BR I have said several times (I did forget on my last post, I admit) that one of the things schools should most definitely stop doing is asking for things that are expensive.
But BR, surely you can see that what is a drop in the ocean for one family would be expensive for another? How are teachers supposed to guess what might be 'expensive'?
Last minute requests for jam sandwiches might be a biggie if a parent had to schlep a 6 yo, a 4 yo and a 2 yo out in the evening to buy the bread and jam. Do teachers assume people have only one child? Or that they have someone handy to take care of children while the parent nips out for the bread and jam? The amount of work involved in producing 30 jam sandwiches at short notice might indeed be unreasonable.
ShortCutButton, what part of 'school assigns random food items to the children two days in advance' do you not understand? There is no amount of stockpiling jam sandwiches that will help you if your child gets assigned the task of bringing paper plates this year but you are working on last year's request for jam sandwiches.
And wrt handing down the Christmas jumpers your wait is over, Myothername fine if this tradition goes on year after year. Fine if you have all girls or all boys. Fine if you don't have twins. Fine if your don't have an only child. Yes to chubby/skinny... And you forgot the sort of families where there is a red haired child among the rest who would look godawful in red.
YYY to Millionpram's remarks about cultural capital. What schools are doing is widening the gap caused by disparity in this area.
YYY to remarks about blatant consumerism, and encouraging a herd mentality wrt clothing -- there is pressure not to be the only one without the stuff the school wants you to have. Then down the line schools wonder why they have a bullying/excluding problem on their hands, focusing on clothing and personal appearance.
School comes together to have fun = some children wear naicer jumpers than others and everyone notices. This sounds like a hoot.
YYY to children being encouraged to give their time and talent and not engage in pointless gestures that focus on appearance, Want2Be. This was my experience of having children in school in the US. They all went to sing at the retirement home, decorate trees in the lobby with the elderly, year after year. They also went around the school neighbourhood picking up donations of imperishable food one Saturday morning in early December to stock up the food pantry. This was preceded by making advertisement posters for local shops and flyers that were tied around trees and lamp posts. I thought those were very well designed service opportunities.
There really is absolutely no educational benefit to wearing a Christmas jumper, Myotherusername. Everything you claim as a benefit could equally be done with an art project in school, or a vocab/spelling list.