To already roll eyes at the whingy school threads..

[Ditsyprint40]

Working in a school, and being totally inundated with both serious and trivial things..

What I've taken from some of the posts on this thread is that it is OK for parents to whinge about teachers but not OK for teachers to be the ones whinging.

Don't send children to school with stuff that you wouldn't mind losing?!
When the school jumper by itself costs £12 and you don't have a choice you don't want to lose anything.

I actually think some teachers have been unfair, the point about working more than an hour from school is unreasonable and shows that some people are out of touch with what the job market is like for many people.

My experience (come from a teaching family) is that some teachers are shockingly naive about the realities of work outside teaching.

Personally my ideal is never to have any reason to contact the school nor they to contact me. On the rare occasion I contact them, it's for a good reason, and I expect to be treated as the reasonable adult that I am.

Marigold, that made me laugh. The teachers at our lower school have started to be much smarter for school recently. Think high heels, short skirts, tight tops - there they are, wobbling around the playground. I just think, how are you going to kneel down with your reception kids wearing that?? It's like a competition. They used to wear leggings/trousers and flat shoe. Not any more

why not sit the "challenging" disruptive kids on their own facing a blank wall ? everyone's a winner ?? and when they prove they have learnt to work quietly allow them to sit with the others again ?

"What I've taken from some of the posts on this thread is that it is OK for parents to whinge about teachers but not OK for teachers to be the ones whinging."

Yep!

Cracking post OP. im a parent and have volunteered loads in school. I totally support all the teachers comments here. They are human, of course they get annoyed at the same old shit that they have to deal with. I have a job where i hear the same people whining about issues that they have been told about time and time again. I hugely appreciate the free/ subsidised state education we get in this country.

The hour thing - in 3 years at school DS has been ill and had to be collected early ONCE. And for that we are meant to spend 3 years hovering around the school checking our mobiles.

Some schools really seem to think that mums who work do it as a hobby and for pocket money. No, it keeps a roof over our head, it's not an optional bit of fun and if I refused to go more than an hour's travel from DS school I wouldn't be in a job. DB has moved house in the last year so they are lovely and close to school and DSIL works only a few minutes away. She has now been told her job may move to the other side of the city. She is contemplating changing jobs. No guarantee she can find anything within an hour of school with no travel off-site involved.

What I really don't get when schools have petty uniform rules, is when people come on and say "send them to a different school" as if that is actually an option! Where the hell do you live where you can just trot off to another school STILL WITHIN AN HOUR of your job? If you can, and the other school doesn't have equally petty uniform rules, you are exceptionally fortunate. I thank my lucky stars yet again that we left England and DS can go to school in jogging bottoms and trainers. Most kids wear conventional school attire. Some don't. They don't stick out. It's a happy school with good results and it doesn't matter what colour his socks are.

Finally, DS is the challenging child that no one wants to sit beside. It's miserable for all of us, including him. At times I am ashamed of his behaviour. This year's teacher seems to have him sorted. She is a miracle worker and I imagine we will remember her as a miracle worker for many years, possibly for life. She may never really understand what this means to us. Even if I tell her, which I will.

What bugs me about this sort of thread is the implication that teachers are the only people who have to deal with the more demanding/dozy end of the great British public. Tell that to anyone with a customer facing job and you'll get very hollow laughter.

... ringing this number not that number, remembering that I have a different name at work which apparently no-one knows ...

I have given the school an emergency contact number as requested. I expect them to use this number to contact me in an emergency. These days I refuse to give them my mobile number.

I do not have a 'different name at work'. I have one name I use all the time for everything. It is the name I was given as a baby - I have never used any other name. So, yes - I absolutely expect the school to use it.

I'm old and crotchety.

Too bad we no longer have school nurses with an "office" in schools anymore. It seems that now that both parents are likely to work with long commutes and thin local support networks, the school nurse has disappeared!

Also, primary schools are all tables. I'd like to see them individual desks in rows after reception. Much easier to stay focused on the teacher when you are facing her/him, rather than one of your classmates. I think this is justified through ideology, but actually driven by cost. Shame imho, it would help a lot with all the seating chart complaints, if everyone had a little personal space.

They all look lovely with new hair dos and smart, clean uniform. Not sure that the bright orange trainers look good with it ( I bet dad took him to school ) and it is a shame your mum can't be bothered to wash your yoghurt covered shirt from yesterday and so you have that bright t shirt on instead.

So dads are incompetent but that's ok because washing is mum's job! You do a really hard and important job and I admire you for that, but I hope you're not teaching the children these ideas.

Cocktail
We had exactly the same last year (reception) my DDs teacher used to wear the most inappropriate things. I'm all for expressing individuality and wearing what the hell you want but honestly we don't need to be sat in the hall watching our kids patent assembly with a hairy growler poking out every time she bends over!!

I agree with pretty much everything on this post....however, I think it really does work both ways. I get their are parents that go on and on about this that and the other but the majority bring things up because it matters to them and their child.

For example. My DD was getting bullied, by a friend! I'm usually pretty happy with sorting the situation myself, as in getting DD to play with other children etc but on a couple of occasions this particular child was really quite nasty. Her teacher did nothing! Nothing what so ever...sent my DD out crying and said she couldn't deal with it. Obviously I had words with the teacher and the head and if that makes me 'one of those parents' so be it.
I expect my child to be cared for at school I don't think that's too much to ask.

