't be having to twist any of the pupils' arms (that's not literal either ).

Really genuinely surprised at the amount of parents here who are supportive of their children being taken out of lessons to do this.

I'd be happy for my dc to do this much more often than one day a year tbh.

One day a term, a half term - even once a month would be fine with me, if they were generally doing well in school and could catch up without too much trouble.

I think there are a lot of fantastic skills they could learn by working on the front desk in a busy school.

Once a month? Unbelievable.

when my children go to high school they'll be going to learn their subjects & also preparing for adult life

When they hit year 3 (year 9 in new speak?!) they do two weeks of full days work experience, 9 until 5 though. Two whole weeks, 9am -until 5pm in the workplace. Why do they need to do it in school lesson time in random years too? Unless work experience has been abolished since I was at school eleventy million years ago
20 years ago

Why?

If your child is managing well in school, able to catch up the day without too much hassle...why not?

fizzy - extra in the context of extracurricular means 'outside', not 'in addition to'.

It is quite normal in most schools for students to be occasionally withdrawn from a timetabled lesson in order for something else to happen - everything from whole year timetable standdown days to an individual music lesson to a GCSE booster class to SEN support...the sky does not fall in, & the students catch up with work as is appropriate.

I agree that toilet cleaning/catering might conceivably also be good experience, jellyboats, but I doubt you'd get them past H&S .

think there are a lot of fantastic skills they could learn by working on the front desk in a busy school.

That's what work experience fortnight is for! Does that not happen anymore or something?!

To be fair, if your dc's school is doing a fortnight of WE in year 9 these days, that would be reasonably unusual, I think.

I am pretty sure that pupils in more academic schools would not want to miss lessons for this kind of activity - they would prefer to be taught

Do me a favour.

I went to a very academic school and was generally very academic. School trips (even somewhere shit) were a highlight, to get out and do something different. The novelty of a fire alarm was the BEST THING EVER. Even when it happened in double maths (which being the academic geek I was, was my favourite subject). Something to break up the day, a difference, a novelty.

I would have bitten your hand off if i'd had the chance to miss a day of lessons every half term and do this. I think most pupils would, academic or not.

raven where I teach withdrawal from lessons is rare and would never happen for something as trivial as this. Also the pace is fast within lessons and pupils would miss a lot if they missed a whole day.

As I have said upthread though, our parents would be unhappy about such a scheme and our pupils would not want to do it as 'getting out' of lessons is not part of the culture of the school.

Can only speak for my own school, but we aim for one week, in year 10. Two week stints were dropped about 8 years ago.

It's a struggle, in the current climate, to find businesses who are keen to have some feckless teenager underfoot for a fortnight.

Plus, the kids can't really spare two weeks at KS4. Too busy studying for GCSEs.

To be fair, if your dc's school is doing a fortnight of WE in year 9 these days, that would be reasonably unusual, I think.

Is there no such thing as that nowadays then? It was always two weeks work experience in year 9 or 10 when I was at school. You got a placement at a local business, and you did a job for two weeks. I spent a week at the local newspaper office and a week at the local primary school.
Two 9 - 5 jobs you had to be at.
I'm sure that's still the way unless different areas have different circumstances.
(I'm UK.)