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.

There was no admin, it was a case of carrying an envelope from the office to the person named on the envelope. Meet and greet? well maybe some children got a benefit from it I suppose, not sure it would have taken a whole day for them to get the benefit of that experience.
Year six I would have thought it a good experience but year 8? I think it pretty much unnecessary for dc who are what, 13 coming up to 14 really.

TheMagicChicken
I have worked in several schools. I have worked with office staff. I find your assumptions about someone you don't know quite amusing.

School office jobs are very varied. It can be anything from network managment (ie. Me!), data management, finance, personal. Believe it or not term time jobs are highly sort after and competitive to get. However twelve year old kids have too little experience of life/ education to do anything interesting.

I feel that sitting on the front desk looking pretty is a complete waste of time. I would rather that my son was attending lessons. In fact I suspect that the admin staff work load would be lightened if they didn't have "help".

Thank Gawd they never did this in any school I worked in. I think that kids would get in the way. They cannot do any real office work because of confidentiality.

"There was no admin, it was a case of carrying an envelope from the office to the person named on the envelope."

Most schools have a pigon hole system and staff come and get notes at break or lunch time. If its an absolute emergency then admin staff can phone through. These days many teachers have mobile phones set to silent. Often people send emails or text messages.

Schools can run effectively without twelve year olds doing errands.

I'm not familiar with this in Ireland but it sounds great to me. My D's was quite shy in secondary ..l thin it wouldhave done him good. When l was in primary school if a teacher wwas out or had to leave early l was sent in to teach them when l was 12. This is a long time ago in a country school. I decided then to be a teacher and do not regret it many years later. It never felt like slave labour but just an honour. Life is about more than books and a simple life experience can open up a whole other world. As a teacher l can guarantee you your child's education will not be adversely affected by a day at the front desk.

Doesn't it create privacy issues? For example, if a parent emails or calls with medical details of why their child is sick, or to make an appointment to see (say) the head or SEN co-ordinator?

Sounds like a good idea to me.

I used to be a school nurse and saw a fair few kids doing desk duty. At one secondary they used to sit at a desk in the reception area. They never really dealt with visitors as you had to have your photo taken etc and only the adult receptionists could do it. They were given work books to do while they were sat there. Some of the boys used to mess about but the girls would sometimes chat to me.
The most worrying desk duty i ever saw was in a small (one form per year) primary school. 2 year 6 girls would do desk duty while the receptionist went on her dinner break. They were left unsupervised in the office to deal with visitors and answer the telephone. It made me very uncomfortable.

Excellent idea. My children have all done this for one session in Year 8. Year 8 really isn't such a crucial year that one day of lesson missed is a big deal. You can catch up on what's been missed with your friends and all homework is posted on the school website.

Most of the tasks undertaken involve delivering to classrooms items such as packed lunches, homework, PE kits that had been forgotten and dropped off at school by parents. Large school site, so why not use the pupils, and it probably saves £15,000 on the school budget by not employing an additional member of staff to do this.

However, I'm guessing those parents who think it's not a good idea, poor use of time on the part of pupils, nothing to be learned, admin's just a dreary job anyway, have never overlooked to send their children to school with all the essentials.

My dd's experience was exactly the same as yours Scholes. The two of them acted as messengers around the school. In a large secondary such as hers, it really would mean employing an additional member of staff to do this duty! She certainly wasn't party to anyone's personal medical records or anything sensitive like that.

And it was once. In her whole school education. 1 day out of 1300+.

The school I volunteer at is academic and does this - though the kids are Y8 and Y9 and generally there from breaktime to the end of lunch and it often coincides with free periods. As a very introductory form of work experience I think it's a good idea, especially given how little real work experience it's possible to do under the age of 16 nowadays.

For reference I went to a private boarding school and the house staff almost always had students to help out answering phones etc. Got some fantastically bonkers phone calls from parents, plus various local perverts phoning up.

Whether you think it a good thing or not - it is one day out of 13 yrs - does it really matter?!

Ime most teachers are not allowed personal mobile phones in the classroom and In Many, if not most, schools there are not internal phones in classrooms.
Therefore messages really do still happen on foot.

I usually get between 40-70 work related emails a day. My phone's in my bag anyway (friends & family know I can only checks texts etc at break/lunch), but if we ever start using texting to add to the work communications burden, I'm outta there!

Our office duty kids act as 'runners', do photocopying (worksheets, nowt confidential), answer the phone & put calls through to the right person, sort Lost Property, show visitors around on tours or take them from Reception to the right person's office. They certainly aren't sitting on a desk looking pretty - run ragged is more like it!

I think a whole day would be too much, as they'd have too many subjects to catch up on. Our two lesson block seems to work really well.

Last year I saw a LOT of schools in readiness for choosing a secondary....

One I went to had a young lad on reception... He was superbly polite, showed me where to book in, issued a badge and called the SENCO for my tour and asked me to take a seat...

The SENCO explained they have this scheme and I thought it was utterly brilliant. It's a chance for young people to shine and in fact if my son hadn't have needed a special provision he would be going to that school.

Learning is not always about lessons.

Why oh eh do some people make everything a bid deal.
My dd is in year 8 and yesterday she was on office duty . This meant that she had to run errands around the school for one day. She absolutely loved as it gave her a sense of responsibility . After all , school is not only about gaining academic qualifications, it is about teaching them the skills needed in the workplace ; organisation, responsibility, timekeeping etc.
I think that it is an absolutely brilliant idea.

Sorry about typos

Some people make a huge deal about anything! One day in an entire school career isn't worth a deal. Save it for things that matter.