To not want to give my email/phone details to the class rep?

[WrongWayWound]

Well, self-appointed class rep, unless the PTA had a vote I haven't heard of.

It's 'so we can all keep in touch'. Frankly notes in the book bag, or seeing me at the gate is fine in my book. I've been politely evasive a few times but it's getting pushy with even asking family members for my details if they pick up. This morning I was nearly jumped on and pointed at by 4 women calling out DD's name, I said I had nothing on me.

So as not to drip feed:

-they are VERY pushy for money, it's already starting to grate only 7 weeks into reception. Not the normal amount, I work in a school and it's WAY above the norm.

-The mums I know and like have my details, I'm not hard to track down. I am polite to everyone, and have friends. I've never criticised or moaned about anyone. I foresee my details being used to extend playground squabbles to home from an overbearing core of difficult mums (from playgroups they were cliquey, pushy and not very pleasant to DD, but now we've been thrown together closer by school)

-There is already a lot of pressure from school mums with doing bits, I'll do my bit (though I work when they have all PTA meetings during the day). I don't want 'everyone needs to do this...' or 'your daughter was not nice to xxxx today' in my mailbox. There are other channels to find me, quite easily.

AIB miserable? Does EVERYBODY else always give details? I'll admit I'm just a bit spiky as DD is not having the best start. Not awful, but a lot of being side-lined and under-estimated and a loss of confidence.

YANBU to not want to. It's up to you whether or not you want to get involved, it's not compulsory. If you are satisfied with receiving info from the school and that's fine.

YABU to be evasive. Just be honest and say you don't want to give them your details.

Don't give details if you don't want to. I am a class rep and we recently asked if people wanted to join a class list because:

• it makes setting up playdates and parties etc easier, particularly for those parents who work and aren't t the school gate to do the communication verbally.
• we can keep people in touch with class events like cake sales and coffee mornings.

If you try and join in both the above (and I recognise that play dating and coffee mornings are not everyone's cup of tea, in fact I sometimes find them to be similar to one of Dante's outer circles of hell) in my experience they do help your children socially. Other parents knowing and liking you makes a big difference to a child's social success in the infant school years from my observation in my school anyway. In the 3 years that I have been a parent of a school age child I have never experienced or even heard of a class list being used to complain about a child or extend a playground disagreement. I suspect you are feeling a bit out of sorts because of your DD's difficult start to reception. I am so sorry that she has had the issues you mention. My DD just started reception and even though she is my second I had huge anxieties about the whole thing, and I always look for signs at pick up and drop off that she has friends etc etc - we love them so much don't we, it's hard to see them struggle. My advice for what it's worth is give your details to the class list, and start making new contacts and inviting their kids over to try and help your daughter.

One further thing though (not particularly aimed at the OP, but posters here and on other threads). Why are class reps and PTA people always demonised? Why are we always 'interefering' or 'bossy' or the 'alpha mums'? The ones I know, and I myself, volunteered when no one else wanted to because it is a helpful role in creating a sense of community in the school and raising some much needed extra money. I can think of a billion things I'd rather be doing right now than forming a rota for a cake stall at the christmas fair, and everyone is suddenly a critic about how the reps are doing . . . . but trust me, if we didn't put in this massive amount of work for the fair we'd have a school of sorely disappointed children, and parents complaining about why the library didn't have enough books (the fair money goes to that) and why school trips were cancelled (the money goes to that to). If people don't want to get involved that's completely fine . . . but lay off the pitch-side criticism of people who are doing a fairly thankless task that benefits your kids.

No YANBU.

DW and I are the 'anti social ones' and we guard our details closely. We just can't be bothered with it all, I want to go home at the end of the day and I don't want to be bothered by people who I have nothing in common with apart from having children of roughly the same age! I sure as hell don't want to get dragged into some sort of playground bitch fight.

Tell them all no. End of stry.

Some of you have rather, erm, over active imaginations about what might be in class rep emails

I feel cheated ours are so polite and helpful. The utter bastards!

All this class email lists sound odd to me. I'm chair of the PTA at DS's school and only have the emails of the people who are interested in getting involved in things.
I, personally, would refuse to add my details to any 'class list' type thing as I have very good reasons for wanting my email/phone number/address kept private.
Could you use that line - that would keep them guessing for most of the next 7 years :)

I wouldent, the school have your details if you need to be contacted e.g child is sick etc

I love the class reps. They organise the Xmas parties, they arrange collections for the teachers to take the pain out of end of year gifts and they cheer all the children on at sports day, especially the ones whose parents have to work.

Just to get this clear - is the PTA actually endorsing the use of this class list? We used to set one up each year for the legitimate purposes that are described upthread - contacting for play dates, returning coats, PE kit, etc. But it was never compulsory and if someone didn't want to join for whatever reason that was that and no nagging. Whole school letters would be sent out via the school secretary who had the email addresses for everyone including people who preferred not to pass them round the playground.

It sounds like the PTA have set up a legitimate list for emailing out stuff about fetes and cake sales etc, with email addresses kept confidential, and this is a separate social life organising list. Am I right?

