To think my childrens school is not thinking of the working parent. To the detriment of the child?

[SayHelloToYourNewLUHuvahh]

At the end of every term and half term, so every 6 weeks, the school has a 'parents open afternoon' so the school opens its gates at 2.30pm and you can go and see their work at 2.45.

School would usually finish at 3.15.

My kids get picked up by a childminder who has several other children to pick up.

I got all my children's work home today and in bother their learning journals was a photo of them (separate classes, separate year groups) in their class with their work laid out in front of them, next to all their friends and all their friends parents looking at their friends work and them say there with an empty space.

It makes my stomach turn with guilt just typing that.

I asked a friend to look through my boys work as she passed just so someone looked, but she has 2 kids of her own so I doubt she'd have had min chance and it's not really the point.

Am I being precious?

And my point is i don't think schools are considering the impact on the kids who's parents can make it, especially the little ones who are only 4,5,6. Its still a horseshit sandwich for them to watch all the other p and gp of their friends traipsing around. I don't think the school can win but I wish it was limited to 1 per term.

There is this thing called 'annual leave' OP , and working parents can use it to attend at least one of these days per annum!

Know many teachers? Annual leave doesn't work in the same way.

Also there's only so much annual leave. Usually 4-5 weeks, in which you have to manage looking after your children in the holidays, have spare for if they are sick and cover these half days. There is genuinely not enough annual leave to cover everything.

Can anyone shed light on why the time expectation from parents has gone up precisely as the time parents actually have available has decreased? As a child of the 80s, I had a parent at home for most of my childhood and do did the majority. But there was none of this stuff. And yet now 2 working parents is the norm, constant attendance seems to be asked for. What's the logic?

I have been singing this one for years. Not one child in my class in school had a working mother. We never saw those mothers from one end of the year to the other - they were not expected to go in, to watch plays during the morning, view work in the afternoon, attend breakfasts etc. I managed to have a lovely school experience without having my parents there to watch.

Another thing is I think the system is unfair on people working shifts or low paid jobs where they simply cannot afford to lose 2 hours wages. I once sat at a thing in second grade where each child had written a book and read it out to the assembled parents. I said to a woman next to me "I sometimes wonder this is unfair to children whose parents simply cannot get the time off" I could spot 3 of them sitting there with no one in the audience. Her reply was "oh I think it is so important to prioritise this don't you think"

Well she worked as a lawyer in the Environmental Protection Agency. My guess is when she said "I'll be late tomorrow, event at the school" everyone smile benignly and said "Lovely" and her paycheck that month remained unchanged. I knew the lone parent of one of the parentless children and that parent worked in Target. Not so easy to announce that you'd be late into your shift tomorrow - a shift you were counting on to pay the bills.

I am also the parent who would spend time at other kids tables etc but it isn't the same thing.

but we can't stop stuff because parents work can we !?! I can't attend everything but 2 days of annual leave can cover 4 assemblies

And teachers - well yes that's different and they have more holidays to spend with kids - so that's a major advantage no ?

But yeah . It's can feel relentless

YANBU
Schools badly need to modernise and still seem to be run on the basis that all kids have a SAHM and one who is constantly available at the drop of a hat.
Schools should support working parents and their children and not penalise them in my opinion.
If teachers needed to be available in the evening once a month or so I would welcome this. Better communication utilising technology would also be helpful, as would scheduling and planning with a good deal of notice.

I understand why you feel bad but don't. Practicalities don't always allow you to be there. I think this is just one of the disadvantages about being a working parent

Can people REALLY not understand that some people are single parents, so no willing partner to take the afternoon off his family friendly job if you can't? That you might also not have parents, grandparents or siblings to attend in your stead?

Is that really so extraordinary?

No we can't stop everything, but we could be more flexible in our approach. Not every thing a parent needs to attend has to be held at 2.45pm. Alternate timings to give all parents a chance at being able to attend at least some of these things.

This gives me the rage too. It's as if everyone is presumed to have totally flexible work schedules, or a parent at home around the corner. I'm a teacher, 45 minutes drive away, and dh is a teacher an hour away. I asked what other parents did if they were teachers and they said "use their ppa time". I get an hour ppa a day, which doesn't even give me time to sign out of school and get there, let alone attend an event.
I feel utterly shit that my child will never have a family member at events, but there's nothing I can do apart from call in sick, and that's not exactly the done thing

Our local primary school did loads of these things. At least once a month there would be something happening where parents were invited in. And at Christmas it was more often. Really hard for those who work full time.

