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?

When I was a teacher, my head had the approach of “we expect our parents to attend school events so our teachers can attend their children’s school events”. It was one of her few great qualities.

I seriously object to any expectation that teachers work in the evenings or weekends (they already do this!) to put on assemblies, fundraisers, etc. because they are not paid for this time and have their own families.

As PPs have said, attend the ones you can. The handmade invites are likely designed to guilt-trip the parents who can attend but don’t give a shit. We had many parents who didn’t work or volunteer or anything but never ever turned up to an event. Their children were gutted every time. I remember one particularly upsetting time trying to coax a sobbing child out from under their desk because their parent hadn’t turned up yet again!

I'm definitely taking on board those of you saying that I need to work on my own guilt too.

This is definitely something I struggle with!

My son's school gave us 1 weeks notice that they were going to hold parents evening in the daytime.
So, 800 children have been given a whole day off school this Thursday so that each parent can book one 10 minute meeting with their tutor between 9am and 3pm.
I'm furious.

That's a real piss take

Please please please!!! Can this not turn into a teacher bashing thread! The teachers are not the ones organising the events and deciding the times. Management is. Take your issues and bashing to them.

Comments about holiday and working “9-3” are inevitable irrelevant and unnecessary. They’re also simply untrue! Teachers work really fucking hard like a lot of working people. A lot of them have families they don’t see often enough like a lot of working people. They don’t have the luxury of flexible working in the day like a lot of working people.

Apparently "parental involvement" is something that gets graded as part of Ofsted inspections.
The school knows most parents won't be able to attend but if they don't organise it they lose that tick in Ofsted's box.

The one that drives me mad is that our school finishes early at the end of terms. That would be fine and tolerable, if it was a case of knowing that we needed to pick up at noon, for example - but they finish after a church service, of indeterminate length, with an estimated finish time which will bear no resemblance to reality once the Head gets into full flow... so you can't even plan it to duck out of work for half an hour to pick up after the service because you'll end up standing around for another hour for the over-run.

I was a stay at home mum for the very early years thankfully so could do all the random school day stuff and the kids are older so able to understand that sometimes I can't make it to everything these days, but it's tough. I remember as a kid on sports day being the only child in the class not able to leave school after the sports were finished as my mum was working (single parent) and not able to go see sports day and take me home afterwards.

Our parents almost never managed to attend anything for any of the three of us.
Dad was military, and Mum was a teacher at another school.
We understood neither of them could be there - Dad couldn't be helicoptered off a submarine in the North Atlantic, and Mum couldn't leave her own class of 30 kids.
In 13 years of schooling, they were there once, for me. My very last day of 6th year, when I got dux (best overall marks/performance in the year) of the school, at the end of term prizegiving. Organised a good few weeks in advance, and had to be taken unpaid by Mum.
We're not super fucked up by it. You just have to explain it's not always possible.

Why have you assumed that the invitation was only for women?

Interesting!

Does put a slightly different spin on it...

P

So my DS’s school does this and it drives me up the wall. Often things aren’t even announced until the week before.

We had a day to look at their work recently, the kids were all sat at their desks with their books waiting for their parents to have a look. There were a few who seemed upset, I felt it was really unfair of them to have just sit waiting for parent who may or may not be able to make it while everyone else gets to show off their work.

If they had announced earlier, more would have made it and why not have an activity going, instead of just waiting at their desks like a lemon.

why women?

Probably because on these events its 90 percent mums who attend. The only males being grandparents and the odd father. At least thats the case in DDs school.

I have to do all the daytime school stuff because DH cannot leave work without booking a day off. Her works in a typically male industry and flexible working just doesnt exist.

Why are they wording the letter like that? That needs bringing up. No parent should feel guilt tripped into not going to x event as they’re working.
When these events happened and I or dh couldn’t go I sent fil who loved it anyway.

Yep. I’m a teacher and have missed all sorts of events over the years. The latest one was ‘Meet the tutor’ which was during the day (they have the students lesson 5 off, effectively going home at lunchtime). I couldn’t go to meet my daughters tutor because I’m a tutor. Not only that, the bastard management announced we had to have moved our cars and be at our appointments 15 minutes after the end of lesson 4. So no lunch, no loo. I am not a robot and I’m not sure how much longer I can carry on like this.

Can someone else go for you? I go to all my niece and nephew’s school stuff if their mum can’t.

I go to what I can, as does DH, (sometimes grandma goes) and I certainly don't feel guilty if I can't make somethings.

So I’m presuming you work through all your annual leave full time then yeah? @Katypp

My children's school have started doing this handwritten letter of the kids shite as well. I mean it's very cute and something I will keep but fucking hell the guilt.

How is that the school fault?

They invite PARENTS, it's not their problem if it's the mums who attend.

The majority of primary school staff tend to be female, so it's "mothers" there who can't attend their own kids events.

As an aside, I worked in a typically male industry. I had the most flexible hours!

The part of the OSTED judgement on how well a school is led is partly concerned with how well the school engages with parents. So the school should be considering the parent body’s wishes and circumstances, not just firing out a volume of invitations. The wishes of the parent body will vary greatly from school to school in my experience.

Genuine question- what would you like the school to do? Would you prefer evening only invitations, a mixture of both day and evening or simply less invitations? Some HTs feel that particularly for KS1 students, an evening event is too tiring. Do you think the issue truly lies with schools, or inflexible employers? You sound really fair OP, and I’d truly be interested in your opinion, and that of other posters.

FFS, there's always one🙄

Schools are also bound by directed hours. 1265 hours. They can’t just endlessly organise evening events because that’s what the parents want or they will be going against the rules.

I took mine out of a disorganized school. Says a lot when they can’t organise a piss up in a brewery. The final straw was so called open classroom. Announced Friday, for the Weds and Thurs afternoons the next week. Two children, two different days. Asked if I could see both classrooms on same day, given they were next to one another. Told no by the head. Really? So two afternoons off work for me. The school run after school club, interestingly, didn’t dare chase me for the late cancellation fees, given it was their lack of planning that had caused the fuck up in the first place.

Much happier at a better run school now. It is possible! People are too accepting of low standards IMO.

My youngest school is like this. So many daytime events and I just can't go because I'm at work. So yet again each year he is the kid with no mother at the mothers day lunch, or fathers day, or any of the other things they come up with.

I get it, its great for kids to have their parents there and involved, but its really shit for the ones whose parents work.

On the other hand my older ones attended a lovely school where we used to live and pretty much every single thing to involve parents was done in the evening. And even a saturday once when there was a concert.
They sent out a poll basically asking for all opinions on it all and seemed it was unanimous that almost all would love evening things and sahp could attend those also. They also made it very clear other siblings always welcome to attend whatever it was. They made it as easy as possible for majority of parents to attend.

I get teachers don't want to give up their evenings, but at this particular school the teachers were all so nice and saw it as part of their job to do that for the children on the odd occasion an evening was required. I bloody loved that school and those teachers, as did the dc.