To find school expectations infuriating for working parents?

[JustARegularPoster]

I'm not very well, so I might be being overly sensitive, but my children's school is driving me bonkers with their expectations that parents can drop everything to attend events in the middle of the day.

Are all schools like this?

I know there is probably no answer to this, but the repeated reminders and the "we strongly recommend that all parents make every effort to attend", just makes me feel awful when I can't attend due to... well... working. I only work PT as well, so if something falls on my day off then I will obviously attend, it must be even more of a nightmare for parents that work FT.

The latest of these is an event at 1:45pm on a day I work - and for this one they got my oldest child to hand-write me an invitation, which he'd very carefully coloured in. And he brought him home and very earnestly asked me if I could attend, which I really can't. I thought getting the children to write invites for their parents seemed particularly unfair - and school must surely realise that a lot of parents work and won't be able to make it.

FWIW I do what I can to attend, even if I am working - I take holiday, ask to WFH if possible, or make time up.... but honestly my employers good will only goes so far and I've reached the point now where I'm out of holiday and don't feel like I can ask yet again.

What does everyone else do?

First thing in the morning means "dropping off at breakfast club at 7 or 7:15am" for most working parents.

You really want events before 7am do you?

Well yes, but at least they are generally around during the day which working parents are not

Thanks for the replies! Really interesting to read. 😊

FWIW it was mainly the hand-written/coloured invitation from my child that got me this time, I'm usually less bothered (although I still feel guilty not to be able to make things where my child will feel sad/let down) about most of the day-to-day stuff.

The annoying thing this time is it wasn't an event where children will be present. It was some kind of safeguarding advice workshop, run by an external charity. So my son didn't need to know about it and didn't need to know I wasn't going... but as they got him to make the invite and made it into a big deal, he is now asking why I'm not going. I'm not shy about telling him the truth about my limitations as a working parent, but I did feel bad when he gave me the invite and was really excited about this "really important" event. This coupled with the "we strongly encourage parents in all year groups to make every effort to attend" reminder on Parentmail - it just annoyed me more than usual today.

And I totally appreciate the schools are damned if they do and damned if they don't, and these things are not the responsibility of individual teachers. To be clear I'm not a complainer parent and mostly keep my thoughts to myself on these irritations, unless it's something that I feel is having a real detrimental impact on my child and needs a direct discussion.

Lack of notice is another bug-bear actually - Star of the week assembly notifications are sent out with less than 24 hrs notice. I don't happen to work on the usual assembly day, so not the end of the world for me, but I imagine it must be a right PITA for those who work on that day and get so little notice. Ditto open classrooms are often barely advertised and sometimes I only knew it was happening when I got to pick up and we were invited inside (which again on a working day would have meant I'd have been non-the-wiser and missed it). The children know it is happening though when some parents turn up and others don't.

Recently we had an event right at the end of the school day that my DC was desperate for me to attend, so I booked a half day so I could be there. ALL the children were there, including those who's children couldn't attend and there were a LOT of tears from the children who's parents couldn't make it (these are children in the lower end of primary so not very old). That also got to me a bit (and made me feel worse about not attending this sort of thing in future) and I thought it was a bit poorly handled.

I'm not a single parent, but due to the nature of my husband's job it is often easier for me to re-arrange things to attend (and obviously being the one who works PT also helps as I am available more). My husband does what he can but for various reasons at the moment the majority falls to me (hasn't always been the case but for the last 6 months or so things have changed).

To the people who talked about the adverse impact on women, that did make me laugh for a specific reason. My husband is No. 1 emergency contact as, due to the location of his work, he could almost always be there quicker than me in a real emergency, and also when I'm working I cannot always have my phone on me/or do not get any signal in certain parts of the facility I work in. How often do you think the school contact my husband first? It is interesting that it's always me, despite him being No. 1 on the emergency contact form (and it's always been this way since my eldest started at the school).

what do you want us to do? stay till 6, 7 or later?

With the greatest of respect, you have to work on your own feelings of guilt around this. Schools really don’t expect every parent there every time, and they’re not judging you.

As long as a child has a ‘someone special’ to look out for they’re generally fine - in our school this was basically whoever was attending that time looking out for other people’s kids so ‘Daddy and I can’t go today because we’re at work but George’s mum is going to be there and she’s excited to see what you’ve done.’ Return the favour as much as you can. It’s a community, after all.

Really workplaces should be more flexible for such things.

Ours isn't too bad, and we are lucky that usually we can make it so one of us is WFH and can take a late lunch to nip out for an event.

