To think this isn’t on (childminder and school events)

[PoutySprout]

I arrange a lot of events at DD’s school.

One of the mums from DD’s class registered as a childminder about 18 months ago. She has 2 children now at the school (year 3 and reception). She has the maximum number of minded children she’s allowed to have. Causes chaos in the morning when she blocks everyone else in in the car park with her minibus, then herds the children 4 abreast as the lay crawl towards the school entrance (across a road) and blocking everyone else who just wants to be able to travel at a reasonable pace.

Anyway, since she started this she brings her minded children to school events. Discos (the triple pushchair gets in the way and she regularly loses the older children either inside or outside the school because she just can’t keep control of all of them). She came to several Xmas shows, had the kids push to the front of the queue and then hog the front seats, changed nappies and left the bags under the seats for the whole performance, fed them snacks she brought with her (we sell snacks - that’s the point) and then ignored them whilst they tried to climb on stage, winged, ran off to pull a xmas tree apart because she was filming her kids on her iPad and blocking the view of the parents behind her (we sell a DVD for a few £s). Other parent helpers are whinging to me about it, but it’s hard to know what to do. The headteacher is aware but seemingly not bothered enough to do anything about it.

Surely the minded children’s parents don’t expect them to be cared for in this way?ive never used a child minder so don’t know what’s normal.

The head teacher sounds very unsupportive so sounds like you need a meeting to discuss issues
The nappy thing is gross, and she should have been asked at the time to remove it.
I would close the car park agreement more bother than it's worth.
£2.50 per ticket is far too much and I can see why she wouldn't pay that for the kids, most cm's including myself earn £4 p.h per child , and are parents first and foremost, although a large amount of parents are cm's at my local school and are welcomed by the school.

The PTA helpers are at the back of the hall. She was around 12 rows of parents in front of us.

Perhaps we could get some sort of vine to grow across the ceiling to enable us to swing across the audience and relieve them of their rubbish discretely mid-performance.

YANBU.

She's paid to be a childminder! I can't believe the people saying that members of the PTA or parents trying to see their kid in the school play should be disposing of her dirty nappy bags for her! No wonder the PTA is short of volunteers if that's part of the job description!

£2.50 per ticket is far too much and I can see why she wouldn't pay that for the kids

The school sells the tickets. They’re in high demand - always sell out. But sure, anyone thinking it’s too much should be able to come in and have a paying parent give up their seat for them.

^Not one parent / helper at the school play, seeing that she was managing 3 under 3s
She's being paid to manage 3 under 3s! The rest of them were there to see their child in the school play. Why should they leave the play and miss part of it so they could help a paid professional do her job? I don't know about your school but mine certainly don't have helpers on hand roaming the audience during school plays to help people with dirty nappy bags!^

Nice! It would take an adult a minute - what, noones allowed to be kind to someone just because they're being paid? The OP refers to other helpers bitching about this woman's behaviour at the play, but I mean all the other parents too. Just because shes getting what, £15 an hour, another parent couldn't have ran out with the nappy bag for a minute?

people that can't afford 4 tickets should still be allowed to come and watch their child in a show.

Who’s letting the kids in without tickets? Who’s allowing the triple pram the hall?

Our school is £3 per person, and maximum tickets per family are 2 due to the size of the hall. No buggies allowed in the hall. This is all down to the school and safety, nothing to do with the PTA. I think your school needs to be more clear with parents and be strict with their door policy. (Unless your school hall is large and able to safely accommodate extra people attending last minute.)

I don't think you're being unreasonable in general, she sounds utterly obnoxious. She should have put the skanky nappy bag in her own bag away from everyone else and disposed of it later if she couldn't get to a bin.

Re: the parking, I think you should write a stiff email to the Head explaining how stressful it is fielding complaints that you don't have the authority to address, and give him a straight choice - either he moves his arse and deals with it himself, or the PTA stop facilitating use of the car park altogether, and any resultant parking angst is firmly his to enjoy. You do what you can, you do A LOT, but there are boundaries.

I think charging for primary school performances is despicable. For two parents to attend would be £5, which is a very large proportion of weekly food/fuel/utilities budget for struggling families, especially on UC. Yes, I know schools are desperately strapped for resources as well, but excluding the poorest families from supporting their children's education is not the answer.

Pouty, get your story straight.

Earlier when someone asked if you'd asked this woman to stop parking where she does, you charmingly said:

Gosh. That hasn’t occurred to me.

Of course I fucking have.

Now, it's:

I haven’t asked her directly, no. BECAUSE I HAVEN’T SEEN HER OR HER PARKING.

She seems like a total anti-bullshit legend to me, to be fair

How about the text to everyone being a bit more direct? Something like, “There have been numerous complaint that some parents are repeatedly blocking the entrance/exit from the car park. Could the people responsible please park in an allocated space. Failure do so may result in the car park privelages being removed/a fine/public shaming...”

I wouldn’t like to sit and smell a dirty nappy for an hour. I would have asked the CM to dispose of it. I wouldn’t offer to do it for her as dirty nappies are gross. We’re horrible people if we don’t want to handle dirty nappies for random people now?!

Re parental incomes, I don’t think it’s always easy for people to understand that Welsh medium schools tend to attract a different demographic. Geographically the school includes one ex-council house estate and several newer build estates of “executive” type homes. Whilst there are children from the ex-council estate, those homes are mostly owned now. Our take up of free school meals (we don’t have universal meals for KS1) is 8%. That correlates with some of the richest areas in Wales. The English medium school 1/4 of a mile away has nearly 40% free school meals. It’s much more Prosecco culture than Stella. (I don’t necessarily like that, by the way. I’d prefer greater diversity.)

However, the 8% FSM means that the school gets less funding than the other school, so the PTA fundraising is really vital.

TedAndLola I think the OP means that everyone has been texted about the parking rules, but she hasn’t asked the CM face to face about her parking as she isn’t there in the morning.

8% is low, but to me, NO family should be excluded from a primary school performance because they can't afford to pay. It's an absolute concept; it's morally unsound.

Pouty, get your story straight

It was shorthand. Bite me.

Nice! It would take an adult a minute - what, noones allowed to be kind to someone just because they're being paid?

If she's a professional being paid surely she should have worked out what she's going to do if one of her mindees does a poo in the middle of the play. I would hate to have to get clamber out of my seat in the middle of the play and potential miss my kid's one line to sort out these problems for her. If she can't manage 3 under 3's she shouldn't have taken them.

maybe it's for the best all around if you terminate the arrangement with the club to pay for parking, as the school needs the PTA fundraised money so much.

8% is low, but to me, NO family should be excluded from a primary school performance because they can't afford to pay. It's an absolute concept; it's morally unsound.

It seems to sort itself. 120 tickets get sold. 120 chairs out out. Somehow there are always 15-20 extra people standing. Which is where the triple pushchair in the fire route is concerning.

There are 5 potential entrances to the hall. They’re supposed to use just one, but they must sneak in having “popped to see the secretary” or taken a forgotten piece of costume to a child.

Also my reading was that a message had gone out telling all parents not to park where CF CM is parking. Does the woman require a personal message telling her not to park there? Really?

What difference does it make, how much you all earn etc?

Someone made a comment about affordability. That’s generally dictated by income......

But you did say that some people try to "sneak in", so it doesn't sound like it's sorting itself.

I doubt we'll agree. I think it's abhorrent and discriminatory. These are the little, ill-thought-out ways in which poverty affects outcomes for children.

"It was shorthand. Bite me."

Curious how such blatant inconsistency is just shorthand? Short for what?