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.

What's the excuse for the lack of apology though? Mistakes happen but that's the bit that tips into downright rude.

And for all the people sneering at thought for the volunteer's time being a priority. What about all the times the op has had to prioritise the fact she's committed to helping at the school over her own stuff?l guess from now on she just shrugs and thinks "lol, as if I have time to consider whether they're all sitting there waiting for me to help make paper mache fish. Someone else's problem" and carries on with her day?

YABU but only a little. It's just one of those things that you need to just dismiss and move on from. Yes it's annoying and an apology would have been great but the teacher is probably busy, stressed and having trouble fitting in all the end of term antics in to the class timetable as it is without receiving notes from volunteers. You are not in the wrong but it's not really worthy of a post here even. Just move on and volunteer again in the new school year.

I'm still unsure what was upsetting about the first incident? Wherever the class were, they would have a teacher with them so just explain to the teacher who you are and have they anything they would like you to do?

LongestLurker What about all the times the op has had to prioritise the fact she's committed to helping at the school over her own stuff?

If you don't have time don't volunteer then!

Also, I volunteer as a parent help is slightly different to being an official volunteer requiring DBS vetting and training.

Doesn't anyone and everyone helping out/volunteering in a school require a background check? I thought they did.

OP, where was your initiative?

I find it extremely difficult to believe that OP is a teacher (I am a primary teacher).

If you were told the class were in the hall rehearsing, surely anyone with an ounce of sense would have gone there to see if the teacher needed help. Another adult to do crowd control would be invaluable - as you should know. If the children were all being delightful angels, the teacher would have asked you to tidy classroom/sharpen pencils/make props etc.

Did you not consider that it was you being rude by not going to meet teacher when she was expecting you? Should she stay in her classroom all day waiting for you to turn up?

I've had plenty of volunteers. A great one, who uses their initiative, is worth their weight in gold. One who needs direction at all times - like you sound to be - makes my job twice as hard.

It's the end of term. That's not an excuse for rudeness but the reason why classes are all over the place, often at very short notice.

Ah, my favourite sort of AIBU....

AIBU
Yes
NO I'M NOT
Harrumph/flounce/bicker/say assenters are nice, dissenters nasty*

*delete as appropriate

Teaching part time and fetching DGD from a distant infant school each Friday I offered to come in at lunchtime and volunteer for the afternoon. The apparently affable head agreed, the authority paid for my CRB certificate. When I turned up with it I was told no one could use me. On a Friday afternoon? In an infant school? I was willing to do anything needed. What a waste of the cost of the CRB.
I nervously spoke to the head of the separate junior school (known as Dragon Lady) who was delighted. Result: four years of being useful: mending books, hearing readers, getting stuck in to art activities and much more. Then Friday afternoon chained to Activity Afternoon. I was given free rein to run drama with a TA (she had no experience of drama) to help. The pupils had fun, I had fun and by the time DGD left in Y6 the TA, who also had fun, was confident to take over.

ChainedX - changed

I stopped helping at my ds last school quite quickly. I was the only parent helper in the school and was assigned to help five classes. That meant I was given a pile of stuff in a prep area with cryptic comments attached. I never saw the teachers and was never thanked for the hours of work I did. I remember carefully backing a pile of pictures and attaching names but some had been trimmed and the names cut off so I backed them and put them aside to be identified. The teacher swept in picked up the pile and told me I shouldn't have backed the others as she could have worked out the names then swept out without letting me explain. Then the office told the teachers not to give me work one week as they had stuff for me to do - but that barely took me half an hour. I was putting my dd into breakfast club and driving ten miles to volunteer. I stopped after a term - then their next newsletter was asking for parent volunteers!

OP I can't understand why, on the occasion when you were told the usual teacher was away, you didn't just go and find the class and introduce yourself to the supply teacher. Why bother the head who might well have been as busy as the office staff?!
The next week, as others have said, you could have just joined the class at their rehearsal. Perhaps you take yourself a little too seriously.

For incident 1 - the teacher being sick - then no, I wouldn't consider contacting the parent volunteer. The idea is that I should call in sick and then go back to bed. My classroom daily schedule is on the board, and the volunteers should know their role. If the CRT decides to change the schedule, or the school doesn't get a CRT in and distributes the students across other classes, then the CRT or school needs to manage that. If I'm sick, I'm generally really sick, so not going looking for a parent's phone number. The CRT will have my lesson plans and know when things are planned to be done and when, so any responsibility for changing that is not on my head.

Incident 2 - I'd have expected the parent to come over to the hall and see what they could do to help out there. I'd have either asked you to take some children aside for reading, or work with small groups on part of their performance. I do tell parent volunteers to look at the schedule on the board if we're not in the room when they arrive as it will show what we're doing.

Parent volunteers in the younger primary years are very valuable, but generally less so in the upper primary years. I would not want someone, declared teacher or not, doing my admin. If I've got laminating to do, I've probably already done it at home. Students can sharpen their own pencils. They are most useful if they have a particular skill to offer (the parent who was a dance teacher and was able to help with choreography for our performance, or the parent who helped me getting the children to film and edit their own performances).

They need to be there to help out the teacher, not make the teacher more work by having to come up with jobs for them to do.

Good for you Beezie.

I teach secondary so we don't have parent volunteers in school, though I would love some help with wall displays, admin and tidying. Infant/junior teachers are lucky to have TAs and parents in. The least the parents can expect is an email if they are not needed- how much time does that take? Two minutes?

I agree, the op is not a teacher.

It is not really a question of having time or not, is it? I don't imagine there's an army of parents just sitting at home wishing they had more to do. There certainly wouldn't be at our school. Last week they wanted help with craft. I'd have had to take the day off work or pay for extra childcare. Everyone else is in the same boat. Who steps up? Not me this time but too right i would have been annoyed if I had and it had been canceled and no one let me know. A regular commitment is even more of a pita to work around but people do it because they are balancing the needs against the shoulds and there are decent people put the shoulds above the wants. If there is no need for this help then please, please stop people asking for it.

I understand you Pearlman. That is absolutely no excuse for discourtesy to the volunteer. We have all had unreasonable or incompetent bosses. You tackle it head on or you make the best of it.

YANBU

I help out in my DD's school once a week.

It is a manic last half term period and every time I have attended they have been expecting me (including with different teachers in the classroom) and fitted me into their activities.

It absolutely shouldn't be hard if you're there to do anything.

Chopsticks: honestly, it is so hard for non teachers to understand that there are days when you literally do not have two minutes.

Pearlman- did you read my post? I do know what it is like in school. I am a secondary teacher and have been for 25 years.