For refusing to talk to the school

[pinkpixie83]

I am no longer talking to my boys primary school. I am a single parent, working from home, three children, 2 of primary age and 1 high school age. I have been honest with the school all along that home schooling is nigh on impossible, and now they are just repeatedly ringing me. The have admitted they can't offer me any help, so I don't see any point in repeated phone calls, it achieves nothing.

The OP won't be fined.

@pinkpixie83 do you have any friends/relatives who could help with homeschooling remotely whilst you are working?

@Chanandlerbong01

Parents like you drive me mad! We’ve had to spend so much time doing home visits, we don’t get time off timetable to do them so it has to be on an evening after we finish, just like all the phone calls can’t be done in lesson time either. You could just answer the phone and have a 2 minute conversation.

Exactly!

Everyone complains - myself included - that work isn’t being marked, not enough live lessons etc. So when I hear that teachers are spending hours of their day calling parents who can’t be bothered to answer the phone, it makes me livid.

Don’t be so selfish and precious about it. Just answer the phone, explain you’re doing your best, and do the same when they call again the following week. It’ll take 2 minutes of your time, and will enable to teacher to get on with trying to teach.

I can’t believe how selfish some people are.

Plenty of us are working single parents, we don’t all feel a need to have the school running around after us, while we petulantly refuse to answer the phone.

Technically all parents have to ensure that their children are receiving a broad and balanced education.

Yes, and that law was written in the context of free, comprehensive education being available to every kid in the country. A lot of parents are actually incapable of providing an education without school. I doubt the government is going to start carting them off to jail.

You won't get fined, OP, fines are suspended. And you don't have to do any of the work either, it's not compulsory. Compulsory to set, not compulsory for your children to do.

That said, try to do something, even a little bit, that is manageable, and focus it on something manageable and beneficial. Just reading if nothing else. Put them in front of bitesize. A bit of maths or science if that interests you all. But next week is half term, make it a break and rest and a change and start again with something you can manage after that. And tell the school that is what you are doing.

And, FWIW most people are struggling, and many people have it a whole lot easier than you do as a F/T working single parent. Most children's education is suffering even if they are churning through the worksheets. It's not the same thing, it's not ok and it's fine not to be pretending it is.

Perhaps they will offer them a place in school if you are not in a position to support them with work at home? Have you explained and asked?

@TheNortherner 🤣😂 empathy of a breeze block that tickled me. I also like emotional range of a teaspoon

Technically all parents have to ensure that their children are receiving a broad and balanced education.

By sending them to school or, if they choose not to, home educating them. Nobody is going to prosecute the OP for not sending her child to a closed school. If anything, the Government might expect to be sued for removing the child’s right to an education.

So let’s stop with the hyperbole.

@ChardonnaysPetDragon

Of course they are ringing. I suppose your children aren't logging in and not doing their work.

The school is legally responsible for providing education, so are you.

They are doing their job and you are making it difficult for them, I wouldn't be surprised if they escalated this.

You can be fined quite heavily for this.

Didn’t you know? We are in unprecedented times...

We’re not all lucky enough to be stay at home mums with all the time in the world to pretend to be school teachers. Some of us actually have very time consuming jobs that actually pay for the roof over our heads

This isn’t the time for shaming parents who are really fucking struggling not to lose their jobs and homes. When in our life times were working parents ever expected to work full time from home and teach full time education often with multiple children?

Priorities have to be made. If you can’t grasp that what a charmed life you have..

OP you have my sympathy. I’d try and arrange one email every Monday morning to confirm that your situation hasn’t changed, the kids are fine and to only contact you if there is a space in the school the kids can have as you are very busy.

And don't listen to the pathetic and grossly insensitive berating of @Chanandlerbong01 and @Bagamoyo, who presumably may have the option of having their children in school, or have alternative options for caring for them, and think all parents are sitting about waiting for their call. They are not representative of most people in the teaching profession.

@Ihatemyseleffordoingthis

And don't listen to the pathetic and grossly insensitive berating of *@Chanandlerbong01 and @Bagamoyo*, who presumably may have the option of having their children in school, or have alternative options for caring for them, and think all parents are sitting about waiting for their call. They are not representative of most people in the teaching profession.

Precisely the kind of teacher who gives the profession a bad reputation. Utterly clueless.

And threatening the OP with non existent fines... bet you're great in front of a class.

@Ihatemyseleffordoingthis I don’t have kids with a school place, I have them in the car when I do home visits though!

@Ihatemyseleffordoingthis

And don't listen to the pathetic and grossly insensitive berating of *@Chanandlerbong01 and @Bagamoyo*, who presumably may have the option of having their children in school, or have alternative options for caring for them, and think all parents are sitting about waiting for their call. They are not representative of most people in the teaching profession.

I’m not a teacher.

But I think that part of being a grown up is facing up to grown up responsibilities. And one of them is answering the phone when your kids school calls.

I’m not saying OP should be working miracles and finding ways to educate her kids. I realise it can be impossible. What I’m saying is that by refusing to answer the phone, it leaves the school with no option but to try again, and again, and again. And if they still can’t get through, then they have to visit. And while they’re doing all this, other kids are missing out.

