To ask , as a parent , what are your pet peeves about school?

[SteveAs]

Inspired by the teacher and the school child thread

I will start

Schools closing at 2pm on Wednesday every week , such a pain

Def communication - and an assumption that you magically know exactly what the expectation is for certain events.

Also, first come first served things where the parents who pick up at the end of school fill out the form and put it into the office straight away so the children who go to after school care don't get in.

Junk modelling projects or any sort of modelling projects. Children not taught to draw margins, write the date, write the topic, leave a line between sentences in schoolwork and homework. Maths being done on blank page books rather than square-based ones.

They have my children too much for one, the holidays could be longer.
Crafty homework. They have a group of children all working on the same thing in a room with wipe clean floors. They have crafty materials etc. I have 4 children one of which is a baby in a rented house with non wipe clean floors, I don't do crafty shit. Please either skip the crafty shit or do it at school.
Staying open in the snow. Last week they cleared a tiny path to the office doors, stayed open but refused to let the children onto the playground because it was slippy and dangerous. But it was fine to force them to walk almost a mile to school in the slippy dangerous snow

My school don’t seem able to employ someone for long enough. First teacher at the start of school year lasted a few months before taking maternity leave. Fair enough.
Since then they’ve had 3 different supply teachers. We were told the latest teacher was able to stay until the end of the school year which was a total lie as she’s due a baby in may! Absolutely ridiculous.

Just the amount of stuff we get told we need to bring in at short notice. Like being told yesterday we had to bring in a shoebox and some pipe cleaners today. It’s a rural school and I saw pretty much every parent from ds’s class at Hobbycraft after school yesterday - a 40 minute drive from school. Who has pipe cleaners lying around ffs? I’d much prefer to give them £10 at the beginning of each term and for the teachers to sort it out. But that’s not possible obviously for everyone.

Also the assumption that every family has a sahp. At least once a week parents are invited into school for one reason or another. We’ve got a mother’s day surprise on Friday afternoon, they’ve spent the whole week preparing for it and I’d feel awful if I couldn’t go.

Dressing up for bloody book day.

Deciding to close for a snow day at 8.35am when we'd already walked to school in a blizzard.

Was waiting for this thread.....
Telling us two weeks before Xmas play what they should wear, which only gives us one weekend to sort it out.
Berating us if we work full time.
Looking down on parents.
Not involving parents.
Doing the same exact speech word for word before school play every year.
Not ever ever giving child a chance to say a few words at school play.
Always having same children do speaking parts every year, excluding others.
Saying children can only do three events on sports day, then you find out your child has one and all the others do five or six.
Only seemingly taking photos of teachers or T A' s kids for school twitter.
Telling you your child behaved badly six weeks after the event, and then looking at you as if it's all your fault and you have the worst child in the world.
I'm sure there is more, but that's what springs to mind now.

Oh and learning logs....how could I forget learning logs....telling us it's a wonderful opportunity for children to show what they have learnt and showcasing the best one on class dojo (which have obviously been done by their parents), when in reality you spend hours of the weekend trying to get your child put pen to paper.

Total lack of organisation regarding things like dressing up and children needing to bring things in. It's always last minute.

Communication is terrible. No way of actually speaking to staff because no staff are present at drop off and no parents are allowed into school at drop off. At the end of the day there could easily be 10+ parents waiting around to discuss something or other.

They ask us to come into school all the time to "spend time with children and look at work". I spend time with them outside of school at our home EVERY BLOODY DAY! And parents evenings are for looking at work and progress. Working parents find it so difficult to come in for an hour on a Wednesday at 1:30 to watch Paddington and share a biscuit with their children ffs. Explaining to a 5 year old that work couldn't let you have the time off is hard.

too Much communication 😂😂!!! So over the School APP that initially was an awesome idea but just beeps every hour with ever more bloomin demands....yes for the 50th time it’s swim carnival tomorrow and yes I will drop my child off at the pool by 8.15am, with bathers, goggles, towel, rashie, sunscreen, hat plus extra recess and lunch and gawd knows all the rest, leave me alone!!!!!

Secondary school art teachers who don't seem to understand that a 30 minute homework is meant to take 30 minutes not the whole weekend. (Draw 24 pencil sketches of insects ensuring you demonstrate a wide range of mark-making). Same art teachers who tell your child that they didn't spend enough time on said homework and to redo the lot. (They were right she didn't spend 30 minutes on it but 4 hours...).

Sen support, communication, nits and parking

Oh and uniform. 4 year olds do not need shirts and ties.

Current school - no complaints.

Previous school - communication and open disapproval of working mums:

HT: "I don't know how you do it, that's why I don't have any children".

i.e. women should choose between having a career and having a family. Why educate the girls at all? The boys can do maths and the girls can just practice pushing a pram. Unless they want to teach Reception, in which case come one come all, let's give these kids 5 teachers over the course of a year and then lecture me about how much DS needs consistency when we move away.

