School keeps asking for parents to join in in the middle of the working day?!

[artline200]

I am new to the whole school emails thing, but my son has started at a pre-school attached to a new infants school. Teaching is great, we love it. But they are asking for a lot of parent participation, which I feel quite trapped by. It will be a friendly request, such as come in at 2pm to celebrate the children’s achievements in the mini marathon. To attend I would need to take time off work to go. And if i don’t go will my son be sad that he’s one of the only kids without a parent there? It breaks my heart to think that.

The latest email, which has really wound me up, is an invitation for parents to join children at 12pm for christmas lunch. I have to pay for a lunch I don’t want, and take time off work to be there. And on top of this if my child would like to see Santa and receive a gift I need to pay £6. This isn't exactly optional as I can’t be the only mum who doesn’t join for Christmas dinner and doesn’t buy my kid a ticket to see Santa. Imagine how he would feel, for a teacher to tell him, no your mummy can;t come.

Am being I unreasonable to think that these kinds of things should be on a Saturday and legitimately be optional, rather than in the school days when many parents are working? or at least kept to a minimun and dates sent out at the start of term?! It creates such an unfair divide for children and puts so much pressure on working parents who already have to take time out for school holidays, inset days and sicknesses.

Seriously?

It's not an expectation of a SAHP (mum or dad). It's involving parents in part of their DC's school lives.

Yes it's inconvenient & hard if you work, at times. I'm a single parent so attendance is all on me. I went when I could, explained to my DC when I couldn't & they understood.

And re Father's Day, my DC school were always sensitive about this, including making cards.

God you sound a joy!

I'm the first to rail against last minute or scant updates.

But on the whole, I reckon schools are doing the best they can.

Secondary school is even harder to manage in terms of information I find.

Don't worry, I used to go along to everything and there would only be a handful of us. Most mums are working. No kids ever seemed sad, it was a novelty to have their friends’ parent sitting at the table with them (on tiny, weeny little chairs!)

Teachers do not get paid any extra hours incurred as a result of trips or residentials, neither do they get any other form of benefit for it. They do it out of the goodness of their hearts and this is wearing pretty thin now. How the hell do you expect a school to host a parents evening and an assembly or other parental event at the same time?

I agree @girlmom21

I think you need to appreciate that everyone's circumstances are different. When my kids were at primary I had some time when I wasn't working (younger child still at home) some time when I was working part time and some time when I was back full time.

Some parents will be able to go to things at 2pm and will enjoy the opportunity to do that. Some won't be able to go to anything and some will, with appropriate notice ,be able to juggle things to go to the occasional thing.

Even when working full time I used to go to the occasional Christmas dinner, but equally there were lots I didn't get to go to. I don't think the kids without parents at those things bother too much, they certainly won't be on their own as there are lots of working parents.

I don't think the school will be expecting a majority of parents to attend, just offering the option to those who can.

I would have hated to have events like this moved to weekends - I wanted my kids to have a break from school over the weekend and would have resented having to plan things around school activities on weekends.

I'd expect a parents' evening, well-scheduled to make the most of the time available, followed by a short performance in the hall. No reason why the child can't attend the session with the teacher, as the talk will be about their education, and hopefully, positive and supportive.

I totally understand your point, but I have voted YABU.

Reason is, you wont get these times back so wherever possible, book annual leave and go..especially the Christmas one. You can't seriously be baulking at £6 within the excess of Christmas can you?

If you or the father can't go, could a grandparent go instead, or another relative? Just so somebody is there.

I know it's difficult and unfair, but I missed too much because of work, stuff I can't turn the clock back for.

Wow! Do you not realise how much extra time teachers give up already. At least 20 hours a week unpaid. Their day doesn't end when the bell rings

Yeah, having to explain to my disabled dc that the school ‘rewards’ are discriminatory and daft wasn’t something I expected to be doing, especially not so early on. So forgive me for not being ‘a joy’.

Paid with what? Fresh air? Schools can barely afford to pay for cover when staff are off, but you think they can whip conjure up some budget from the magic money tree to pay for staff to work at weekends? And when staff do trips like DfE, they don't get paid extra – they're lucky if they get a day off in lieu. Sorry, but you have no idea of the grim reality of what it's like in schools at the moment. It's not lazy thinking – budgets are stretched, teachers are stretched, there is no money.

Plus, why should my teacher OH give up his weekend with his DC (on top of missing all their school events) because not all parents can't get time off in the week? How is that fair?

You haven't got a clue have you!

The irony is that back in the 1950s mothers were firmly left outside the school gates and even taking an interest in your dc’s homework was frowned upon as interference.
Schools only wanted parents in the classroom when mothers went out to work.

Unfortunately some of these parents forget that teachers are also people who are entitled to a life outside of work and to spend time with their own children. They expect that their lives and child should take priority even outside of school hours.

