Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Original poster

School msg inset day tomorrow less than 24 hours notice

172 replies

JustJ18 · 15/04/2018 14:32

I have just recvd msg that my Grandsons school is having inset day tomorrow. txt msg arrived at 1.30 pm Sunday afternoon. There is no notice given on schools website, I have searched all letters info prior to Easter Holidays, no notice given. How can this be acceptable. I am now desperately trying to find cover, both sets of grandparents working, friends and other family members are working and can't do at such short notice. Any suggestions? Should I take him anyway as Teachers will be there?

OP posts:

My38274thNameChange · 16/04/2018 18:04

Ha, this reminds me of the almighty cock up at DS school last year.

Term dates were published and communicated throughout the year. Very clear on the website too.

A week before the end of the summer term, they send a revised term date letter home saying the term was ending 3 days later than we’d been told. We’d booked a holiday for the first week of the summer holidays!

Rang the school expecting a fight but his three absence was authorised. Apparently we weren’t the first set of parents to complain

Saj1988 · 16/04/2018 18:06

No. Schools are not babysitting services.

Highhorse1981 · 16/04/2018 18:06

I think the school just sending out a reminder and the OP missed first time around

Highhorse1981 · 16/04/2018 18:15

Op if you’re about to complain I think you’re about to seriously embarrass yourself

simiisme · 16/04/2018 18:27

Never heard of this. School's generally issue term dates for the full year at the start of the year,including the INSET days.
If it really is an error on their part, not yours, you still should not take your grandson in; nobody will be available to babysit him, they will all be in meetings / training - they may even be off site.
Speaking as a teacher - our INSET was today and was not on the school site.

PuppyMonkey · 16/04/2018 18:28

Think again Highorse and perhaps RTFT.

ForalltheSaints · 16/04/2018 18:30

I agree with complaining to the Governors. The new head taking up the position was not an emergency though, and if the school has said this then this should form part of your complaint to them. Lack of planning or forgetfulness is not an emergency, and indeed if they think that then you could ask what other poor definitions of the English language they use.

ThanksForAllTheFish · 16/04/2018 18:36

Out LEA decides and publishes all dates including inset days in advance. I can check in July all the school dates for the upcoming school year right through to summer holidays. It is a massive help when it comes to planning childcare. I do appreciate this isn’t the case everywhere though (but I think it should be).

The only time DD’s School gave us such short notice for School closure was when an electrical fire broke out in the School on the Sunday afternoon.

Luckily it was at a time when a janitor still lived in the dedicated janitor house on site (House is now gone sadly) so he noticed the fire pretty quickly and the fire brigade managed to put the fire out before it spread through the building.

DD coincidentally was unwell with scarlet fever at the time so I had already arranged time off work but it would have been a real headache otherwise. Totally understandable due to the fire damage but still massively inconvenient for many parents to find childcare at such short notice.

crocuspie · 16/04/2018 18:40

Are you saying we can't rely on children being given letters because they don't always get the letters, or because they get them and don't bring them home? If the latter I don't think that's really the schools fault.

BoomBoomsCousin · 16/04/2018 19:02

It's an insecure method of communicating with parents. It's known to be insecure for many reasons. Children don't always get letters. Some children are not good at getting anything home, some deliberately don't give them to parents. Lots can happen to children and their bags between leaving school and getting to the parent in an evening. Even more than schools not being childcare, children are not a messaging service. Sending letters home with children is a reasonable part of a communication strategy, but relying on it for vital information would be irresponsible, especially where contradictory information is also published by the school.

DD43 · 16/04/2018 19:17

I would be well pissed off at only 24 hours notice of a day for teachers to skive inset day. Not sure what advice to give you if you don't have anyone to help, (and you cannot take him to school obviously!) But don't hesitate to keep your boy off without permission if you fancy a trip to the beach one day. They do what they want and don't give a shit, so you should too.

Mazzystarlett · 16/04/2018 19:20

If the school wasn't expecting to have new head then I can understand the emergency, if they were then someone has cocked up somewhere. If you feel the need to complain, the school will have a set complaints procedure in place for you to follow. It should be on their website, or they will have details in the office. Don't think that writing to the Governors will bypass that, they will just direct you to the complaints procedure (I'm a Governor and we're told to do that so all the correct stages are followed and are checkable).

WannaBeWonderWoman · 16/04/2018 19:21

Wish I'd seen this thread yesterday and checked that DC4 was definitely back at school today.

DH found the school closed when he ran with him as he thought he was going to be late took him this morning. I normally put all school dates straight on the calendar so I don't know how I missed this until I went through the parent mails and found it at the end of a Feb newsletter. Our school do not send any reminders out at all sadly.

This is the 2nd time we've taken poor DC4 (7) to school when it was closed . We managed to get our older 3 all through primary and secondary without it ever happening to them.

At least his PE kit and reading diary are ready and he got a McD's out of it!

HellyBelly42 · 16/04/2018 19:23

And there were at least 4 other parents with kids in uniform that DH saw on the way home .

PipLongStockings · 16/04/2018 19:25

We had the opposite, message went out Friday saying that contrary to the school website and published term dates, the school were now going back Monday instead of Tuesday
Asked DS and there were plenty of kids missing today

longestlurkerever · 16/04/2018 19:29

Piplongstockings be warned you are now going to have a whole bunch of people telling you that couldn't possibly have happened and it's you with the poor organisation skills

IncyWincyGrownUp · 16/04/2018 19:29

Our school had a very well publicised inset day last week. Didn’t stop a handful of parents expecting to just be able to leave their children at school because the teachers were all there anyway.

LifeBeginsAtGin · 16/04/2018 19:41

It's an insecure method of communicating with parents. It's known to be insecure for many reasons.

Many us managed pre technology.

BuggerOffAndGoodDayToYou · 16/04/2018 19:42

The fact that the summer term started at my school today has been on our website for a year. It was on the term dates letters given out last July and last September. It was on the newsletter sent out a couple of days before the end of term. When I rang around our 6 missing children this morning, four parents told me that they had assumed it was inset day and two didn’t even answer the ‘phone! Our onsite caretaker turned away one family who showed up for school on Good Friday!

BoomBoomsCousin · 16/04/2018 19:46

Many us managed pre technology.

Many, but not all. Hence the "insecure" rather than "never works". "Pre technology", and even post technology in schools that fail to take their responsibilities as seriously, some letters did not make it to parents. Much information was lost and occasionally vulnerable children were severely disadvantaged because of it.

lalalalyra · 16/04/2018 19:52

Thanks for advice, I will formally complain to Governors, it was due an emergency of new head taking up position, hopefully this will resolve their abysmal lack of communication in the past and sort out their website for future. We cannot always rely on our children being given letters to take home.

Did you know there was going to be a new head?

Parachuting in a new head and them calling an INSET day over the weekend sounds like something major going on.

PattiStanger · 16/04/2018 19:56

Bigger off - those parents might be like the poster above who thinks terms start on Tuesdays

BlueAnchor · 16/04/2018 20:03

I am surprised that so many if you still think that the LA is responsible for your schools. If the school is an academy it is no longer under LA control and doesn't need to conform to any set dates, including locally agreed school holidays.

BuggerOffAndGoodDayToYou · 16/04/2018 20:50

Even when we were a local authority school the LA had no say on our inset days! Inset days are set depending on what training is required and when the trainers can be booked.

crocuspie · 16/04/2018 21:51

Dd43 have you something to actually say about teachers having training days that were, you know, taken out of their holiday entitlement? I assume you don't want your teachers having any on-going training?

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6 7