IME one of the most common uses of the class list was the parents who were always late or begging favours would use it to call other parents to guilt them into picking up the kids or asking yet more favours.

Do what you want but don't complain if you don't get invited to any get togethers and your DC gets left off any birthday party invites.

We have an email list and it works well, I have never seen it abused.

Thank the Lord this wasn't around when my DC were at school nor did the school I worked in have this system.

Anything PTA related went in the newsletter or a specific letter sent from the school office or via the website.

There was no way in hell that my HT would have had anything semi 'official' going out without her or the office having seen it first.

You can do whatever you feel comfortable doing. I would give them my details because I wouldn't want my DC to miss out on social events, but then I can easily ignore useless stuff and don't get worked up by pushy mothers. If you think the communications would annoy you, then tell the rep you don't want to be included.

I am class rep but every class has them, appointed by the HT. Everyone is DSs class appreciate it as it is just a quick text or email to remind everyone of events etc or to arrange end of term nights out. Never anything other than that and I know the mums appreciate it as they say so.

I would never keep chasing someone though, that seems quite odd.

I've a contact list for all my childrens classes, reception, year 3 and year 7. It's given to us at the start of the year. I not only have the names, addresses and email addresses of the parents in my year 7's class but the names addresses and email addresses of all the year 7 children in our town who go to the school. Obviously one can opt out but I have never come across anyone who does. We also have a FB page for each class which is very useful. In 9 years of school I have never had an email from another parent about my child. If I did I would ignore it.

As someone whose dcs were at school before the invention of email lists managed by class reps, I find it distinctly bizarre to realise that we must have been denying our children the chance to socialise. Let alone standing in the way of their social success!

In reality of course, none of this was the case. We actually managed to soclaliase quite happily and keep in touch with activities at school without any problems. My own dcs, far from being social outcasts, are still, in their 30s, friends with a surprising number of their primary school peers.

It strikes me that it is perfectly possible to achieve the same happy state today without being pressurised to give all your details lest you are seen as a parent that nobody likes and worse, that makes your children tainted by association. Utter bollocks!

I was harassed by the pain in the arse class rep. Three bloody months it took to shake this woman off my case. Told her every week, I am not interested. In the end I had to complain to the school about her.

No I don't care about the crap you want to text/email me. This is what the school do. They contact me. They send me emails, texts, newsletters. They let me know when someone is leaving. They let me know when there is something is contagious and what to look for. They let me know about school trips. Dress up days. Charity events. Various fairs. Assemblies. They ask parents for help with the various activities. They ask for donations. They have info about various events over the school. They have a twitter page and a FB page. Then there's the MLE. The school diary is also accessible to parents with key dates and additional notes.

Then parents, pop invites into school bags. Waiting at the gate or dropping off in the morning invited out to parent piss up. Invited out to quiz nights. The parents trip to the theme park. Cinema. Plus countless other adult only things. Then of course all the kids meet ups, trips to the cinema, football, meal, play date etc.

With all the smart phone technology, why do you need these people? You get an email from school, you push the various dates in the email, and boom this is added to your phones calendar. Linked with other devices in the home, and everyone is linked in.

What a load of bull, socially exclusion and isolation just because parents don't want to give out their details. If you want a child to be invited to a party you give the invite to the teacher or TA to put in their book bag. Back in the day there were no such things and we managed fine!

Here here bloodyteenagers, I totally agree, school keep us updated with stuff like that and parentmail.

Just an excuse to be clicky and leave out the parents who have denied you their details as they don't want haranguing.

Yabu and a complete pain in the arse. As is everyone who agrees with you.
Class rep - ie someone who Voluntarily gives up their free time to organise snow trees and parents nights out and reminders and present collections etc etc. I'm sure there's a million things they'd rather be doing.
But no, rather than send one group email, which you can ignore, you want them to seek out every parent individually, or write thirty notes for book bags.
I repeat, they do this voluntarily for everyone's benefit.
It really pisses me off when people call them alpha mums etc when what they actually are is trying to help.
And no, I'm not one, too lazy, but goodness I'm nice and grateful to our class rep.
Thank you class reps everywhere!!

Whilst I would be happy to do this for ds's school I would be more wary at dds school as dh is a teacher there.

We used to be ex directory when he was at a previous school so parents/students couldn't look him up.

Someone I know works in psychiatric health & only gives their details out to close personal friends as the consequences if a client having their family details could be disastrous.

That another thing the collections. Always with a minimum of £5. Whatever happened to families doing what they can afford, the token gift, the child making something? have read countless threads over the years were families are made to feel like shit because of the reps. Cracking job.

I've managed to get 3 dc through Primary school without ever having come across a 'class rep'.
Only ever heard of them on MN.

I can see it could sometimes be useful to be able to contact other people, but it should always be an "opt in" rather than "opt out" situation.

I got lost in your OP when you said about being 'jumped on by 4 women calling dd's name' and saying you had nothing on you