if you are a headteacher, why is it apparently impossible......

[Ncncncagain]

to give parents a reasonable amount of notice for school events that you expect them to attend or any dumb theme day that requires a costume or magenta coloured clothes ? We have experience of 3 schools (private and state primary FWIW), and the administration in all of them is dreadful. Received emails on Monday from 2 schools asking us to attend daytime meetings this coming Monday and Tuesday. So 7 &8 days notice respectively. Nothing on previous newsletters or term calendars. DH and I both work, no where near the schools. We both have a reasonable amount of flexibility with sufficient notice, like a month, but can't do much with only 7 days. AIBU?

Great Post.

I understand as a parent that schools are under funded and under staffed, but I think the understanding needs to run both ways really.

Too true about the funding and an insight into how the understanding needs to go both ways...

I have spent time:

-Reprinting newsletters because parents have lost them, haven't read them or haven't noted the dates.

• Chasing up payments that haven't been made, permission slips that haven't been returned both leading up to the trip and often on trip day.

• Ringing the coach company because parents have returned the permission slip late and we need to change the coach because we are over on numbers

• Supplying ( read as digging out of a box at the back of a very large cupboard) a coat or wellies, PE pumps, shorts etc. because without the child can't participate.

• Supplying lunch when a child has turned up without a packed lunch or parents have dropped it in at 11.50 (after arrangements have been made to replace it)

• Delaying the start of a service because parents are late ( haven't read the weekly newsletter for the time)

• Re-writing reading records because these have been lost at home, finding lost reading books, returning overdue library books to the public library because the pupils borrowed books are so overdue the library have stopped us borrowing them

• Ringing parents at the end of the day because parents haven't picked up their child; similarly haven't brought them to school in the first place

• Ringing parents because an 'unknown' person has turned up to collect their child without school being informed. Repeating this call because the very reason it is an unknown is the parent is busy and therefore we can't get hold of them.

• Redirecting parents, ringing ahead for them on the day of a meeting because they haven't read the letter and are in the wrong place. driving them to said place if they haven't made appropriate arrangements or are out of time.

• Completing forms for parents who 'haven't had time'

• Filling in passport requests ( free until governors put a stop to the service)

• Chasing up parents for a signature and comment on reports ( that have taken us, as staff, a full week of our holidays to write)

• Dealing with parents who complain about too many text messages sending them information

I could go on....if I didn't have to do all of that frequently (500 pupil school) I would have so much more time to be organized. ( though my weekly newsletter goes out every week without fail and is on the website)

Managing all of this in addition to educating children whilst,due to funding cuts, managing a restructure which will result in the loss of 10 support staff.

* Understanding definitely needs to go both ways*

Marni - yes, yes and yes again.

As for the notice thing, I think there are two issues here. Yes, it would be helpful if parents had more notice. But, a lot of the comments on here are about working parents needing months or even a year to book time off. I work in a school and don't get any time off to book (I can request unpaid leave but wouldn't do that more than once or twice a year). Yes, schools can publish certain dates a long time in advance if they're organised, but lots of other smaller events simply can't be organised more than a few weeks ahead.

Surely the bigger point here is that WOH is simply not compatible with regularly attending primary school events. Parents who either choose to or have to WOH need to accept this. Children need to be given an expectation that their working parents can't always come to stuff. I could choose not to work, if we downsized the house, sold the car and never took a holiday - but we choose as a couple that that's not what we want to do. Also we both want to work because we enjoy our jobs and feel we are contributing to society by doing them. Our kids understand that. Other parents have to work just to put food on the table.

So yes, I agree that schools can be understanding in trying to give as much notice as possible and in not expecting all parents to come to everything. But equally, parents have to stop taking their sadness and guilt out on schools because they cannot go to all the school events. I get the feeling that some of the working parents at my kids' school would rather there were never any daytime events that parents can go to, on the basis that if they can't go to them then nobody should be able to go. To me that's petty and spiteful. I'm lucky enough to get the school holidays off to spend with my kids (though I earn a lot less as a result). It would be ridiculous for other parents to suggest that I shouldn't be allowed to spend that time with my kids because they can't. Equally, I can't attend school events in term time because I don't get annual leave - but I would never suggest that SAH parents shouldn't be allowed to go to them just because I can't.

MrsCollinssettled - in other words they are ordinary teachers who have had extra responsibility thrust upon them. It's a bit ridiculous to call that a PE department, as though organising PE events is their whole job and not just a colossal extra responsibility that they may not have actually wanted, but someone had to do it.

@MarniLou as I said I do understand, and sympathise. I also do my best to send things back, reply and engage, and regrettably decline when I'm not given enough notice for an event they deem it vitally important for me to attend, and I cannot get time off work in that time frame without getting into trouble and being unpaid for that day. People like me don't work they don't get paid, and look even slightly unreliable (you know do something appalling like be ill) and you're on thin ice. That puts me and DD in a precarious position financially.
To then be told that I'm not engaging enough in my DDs education, that I need to support the school more, be looked down on is my issue with it, at least the school my DD is at does not look at this situation as a whole.
Non attendance = shit parent and that's all there is to it as far as they're concerned. That's the bit that pisses me off.
I don't get arsey with them at the short notice, I get it, they get arsey with me when I can't attend/engage at short notice. And that's what I take exception to.

I think this must be a primary school thing - as a secondary school we would never expect parents to attend events not on the calendar or without proper notice.

