Is this a normal amount of requests from the school - its non stop!

[SchoolRequests]

Dc started reception just over 5 weeks ago and already had

• An ongoing weekly donation request
• Request to buy waterproofs (with 5 days notice of when needed)
• Non uniform day plus donation
• Harvest festival donation
• School photos
• Request to go through books with no words on a night and write in communication dairy on a daily / weekly basic
• Harvest bag to fill with leaves and pinecones
• Panto trip in december to pay for

I'm dreading opening his school bag to find more letters requesting things. It is just constant requests for time and money. Is this a normal amount? Do schools think parents have lots of free time and money to get stuff with little notice constantly and don't have work or other children to look after?

What is it like at your kids school?

This was one of the upsides to lockdown. No requests from school!

Wait until it gets to Christmas and you have to buy a load of ingredients to make cakes to sell at the Christmas fair, only to then have to spend even more money buying them back at your DC's insistence!

Yes this is normal. I have kid sinn2 different schools and it is constant. Secondary school is even worse as they give you less than a week's notice for things.

My daughter is nursery but it's similar! Although the donations are just a request so I wouldn't do that, our Nursery have a charity bin and that's how they raise money so I donate a lot of old clothes and shoes there.

Waterproofs, I'm surprised your kids don't already have these. My daughter has 3 pairs of dungerees, and 2 jackets, wellies?! Even my 1 year old has 2 waterproof onesies!!

You don't have to buy school photos or send kids on trips if you can't afford it.

Reading/homework is pretty standard for school so you can't really complain about that!

Yep normal. Wait until the run up to Christmas when there are more and more events and requests and trips and concerts and costumes. The kids get wound up and up and up until you just want Christmas to do one and never return IME.

Yes, at times. It felt like having a second part time job dealing with it all.

In that case I'd write that as your DD is a fluent reader and understands what they're reading (I'd ask them a question every few days to check) then you'll only write a comment if a problem pops up. Some expectations of parents are ridiculous!

And the fund raising gets worse when they get to the upper primary levels. By year 5 and 6, the DC wants to do fund raising for things around the school. They might set up a shop to sell 'craft' or bake cakes. This is in addition to the school wide PTA fund raising events. Who do you think bake those cakes for the break time shop? And you child will want to do it if the school has a culture of it. They won't want to miss out.

What's the weekly donation for? This seems very poorly judged at a time when so many families are struggling.

Yeah, pretty normal. Sorry!

And it’ll get worse closer to Christmas. Sorry!

Normal I think, apart from the weekly donation.
Small village school for DS in Y1, (I think im one of the poorer parents) so cornered the school Admin and asked what's coming up for the next term and how much its going to cost me, they laughed as i was a bit cheeky about it as I need to know what and when to budget for stuff, the more notice the better.

Can't just be me as since I've started asking the school newsletter gives me at least a month's notice.

Our school is good, we get a weekly update /digest with what's happening the next few weeks.
The parent/ teacher association is a bit less disorganised and will ask us to join mid week events at short notice. I've never made it to any of those events.

You could write:
good reading
read with expression
confident reading
Excellent reading
Good comprehension

Rinse and repeat

The reading is standard, the weekly donations sound pretty unique to your school but otherwise yes, it’s a huge admin task to sift and sort through the emails.

Yes, normal.

And it gets worse with the parents who 'weren't told about it' and so then all the messages start coming in duplicate. Letter plus email plus email reminder. And then some kind mum will set up a class WhatsApp and the messages will now be triplicate, and still someone on the class WhatsApp will say 'thank you for telling me, I didn't know' 🤯

Worst half term is summer, I used to change £50 in to one pound coins and just had the pot by the door ready.

Donations seem a bit OTT. However overall this is normal and I completely agree that it’s all too much.

Yes very normal. Try a speak to a mum with an older child so they can give you a heads up.
You’ll probably have Xmas jumper day, nativity costume, children in need soon.

To be fair that sounds like a terms' worth of requests (and you would be complaining more if they all landed with 2 days' notice, so it's good they sent them all out at once.)