And on communication, bombard us with e-mail but fail to tell us what we actually need to know. If fruit is the only acceptable snack, just say so at the start, before DS is sent home with his cereal bar untouched.

Lots of cheery notice that World Book Day is coming not no telling parents what school will be doing for or what they expect parents to do. You should just know.

Not knowing is your punishment for having a career, as your child was in a nursery that was open 8-6, not the pre-school in the village that opens for 2.5 hours per day for the real mums that belong around here, and as you are never actually at the school, as it has no breakfast club or afterschool club, you're relying on a child-minder and after school club bus service YOU BAD MUM.

Also - buy tickets for school ball (yes!) from one of the PTA mums who'll be in the gym hall from 09.15. If you're 50 miles away in your third meeting of the day at 09.15 YOU CAN'T COME YOU'RE A BAD MUM.

Happily the current school is fantastic, completely different and when the HT leaves in a few weeks I might cry. The e-mails from the school office are pretty poor but they give the info you need in time so I don't care. I'm more than happy to turn up at PTA anything, sweep up at the end and take the bins out.

Are you allowed to say the other parents?

Primary school-communication, "please can your child bring in x tomorrow" texts do not work when you have more than one child in the school WHICH ONE????

Mean Ta's who tell your child to stop being so silly when they cry going into school....at 6 years old

Office staff who make you feel like shit for daring to ever ask any question ever, despite them being your first point of contact so you have no choice but to ask them first.

Secondary-losing forms then trying to blame my child, then try to blame the teacher, when you know it's the office so just accept responsibility fgs. Funny how the cheque made it to the bank ok.....

I hate mufti days that are themed (i.e. Christmas jumper day - when not all my kids had a Christmas jumper, or house colours day, when my childrens' house colour was yellow, which they look horrible in, and I had to buy t.shirts specially, knowing they would never wear them again).
Also, school trips that are so expensive - we live just outside London, and on more than one occasion I've had to pay £40 per child for my kids to go to London (and I have twins, so have to pay double) - We are not on the bread-line, but have to budget carefully, and £80 is a lot of money for us to have to find, so I'm sure it must cause real hardship to some families, or their children may miss the trip.
I feel even state education is very expensive - I don't mind paying for basic uniform, but really object to buying compulsory football boots/rugby shirts etc that may be worn twice in a school year.
My childrens' primary school asked for a "voluntary" donation of £30 per child - I didn't mind this, because in the newsletter we would read about things such as puppet shows or art worksops that had been funded through the donations, so I felt there was some accountability. However, my son's senior school demand £120 per year, with no real information about how this is spent, and I feel this is A LOT of money!
The other thing that annoys me is major school projects that are supposed to be done over a weekend, with parents facilitating. There seems to be quite a trend for these in my area, and I have had weekends completely taken over by these projects when we would have much rather taken the kids for a walk or a bike ride or done some baking with them (all of which would have been just as educational!) I find it a bit patronising of schools to somehow dictate how parents choose to spend the limited time they have with their children - it's almost as if they don't believe parents are capable of using that time in a valid way IYSWIM

Using Comic Sans for any kind of official letters or paperwork. Who the heck uses Comic Sans in a professional environment?!

Not supporting smart kids who finish the work quickly - teachers either stick them in the book corner or use them as unpaid teaching assistants to help other kids.

Communication is the 1 terrible thing.
Getting texts saying "your child" or "the school" 3 dc at 2 schools which one?
Last minute letters/texts about what it needed for tomorrow.
No lstter/ text and an upset child that you didn't come into school for something you know nothing about.
Arranging pta meetings 7pm in the pub (since stopped when they realised they were excluding single parents)
Asking for money. I swear sometimes I pay more to the school than rent.
Putting the ENTIRE school in the harvest festival so you can't see your child through other parents/dc.
Not letting dc out on time (especially in bad weather)
Having to pay for outside agencies to come in to do football etc. Why can't they have a teacher do it?
Nits

I'm sure there's more but that's all I can think of for now.

Shit communication unless they want you to do something for them, censorship of parents, waiting more than 2 weeks for an appointment with a staff member.

Projects

Double emails if you have 2 children. (Saying same thing)

The uniform. Hate it.

Projects and homework for infants. As if they can do it.

Dressing up days. Ffs I can't afford the costumes all the time and in winter it's to cold for flimsy outfits.

Bad communication. They seem to think we know all the details of everything they are arranging. WE DONT.

Assuming parents don't work. Bloody Mother's Day dinner I can't go to now. My dc is always so sad when as a single mum I can't do these ridiculous things!

Although a previous school arranged almost everything in the evening. So school plays, events, presentations, everything! So EVERYONE could go!! EVERYONE. Fucking brilliant.

Oh and uniform. Seriously outdated concept.

I hate uniforms. I hate seeing the head saying nothing to the children except "tuck your shirt in, straighten that tie" wouldn't it be better if he said "Hello how are you today" and let them wear clothes that are actually comfy and more practical!