I’m not BU just need help. To all parents, TA’s, teachers and all staff in schools

[Letsmaketheworldbetter]

I’ve just posted this in education but let’s be honest we all love a AIBU thread so I thought I’d post it on here hoping to get more responses as I genuinely need all your help. I’m sure a lot will want to voice their opinion.

As parents/school staff there are always improvements we would like to see for our child/children’s school. Some of you may think they are too irrelevant to mention, or you may not have the confidence to voice your opinions to your child’s teacher or your colleague.
I am currently working in a primary school and would like to make some improvements. I don’t have the authority to employ more staff or buy more resources, but I’m hoping I can make a difference.
I would like your opinions in case I have missed anything.
Thank you in advance.

When an after school club is cancelled tell the parents even if you are a high school; my dc had no phone with him (they are not allowed to take them to school) and so couldn't contact me to tell me it was cancelled. The school assumed they'd walk home and let themselves in - they assumed wrong.

If you want projects done, please don't set them as homework. They're stressful, take up insane amounts of time and favour the better off families with money to spend in Hobbycraft. You'll end up with a building full of works of art completed by the parents not the children.

Far better to have projects done in school, with parents contributing to the cost of the materials and perhaps volunteering their time if possible. If there is no school time for projects, then are they really necessary?

I am currently working in a primary school and would like to make some improvements.

So OP, what improvements do you want to make at your school? I just don't understand why you want to know what other people want to do with their school, when you already know what you want to do at yours. How will other's wishes at their school help you make the improvements you have already identified at yours?

Don't send children to school with Smiggle pencil cases that take up all the room on the table, cost a fortune and then have children in tears as pencils go missing. Cheap and cheerful is the way to go.

Big old home work hack coming:

DSs class get given their homework tasks for the whole term right at the beginning. There are a range of tasks, each described in just a few lines in each box of a grid e.g. design a maths challenge, make a rainforest in a box. They pick which one they want to do each week. When you know you have a hectic week coming, you steer them to the quick ones. They get two weeks for the big crafty numbers. You can plan ahead, make sure you have the crafty stuff laid in and get them cracking on with it at the weekend. It worked out so they didn't complete all the tasks by the end of term and a new sheet being issued, so you can potentially swerve the big crafty number if it's problematic for your budget or whatever.

Love love love this school.

They give plenty of notice for just about everything and never ask for money for trips (they're close to the city centre and they just walk to free stuff).

They are very aware of the time and money pressures on families.

They also have excellent attainment.

Communication- the key for me is consistency and advance notice. If I know that all events etc will be on a single newsletter at the start of term, great. If everything will be on the calendar on the school website at least a week ahead- also fine, I know to check each week. But if some things are on a newsletter, some on a stand alone letter (that I may or may not receive from my DC), some are just put on the website (sometimes as a news item, sometimes on the calendar and others not at all) I will end up missing something.
Understand that not all families have a parent who is at home/can take time off at minimal notice/works near to school. If all opportunities to get to know the school (parents evenings/school fairs/information evenings) take place before 5pm and with only a few days notice many of us will not be able to get there. This does not mean we are not interested.

Please don't punish children for the mistakes of their parents or other matters that they have no control over. Parents who decide to keep their child off school for no good reason are unlikely to be concerned whether the class get their attendance reward; their child might but he/she will not be making the decision. Children who have been ill/had medical appointments probably hate this already without missing out on treats. Similarly, competitions for the best homework project must be uncomfortable for those children whose parents don't bother or who don't have the skills/money etc to support this.

Understand that you've done it for years, but I haven't

Yes that's a good one.

I know that you have to bring food in for harvest festival and it happens in church and parents are welcome.
I know world book day is March and they need a costume.
I know where year 1 parents have to collect their children from (different to reception)
I know that the annual schools choir event happens at 6pm in the evening.

I know because I have been at the school for 9 years.
It is not my job to explain these things to new parents (Though of course I do, to the ones I meet.)

And conversely, it's not my job to explain it all to the new teachers either.

