AIBU to think primary schools are stuck in the 50s?

[Desperado40]

I need to get this off my chest somewhere...maybe I am unreasonable, but my kids' primary school is stuck in another decade. They constantly bombard us with things to attend or assist kids to do at home (and I am not talking spellings here, but proper projects). We both work full time! It is hard enough to organise wrap around childcare and we share as much as possible between us, but I really don't want to be wasting the only family time we have on catching up with projects and homework. We received over 60(!) School emails in the last 4 weeks about various things. I am at my wit's end, there is something to remember to bring or do almost daily. And of course the guilt when I cannot attend every single sports day, market day, school fayre, school concert, parents assembly, wave child off on the 100th school trip... I am afraid that it is all designed for a stay at home parents... I know that working full time, I am in the minority of mums in our school. AIBU to think schools should assume that both parents DO work and be more inclusive?

Classic blunder, go in late one morning? Accept you'll get less choice than others for slots? We can't always have it all in life. I have experience on both sides of the fence, I have missed loads of stuff but also attended lots, I certainly never felt the school was against me. I chose to have kids and work.

I think it’s you who’s making the blunder! If the sheet is only made available in the playground at 3 pm, how could any parent have signed it in the morning?

I don't think it's particularly difficult to provide an alternative way of signing up though either.

I am senior enough that I can manage my own diary - but on top of finishing early on Friday to help out at the summer fair, on Wednesday to attend a school governors meeting and going in late this week at 3 days notice to attend sports day, I am not also going in late another day because they can't sort an electronic sign up sheet

Don’t know about that person but my mum taught me to read, I could already read well when I started reception.

You realise that teachers are often working parents themselves?

Shouldn’t that mean that those teachers who are also parents feed back to their school that they should improve the Comms and forward planning? It doesn’t sound like it’s working for anyone tbh.

Cecily p, all schools are different surely? our school puts them outside class rooms

And of course the guilt when I cannot attend every single sports day, market day, school fayre, school concert, parents assembly, wave child off on the 100th school trip... I am afraid that it is all designed for a stay at home parents.

well, no, it is designed for the school day. Parents don't come into the design at all.

it is one of the compromises you have to make when being a parent. If you work you will struggle to attend things in the school day. Things have got better with online parents evening booking systems rather than the sign up sheets (it's also easier when you're trying to make multiple appointments that don't leave you hanging around!). There are other compromises if you become a SAHP.

I’m sure they are, but your previous comments were to a poster detailing her specific circumstances.

Our school assumes that mums don't work, or work hobby jobs. It is true to some extent, I have two in different years and there is only one working mum in one of them and three in another (apart from me). For some reason we get all the hate when someone wants to put in a rota for some classroom volunteering. Not being able to do it due to being busy with helping relatives, housework or self development is praised, not being able to do it because of a full-time job gets "but it is only a couple of hours a week, surely you can arrange something". As if I am simply capricious.

What is also annoying is that there are three different communication platforms that the school send messages on, plus old fashioned emails, texts and notes in the bag and notes on the class door. Every year there's a digital revolution when they switch to a new shiny comms regime, and I don't know what happens then - do some teachers revolt and just continue using the old one? It is almost a part time job to check all of them regularly.

I used to phone the school office from my work either just before or just after 9. With the following script
" oh hello Ms X it's Goodskin's Mum here, really sorry but I can't make the pick up tonight could I please be put down for a slot anytime after 5 ? Thanks, also while I have got you can I just check the sport's day/ nativity/ inset day this term, it's s just that work need 6 weeks notice. Thank you so much"

Bottle of good wine/ nice chocs for the office with a card at Xmas and end of Summer term.

Done with work calaender in front of me

In place of notes on the classroom door (which we can't go near anyway) DD school uses stickers on the child (EYFS)/in the diary (older DCs).
Mind you her school has no PTA and doesn't want require parental involvement in fundraising etc.

It’s a crazily busy time of year, particularly if your child is in year 6. This month my DD has 2 school trips including a residential and three transition days at high school. She also has a performance, leavers disco and they do a graduation on the last day. Oh and the summer fair and sports day. It’s pretty crazy, we’ve had to be super organised.

I’m lucky that the school always does an evening performance so I don’t miss nativities and school plays as a result. I sometimes miss sports day but they’re always crap anyway, you basically spend 2 hours watching other people’s kids running down a track.

