Can't we just send our kids to school and not have constant events or texts to think about

[monotonousmum]

I probably am being a little unreasonable, but I can't be the only one who thinks like this.

Eldest started school in September....I say September but in reality it was a complicated mix of an hour one week, 2 hours the next, then a week of mornings (one day with lunch), finally starting full time first week of October. I was already wondering how anyone actually manages to work.

I work full time, as does my husband. 1 younger child in nursery. School only contact one parent for general day to day stuff, and that falls to me (which is another issue in itself).

So...each week I have anywhere between 5-20 texts from the school (don't park in the car park, don't forget it pj day next week, sponsorship money due yesterday, school photo day, school dinner reminder etc etc), a selection of emails (usually with attachments that are too long for text), some letters in the book bag, notes in the back or front of the reading record book.
Sometimes there is stuff on the school calendar which hasn't been mentioned elsewhere.

I'm totally overwhelmed. Some of the info is repeated in several places (e.g. text to tell us we've received an email about children in need), but just the amount of info was totally unexpected to me.

There's all sorts of sponsored events, dress up days, changes to snacks or schedules.

Can't I just drop my kid to school, they teach her to to read and write (among other things) and then I pick her up and ask her what she's had for lunch and what she learned?? (Not that she ever remembers either).

Is the school OTT or are they all like this? Am I the only one not coping?

@Iamnotthe1

Are you asking for examples of parental involvement?

• regular reading,
• supporting homework (younger children),
• addressing behavioural concerns when highlighted,
• supporting children towards educational targets raised during parental consultations,
• supporting child's involvement in the wider life of the school where possible,
• attending, where possible, events, celebrations and information sessions for parents,
• contributing, where possible, to PTA fundraising in order to improvement opportunities for their kid,

Etc.

I don't call them anything. If you honestly think I've got time during the school day to bitch about parents who decide not to sort a costume out, you seriously underestimate how much work there is to do.

I’m a teacher. I know exactly how much work there is to do.

None of those things you listed mentioned dressing up. Why?

Since my DS started school in September I have been working as a part time unpaid assistant (!) on top of my full time job. Today we got 5 emails from them. Message about parking, message from the PTA, message from the PE lead person, message asking for people to be Santa, and follow up message about parking this time with attached map. Joy.

Actually I'd include that under wider life of the school when it's extra-curricular. I didn't give it a specific item on the list because it happens so rarely. We dress up in costumes once in the year. Any other days out of uniform would just be the kids' regular clothes (if they want) or something small like wearing odd socks one day next week.

@Iamnotthe1

Actually I'd include that under wider life of the school when it's extra-curricular. I didn't give it a specific item on the list because it happens so rarely. We dress up in costumes once in the year. Any other days out of uniform would just be the kids' regular clothes (if they want) or something small like wearing odd socks one day next week.

So one dress up day, plus one (?) day where they have to remember not to lay out the compulsory uniform, plus one (?) day where they have to remember odd socks (why?), so actually, three days to remember. Christmas jumper day? Halloween? Christmas party day?

I kind of agree but I think that it is the result of the pressure on schools to do much more than just teach the kids. Most parents want plays, assemblies, trips, rewards, certificates and all that jazz so schools have to send all this stuff out. I am a teacher and I hate all the admin I get my dd school. I realise though that many parents love all this crap. I get numerous emails from parents asking for all sorts.

We don't dress up for Halloween (CofE school). Christmas jumpers are for Christmas parties (if they want).
I said that any other day is just their own clothes. I couldn't tell you without checking whether there were 1, 2 or however many of those.

The idea of dressing up or down or differently seems to be a real issue for you. Why?

@Parfortheparsnip

Since my DS started school in September I have been working as a part time unpaid assistant (!) on top of my full time job. Today we got 5 emails from them. Message about parking, message from the PTA, message from the PE lead person, message asking for people to be Santa, and follow up message about parking this time with attached map. Joy.

