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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

....... to expect primary school to post application form; school secretary insists I collect it in person.

59 replies

BatteriesNotIncluded · 31/10/2007 12:59

Are school secretaries notoriously 'formidable' or is this unusual?

When I satarted researching about primary schhols in 2005, I went into the school on the off chance and requested some literature. She expressed her horror that I had just 'walked in off the street' to ask for a form. She was quite rude and stated that 'things arent done like that' at this school, said I should return after June 2007.

Anyway we attend the attached church, but dont live locally, so a friend offered to collect a form when she collected her daughter from the school.

But NOOOOO, school secretary says they 'dont do things like that' at that school as they prefer to 'deal with the parents directly'. Ive just called the school and after being asked my name, where I live, child's name, date of birth, whether I attend the adjoining church and my address, school sec says that she cant post the application form to me as they prefer to deal with parents IN PERSON!

Am I missing something? Why would this be?

As I said, I dont live up the road from the school. I also have a new baby and school obviously closed on Sundays when I go to church. Im frustrated by this,but dont want to rile the sec by trying to insist she posts the forms, or by complaining to the Head. She has my details and I dont want her to 'earmark' my application in any way.

Dont want to stoke the old church school debate; just want opinions on whether this is unusual?

TIA. x

OP posts:
bookofthedeadmum · 31/10/2007 18:43

If it's the 'way they do things' then you probably stand less than a snowflakes chance in hell of getting the form posted to you. They might be restricted how many forms they can give out and prefer to do it in person rather than risk it being lost in the post. Also they can answer any questions you may have about the application on the spot.

Sorry if this is not what you want to hear .

olala · 31/10/2007 18:45

o go di cannot stand our school secretary! Just about to move my Dcs to another nicer frankly more middle class school, where the school sec was more than happy to send me a form, to put me thru to the head for a chat when i rang up initially, to arrange an appointment for me to meet with the head at MY convenience, I was offered a selection of dates and times, and also offered a tour of the school in action. In contrast, old school would not send out forms, even if you sent in an SAE as they were 'not staffed to post out application forms' they would only answer the phone at certain times, you could not pay dinner money or hand in abscence notes via the class teacher - ie in your DC;s book bag, but instead hgave to make a spearet trip to the office, again in the allotted time slots of 9.20 - 10 each morning (drop of kids at 8,55 then hang around until wanker school secretary deigns to deal with your dinner money) honestly. for me? your tale gets on my nerves so much that it'd puit me off the whole bloody school!

Jobsworths REALLY do it for me I'm afraid!

cannot fucking stand our chool sec, and sounds like your one is her slighjtly less evil twin sister.

RustyBear · 31/10/2007 18:52

It's not that "parents' concerns automatically don't matter" - it's that a parent's concerns don't matter as much as the needs of the children.

olala · 31/10/2007 18:53

OP - if you don't live locally why are you considering this school? isn;t there a nearer one with a nicer school secretary?!

RustyBear · 31/10/2007 18:55

olala - has it ever occurred to you that your school is probably spending money on staffing classrooms, not the office? I don't believe you have any conception of the number of jobs the admin staff in even the smallest primary school have to do.

olala · 31/10/2007 18:56

thank you rusty bear for your informed post but actually i have every idea what they do - fuck all.

TotalChaos · 31/10/2007 18:56

olala - the system sounds very irritating, but sounds like it's how the secretary has been told to work, and not her fault.

