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?

@LoudingVoice What method did your mum use to teach you? I'm interested in doing this with my grandchildren.
Were the teachers encouraging that you already knew how to read? I have heard some don't like it and accuse the parents of meddling or even doing damage.

I don’t know the exact method, just lots of reading to me, sounding out the words, think we had flash cards.

I can’t remember what the teachers thought tbh, it was a long time ago, and my mum died a few years ago so I can’t ask her. I remember being given reading books when the others were learning but that’s about it.

I can’t see how it would be a bad thing? Bit odd tbh!

@Mumdiva99
"just because you and your husband work should the other kids not have a sports day attended by parents? Or the play not be put on? Or the music student not play a concert? Or parents not be invited into sew what their kids have been learning? It's those things the kids remember beyond school too."

Just because I'm a teacher and my husband works full time should my DD be the only kid in class today whose parents could not attend to look at her work this year? She has come home in tears saying no one looked at her books and why isn't her work as good as everyone else in her class? Is there not any solution that allows FT working parents to engage with primary education? There are NO external supply teachers in the whole of my city who have any availability today and probably for most of next week. We cancelled y12 classes to free up enough internal cover for the rest of the school. There is no way I could be there.

I don't think it needs to be binary - it's not 'have the in school events or don't' - but I think there could be a creative way to allow those of us who don't have the luxury of booking time off when we want to, to attend/engage with school events in some fashion. Could the teacher not have had a little compassion for a hard working kid crying on her own (asked a nice parent to go and look at her book? Get her to show a TA?) because a 2pm event is just not feasible if you have a FT job? It seems unnecessarily divisive.

My kids' school used to have a monthly 'come and look at your kids' work' session after school. I was a sahm for most of the first year, and used to go and ooh and ah over a friend's child's work as well as my own, as the friend couldn't go.

When I started working, either a friend or the child minder would do the same for me, as like my friend, I had no family near by who would step in for me.

No, they're not stuck in the 50's. Not by a long, long way (speaking as someone who was a primary school in the 60's, so I remember what it was like then, and I dare say the 50's were similar).

Parents came to school four times a year. Parents' evening, sports day, summer fete and the christmas concert. The fete was on a Saturday, so only two events were in daytime during the week.

Apart from spelling once a week, we had no homework at all.

We were asked to bring in things like empty washing liquid bottles and cardboard cereal boxes, a tea towel to put on your head for the nativity, and maybe a tin of something for the fete tombola stall.

That is literally it.

Schools can't afford top-notch admin!

After a decade of budget cuts, the massive financial impact of covid, and the impact of the current high-costs crisis, admin staffing is at a bare minimum in most schools . Schools are making teachers and TAs redundant because they can't afford to pay them- I can't see any state school having the money to hire a top-notch admin person just to consolidate emails.

Teachers are doing the admin, emails, event organising, report collation and sending (as well as writing), SEND paperwork, parents' evening scheduling and appointment communication, curriculum communications, sports day notices etc, on top of their actual job. We're sending messages out in odd moments between duties/ lesson prep in our lunchtimes- there isn't time to package them up attractively.

I would love to pass all this on to a top-notch admin assistant, but teacher's time doesn't cost the school any money. School admin colleagues are brilliant and work hard, but schools don't have the money to pay enough of them for the number of hours required.

Schools are struggling to recruit for admin posts never mind top notch admins!

Fair enough there were 90 in my DC's primary. I am really surprised that a 550 pupil school is using a sign up sheey in the playground tbh

You do realise that people who work in schools also are often parents so yes they do realise. They also miss out on sports days etc. Do you not realise this?

There's always masses of stuff going on in the last three weeks of the year though - maybe because of Covid it didn't really happen for the last couple of years so people have forgotten. Also, people who work in school offices and send out these emails often do lots of other work at the same time and don't necessarily have time to wait and collate information into fewer emails, they just have to ping the info out when they get it.
Sports day should be on online calendars though!

Whenever I go in for something with my DD I always interact with DC who don't have a parent in and other parents do it for my DD when I'm not there. Most of the class don't usually have someone in. Could your DH not take annual leave, though? 2pm is a strange time, though. And tbh, I think you might have bigger problems if the teacher and TA left your DC to cry. At my DD's school the open afternoon for looking at books/meeting new teacher started at 3.30 and went on til 6pm.

Joyfultoes

Schools are full of staff that wouldn’t survive a day in the private sector - and I’m not really even talking about the teachers….

That's alright because the private sector is full of people that wouldn't survive a day working in a school

As a two teacher household our kids are the ones whose parents are never there for anything. I might be lucky to get the time once a year for something big like the Nativity but only if there is someone who can cover me. My Mum, who lives an hour and a half away, has been up for some of the sports days. Nobody can ever go to the displays of work etc. They are also never able to compete in the various inter-school sports events which always seem to require a parent to come out in the middle of the day and take them somewhere.

I have explained to my DC it's just the way it is and they have got used to it. Mine do quite a lot of shows etc with extra-curricular activities which I can always go to, luckily.