But nearly all of those can be scanned and then ignored if they don’t relate to you. Not a massive issue surely. It would perhaps have been better to send them as one message but in my experience these things get sent out as the issues arise before it gets forgotten. The ones you mentioned have also been sent by several different people.

@monotonousmum

I wonder if our kids go to the same school it sound alike ours

My friend and I said earlier we could do a whole episode of motherland with ours!

Everything is so last minute it drives parents insane!

We have at least 3 full dress up days per year.
Book day
Census day
Victorian [or other historical period] day

That's on top of
wear ''something stripey''
wear something red
wear something yellow
wear odd socks (DD doesn't wear socks, she wont wear trousers, she's in tights and skirts all winter so ...)
wear something spotty

No, the 'wear something' isn't as stressful as providing a full dress up obvs. but as pp pointed out it's still another thing to remember that's out of the routine. You have a routine to make sure you're sending your child in in clean appropriate decent warm clothing that fits. Plus kit for activities on the right days. Out of the ordinary is another thing to worry about forgetting. Another thing to worry about going ott with or not bothering enough with. ''Don't buy anything special'', they say. Well this year DD happens not to have anything stripy or yellow in her wardrobe so we had to buy something ...

Yes it's doable. There's just so much of it these days.

Technology, innit? Not just schools, it’s work, everything! it’s smartphone culture.
My Mum never entered my school or spoke to a teacher unless she was called in, for both primary & secondary.
No way she’d have tolerated today’s carry-on. She refuses to have a smartphone at all...

Our school sends out, as well as the usual newsletter, the Head's newsletter weekly. This is a lengthy, wordy load of self-congratulatory wank in which she completely overshares about her family, what she did at the weekend, what footie match she watched, what mountain she climbed, the recording of her most recent Ted Talk, how much of her most recent PhD or Masters she's done, the meal she went out for on Saturday night. That's just one weekend too!

When she praises the staff she manages to get in something about how fantastically she's supported them to do this achievement, they can never just shine alone.

I took to ignoring these, as they're two A4 pages of drivel, but the writing style creeps into important information too. Letters home about a change to covid regulations are up to 3 A4 pages long, including lengthy paragraphs about how the staff feel about the implementation of the measures, or the minutae of what's been done to achieve it. Buried somewhere in all that is the bit about whether we need to wear masks or take lateral flows, the only bit we give a shit about.

And we get the usual emails too, I would reckon about 10-15 a week. There were 5 sent out today.

On the plus side, I don't think I've had to send a pound in for anything this week!

And more often than not the 'wear something' isn't about engaging with anything it's about bringing in ££

@Laiste

And more often than not the 'wear something' isn't about engaging with anything it's about bringing in ££

Which means it's either for charity or it's the PTA organising fundraising in order to support improving the school or curriculum offering which directly benefits your child.

Both worth supporting if you can.

We have a class WhatsApp group and 1 monthly email with all relevant dates on it.
Teacher does dojo for week to week stuff like bring in a box etc.

The best part is when the WhatsApp group completely kicked off and 2 mums had a massive argument it was brilliant 🤣

Just had a quick look through my inbox (I have an automatic filter on school emails to file in their own folder) and I’ve received 104 actionable emails from school since term started in September.

I’ve had to pay £174.55 on the app for school trips, special days in school, contributions etc. I have two primary DC. This doesn’t include the cash payments requested — ie the various (4-5?) days when £1 charity donation per child was needed, or fundraising initiatives like healthy tuck shop, or making cakes for the bake sale, or the request for old musical instruments to donate for a charity group, or pleas for cereal boxes and kitchen roll tubes, or ingredients for cooking, or costumes, or bringing in bikes or scooters, or going into school early for some event, etc. All of which we’ve also had to do.

It’s only just over halfway through the autumn term. I am knackered.

Well, the charity side of it is something i'm entirely comfortable with. But we can agree to differ.

Raising money for the school - i'd rather send in a fiver once a month. The daftness is that on more than one occasion the money it cost me to produce/buy the desired wearable thing was more than the money that went in the bucket.

