teacher unprepared for my parent help

[iamworkingonit]

I work as a teacher but part time. I like to have some sort of contact with the school my daughter attends and as a single parent, working part time enables me to do drop her off and collect her twice a week and have some contact with the teacher and other parents.
I volunteer as a parent help once a week. Not in my daughter's class.
Two weeks ago the teacher whom I work with was away. Normally when I arrive the children are still at PE and just coming back or sometimes I am there for 5 or so minutes before they come back. I passed through the office and signed in. The office staff are really busy and that is possibly why they didn't mention the teacher's absence. Anyway after sitting in the classroom for about 10 minutes I went next door and the teacher there said she was away. I asked the head what would be the best course of action and he said just to wait in the library and collect my daughter at the end of the school day. The following week I called to check if the teacher was in. The office staff said she was so I went in. The class didn't return within a reasonable length of time so after 10 minutes or so I spoke to a TA who said the class was practising for an end of term production. I didn't want to interrupt and thought all class members would be involved. I was really angry though. I understand perfectly well how busy teachers are ( I am one) but I couldn't see why the teacher couldn't have left me something to do which didn't involve working with pupils or at best left a not saying they were in the hall. When I left the school I left the teacher a note stating that I am a busy person and that it is frustrating to take the time to come and help and not be needed. It wasn't rude but I am wondering if I should have. I got a reasonably polite email back stating that the end of the term is busy and timetables change at short notice but I do feel that it was rude and that an apology would have been in order.

There you go. Another poster questioning her motives. What about the simple "they've asked for help, I'm in a position to give it, I'll say yes"? Is our world so fucked up that everyone has to have a selfish motive now?

And if they don't want her help, navy, the polite and professional thing to do would be to say so.

We very rarely get any choice in having volunteers in the classroom. I've had them turn up at random at my classroom door with no warning before because the Head decided "oh they can go to Suffolk". In my end of the school we don't get helpers as such but those who want to train as teachers themselves, I'm always happy to help where I can but if I don't know they're coming then I can't drop everything to babysit them. I had one fantastic volunteer who was told to come to me and could see it hadn't been planned with me before hand. She got straight into things, worked with a table and was worth her weight in gold because she took the initiative. She also worked with small groups to rehearse their scenes for our production so that's not really an excuse either. She'll make a fantastic teacher and I'm sad to lose her as she's doing her SCITT (or whatever it's called these days Schools Direct?) in September

Oh right, so she doesn't want her help so.instead of raising this with the head she's decided to be rude and snippy in the hope the OP takes the hint and stops coming. Nice.

OP YANBU. It's rude and disorganised not to respect the time of someone who is giving it up to volunteer. The fact that teachers are busy (like many other professionals) doesn't excuse this. Nor is the question of whether the teacher wants the volunteer there relevant to how that volunteer should be treated. What a ridiculous thing to suggest.

I have been a grubby capitalist and have worked in the third sector, but my particular role would certainly put me firmly in the grubby capitalist camp. Most recently I've worked in heritage & culture where volunteers are a part of daily operations. And I can say with absolute certainty that it is not only in teaching where volunteers and their contributions are not always needed, wanted or respected. It's sad but it's true. Especially where an organisation has targets for volunteer engagement it can be particularly bad. I've also worked in the creative industries, and I've seen the same there, where someone up the foodchain has said yes to intern and volunteer programmes, without thought for those people managing those volunteers on a day-to-day basis, and as a result the volunteer gets given a list of mindless tasks to do, which sometimes didn't need doing in the first place. It's not slways the case, there are good and bad stories in all sectors, but it does happen. It happened to me in the creative industries.

All of our volunteers would have gone into the hall, waited for a suitable moment then asked the teacher if there was anything she wanted doing e.g. Crowd control, taking a reader to the side while not performing or some mundane task in the classroom. As a teacher yourself, I'm surprised you wouldn't have taken this initiative

We obviously disagree, but to me it's just about basic courtesy. If you have wasted someone's time you apologise, however hopping mad they are. Failure to do so has here soured the relationship with the op, put her off volunteering in the future, and put off anyone else she may tell about her treatment who might think that is an unattractive way to be treated. Which happens to be a number of us on this thread. Managing poor staff or trainees or whatever is a part of any job. Sometimes it takes more time thsn it's worth but it is still no excuse for treating them rudely. No different fir volunteers.

It's not just volunteers teachers occasionally forget to communicate with... They also forget to inform, eg, peripatetic music teachers when they are taking their students out of the classroom to somewhere they can't be found... or to tell parents about school trips in time for parents to cancel school meals, etc. I've decided it's just a hazard you have to accept as it is hard to remember all the things you have to juggle all day when dealing with young children doing multiple activities. So long as their hearts are in the right place and they don't give the impression it's personal! Unfortunately, as this thread demonstrates, sometimes it might actually be passive aggressive, which is frankly pretty disgusting.

What are sockies?

lol Is the first on the list of priorities to "let Sandra know we won't need her this week?"

You don't sound like showed much initiative, OP. Did you look round the classroom the first time to see if anything needed tidying (someone mentioned pencils sharpening etc). When the head suggested you wait in the library did you get on with straightening the books or just sit there fuming?

The second time, why do you say you didn't want to interrupt? I really can't understand why you didn't wander down to the hall and see what help was needed there with the usual class . You sound really inflexible, as if your usual routine is to go the classroom so that's what you were going to do whether the class were there or not! If you are a teacher you must know what the end of term is like and that a bit of flexibility is called for st this time.

Hasn't it also crossed your mind that it may not be the case that the teacher forgot about you, or that she resents you or whatever silly ideas people are coming up with (although to be honest from your tone and attitude I can see why she MIGHT resent your presence!). She might have been walking past the office in a hurry and said "I've got X coming in later, we'll be in the hall." And the office staff haven't quite grasped that that means they should inform you - they may think you already know or it could have been somebody else on duty in the office when you arrived who didn't know about the class being in the hall.

There is no consideration of all this from you at all. Then for you to do that snotty email. Jesus...

Part of being a volunteer is appreciating sometimes your help isn't needed, or your presence is causing a hindrance rather than a help. I know you called in advance but maybe the admin got it wrong and couldn't find the teacher so just said "come in". Could you have not found the grace just to find something else to do or go home? I think you are 'bigging' up your importance to the school.

Perhaps the fact you are a teacher makes the teacher feel uncomfortable, have you given off vibes like 'that's not how WE do it', or 'I would do that differently'?

Lastly, just want to add - I work in an office - the last thing I would do is volunteer for free IN ANOTHER OFFICE!!!

I'm with Yoda... From reading your posts I don't think that you are a teacher. I am. I'm an English teacher and your posts are littered with grammatical errors and missing punctuation. If you ARE a teacher in the UK you have a lot of work to do on your written English because the level of errors is worrying.

I've volunteered for over 6 years at my local village school. Thankfully ive never come across a teacher as rude as someone the ones on this thread!

Yes, a teacher has sometimes forgotten, because of a very busy time, but only someone rude and arrogant would think they shouldnt apologise.