I'm afraid I don't see the need for frequent daytime events at school and I'd say that whether I worked or not (I do). And I don't think my 6 year old really understands about work putting food on the table and I don't think at 6 she should have to. One thing per term is plenty and it would be more special too.

It is a bit mad when you think of all us teachers who can't go to schooltime events putting the stress on other people who can't easily go and the circle continues!

I do feel sorry for people in schools dealing with disorganised or rude parents though.

Walk apologies for being ridiculous it was the shortest way of putting across who they were. Lots of people in all sorts of jobs take on additional responsibilities in order that other people get opportunities they might not get otherwise, I know because I do it myself. Happily for the teachers they can just tell the parents that they are failing to support their child and continue to not take any responsibility themselves for the situation.

MrsCollinssettled - in what way is your child not supported? Why are teachers telling you that they are failing to support your child? And what has that got to do with PE, or do you just have all sorts of issues with your child's school which are making you interpret everything they do so negatively? Because at the moment, your posts don't make much sense to me, so there is obviously something else going on here!

And the shortest way of putting across who they were would have been to call them teachers, not a PE department.

I'm just told I'm failing to support my child by not being available to transport them to the sports events and other events that the school puts on at times which I cannot attend. No family members available to come either due to work commitments.

I'm just sick of being made to feel crap about not being able to be there for my child when I'm working so hard to provide for us. Especially when if the school was more organised I'd stand some chance of being there. Thank heaven there's only another year to get through.

MrsCollinssettled - are the school really actively telling you that you are failing to support your child because you cannot give her lifts to extra curricular PE events?! It seems bizarre they would do that. If they genuinely are, rather than you thinking that is what they are thinking, then you could surely respond that they are failing to support your child by not providing transport for events it is deemed so essential by the school that she attend that a failure to do so is a serious failing, rather than a bit of a shame.

Does your school not have a social media site set up by parents for parents where you could find out what parents might be able to help you with lifts, as I suggested earlier, MrsCollinssettled?

I have been told that I'm letting her miss out on an opportunity and it has also been implied - we're putting on this event so you can support your child in x subject".

I suspect the teachers get exasperated by putting a lot of planning into events only for a child not to be able to attend/wear an appropriate costume etc. However they never seem to accept that parents can't just drop everything to do what the teacher wants at the drop of a hat. Complete waste of breath asking for more notice of events as it doesn't make an iota of difference and school never feel the need to apologise/show empathy for late notice of events. How difficult it is to say e.g on a Monday "sorry we weren't able to let you know on Friday so you could get to the shops, but we need you to send your child in tomorrow with a green t-shirt"?

No social media site that I'm aware of. Nothing mentioned in the newsletter or on the webpage. Working fulltime I'm not hanging around before or after school to get to know other parents and be invited to join something like that.

MrsCollinssettled - of course the school wouldn't advertise it. The school has no control over it. The whole point is it is set up by parents for parents. Schools do not particularly like these sites, as if not properly moderated by the person who set them up, they can become venues for bullying and malicious comments about children, parents, teachers and the school, and parents need to be reminded of the laws of libel, and the inappropriateness of bullying and malicious gossip. If run properly, they are just a slightly dull but useful place to find out who else might be going on a trip and be able to give a lift share, get reminders of homework, translate garbled messages passed on by children, repatriate lost property, ask if anyone has a spare whatever-annoying-last-minute-thing-the-child-needs-to-take-into-school-tomorrow, etc, etc. You could always try searching your child's school on Facebook or similar apps to see if anything comes up. The notion that people should be coming to you and inviting you is a bit far fetched. It's not hard to find out for yourself if such a thing exists.

How does your dd get to and from school? Does she walk by herself, or have a childminder to take her (who could find things out for you), or do you do it? Do you not live near anybody else with children at the school? Do you not have contact details for your children's school friends' parents? You make yourself sound unusually isolated - far more so than the average full time working parent.

Finally, how have you approached the school about late notice? Headteachers are only human and they tend to feel more able to offer fulsome apologies to parents who come across as polite, reasoned and empathetic themselves, rather than, eg, angry and self-righteous. And it requires the headteacher to change the communication culture of the school - which they are more likely to do if they are not all riled up themselves and passingmon angry, unconstructive messages to staff so that everyone feels threatened and defensive.

As I've said, I have no experience of schools with a massive communication problem, so it is hard for me to imagine a school which genuinely does give virtually no notice for anything and I can't think of a school having a good excuse for that.

Transport gets harder and harder. The LA says firmly that we shouldn't facilitate parent transport. Teachers can't drive children (actually I know some who do, but that's a massive safeguarding fail). Around here, coach companies are going out of business left right and centre, or giving up taking school bookings, and the ones that do are only interested in half or whole day bookings, and charge five or six hundred quid a pop. Which is fine (ish!) for next term's whole year group trip to the zoo, but hopeless for the after school netball tournament for 10 kids in three weeks' time.

The other thing parents never seem to realise (they should come on MN ) is that not all parents think the same. So, we would get: complaints about not enough trips and events if we scaled them back (you're only interested in results, why don't the children get any enrichment, why is the school so unwelcoming that parents can't come to stuff), we get complaints from other parents if we put on events (you don't consider working parents, I can't possibly come into school, it's not fair on my child) and we get complaints if we organise transport (why is the trip costing twenty quid, I'm certainly not paying, its only down the road, I could drive DS there myself). You literally can't win. (You can probably see why I don't work in a school office any more.)

At least I did always apologise for short notice though, so I did something right.

Oh, and don't even get me started on the whole 'why was that child picked for X event and mine wasn't' nightmare.