The school day is short - in terms of contact hours. Is the time from 3.30pm onwards really seen as extra time which teachers donate to the school? Surely their salary reflects that they work beyond the time when the kids leave. Isn't it normal, in a professional role, to work about ten hours a day, in all?

I know that teachers don't get paid for the whole of the vacation time enjoyed by students, but how many paid weeks of holiday do they get? I did read the figure on Mumsnet, but I can't remember what it was.

I don't think staying for a short play, that follows on from a parents evening, is a big deal. An imaginative solution would be to hold a cake sale also; raffle some Christmas items and raise some money to buy some costumes or art equipment.

What happens in secondary school, when kids go on Duke of Edinburgh, or other residential trips, or even The School Journey in Year 6, or trips to the seaside, which get back late? Staff get paid, or some other inducement or benefit is offered.

Teachers don't get paid extra to go on trips

Do you know how long parents' evening takes for the average teacher? Aside from all the prep, done in their own time, outside classroom hours. My primary OH teacher starts at 3pm and carries on the last parents depart at 7pm. He doesn't get paid extra for that overtime and it's usually split across two days – so two days where our DC don't see him. Then he comes home knackered and has to do all the marking for that day before school starts again in morning – an average of 90 books, for maths, English and topic. But you want him to corral very tired children who've been waiting around all that time into giving a performance after the sessions to parents who just want to get home themselves? Then come home and carry on working until gone midnight?Just because a few parents can't make daytime events. Honestly, you live in cloud cuckoo land.

Most teaching staff are in school for 7 and only leave after 5 then continue working once they have put their own children to bed. Then there is the work they do at weekends and in the holidays. They are only contracted to 1265 hours a year which does include certain meetings and after school events.

They are only paid for the standard 20 days holiday plus 8 bank holidays so probably a lot less than a lot of the parents who may get 26-30 days plus bank holidays.

You can’t do everything and the school can’t do things outside working hours so I think decide what is a non negotiable and do that. For me, presentation of projects, Christmas plays and obviously parents evening were must dos. Matches, lunches etc were only if I could be available and I felt no guilt about no going. Teach you child to understand that parents can’t go to everything and that the school don’t expect you to. He will understand

A lot of these events are offered to prove to ofsted they are involving parents and joining home and school life. They are also useful for fund raising.
I've made some events and not others through the years and quite often it is the same faces that do make it - stay at home parents and parents on shift work. The others I rarely saw because they were at work. So long as your child knows ahead of time they soon accept it.

And who do you think is organizing the performance and managing the children in it?
Teachers can't be in two places at once.

What happens in secondary school, when kids go on Duke of Edinburgh, or other residential trips, or even The School Journey in Year 6, or trips to the seaside, which get back late? Staff get paid, or some other inducement or benefit is offered.

Teachers get no extra pay or inducement of any kind, despite the 24 hour responsibility of residential trips, or the long days of day trips.

I have done many, many of both things and believe me there was not a single penny paid or perk of any kind involved.

It’s just one of these things. I found this really hard as the single working parent of a child at primary school.

There isn’t really a workaround without impinging on teachers and support workers downtime. It’s impossible to make everyone happy.

I would echo what PPs have said: you will be very far from being the only one.

My only real gripe with these is the lack of notice. It’s one thing to book leave for a sports day when you are informed of the date in May. Quite another matter to find time for a “curriculum meeting” at 10am on a Tuesday when you are told the previous Thursday, as used to happen routinely at my DD’s primary.

And while I don’t believe teachers should have to schedule these events outside of their hours I do think in many primary schools there is an unthinking assumption that most mums don’t work or work P/T and can clear schedules at short notice which rubs a lot of working mums up the wrong way.

It's hard for schools as they're always told to involve parents as much as possible and invite them in/ keep open door policy. However, it does definitely seem they need to "tweak" some of their approaches. Asking for parents to pay for unnecessary extra stuff is a no no, but keeping an open door policy is great. Doing it it at weekends means staff have to work which is unacceptable, they are already overworked.

I would say a kindly-worded, polite email to the school would be a really good idea, the person in charge of organising these things might be oblivious to what some parents think.

Working parents will always have these challenges but sometimes they might be able to make the dates (which definitely should be shared WAAAAY earlier that this) and others might work part time so it not really fair to say they shouldn't go ahead with activities in the week. Adding more notice is a must.

Good luck with it. 😊

Get a grandparent, aunt, uncle, other parent to go.

You do realise all these activities require planning and organising? Who do you think does that? School staff usually start at 7 and finish at 5 then carry on, weekends and evenings. To say getting payed will sort out the problem is rather ignorant I'm afraid, it doesn't solve the issue of the lack of time. Plus, extra available time would be better spent planning good lessons for the children's learning rather than pointless admin for activities that have no impact on pupil progress.

Instead of blaming it on "lazy thinking" perhaps you should volunteer to organise one of these events and volunteer in a classroom for a while, then you'll see.