VoodooLULUmama · 31/10/2007 18:59

well, our school secretaries couldn;t be more helpful

i would think that it is a really difficult job, with constant interruption, and noise and huge amounts of paperwork

very sweeping to say they do fuck all

olala · 31/10/2007 19:02

i have every sympathy for over worked school secs, but our one is far from that. THere is the man cheif jobsworth who booms at the children who are late (so, we;re talking about cowering 5 yos here) 'SO WHY ARE YOU LATE AGAIN JONNY? DID YOUR MUMMY NEED ANOTHER LIE IN?' things lijke that, at top of voice , infront of other parents. On top of this, she loves running up to parents again infront of others 'YOUR DINNER MONEY ACCOUNT IS IN DEBT AGAIN< I THINK IT IS 52P YOU OWE. WE CAN'T KEEP GOING ON LIKE THIS YOU KNOW' etc.
She also is supported by 3 other office staff, and between them they manage things like getting letters out home announcing school unifrom sales on the actual day they are happoeneing. excellent if you work and you get the letters when you get home at 6pm. THey let you knwo 'school will be clsoing at 2pm today for training' with sometimes not even a full days notice. Honestly. Stupid, lazy, jobsworth.

olala · 31/10/2007 19:03

i wasn;t saying everyones secs to fuck all. Just our one!
no, i appreacite it is a hi pressure job if you are actually doing it. But if you are too bust with your nose stucl in a big book of rules and regs to actually ever do anything, well, its not that stressful!

Original poster
BatteriesNotIncluded · 31/10/2007 19:03

Icod and Ola, do you know this woman? I went to the school this afternoon and expeirenced EXACTLY what you've described!

She asked all the same questions and said:

"Are YOU that woman from XXXXX?"
When I said yes, she replied "Oh!" in a very haughty way.

So I said "sorry, am I not what we expected?", to which she said:

"Not EXACTLY, but we get all sorts here!"

So I said: "And which sort would I be?"

She didnt dignify me with an answer but explained that I had to complete a registration form, return it to the school, and she will then give me the supplementary form. Apparently they want to see my Council Tax bill BEFORE giving me the relevant form! OBVIOUSLY it didnt occur to her to tell me that on the phone! Anyway, I gave the information and form back to her, advising her that SHE clearly needs them a lot more that I do.

One reason why, all of a sudden, the local school seems like a more attractive option. I have serious reservations about applying to the church school. Her attitude was very UNchristian-like.

OP posts:
RustyBear · 31/10/2007 19:05

OK olala, you have actually achieved what no one else on MN has ever done & made me so furious that I am really considering getting personal. ( I won't though, because I don't want to give you the satisfaction of seeing my post deleted.)

Yes, it was an informed post - I work in a school office one day a week & help out on other days. Maybe you have also worked in a school office and if so maybe you did 'fuck all' - if not, then I repeat that you have no conception of how much has to be done so that your children can get an education.

olala · 31/10/2007 19:10

rusty bear cna you get off your high horse a minute, clam down, and notice that i have not said all school secs do fuck all, just our one. ARe you going to tell me she is there having a busy busy day sweating and toiling over a badly photoco[ied out of date newsletter? poor her.

SmileyMylee · 31/10/2007 19:11

Sounds a bit like our school secretary. When I phoned up she wouldn't post one. When I went in she wouldn't give me a form as 'we lived so far away there wasn't much point in wasting a form.'

I went away all cowed (what is it about going back to a school that does this to grown up mature women.) I eventually got a friend to pick the form up claiming to live round the corner. My daughter did get in.

I don't think the secretary is representative of the school though. Everyone knows what she's like but has been there too long to do anything about her. They're recruiting a replacement and the advert tactfully says that they want 'a friendly, approachable secretary......' However to be fair to her, now that I know her better she is as nice as pie to me. She probably had a bad day(s).

olala · 31/10/2007 19:12

batteries. it is the same woman! hilarious.

VoodooLULUmama · 31/10/2007 19:15

olalala
why not write directly to the head or make a complaint via the governers if newsletters and important information is being delivered too late?

olala · 31/10/2007 19:16

ps rusty bear, i've never worked in a school office.

RustyBear · 31/10/2007 19:17

I cross posted with you saying you only meant the staff in your school, but that was not the implication in your 18.56 post, which is what I was replying to.