It really isn’t too much to ask to just answer the phone, engage for 2 minutes, say you’re doing your best, and move on. Teachers aren’t stupid, they know plenty of kids will be learning nothing due to the impossible situation their parents are in. But they clearly have a mandate to make contact, and if you prevent them from doing that, then you’re not helping anyone. And that is selfish.

If you speak to them they may be able to offer you school places - at least for the child who has adhd. That’s classed as vulnerable in many places.

Then @Chanandlerbong01 I am very surprised that you have lost any compassion for others' situations. Though actually not that surprised, teachers are, I agree, having a tough time too - but it is really not the fault of parents who are struggling.

@pinkpixie83

Well they have visited, and repeated the information they gave me last week, they have no laptops left as we have one between the two of them we are OK on that front. They have no space to have them in school, even though they acknowledge that them doing no learning makes them vulnerable, along with my son's ADHD. But if they are full they are full.

They can see that I am struggling, and that the children are ok, although not engaging.

I appreciate they need to check, but i am doing my level best, i feel terrible that their education is suffering, but there are not enough hours in the day, if i try and do home learning with them outside of school hours/work hours i am going to be run into the ground, they need me to be some kind of managing and normal parent as much as i can be.

But don’t you see you could have avoided a home visit, if you’d just answered the phone? Or did you want a home visit? Maybe that’s the reason. Fair enough, if you want them to come round and see you, but it does seem rather unfair, when they have plenty of other things they could be doing for larger numbers of kids.

if i try and do home learning with them outside of school hours/work hours i am going to be run into the ground

In honesty, this is a bit difficult to accept. Surely you could be some reading at bedtime, run through some timetables while on a walk, that sort of thing? I think most parents are working in evenings now because of having to spend time homeschooling, and while it can be tough it isn't impossible. Even if you just did an hour on weekend days, it would be helpful to the dc.

@Bagamoyo1, that lacks understanding and empathy.

OP's a single parent trying to hold down the job that feeds, clothes and houses herself and her children. That, and her sanity needs to be the priority. It is not selfish and it would be mine.

And a "mandate to make contact" is not the same as an offer of help

@Ihatemyseleffordoingthis

Then *@Chanandlerbong01* I am very surprised that you have lost any compassion for others' situations. Though actually not that surprised, teachers are, I agree, having a tough time too - but it is really not the fault of parents who are struggling.

It is the parents fault if they don’t answer the phone, making teachers have to drive to their house, with kids in the car. I would be mortified if I refused to answer the phone because I was feeling fed up with it all, and some poor teacher had to drive to my house, leaving their poor little kids sitting in the freezing car while I was toastie warm in my house, being checked on. I’d be ashamed and embarrassed.

In honesty, this is a bit difficult to accept. Surely you could be some reading at bedtime, run through some timetables while on a walk, that sort of thing? I think most parents are working in evenings now because of having to spend time homeschooling, and while it can be tough it isn't impossible. Even if you just did an hour on weekend days, it would be helpful to the dc.

Just because some parents can cope with evening work, doesn’t mean everyone can. Honestly, it’s frustrating to keep on reading so many people on here who are intent on telling other people what is and isn’t doable for them as a family. How the hell do you know?

[quote Ihatemyseleffordoingthis]@Bagamoyo1, that lacks understanding and empathy.

OP's a single parent trying to hold down the job that feeds, clothes and houses herself and her children. That, and her sanity needs to be the priority. It is not selfish and it would be mine.

And a "mandate to make contact" is not the same as an offer of help[/quote]
I’m a working single parent too, and I also have to feed, clothe and house my kids on my own. I still know how to answer the phone. Maybe the teacher that had to visit is also a single parent. We all have our crosses to bear. No one has a monopoly of lockdown hardship.
Answering the phone would have saved the school time and effort, and would have cost OP a tiny amount of time.

It is the parents fault if they don’t answer the phone, making teachers have to drive to their house, with kids in the car.

The parent isn’t making them do this, though, are they? They just want to be left alone.

At 8&10 why not have them watch the bbc schools output in the morning on cbbc, then get them to read and research together a project to each week that they will engage with eg tells them to use the laptop to make you a presentation on going into space, then forget the school schedule apart from maths which you can fit in a couple of hours per week at some point.

I've homeschooled mine pre covid for complicated reasons, both mine have sn. They learnt because they enjoyed the subject

@AStudyinPink

It is the parents fault if they don’t answer the phone, making teachers have to drive to their house, with kids in the car.

The parent isn’t making them do this, though, are they? They just want to be left alone.

The teachers are doing their job. They have to call. Did you not know that?

tells them to use the laptop to make you a presentation on going into space

I’m a teacher. I will tell you right now, this won’t solve the OP’s problems, it will make them worse.

So what are they doing all day?

Sometimes we need to think outside the box a bit. Set them activities around what they enjoy. Set aside half an hour with each day to do 1-1 work with them.

If they have a laptop between them then no reason they can’t both do some of the work set via school.