But why do you need to meet other parents? The kids go to school, not the parents
Sometimes I read comments like this and wonder if I’m inhabiting a completely different planet from other people.
Schools are supposed to be part of a community, not a mysterious place that your child disappears into for six hours a day and then magically appears back in your house around 4pm. Parents are meant to be involved in their child’s education, which means being involved, at least to some extent, in the life of the school. Many schools rely heavily on parent-run fundraisers to top up the paltry funding that they receive from the government. I totally get that many parents work FT and can’t attend all the school events they’d like to (I may well be one of them as I’m looking at retraining) but to suggest that they’re pointless and fulfil no wider purpose undermines how important schools are in building community ties.
DD is only 3 and hasn’t started school yet, but she’s been at nursery for 18 months now and I’ve only set foot inside the building once for a pre-Covid tour. DP has never seen inside. There have been none of the usual nursery fundraising events since 2019, so the nursery is currently running on reduced funds. Even though we’re now technically allowed, there are few play dates happening between the kids as none of the parents have had a chance to get to know each other (masked and staggered drop off and pick up prevents any of the usual chit chat). No trust between parents means fewer friendship opportunities for their kids.
We’ll be applying for a Reception place in January, and at this point I doubt we’ll be able to visit any schools beforehand (I’m a former local primary school teacher, so in a more fortunate position than most, but many friends have moved into the area recently are are going entirely on out of date Ofsted reports and past SATs results). If these restrictions continue into 2022 - no transition, no home visits, no parents allowed inside school buildings, Zoom parents’ evenings, no fundraisers, no class assemblies and drama productions, no trips and residentials, no outside guests like author visits etc - it won’t be just that kids are missing on the extra-curricular stuff; it will start to dramatically affect community cohesion, impoverish friendships between children whose parents essentially remain strangers and impact schools financially, as they’ll be unable to rely on in-person events for additional funds.
We really need to start looking at the bigger picture of how all these restrictions are affecting the well-being of children, families and communities, and what the future implications for our kids might be.