Weekly donation is not normal, as others have said.
Writing in child's diary daily is very usual. And very dull. But get used to it.
Waterproofs would be a normal thing to provide.

Harvest festival/photos/pantos are specific to this term.

There's only one set of "please bring in ..." which actually I think is not much.
I'd suggest if you are already finding this non-stop you need to think about how how to better manage things at home - calendars/change jars/store of random items/pen to sign permission forms always at hand etc.

Yes, all of the above except weekly donation.
What’s it for?

Apart from the weekly donation yup. Pop in here for 15 minutes and again next week for an hour. Food for this, dress down dress up etc etc

secondary though I mean I could forget what the schools name was with how often I actually hear from them. One email in august for getting ready to back in September, one in September about school photos and one email this month saying we can pay upfront for cooking ingredients or send our own. Probably won’t here from then again now till December to say the last day is a half day.

This term my Yr5 has had...

• school trip, £35.
• Halloween disco, £2 plus tuck shop money

-choir trip, £5

• other associated costs with choir (£££££!)
• topic dress up day
• school photos
• a few bake sales
• design a Christmas card

-option to buy Rugby World Cup tickets (and meet the team, DD not interested)

• option for something with National Ballet (DD not interested)
• swimming lessons requiring a plain dark costume at 2 days notice, but accepting colourful costumes the first week to give us a bit more time. (No notice this would be straight after summer holidays last term)

Yr7 has had

• locker money, £2
• weekly cooking lesson requiring ingredients
• school photos
• school trip, £30 (honestly a slight relief she didn't make the first 30 to apply, since we had her sisters trip to pay for)
• cooking club also needing ingredients

But you can then go months without any requests

We don't always say yes! We buy the school photos every couple of years. Buy the class photo in Yr6. The choir trip we are probably not buying a spectator ticket (£23, plus travel and parking. DD pointed out you can't even see your family....) and has the tshirt from last year.

Had to say no to instrument lessons even though they were a bargain

Yep and our primary were Patti ileum shit with comms and we'd get two days notice for a dress up day. Thankfully they are now at secondary and so far seems well done and it's all through an app.

Yes, normal.

Welcome to the wonderful world of being a parent of a child at primary.

(imagine what it's like with 3 there at once in different years!)
😩

I wouldn’t worry about what to write they just want to see it’s done. So read book and a signature is ok. Obviously if anything specific you can add that.

What is the weekly donation for? That I would want to know the full details but it won't be compulsory.
Waterproofs? Again for what? Is it on the uniform list? Surely they have a waterproof coat anyway so they would wear that. Are you sure it didn't just mean "on Tuesday we are going to walk in the local park so make sure your child has a waterproof coat incase it rains".
Harvest festival - you don't have to donate. A lot of people don't.
Non uniform day - usually a £1 but what are they going to do with a 4 year old who turns up without a pound coin? Send them home? No they don't.
Photos - you don't have to buy them.
Collecting leaves or whatever - again not everyone will. Just say you didn't go anywhere that your could collect any.
Reading diary. Takes about 2 minutes to write "Billy enjoyed this book signed Billy's mum".
Panto - special treat. If you really can't afford it the school will have discretionary funds to help you out.

Are you new to the UK education system? I ask because my very late 30s and most of this was the norm when I went to school.

In my parenting experience

• An ongoing weekly donation request, not the norm
• Request to buy waterproofs (with 5 days notice of when needed), normal but they should have told you in the welcome pack before he started
• Non uniform day plus donation, normal clothes and £1, usually happens 3 times a year
• Harvest festival donation, normal not needed but nice
• School photos, normal, you don’t need to buy them, I’m opting for first year and last year
• Request to go through books with no words on a night and write in communication dairy on a daily / weekly basic, nightly read is important. Where you not expecting this?
• Harvest bag to fill with leaves and pinecones, take 5 mins at the weekend when your out and about
• Panto trip in december to pay for, trips are a normal part of school life.