That teachers should have templates for things that happen year in year out?

[nappychangingbag]

I'm not sure if it's just my children's school but there hasn't been the greatest communication...

No info on which classroom to drop child off at
No info on PE days
No info on school clubs
No info on anything at all really

AIBU to think that teachers should have a template for things that happen year in year out? Surely it's helpful?!

Like start at the start of the year have a checklist of things you need to communicate and then do it?

Sure you might have to tweak it year to year but I feel like schools lack such basic efficiency in admin, it kind of makes the school look rubbish.

And I definitely don't get the feeling it's because they're just "really focussed" on the actual teaching.

I feel like if you can't do the basics it doesn't really fill me with confidence that you can do the complicated stuff 🤷‍♀️

@ConnieTucker oh lol that was a typo!

We sent out PE days last Friday in the newsletter and the clubs letter comes out separately.

The new classes they were in were sent home before the summer. I don’t see that as a ‘drip feed’ though.

It’s not hard to write it down though or re-check emails is it.

Some things will be more important than others and putting it all in one email can mean it gets confusing or parents overlook the important parts.

It is an admin task, not a teaching task.

@GoryBory when you have three children and are getting several emails a day/week from each one, then yes, yes it is.

If it's not that hard a job why not sort the issue you out at the source? And send info out properly from the start?

As I said before I don't care about the politics of whose task it is... just get it right!

The school my children go to does a ‘meet the teacher’ evening the second week of term. Parents are invited into school where this type of information is given to parents. There is also a talk by the head. It’s only a 1 form intake so the door drop off thing isn’t an issue. Even the kids know. I thought this. All our local schools do this so I just assumed it was pretty standard. Our school also uses an app for information giving, bookings and payments. Communication is really good. If you don’t know it’s because you’ve failed to read the information. Not all schools have poor communication.

Most of those things (and around a thousand more) all change. Staffing changes. Other things also need to be done.

Even something you think would be simple (like which room) involves a lot of specialist work in particular modules of the MIS, liaison with HR, creating and applying blocks, writing to SQL, importing and linking staff, adding children to classes, importing files from previous schools/nurseries/raising ID numbers...then somebody calls in long term sick the night after they arrived for INSET or a child now needs to be in particular group or room because it's the only one that's accessible to them or the only remaining TA and changes have to be made again...assuming that the summer update of the MIS proceeded and worked on all machines and the person noticed the passing comment in a Facebook post that for some parts of the system, you need to change the format of your password or it'll just sit there doing nothing instead of telling you that the fix is to change the format of your password...and that the current version of the transfer files doesn't actually work because whilst the MIS changed the data fields as per DfE instruction, the DfE didn't actually change the format of their files for that to work....

And then it needs to be communicated to the staff sending things out. Who need logins for the comms. Which involves IT, the internet provider, the head to give appropriate access themselves for many functions, the app support, etc, etc, etc, etc.

If you're exceedingly lucky, you've got all the staff from last year in place so that all of it works exactly the same as it did last year. But in the real world, admin and IT and data and everybody else is firefighting. So your complaint that nobody's sending out details of when the dance club (that they haven't been able to recruit a teacher for yet) is going to be is possibly one of the items of lesser importance.

Please don't tar all schools & hardworking, stressed teachers with the same brush! Our school is excellent at parent communication & does all of those things & more at the beginning of a new school year & indeed throughout.

The admin staff should have those set up and ready to adjust.

What I have found with many years of having a child in school is that the admin staff don’t understand that we don’t all automatically know how the school runs. Sure, some parents have an older child at the school or have a friend with a child at the school and they get information that way, but many of us know nothing. The admin staff just assume we know the routine. I’ve had them reference particular rooms with abbreviations, send out cryptic emails with jargon that I had to call and have them translate, and refer in passing to special upcoming days that are not on the calendar but everyone just knows about by osmosis.

They just get so close to the information, they forget the job is largely conveying the information

How about fuck off to anyone complaining about School Admin?

I bet a whole heap of this stuff you want to know about it on the school website. Have you looked there?

And just so you get off your high, patronising "just do it properly" horse a few things to think about:

We are paid barely anything.
Frequently told things piecemeal, too late or not in synchronisation with everything else.
Often not told anything at all.
As PP said, so much changes from July to 1st September and then even from 1st Sept to start of term.
Jane (student) has been in an accident. Her timetable needs to be adjusted due to her injuries. This takes the carefully planned timetable, throws it into 27 billion pieces and means it all changes.
And our job (sorry) is 1% communicating with parents, 95% about keeping children safe and 4% other stuff.

And September...you know...busy. Because parents have moved without telling us they are withdrawing their children. Still on holiday without telling us. Not having filled in the data forms we need and then complaining because you cannot log on to the comms app. Complaining "why are you only sending this to me and not their father.....BECAUSE YOU ONLY GAVE US YOUR EMAIL!"

And if we email you with too much you will only read the first 2 bullet points and ignore the rest.

Just fuck off.

<feels a bit better now>

I feel like if you can't do the basics it doesn't really fill me with confidence that you can do the complicated stuff 🤷‍♀️

Take your child elsewhere then?

I assume you are talking about primary school here?

All the schools I taught in had a school handbook with this information in and it was also in the school website. We also had an app called Class Dojo which had a newsfeed for each individual class and a generic newsfeed which let parents know about events etc.

I love you a little bit today

Yes my elder child's grammar school shares a calendar with parents. They are fantastic.

Amazing.

I don't know why other schools don't do this.

Homework shared via an app.

Reports shared.

Teams for children.

It means I only have to communicate to school for important matters.

I'm with you OP. Surely a spreadsheet then just change the dates ready for each term would be easy enough.

I really love the school admin.

Some of it is really basic but incredibly helpful.

However puts together the calendar and timetable deserves a medal.

I imagine you get something similar in private schools too?

it is fantastic and visible and the start of a new school was tremendously reassuring for my child who had some anxiety.

You do know that after school clubs are usually run by staff volunteering their time. In most schools I know, they don't get sent out until a few weeks in - in part because they need to organise who I'd happy to run what, spread them across the week and fit in with potential other commitments in school and outside of school for those teachers.

Likewise, organising PE can be a fine art, managed around PPA sessions and potentially other uses for the hall (some schools have playgroups in theirs to help boost numbers).

As someone who is still answering student and parent messages at bloody 7.50pm:

-go to the website
-log into any app given (Teams/ email/ classcharts/ carrot/ class dojo/ myclassroom/ edulink/ whatever)
-check your child's bag
-check any pockets/ blazers
-check your class Whatsapp

and most of all, have some patience. I have been asking for some information since last July, and I'm part of leadership. We communicate where we can. It's shit sometimes having to wait for 3 other people. Parents often know when they ask first-hand, sometimes before us if they ask the right person.

Teachers have zero control over what is being handed out and shared when. They do their best.

Every school I have worked in sends out all that info, but schools do vary enormously.

Parents are allowed to volunteer to help out.

What you are asking is for someone else to do it for you!

Are you on a whats app group where other parents need to inform you the day before?

Or why not employ a PA to help you out?

Or get a calendar and I don’t know - write on it?

Why are your short comings someone else’s problem?

I can tell. That's why your thread was whining about teachers when it's not even down to them.

If you want it done differently, speak to the head about the admin/communication.

Don't question the quality of teaching based on your own misunderstandings about how schools work.

(meant to reply to not caring about whose job it is, just wanting it done well)

Why is someone else not being able to communicate properly my short coming???

Yeh based on this thread they don't seem to work and the staff seem vile and lack agency.