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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To want to drop and run at school?

330 replies

Cuppaand2biscuits · 24/01/2017 09:43

My dd is 6 years old, in year one. The school got a new head teacher in September who implemented a new morning routine that I just can't get on with.
Old morning routine = Assemble in playgroup, bell gets rung, all children into lines, teacher leads into.classroom. Parents welcome to follow if children requests or they wish to speak with teacher.

New morning routine = Everyone assemble in classroom. Some mornings we have to choose a book and read with our children for 5/10 minutes other days it's 'Wakefield Up Shake Up' where we have to dance along to a bouncy routine! Then the tambourine rings and we kiss goodbye and leave.
Obviously I don't object to the interaction with my child but there's 30 pupils in the class, each with an adult and lots with a younger sibling or 2. It's too many people, it's too hot when we're dressed for the cold. It's a bloody faff!
Anyone else successfully challenged this sort of shit?

OP posts:
derxa · 25/01/2017 08:12

What child wants their mother waking and shaking in their classroom?

DameDiazepamTheDramaQueen · 25/01/2017 08:24

If you're late 2 or 3 times a week I would concentrate on that personally rather than how the school are starting their day.

We had this in reverse and I agree with sipping on the first page,it affected the school right down to the PTA .

I think the need to be a happy medium but DEFINITELY no singing and dancing!

StumblyMonkey · 25/01/2017 08:47

You're an adult - they can't make you do anything you don't want to do. End of.

If asked I would say 'I appreciate it's a nice start to the morning for the children however I have somewhere I have to be at 9am so it's not possible for me to take part".

Then leave and kiss and drop every day forthwith.

flumpsnlumpsnstuff · 25/01/2017 08:55

When dd1 was four and started reception I took her put her in the line and left Blush I didn't know you were supposed to stay to settle them in and wait for the bell. Her teacher grabbed me after a few days and told me I was mortified as apparently she could have wandered off and no one would have known.

Topseyt · 25/01/2017 08:57

Carry on with your Wakey Shakey then Charl. The rest of us have lives and no desire to begin the day leaping around like loons in a primary school embarrassing ourselves and our children.

I would never have done it and have always been very proud of my attitude of dump the kids at school and go. They seem to have survived somehow.

SparklyTwinkleGlitter · 25/01/2017 08:58

I'd love it if the school did this with the children in the morning but they definitely wouldn't include the parents. My DS gets up about 8.30 and we have a very short walk to school.
However, we are the only family that walks to school. Everyone else comes by bus or parents dropping them off. (The school is about a mile or so from the village).
Parents are held at arms length as far as possible here. We have a Parents Association that seem to exist to fund raise and organise a tea rota for church. The HT and teachers don't attend any meetings. I think it's a shame but the other parents accept it.
We're not in the UK.

merrymouse · 25/01/2017 09:06

Before wake up shake up it was 8.55 and following introduction of wake up shake up it is still 8.55

Only if the whole wake shake getting in and out of the classroom business only takes a nanosecond.

Also, it's another way to differentiate between working and non working patents. Children notice when everyone else's parents are doing something and theirs aren't.

FromIbizaToTheNorfolkBroads · 25/01/2017 09:08

Sorry but bollocks to that every morning!!

Dancing about in an overheated, over full, loud classroom every morning? I can't think of anything worse.

I can see that the kids might like it as it would wake them up and energise them ready to start learning but I can't see why the parents have to all cram into the class and join in!

Aderyn2016 · 25/01/2017 09:20

Charl, I'm pretty sure most of us do plenty of activities with our children. My own do 4 after school/weekend clubs and sports. I think I'm perfectly entitled to not want to add before school activities to that list, without some dozy mare questioning why I had kids!

AwaywiththePixies27 · 25/01/2017 09:52

I was dancing around the kitchen to Ed Sheeran last night and both my DS (7) and DD (10) were absolutely mortified Grin

They'd want the ground to swallow them up if I had to that daily in the primary school setting. Frankly our head isn't that batshit knows most parents have better things to do with their time, and knows that parents having work or other commitments which leaves them unable to dance to the tambourine in the morning isn't going to cause a significant detriment to their children. OP just say no.

HelenaGWells · 25/01/2017 10:06

What on earth? I've never heard anything so ridiculous in my life. Our doors open at 8.45 and close at 8.55. If you need to pass a message on you speak to the TA on the door. Otherwise you send your child through the door and go. School officially starts at 8.50 but they do 10 mins of settling down, register etc first and start about 9.00.