When my kids were in one school, they had parent volunteers come in to dress the kids for the nativity play with absolutely no reference to safeguarding checks. I had to take an emergency day off so that my children weren't changing alone in a room full of adults I don't know. They had parents in all the time - watch the kid eat their lunch at a new desk, watch them run a mile etc. No working parent could keep up.
They moved schools for a different reasons and that school had very strict attitudes to parents in the building😃. It was fantastic - we were invited to sports day, meet-the-next-teacher session, plays and that was it. BLISS..

I used to hate this when mine were small! Constant letters and emails about this fundraiser or that non uniform day! Always requiring time or money or both! Stupid projects that took hours and cost a fortune!

Goodskin46, love a problem solver rather than just a highlighter!

It really depends on the school OP, not all are that demanding or archaic.

DD’s school (state academy) do everything online, no sign up sheets/physical notice board etc. Very few project type homeworks - usually just maths and spellings. Parents really don’t need to go into the school or speak to reception (unless something is specifically wrong) which is how the school likes it.

The only three events they have that parents tend to attend are Xmas concert, sports day and class assembly. Tbh most don’t even make the sports day.

All the others (reading mornings, Easter fair, school trips etc) are very much optional.

It’s a great school, inclusive and I really like the teachers, they’re good at their jobs (I assume, given dd is happy, likes them, likes going and is learning well). They’ve achieved that without the bumpf that some schools seem to bombard parents with.

We never know why day sign up day is, but have an agreement with a friend on what slot we each want so we can try and book for each other if one of us is missing.
In ye olden days (2019) you just walked into reception and signed up before school. First come first serve. Now, Covid.

There's no system for signing up for parents evening that is going to give every parent an equal opportunity of getting in early. I agree that physical sign in sheet that's only available to parents who can pick up isn't the best solution, but there will always be some parents at a disadvantage, sadly.

My kids primary school used to have two Christmas performances each year, one in the school day and one in the evening, to try to accommodate the different parent demographics. It was generally appreciated, though there were still complaints that the evening one (6:30 if I recall correctly) started too early for those who commuted from London! Even though starting later would mean that the poor five year olds would be shattered if it started much later, and there'd have been complaints about that!

@Goodskin46 the idea of phoning up a large 550 pupil city primary and asking them to sign a sheet for your one child is laughable. Even Emails have a 3-5 day allotted response time and calling is in only for emergencies.

Last year, for Reception, we had about five events within a fortnight at this time of year. I know it was partly uncertainty over Covid meant things were last minute. But each of those would have meant at least a half day of leave, more for the things that were after school lunchtime and timed to finish at 3pm. Which is hopeless if your kid is in after school club until 6pm! I can't just come out of work for 3 hours in the middle of the work day!
So that's nearly a week of annual leave lost to school events.

This year, we've just had ten days' notice of sports day taking place. Sadly I'd already booked a site visit for work 200 miles away so there was no way I could attend. If they'd sent out a term's worth of dates at Easter I could have arranged it.

my DC used to go to a VA school like this.
The head was a very religious woman who believed deep down that children should have two married parents, one of which should not work. As a result there was no proper wrap around care offered; events like parent/teacher « evenings » were held with minimal notice and starting at 2pm; there was constant pressure to volunteer at bake sales and school events during the working day; masses of homework projects that required adult assistance and supervision; and communications were a mess - loads of emails with notifications and instructions all the time, often sent at very short notice and sometimes contradicting emails that had just been sent….yet at the same time WE weren’t allowed to email the teachers - the only way to contact them was to write a letter or attempt to catch their eye at pick up - if that is you were outside the school and not at work at 3pm.

We stuck it for two years and then I’d had enough. Some mothers (and fathers) with nothing else to do loved it because it filled their days, but for those of us who were working it was a nightmare.

So DC went to another school, which was MUCH better - the comms were better organised, you got adequate notice of when things were happening so you could book time off or try to shuffle things about, and there were proper before and after school clubs that ran come hell or high water. Still a bunch of craft projects, tbh, but the other things made life so much easier I didn’t mind the craft much.

And I really really would love to support the school. It's a fabulous school and they do loads of great things, but if they only let you know about events at the last minute, especially if they're in the middle of the day, then I'm going to struggle to do anything about them.

And since when has parents' evening not been in the evening? Last year it ran between 3.30 and 5.30pm but on Zoom which meant we were able to slot it in relatively easily during a work day. This year (different school) last slot was 5.00pm and all in person. That meant another half day of leave used up to be able to get there...

Although we don't get homework at this school (other than a weekly reading book), no uniform which cuts down on the dress up days. And no requests for craft projects so it sounds like we've got off lightly.