generic email from school - could apply to either sibling

[Hrafnkel]

I received a generic email obviously sent to several (20ish) email accounts. Your child has been nominated for something, please come to an assembly on Friday.

I'd already mentioned it to older dd and praised her up, when it occurred to me that it might be dd2. I didn't think of dd2 straightaway as she is in year r so wasn't sure if they were doing the same stuff with them.

I emailed to clarify, pointing out that naming the child where there are sibs is pretty important. The response was that 20 emails take too long to personalise.

Aibu in thinking that it should be personalised to avoid confusion? I could have waited until the assembly tomorrow, I know, but since dd1 hasn't got a lot of individual recognition from the school, it's something I like to praise her for in advance.

I have twins I get a lot of your child has bumped their head today texts.... often followed by another text saying the same thing where the little buggers have head-butted each other I only know at pickup time which one it was..

Another teacher complaining about schools.

We have, for a long time now, been our own worst enemies.

Thanks bizzie.

Sorry, I didn't realise I wasn't allowed to say anything against my kids' school because I am a teacher. I will refrain until I change careers

Thanks bizzie

Yoda/casual: I had contact with the school, not any other type of organisation. I would expect the same from any organisation, school or not. My school has 1500 on role; dds' school has less than 200. Not really comparable. And as I've said, I do somethings ring home about these sorts of things. Being a worker and being a parent are two different things.

Ds was nominated, his notification came to Dear Parent of Child's Name.

And there were 100 children nominated for stuff. UANBU

Our school wouldn't be specific as to which child for an email about an award because they don't want you to ruin the surprise for the child but neither do that want you to miss it.

they are meant as invitations to attend and if parents would respond to an invite to an assembly without needing to be informed why we'd just send invitations to those parents who we don't want to miss out on seeing in school rewards.

At our school it would absolutely make a difference as to which child had got the award because the whole school has assembly on Friday but in different halls. If my year 1 child had the award I'd need to go to the sports hall for their assembly, if it was my year 3 child who had the award I'd need to go to the dinner hall. Not saying which child it was could mean you miss their award by being in the wrong hall.

It really isn't that hard to say which child it is on the email, by not doing so there would potentially be an extra 20 phone calls that the admin staff would need to answer and look at which child has the award and so making work for themselves by trying to save time.

it would have been nice to know which child - but it's not that big a deal, really.

When my DCs were both at the same primary school, their assemblies were at different times. I work in another town, I really would have needed to know which child so I could make effective work arrangements.

Our school send texts saying things like "making roman villas in class, please send in junk for building materials" - without saying which child or class need the stuff. It is annoying. They have started getting the teacher to sign the text, which helps enormously.

It depends which system the school uses.

At my old school we would send by ParentMail and it automatically inserted the child's name - however trying to get all the parents to sign up for Parentmail was a bloody nightmare and the amount of parents that 'missed' emails or changed email addresses without telling us was ridiculous.

New school uses Teachers2Parents and it sends generic texts (of only 160 characters) so names don't get inserted. All the parents have signed up because they'd rather have a text than an email, but the system is fiddly and limited.

(And yes, it is a bloody mare to personalise 20 emails on top of everything else that needs to be done, I think some parents have no idea how much work is generated for school admin)

YANBU