I imagine the teachers hate this. Getting kids settled is a nightmare, adding 20 parents just increases the nightmare surely? And what about the kids in breakfast club? Do they just sit there watching everyone else get stories with mum?

Try pointing out to them that it probably counts as regular volunteering activities within school and anyone regularly coming into school itself and being alongside other people's children should be DBS checked. That might stop it...

paxillin · 25/01/2017 10:10

why did you bother having kids at all

Certainly not for a chance to shake my booty to a tambourine before 9am.

elQuintoConyo · 25/01/2017 10:16

TBH if i did Wakey Shakey at my DS' school i'd floor the other parents - I haven't been in a dance-off that I haven't won. As long as I have enough space for my Worm, I'd be happy.

Natsku · 25/01/2017 10:26

PS "oxygenate the body ready for learning"? To be fair, ten minutes of intense exercise does improve concentration for lessons so wakey shakey or whatever it is, is actually a great idea for the children but fuck making the parents do it!

AwaywiththePixies27 · 25/01/2017 10:29

paxillin Grin

bellie710 · 25/01/2017 12:04

Mine get picked up by taxi so I don't go to the school, occasionally I will take them if I need to go into school but even then they are all dropped and said goodbye to in the playground.

liz70 · 25/01/2017 12:35

"When dd1 was four and started reception I took her put her in the line and left I didn't know you were supposed to stay to settle them in and wait for the bell."

We don't settle them in where I live (Glasgow). When my DDs started in P1, the very first day of school, all the children line up in their classes, while the proud parents/grandparents etc. look on. They're then escorted into the building by staff and parents, carers etc. depart. Parents only ever enter classrooms on parents' evenings.

kierenthecommunity · 25/01/2017 13:29

Does the school day still actually start at the same time but you're expected to be there 10 minutes earlier for this?

I struggle to prise my child out of the house as it is, getting their earlier would be a challenge

Our reception class said we could go in with them for the first fortnight but after a few days the staff were gently saying 'do you want to come in without mummy?' to the children and waving us goodbye Grin We wait with them in the playground now I've no idea what happens in Y1 and 2. Not sure I'd trust my child not to just bugger off if I left him in the playground Grin

We do have the odd first thing in the morning activity but that's probably once every half term. And we have to drop the children off at their door then go round to the main entrance and sign in

StripeySlippers73 · 25/01/2017 14:01

It's great that the head wants the kids to participate in wanky shakes or whatever, but for me and other parents who might not make drop off every day it's quite a nice 5 mins in the playground to catch up with other parents and find out what's happening in their lives. Maybe they should do it outside and the parents can chat and watch at the same time?

Natsku · 25/01/2017 14:21

It's great that the head wants the kids to participate in wanky shakes

I don't know about that...not sure I'd want my child participating in wanky shakes! Grin

Doyouthinktheysaurus · 25/01/2017 15:37

There would have been no fucking chance of me doing that with my dses. I used to do school drop off after a night shift, no way on earth would I be doing any wakey shakey wanky dance before I skip off to my bed! Plus I had 2 dses one year apart. How the fuck do people manage that?

Mine are older now thank god, all this twattery is very far behind me.

Cleanermaidcook · 25/01/2017 16:26

My kids school used to do wake and shake 3 mornings a week, wasn't compulsory for parents though, it was all the infants (so around 90 kids) and never more than 5-6 adults turned up, they dumped it this year...

Floey · 25/01/2017 17:26

And working parents do what? Sounds like a bag of sh**e to me. I'd love to see HT's response if her kid's school did this

lisiloo02 · 25/01/2017 17:29

My DD school implemented a soft start. It works a treat no loitering on playground at all, from 8.30 - 8.50 your child goes into class and gets prepared for their day or reads. Parents leave. Everyone happy 😀

ceeveebee · 25/01/2017 17:36

birds THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE IN THE TIME YOU CAN LEAVE YOUR CHILDREN.Before wake up shake up it was 8.55 and following introduction of wake up shake up it is still 8.55. If you were a working parent prior to this exciting innovation you used breakast club, that remains the same. There are numerous arguements why this is a bad idea but working parents and needing to be somewhere else is not one of them.

But it does make a difference. Those children whose parents can't come into the classroom (or attend nativities or assemblies etc) because they are at work may feel excluded or unloved. Don't you see that? Or is it too difficult to see through your blinkers?