I'm not saying that getting messages isn't annoying. But if parents want schools to be fun and vibrant places where their children love to be with all the varied and interesting things that go on there then the pay off is messages reminding you about those things

Schools in the 80’s and 90’s did lots of fun, varied and interesting things. Parents were involved with their children’s homework and came into school for events. That’s not a new phenomenon. You got a newsletter once a month or maybe weekly and that was that.

The constant bombardment of information from multiple sources, multiple platforms on which to complete work, constant reminders and demands for money and costumes is a modern thing.

And it really aggravates me when people say just ‘dig around for old bed sheets and dresses at hone’ as a PP said like we all just keep old bed sheets / blankets / dresses that can be cut up or have particular coloured clothes laying around. I haven’t got room to keep old tat laying around like that. We had a ‘wear something yellow for mental health day’ recently. I genuinely had nothing for my DD’s in yellow. They’d outgrown all summer stuff that may have been yellow and I don’t keep stuff they’ve outgrown. I didn’t want them to be left out so had to buy yellow clothes on top of finding donations.

I know someone's going to say they can't afford a fiver once a month.

But that's what you're looking at when you break it down into a pound here and a costume there anyway. Especially for families with more than one child in the school.

@Laiste

Well, the charity side of it is something i'm entirely comfortable with. But we can agree to differ.

Raising money for the school - i'd rather send in a fiver once a month. The daftness is that on more than one occasion the money it cost me to produce/buy the desired wearable thing was more than the money that went in the bucket.

NOT entirely comfortable with that should say ! Sorry.

Oh this reminds me, I have to buy colourful socks so DS can wear odd socks for odd socks day. All of his socks are school uniform grey

@Laiste

Well, the charity side of it is something i'm entirely comfortable with. But we can agree to differ.

Raising money for the school - i'd rather send in a fiver once a month. The daftness is that on more than one occasion the money it cost me to produce/buy the desired wearable thing was more than the money that went in the bucket.

Which is definitely something to raise at the next PTA meeting so that they can maximise fundraising opportunities.

@Iamnotthe1

We don't dress up for Halloween (CofE school). Christmas jumpers are for Christmas parties (if they want). I said that any other day is just their own clothes. I couldn't tell you without checking whether there were 1, 2 or however many of those.

The idea of dressing up or down or differently seems to be a real issue for you. Why?

Because it’s not inclusive. And, to relate to point of the thread, it involves unnecessary engagement with parents, who are then criticised for not being involved in their kids’ schools lives.

And it’s a complete waste of time.

@minkfondant

Just had a quick look through my inbox (I have an automatic filter on school emails to file in their own folder) and I’ve received 104 actionable emails from school since term started in September.

I’ve had to pay £174.55 on the app for school trips, special days in school, contributions etc. I have two primary DC. This doesn’t include the cash payments requested — ie the various (4-5?) days when £1 charity donation per child was needed, or fundraising initiatives like healthy tuck shop, or making cakes for the bake sale, or the request for old musical instruments to donate for a charity group, or pleas for cereal boxes and kitchen roll tubes, or ingredients for cooking, or costumes, or bringing in bikes or scooters, or going into school early for some event, etc. All of which we’ve also had to do.

It’s only just over halfway through the autumn term. I am knackered.

It's the overload isn't it? No one minds being asked to save a few plastic milk cartons or bring in a cake or two.

But it's never just that. It's alongside 30 other requests and it's too much.

When, in this mindset, you're then asked to help DC build a roman villa out of egg boxes and bring it in by next Monday, or you're given 48 hours to dress your DC up as Any British Bird of Prey you feel like your head's going to burst.

Sounds like our school.

Thing is, plenty of communication yet we still get parents on the WhatsApp or the school gate claiming they don't have a clue about various events or requirements.

It's important to be a part of their education it is a huge part of their week.
Tbf I'm sure teachers would prefer not giving out constant reminders and parents still forget.
The ones that don't apply to me take a few seconds to read.