In the past one HT had enough of one particular set of parents who constantly sent their DCs into school while ill and refused to collect them when contacted. He considered it a safeguarding issue and contacted social services to collect the child after the parents refused. It isn't fair on the DCs to be ill in school or on the staff who cannot properly look after them while working.

Sending a child to school ill, or refusing to pick up is dreadful - I totally agree. But schools in this day and age should be able to deal with "I'll be there as soon as I can" without complaint. Many many parents would love to stay at home and not have to work and many many parents (especially mothers it seems) feel as guilty as fuck that they have no choice. Heaping on that guilt trip with the "how dare you not get to your child within 10 minutes" line is awful.

I'm taking some cakes in to my kid's school staff room on Friday and a big "Thank you - you ARE appreciated" card, I have done this before, but having read this, feel the need to do it again. Also feel the urge to offer myself up for some voluntary work. I'm a nurse, and would be happy to be on some sort of rota to go in and sit with poorly children while they wait for their parents...

Also, I would be happy to go in on a rota to to do the run a mile a day thing. ours can only manage it once a week.

I can't think of any other professional job where complaining on a public forum like this about "clients" would be considered acceptable.

This thread will be a dream for the Daily fail journo's.

Probably the wrong place to say so, but DD's school have been absolutely amazing during a critical illness in the family. I was able to see the headteacher and her class teacher in the morning before the first day of school to explain what the situation was; everyone is ready to pass on any messages to DD at any time, the HT has offered to have DD after school at any point if I'm stuck, and DD has come home from school happy every day.

They also know that if DD loses anything I will see it as her responsibility alone to get it back; they know that she has a change of clothes in her school bag in case she has to stay overnight at another house at short notice but has been told not to bring it out at school, and I'll go along with buying the ninth water bottle in two years (all the approved ones leak) because I know DD has some stability at school that she badly needs right now, and it's a huge weight off my mind to know that she's OK.

Is there a yawn emoticon?!

Because, schools teachers etc are all bloody perfect!!

"Not sure that the bright orange trainers look good with it ( I bet dad took him to school ) and it is a shame your mum can't be bothered to wash your yoghurt covered shirt from yesterday and so you have that bright t shirt on instead. The lie about her not having a washing machine or drier to the teacher didn't work out when I suggested she could have washed by hand ( shock , horror) and you suddenly decided you did have a washing machine after all but not a drier. Some bright spark suggested you hang it on a washing line perhaps you could pass that tip onto mum! "

So, you humiliated the child by discussing a yoghurt stain on a shirt (end of the world clearly nigh) in front of others, called 'Mum' a liar re domestic appliances and then suggested a 'better' version of her household routines (only 'mum' not 'dad' I see).

Sure you have time to, you know, teach???

No wonder Parents as well as children are fed up with being bullied like this.

You get salaries and pensions for this, but not medals.
If you don't like what the job has become, so change jobs.
LOTS of people don't like their jobs / what they have become, and they carry on or move.

Some really negative and nasty attitudes on here.

The clients are the DCs not their parents. Not many complaints about the DCs here.

I have regretted far more NOT raising issues. Often a pre-emptive strike sorts an issue out without being particularly onerous on the teacher whereas ignoring the problem can can cause difficulties that are harder to solve later on.

Oh yes none of us should go to work or in fact anywhere, how incredibly selfish! We should be stood still holding our phone ready for that "emergency" phone call, you know the one that usually says something like " little Johnny has a bit of a headache can you pick him up?" And shame on us if we aren't there in five seconds flat, we sure do deserve all the bitching that will go on in the staff room.

As well as, as others have noted, very unprofessional attitudes - ranting on about clients and their families.

The most vociferous complaint on this thread seems to be about the teachers placing trouble-makers with quiet children. I remember this from when I was at school (not generally a trouble-maker!)...

The idea behind it, that I'm aware of, is that trouble-makers need and have an audience in their classmates. If the trouble-maker is moved away from that audience, they stop after the initial attention-seeking strop post-move.

Do children not do group work anymore now? That was always the play when children were doing a task in a group - divide and conquer - separate the trouble-makers.

I don't think it's personal that a trouble-maker is moved next to a quiet or shy child, it just makes sense. The quiet child isn't being asked or tasked to do anything other than get on with their own work. It's the trouble-maker who is tasked with not continuing to disrupt and if they do, that's up to the teacher to correct.

This is a very interesting thread and it's not personally attacking anybody so I don't understand the hang-dog posts from some? It's not about you. Not unless you're 'that' parent.

And this thread illustrates the toxic attitude I referred to earlier.

Have some respect for each other.

Teachers complaining en mass about their roles is actually quite worrying. I appreciate that we won't hear so much from those who are happy, but it sets up a bad image for those thinking of becoming a teacher.

I'd love to go in to teaching but there is no way when teachers are basically vilified like social workers.

Teachers have become so defensive because government after government have demonised and belittled the profession.
Parents have got so entitled that they're joining in.

Teachers need to respect that it is tough being a parent today. Unless you're either married to someone rich enough to support one of you at home, or are on a low income so that it doesn't pay to work, parents will be working and just about keeping shit together.

It is hard juggling a family with children at school and both parents working.

So everyone, just have some respect for each other. We are all people for goodness sake.