But I still find it weird. Until DC started school I had no idea we would be invited in ever. I had assumed parents' evenings and performances in the evening and that was it. Was a total surprise to me there was any bringing parents in during the day. And not an entirely welcome surprise either.

Well yes, but at least they are generally around during the day which working parents are not

Not all working parents work 9-5, 5 days a week. Many are on shifts, or work around their children on twilight shifts or at weekends.

Dad was invited too - it was "to mummy and daddy". Unfortunately he's currently even less able to extricate himself from work for this kind of thing. Hopefully not forever, but currently that's the case (which is not the school's fault obviously!).

Well yes, tbh. Most professional jobs would carry an expectation that you need to work the hours necessary to carry out your role. Holding events when many parents can not attend is not really that helpful, is it?

The annoying thing this time is it wasn't an event where children will be present. It was some kind of safeguarding advice workshop, run by an external charity. So my son didn't need to know about it and didn't need to know I wasn't going... but as they got him to make the invite and made it into a big deal, he is now asking why I'm not going.

Ah! Well, that makes sense really - they know parents won’t turn up to this stuff so a bit of emotional manipulation is probably worth it from their POV so they don’t have an empty hall for the workshop.

Speak to them about lack of notice, though.

It's not unreasonable to invite you to things, but it is very unreasonable to get a young child to design and work on a handwritten invitation. There will be a lot of tears from those whose parents can't go. They are too little to understand that their school assemblies etc that they are so proud of are not the centre of the universe, and that is so hard on the parents to have to explain that.

I'm not saying I know what the answer is at all, to be fair, just it's a bit crap for everyone really.

I suppose (in my specific school's case) there seems to be very little understanding/acknowledgement for the parents who can't attend, rather than the "please make every effort to attend" line we get a lot. A little bit of acknowledgement in this regard would probably go a long way (and I'm not the only parent who feels this way but equally I suppose it's not a big enough deal to make a fuss over - hence posting here for a bit of a vent I guess).

😂😂😂

Apart from the cheek of the comment, realistically then the parents will complain that

they are still at work
they are stuck in their commute
they have an evening class
it's too late for their younger ones
they don't have childcare for the younger ones
the children are already booked with a club and they don't want to cancel

It is difficult but you do what you can. Harvest festival at 11:30 and a come see our classroom at 1:30 were the two things last term.

I hate disappointing the children so I managed to squeeze it in. When you add in the strikes employers patience does run out.

Now you are just being silly. Clearly not all parents work 9-5. I don't. But most people's core working hours are during the day. If I am late shift, I can't attend evening events, but I accept that as my working hours can be an issue. However. The majority of people work during the day, hence why daytime events are tricky for the MAJORITY of working parents

Lol. When do you want me to plan lessons, then?

I go to what I can, and the rest I miss. They won’t remember the occasions you miss, they’ll remember the ones you attended.

the majority of people work during the day, hence why daytime events are tricky for the MAJORITY of working parents

so what are you willing to lose to have evening events of this nature?

and evening events are tricky for the majority of parents too.

I would rather for the teacher of my kids to be fully available during school hours for my kids, rather than faffing around early morning or evening when it's not convenient for the kids anyway.

It's a SCHOOL, ideally the main concern should be the kids in it, not fitting around Little Timmy's mum busy calendar.

Mine is very flexible generally. But equally this year I've had to WFH a LOT due to (seemingly endless!) childhood illnesses, and had time off/WFH for various events, etc. plus time off for my own illnesses. There comes a point where I start to think to myself "Am I taking the piss now?" and feel a bit reticent to ask for yet more flexibility.

Yes, massively steep learning curve for me when DD started school last year. She loves school but I'm finding the organisation challenging to say the least. So far this school year we've had:

We had "meet the teacher" on a Thursday afternoon, at 3.30pm. Children (school aged or otherwise) not allowed to attend.
Forest school was announced with two days notice - I bumped into three other school mum's in Go Outdoors.
Awards assemblies are on the year calendar but you get a letter on the Monday telling you if your child is getting an award at 9am on Friday, which then overran by 30 minutes.
I've just had to find a shoe box for an activity they're doing tomorrow which we got a message about at 3.15pm.

You do realise that teachers themselves can't attend. Ever.

Just stop feeling guilty. Such a waste of your time.

DD’s school does this with so little notice. Drives me absolutely barmy. Had a reading and phonic parents session this morning we were told about on Friday last week.

Swimming was another one with 2 days notice to buy appropriate swimwear, goggle and hat. So bloody frustrating.

I am tempted to say in the holidays you get every six weeks but that's for another thread.