I went to primary in the 60s and I would have cringed if my parents had been involved in my day to day school stuff. The waving and loud ‘cooee’ from my mum when she watched the school play still haunts me to this day😁

Aw HereBe I would definitely look at a and make a fuss of DD's classmates' work in that situation and I have.

It would be fascinating to know if Ofsted have ever tried weighing up benefit to children of all this "engagement" versus mental load on mums and teachers (lots of whom are mums).

Most Ofsted and ISI inspectors I've met have been men...

@HereBeFuckery firstly - absolutely your school should have noticed your daughter was the only one without a parent in. (I've been to a lot of these.....before I worked in a school and now can't go......there was never just 1 kid without a parent. I would always make a fuss of any kids on their own too. But that should be driven by the teachers/staff not really down to parents to fill the gap (Obviously I never minded but as your daughter experienced - what if no one came for them).

What solution do you suggest? Because I bet you've thought of it.......what did your child's school say when you suggested it? (If it works I'm pinching to suggest where I work and where my kids go to school....).

I was at infants then primary between about 1965 to 1974 and my memories of primary are really strong, for some reason I can remember huge chunks of it, even all my form teachers names 😁 We had one teacher per form (no TAs) who absolutely ruled the roost (41 kids in the class - I still have my school reports stating this). A very scary head who patrolled the corridors with a cane he wasn't afraid to use (I am dead against this though) and exceptionally high standards of teaching. Admittedly there was very little in the way of ‘fun’ at school - no crafts or dressing up days, no fairs or bake sales, which would have been nice. When I compare what my children did/learn in primary in the 2000s to what I did it’s no wonder my very clever son was bored stiff and complained a lot about too much pointless and inane stuff going on (I had my children later in life so there is a big gap between my primary years and theirs). Also we had no homework.

Also, just to add - 11+ was available to everyone and no one did private tutoring - it was actually done in the school! There were two very prestigious private schools who offered only 2 full scholarships (100%) to the best performing pupils of schools in our large area (a London suburb) two girls in the same year (including my sister) were offered (and took) those places - that’s how high the standard of my state primary was.

550 pupils large?? My DD's Primary has over 1000 pupils and the office staff would be more than happy to do something like this. I am surprised at physical sign up sheets, though as they do everything over Parentmail. Calling is not just for emergencies and emails are usually answered within a day.

Yes but that’s just your DD’s school being a bit crap.

We had this exact event this week - work sharing - but we make sure all the children with no parent able to attend have some interested adults to show (usually the head teacher). Plus we contact all the parents who weren’t able to attend to offer other times to come & look at their child’s work (within our working hours so between 8-4ish). In that way we are as accommodating & supportive as possible within our school hours.

It is possible to have events but also be as inclusive as possible. However, I really do believe working parents need to let go of some of their guilt. We’re a 2 teacher household. Often we can’t go to our DCs’ events. Yep, it’s a bit disappointing for them but then the trade off is they get 13 weeks a year when we are all together as a family. Plus loads of nice financial perks of 2 FT working parents. So I refuse to feel guilty about overall doing the thing that works best for us as a family. Or to push that onto their lovely school who are just trying to support and encourage as many families as possible.

However, I really do believe working parents need to let go of some of their guilt. We’re a 2 teacher household. Often we can’t go to our DCs’ events. Yep, it’s a bit disappointing for them but then the trade off is they get 13 weeks a year when we are all together as a family.

Yeah. Most FT working parents don't get to assuage their guilt with 3 months of holiday though! I find the holidays make me feel far guiltier as I have to send my kids to holiday clubs. At least school is compulsory.

neverbeenskiing · 08/07/2022 06:45
a misunderstanding that schools primarily serve parents. They don’t. They serve children, who come with (hopefully supportive or not actively hostile) parents

I work in a secondary school. The attitude we take is that we serve a community, one that includes children, parents, siblings and the wider family. When planning events or making decisions we do our best to take the whole school community into account and actively prioritise not making the lives of parents/carers harder. We find that this is the best way to engage parents not simply, "well its nice for the children, so tough shit if it makes your life more difficult". It's too easy to say that parents are either supportive or actively hostile, most parents are as supportive as their circumstances allow them to be. As a school if we want parental engagement, we've got to do our best to make it realistic for parents to engage whatever their circumstances.

@neverbeenskiing Well said. I worked in early learning centres and the schools and centres that held the same attitude as your high school really had the best quality educational outcomes for the children.

Those who had teachers with an us vs them attitude towards parents really did not have good educational outcomes for the children at all.

I got 19 emails in the last month (they’re on a portal) just counted.
plus text messages to tell me to look at parent pay to provide consent or pay ! - which I can’t do easily quantify.
…. this is just one child. The other child is at another school with another system!

it’s blinking ridiculous!!

it just makes life hard work for everyone …. But really what else do we expect from ofsted/government advice.

My phone just auto corrected ofsted as “fisted” …. Seemingly accurate description of what they do! not a word I’ve used before!!