@jassmells it’s urban and two form entry

@flowerpot1234 this thread has actually been very helpful. Although I’m confident in what I’m doing there is always room for improvement. I believe parents are the core of a child’s learning, not the teacher. I believe parents need to lay the foundations and support the teachers in their learning. After I had children a lot of my views have changed.
Where I work I would like to improve
• communication with parents, including weekly overviews of what the children will be learning
• support from parents in their child’s learning
• improve behaviour management
• work with the SEN department to give children more support, delivered by TA’s
• better time management
• workshops for parents to deliver home learning

These are my main improvements I would like to make and also a few that have been mentioned on here.

@flowerpot I think this whole thread proves that a lot of people have the same niggles. Although issues are school specific they can all be very similar.

This is a very useful thread from a school staff point of view, thank you OK.

OP!

Letsmaketheworldbetter
@flowerpot I think this whole thread proves that a lot of people have the same niggles.

Well it doesn't prove it, but it supports it of course. But that's obvious and I wasn't questioning that.

I was simply wondering why a poster who says they know exactly what they want to improve in their school would ask other posters what it is they want to improve in their school as a way to help you implement your wishes. There's no connection. It comes across as "I want to improve my school and make a name for myself, I have no idea how, so I'll fish for other people's complaints about their school and apply that to my school even though they might not have the same issue".

yes yes yes to commmunication.
also to having (generic) consent forms o the website in case the one in the book bag has lost it's battle with a banana...

I'm sure the op isn't going to implement every suggestion! But getting ideas of issues that she might need to look into is no bad thing is it?
And lots are generic. I'm sure ALL parents want good notice about when they will need to pay for things/take time off for eg. You would think that would be common sense but it doesn't happen in my kids school. And the response of 'read the newsletter' doesn't help when only some of the events are in there and/or it is still in your 5 yos tray at school!
The main way I get information is when my kids mention something then I go on social media and ask the other school parents and they either say 'not heard anything about that' or 'yes x mentioned something about that as well'. Own clothes days only half of the kids are in own clothes because the information is only passed on through the kids who are as young as 4!

@flowerpot I’ve found it useful and so have others. If I wanted to make a name for myself I wouldn’t be writing an anonymous post on MN.
This is not a negative thread. You can air your opinions but if you are looking to attack something that doesn’t need attacking then please move on to another thread.

I've just remembered a really good thing my children's school does. They send out a list of all dates for school plays, parents evenings, etc at the beginning of the year. It makes a huge difference to us in planning time off.

Mine is all the events they put on for parents to attend. Reading week (turn up 15 mins early to read with your child before you collect. Of course if you have more than one child you are forced to choose between them..). Open days, parent engagement afternoon, great british tea party, class assemblies, quiz afternoon etc. It's lovely that the school encourage the parents to be involved, really. Not so lovely when you are a single working parent and your child is always the one without a parent there.

All the problems in my dc school stem from not having enough staff. Cost cutting etc.

Re homework, I really, really hate project type homework/unfocused tasks or mindless tasks.

Eg maths sheet. Loads of sums (fine) next to a picture along the lines of paint by numbers. So once you do the sum, you get the answer 74 or whatever but then you then have to search this fucking stupid big picture in order to find the blob labelled 74 and colour it in red. It took longer to find and colour the appropriate parts of the blobby picture than it did to do the sums. Plus, since the blobby picture was taking up so much space, there was no space to do working out. Frustrating and time wasting.

Do a poster on electricity. Crap. You don’t know what aspect of this rather large topic is needing to be covered/what the objective is. I feel like the objective is to issue homework without actually doing any planning. It’s an unfocused task which can take bloody ages for almost no learning gain. And lots of parental effort.

Construct a fucking castle out of recycling. Crap. Read a sheet about the structure and function of a castle and then label a printed diagram = fine.

Parent & ex governor.

If you have a complaint, use the procedure.

Offer workshops & briefings on any new gimmick way of teaching, so parents are up to speed.

Keep financial requests proportionate.

Say thank you.