That post referred directly to mine, so it was logical to assume you were referring to the same thing I was, ie "the admin staff in even the smallest primary school"

olala · 31/10/2007 19:21

o bless you vooduu! don't even get me started...o no.. i think you already have...
why don't i complain to the head? we haven't got one. we have the woman who was contrvertially appointed deputy around 18 months ago, contrvertial as she had little experience to be a deputy, the head resigned, a new one appointed, much to the distaste of many of the staff who wanted the deupty to be appointed head, when the new head came round to look at the school , she was left waiting in reception for an hour as school sec told her no one was avaialable to show her round. then when she got shown round by a very junior member of staff, she was not allowed into the classrooms as she would disrupt the teaching. she was basically given short shrift. a few days later she emailed to say she had changed her mind and did not want the job.

why not complain to the governors?
well, becasue the governors are made up of staff, almost entirely. parent governors are elected as parents, and then in alsmot all cases within 6 months or so have one job or other in the school, either as the moronic TAs, or as playground attendants, or in one case as member of the senior management team. So there is no point complaining to the governors about the school sec, as she is their work colleague and friend.

so that is why there is no point whatsovere in comlainting - manyt of us have tried and ended up in need of huge bottles of vodka to cope wiht the stress of it all.

we're leaving soon!

olala · 31/10/2007 19:21

rusty bear responding to your 19.17 and 23 seconds post. Noted. Over and OUt.

bookofthedeadmum · 31/10/2007 19:26

I think the admin in primary schools is far too much - when I went to primary back in the dark ages of the 70s there was one secretary and she ran the whole of the school admin plus spending time patching up minor playground injuries. The office equipment was a typewriter and possibly a photocopier.

Now at the same school there's three secretaries! There's no more children at the school but the paperwork must have increased 100x.

VoodooLULUmama · 31/10/2007 19:29

olala

that sounds absoluetly abysmal, i can see why you are so frustrated and pissed off

VoodooLULUmama · 31/10/2007 19:29

olala

that sounds absoluetly abysmal, i can see why you are so frustrated and pissed off

MargeSimpsonMyAlterEgo · 31/10/2007 19:32

Batteries - please don't judge the school by the secretary; you may have very little to do with her later on. And rudeness of that kind is unforgivable but perhaps she is unappreciated . School secretaries can be a bit like doctors' receptionists... queens of their own (very) little empire.

RustyBear · 31/10/2007 19:52

olala - sounds like your school is in a pretty bad state, but not having a head will just increase the secretary's workload. (I have to agree she does sound pretty bad, but we're really not all like that - mostly we work very hard and are nice to the parents, even the ones who don't make it easy....)

Just a few of the things I did this morning

Went in to be met (just inside the door) by a parent asking if I could find a towel for her DD as she hadn't packed one for their 3 day residential trip. Found a towel in the spare swimming kit box ? which we keep for kids whose parents forget to send it in.

Answered phone call from coach driver, telling him how to turn round & get to our school the other way, because the narrow road was blocked by parents' cars parked on the double yellow lines ? they hadn't bothered to park properly because they were ?only waiting to wave off their kids? - on the coach that couldn?t get through.

Signed in 7 late kids & notified the kitchen which ones were having school dinners because they'd missed the register ? it would have been around 12 most days, but the others were going on the trip & had magically managed to get there on time that day...

Took round to classes 2 lunch boxes, 3 PE kits & a violin that had been forgotten.

Wrote a letter about the after school Art club that two of the teachers will be running, making sure I list all the dates it will be on, because if I just say ?every Wednesday from November 7th to December 5th?, I will get at least one parent ringing each week to ask if art club is on.

Continued to go through the data sheets which we sent to all parents in the first week of term asking if any of their contact details had changed and which are still coming in seven weeks later after several reminders ? one of them from the parent who had complained bitterly when we hadn't been able to contact her when football club was cancelled ( not by us, I may add, it's run by our local Premiership club who had given us an hour and a half's notice to contact 50 parents)

That was what I did before I realised I hadn't yet hung up my coat or put my bag in my locker...