To want to drop and run at school?

[Cuppaand2biscuits]

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?

This is one of the most hilarious things I've seen a long time...especially being held ransom until the tambourine tolls.

Of course I'm laughing from the comfort of my car as I watch my DS go in through the school gate. He is in Y6 and I've been doing this for 6 months. His school doesn't even encourage you to talk to the teachers in the morning

Shudders

Btw I do accompany my DD, just in case my last post read as me still snoring in bed, while DD gets herself up and lets herself out, like some poor forlorn neglected kid.

Not RTWT but at our school, parents were only allowed in to settle children for the first term in Reception. From January onwards (spring term) parents had to send children in alone, dropping them off at the outside door where they were welcomed by their TA's. (was fine with me, classroom so busy and my DS perfectly capable of making his way along corridor to classroom and taking own coat off, etc).

Any need to chat with teacher - would ask TA on morning duty and she would let teacher know for chat after school pick-up. All worked fine.

By Yr 1, the children should be more than capable of getting themselves into class and coats off etc.

YANBU!

"His school doesn't even encourage you to talk to the teachers in the morning"

We're not even allowed through the gates! It's "Leave your kids there then piss off, parents."

Our Foundation had to ban parents from going into the classroom because it caused chaos - too many bodies around and not enough space.

Are there other parents who also hate this new routine? I'm envisioning you all going in dressed in rainbow colours and really going for it like something off kids TV. They'll drop parent participation so bloody fast......

Just quote HSE and Fire Regulations.

There is no way they can have any idea of how many adults, pupils and non-pupil children are in each class if this is happening each morning.

I'd flag this with the head and put a stop to this bollocks immediately.

And what about safeguarding?? And if there was a fire there would be absolute carnage- each parent would be trying to get their own child out, whilst the teachers are trying to follow the evacuation procedure. What a stupidly, ridiculous idea!

I'm actually laughing out loud imagining DD's teacher Wakey Shaking with anyone, (even children).
She is lovely and an excellent teacher but very well presented and pricise. She is not the Wakey Shakey type and I am just fine with that.
If parents simply stopped staying for this surely it would just gradually fade out.

OMG sounds hideous. What about childminders/ parents with children in various classes?

I'd invent I had a case of nits or something that would unfortunately mean I didn't think it appropriate to go into the classroom full of kids & siblings.

My DS is only 3 and in preschool. Parents are welcome to come in. Look what their child is doing, help settle them if necessary (but staff usually encourage you to leave ASAP if they are clingy), chat to staff, look at folders of plans for term/ week etc. Sometimes I linger, but normally I'm a drop and run, sign the register, nod at member of staff and wave as I walk out the door kinda mum. I have a job and I work in the time he is out of the house, every minute counts when Im busy.

Once a half term I could do. Every day...? Not on your nelly!!!

Strewth. I can't believe parents have gone along with it and that many adults were even able to (average adult dropping at our school has 2.5 children, lots are childminders). I'd be citing access concerns and that it would be scary and overwhelming for children (and adults) with ASD and prevent children calmly settling in for the day.

No parents in classrooms here except for volunteer readers and parents evening. Reception kids get shoved in the classroom door, Y1 line up at their classroom door, Y2 upwards have places to line up in the playgrounds.

I'd definitely be encouraging a posse of mums to have urgent work meetings every morning so they couldn't do this. Even if the urgent work meetings were with some cups of coffee in the caff on the corner.

Horrific.

I wouldn't get into a discussion about it, OP. Just drop your DC off at 8.55. Others will start doing the same and it will peter out.

And the poor teachers will breathe a massive sigh of relief.

Would it be wrong for someone to set the fire alarm off mid wakey shakey just to prove a point?

Oh hell no. Even if I had time I wouldn't be tolerating that shit. Drop and run.

How strict is this routine and can't you just ignore it? Well, I know that to some extent your child may feel bad for being left alone, but it is rather absurd if they expect you to do this every.single.day!!

Summit also it is encouraging people to be roaming around the school premises unchecked, if streams of parents, childminders and siblings are in the vacinity.

liz70 It does but this parent thought he'd chance his arm/doesn't think rules apply to him/possibly has a cultural attitude that rules only usually apply.

So what happens if a child is dropped off by a childminder with more than 1 child to take?
It singles them out and may make them feel like "my mummy/daddy doesn't do this, but my friend's mummy does!"

It sounds ridic and very unfair for those who then need to leave for work OR have clingy children

Sounds like a recipe for chaos and prolonged tearful goodbyes in some cases.

What stops you just dropping the child off in time for the 8.55 start?

What will they think of next? I got cross enough when I was told I had to take my reception child (who was mad keen to get into the classroom) right up to the door rather than just say goodbye to her at the gate of the reception playground. There may have been eye-rolling.

But faffing about in the classroom too? What if you've got a job to get to or another child to get to playgroup, or a manic dog to walk, or all three? Or just don't want to do it?

Bugger that.

I used to find it hard enough to 'shake off' parents in the morning, teaching Y3, let alone younger, so feel sorry for the teachers too, in this regime.

Maybe I am an old fart but this all seems so spineless to me. Sooner they get used to being dropped - and promptly left - at school, the better, surely? All the 1930s' style health n fitness 'wake the brain up' drills strike me as BS, as well. My kids' infant school gave me evils for still dropping my kid off when he'd been stung by a wasp on the way to school. It was a wasp sting, FFS. They needed to get a grip. He lived to tell the tale and of course, now he's 16 and has no memory of this anyway.

I'd drop my child and leave them, no question. The ones who are grown up have turned into perfectly functioning, capable adults. I bet the teachers secretly loathe it as much as you do, if that's any comfort.

scream emoticon. No. No. No.

I get enough wakey shakey running for the 9.09 train after doing drop and run. No way on earth would I be participating in forced jollity and dancing.

I can just imagine what the poor teachers really think.

We have to go into class too

It's Reception. I hate it. We have to go in, get the kids a sticker for lunch, help them choose another book, answer the "question of the day" and then put their picture on a skill they've done well at.

It's bloody chaos, 30 parents. I absolutely hate it.

The thing is, because everyone does it the kids get upset if you don't, because then they don't get put on a picture and they can't read question of the day.

What irritates me most is they have to do some of the stuff for the breakfast club kids, why can't they just do it for all of them?

Makes me hate the mornings.

Oh my god, I work in our school and can't wait to suggest this to the head later - she will wet herself!

We used to have free roaming parents on the premises in the morning, but after a 'Safeguarding' comment from Estyn we now have the dc dropped at the door, and it all goes smoothly in the morning. All the dc want to do is whizz through to the playground at the back!

(I didn't mean to imply that some of my kids didn't make it to adulthood because of my spartan attitude).

They all were promptly dumped at school from age 4, and none of them were permanently scarred - or even temporarily scarred by it. Primary schools need to wake up, alright.