I have not RTFT entirely but YANBU.
You are attending the other events but this occurs at the end of every six/seven week half term. Couldn't they do just one?

I think this is an appalling way to treat children! I would formally complain actually.

There is absolutely no reason to have little children sitting there with their work out waiting for someone to come who won't be there.

Schools (school management) do this because they think it looks good for Ofsted. It isn't in many children's interest at all.

I can't really see the benefit to the kids of these things at all - plays I can, children getting the confidence to perform can be a useful skill, but your parents can look at your work at any point or watch you make biscuits etc.

Surely you could arrange to do this once or twice a year? As someone else said, a relative or friend could do it occasionally, or you could ask another child's parent to visit your dc briefly when you can't be there. When I worked as a childminder I visited my minded children's classrooms, even if I had two or three littlies in tow - even if just for five minutes. And the majority of children in the class won't have a parent there every time.

On the other hand, the photo thing sounds decidedly dodgy - I'd want to ask the teacher about that. If the teacher's young and doesn't have kids they may not realise the implications. On the other hand they could be just plain horrible!

Not everyone's employer is flexible with holiday and days off. Due to the staffing situation at my place of work, holidays and days off must be arranged months in advance and it is just not possible to skip off for a couple of hours here and there. Also the 4 weeks annual holiday is used to cover school holidays.
My children's school do almost everything during the working day, even the summer fair was held at half past 3!

The equivalent would be to not do it. Why do they anyway?!

Ofsted 2015

Effectiveness of leadership and management
137. The CIF sets out the overarching criteria for judging the effectiveness of leadership and management.
138. In making this judgement in schools, inspectors will consider:

• how well leaders and governors engage with parents, carers and other stakeholders and agencies to support all pupils

Hope this clears it up for you OP- turns out it's not all about you.

"Something like 80% of mums work and nearly all dads. Not everyone can get time off (I can't - I'm a teacher). So unless you're in an area with high unemployment or unusual numbers of SAHP, that's at best half the parents able to make it. " Only 29% of mothers work full time, 37% work part time, 33% are not economically active (source: ONS)

sayhello

YANBU.

Yanbu

In defence of the OP - who I don't even know and am not in her shoes

there's this thing called annual leave OP.....

Are you FOR REAL?

There's also this thing called ELEVEN WEEKS OF SCHOOL HOLIDAYS PER ANNUM AND ON AVERAGE FOUR WEEKS ANNUAL LEAVE IN MOST JOBS

Hang on, is this a thing these days? When my lot were at primary school we had parents evenings, that was when we saw their books. Why would we need to see them more often than that, especially if it means taking time off work? We saw many of the books anyway when they did homework. The whole thing sounds pretty pointless.

If Ofsted gives schools bonus points for this sort of nonsense, it needs to think again.

The d key keeps sticking on my keyboard, so demaning was meant to be demanding.

If your job doesn't allow, it doesn't allow. Why get het up about it? Open afternoon 6x/yr seems odd, though, don't school need to use the time for teaching instead?

In my 1960s-70s-80s childhood, everyone had 2 working parents. I thought a mom at home was a quaint anachronism. Still, I think any parent events were evenings -- not many of those. Most parents too knackered to come along very often, I suspect :).

If Ofsted gives schools bonus points for this sort of nonsense..

It does.

Having just seen DS complete first school year, I have been astounded by the amount of school days that are cut short by various activities which the parents are invited / expected to take part in.

For example - the last day of every term ends early, then there are open afternoons, carol concerts, school plays, sports days, music performances, inset days, not to mention school holidays of course. At our school, they all normally take place late morning and then children get sent home for the rest of the afternoon.

If you add up the economic cost of parents taking annual leave (even on an hourly basis) for all these occasions it's huge. It's also a huge source of stress for families, working out which or both parent will have to take time away from work. As raised earlier, single parents get dealt a very difficult hand in these circumstances and the assumption that everyone has a family member to simply step in (because a lot of them work too don't forget) is grossly misjudged. Another much overlooked issue is that so many events take place Thursday and Friday, meaning those who work PT on those days are disproportionately affected.

Personally I wholeheartedly think that schools should modernise and be more flexible with timing. I think each event should be scheduled by each school on its own merit and according to past turnout, but everyone needs to make small changes to try to achieve a more balanced and inclusive schedule of the very frequent events in the interests of the students, including the teachers.