To feel RAGE against schools lack of care towards working parents?

[Stormy900]

I'm so, so angry!!!!
I'm a working parent.
I'm a nurse, so I can't WFH.
Why oh why oh why do primary schools set ALL their plays and productions during school hours when I, and so many other parents I know, are AT WORK!!!!
WHY don't schools factor this in????
My DC has a Christmas performance coming up and it is really important to him and to me that I'm there, it would fill my heart with absolute joy to see him. But school only informed us of the date 10 days ago. I have requested to take annual leave to attend it, but it has been refused by my manager because there are other colleagues on annual leave that day who have already requested, and I've been told my request is too short notice, but I've only recently been informed of the date by school. I'm absolutely heartbroken to not be able to attend. If I'd been given much more notice, I could have attended.
Also, another issue is HOW LITTLE NOTICE schools give parents about dates for events that parents are invited to. Sports day, parents being invited in to see DC's work and class displays, summer shows, Easter performances, class assemblies where my DC have speaking parts, and of course Christmas events. The school tells us no more than 2 weeks in advance maximum. Why?????
In my job, A/L has to be requested SIX WEEKS in advance because of staff rotas.
And don't get me started on children being given award certificates in assembly each week, which parents are invited to watch and the teachers TELL THE CHILDREN THEIR PARENTS ARE INVITED....they invite parents on the afternoon of THE DAY BEFORE THE CERTIFICATE ASSEMBLY!!!!
On Monday, school sent an email to me at 3pm, which I didn't pick up because I was managing a blood transfusion for a critically ill patient, so I picked it up later that day, as I can't access my emails as soon as they come in if I'm working. The invite was for 9am THE NEXT DAY!!!
There was no way I could attend at this level of short notice, as I was due to be at work the next morning, starting at 7am.
My little DD cried and cried. She said she wanted me there more than anything.
I have missed sooooooo many primary school events for my 2 DC because of horrific short notice from school. If I'd had dates in advance I could have attended them all.
WHY do schools do this???
They MUST KNOW what dates they're going to do events on. I simply refuse to believe they don't. They MUST have to plan their school calendar, activities, shows, performances, awards, in advance.
WHY do they assume all parents are eithet stay at home mothers or are in WFH jobs??
I'm SO angry!!!

Wanting more notice is fine, but expecting evenings is not.

Also as a nurse who starts at 7am, don't you work 3/4 days a week over 7 days? So surely you have more school days off than other parents, so have to have been able to make some performances as it's your 'Day off'?

I think there are various issues here.

1. Any parent who works FT will miss more of these events than a non working parent. That’s not the schools fault.
2. Your child appears to be at a school where organisation/communication is particularly shit. A polite email from you explaining how difficult this makes things might help (but don’t hold your breath)
3. Your job is in a particularly inflexible sector. This is not the schools fault.
4. You could book leave six weeks in advance of the usual week where all this stuff happens (but Sod’s Law says it will be the week before/after)
5. I don’t know how NHS works but can you swap a shift/arrange your own cover? I just agreed to cover a colleague so she could attend her DDs nursery nativity.
6. If I really couldn’t attend something I would send Granny/Godmother and DC were usually very happy with this.

I empathise. When I couldn't go, nor DD's dad, we sent her Grandad, but we all know it's never the same.

Thats doesn’t sound helpful of the school your children go to.

Both primary and secondary school my children go to provided a calendar at the beginning of the school year - with planned dates - parents evening, school events , dress up days. This means husband and I both know not to book things in & discuss who can attend (usually we both will go)

Remember though a number of teachers will also be working parents and often they miss alot of their own children events - even with good planning, it’s not easy to get out of work.

Working from home doesn’t mean you can drop everything and go to a performance at a school 🙄 The clue is in the word ‘working’.

I completely sympathise. Been there.
The thing is, most parents can come to these day things or they wouldn't do it. As other posters have said, it's surprising when you work yourself but where I live many parents either don't work or seem to have surprising flexibility. School go with majority rule. For everything, IME.

Definitely worth speaking to the HT but I expect it won't change much.

We no longer do evening performances with infant classes- many of them were just too tired to perform and parents wouldn't bring their children back to school on the evening in question if they had other stuff going on and their child didn't have a big part🤷🏼‍♀️

@Leah5678 not every nurse works in critical care, in fact I'd say it's a relatively small percentage
If I I'm being unreasonable suggesting employees should demand better and lobby for reform to working conditions are you saying it's totally reasonable for schools to demand all children and staff unpaid return to school in the evening to accommodate nurses who have chosen a profession that means they can't always attend school events ? - that to you is completely more reasonable

I think ask your work place for a couple hours off or ask around your colleagues if they will swap that day. These memories are so precious and important for your child to see you are there for them.

I think ask your work place for a couple hours off or ask around your colleagues if they will swap that day. These memories are so precious and important for your child to see you are there for them.

No reason not to give a decent amount of notice though.

Your school, not schools. Try calming down and contacting the school you have a problem with, as your child’s school does not give enough notice of events.

Do you like it when people make negative comments about nurses, as though they all behave the same way?

You can definitely ask for more notice for the big things like Christmas performance/class assembly.

You cannot expect to get notice for the weekly certificate as it is usually not even decided by the teacher until the day before.

It's difficult to organize events outside of school hours as school staff have family too! Putting on outside school events requires staff volunteering to come in, including very underpaid support staff. In what other profession would people expect you to work outside of your paid hours for free?

Also means you have to get all families to commit to bringing their child back into school for performance/participation, which you cannot rely on.

It's shit but it's the reality for a lot of working parents including those working from home and school staff themselves.

It used to be really common to have evening events - nativity, school bazaar, discos.
I understand the issues of heating, staffing, parents not being able to take kids, but I don't understand the tiredness one, why are so many primary school children less able to stay up late for the odd night these days?

At least you can get to some. Teachers do not get to ANY of their own child's events as they are doing YOUR child's events. Usually for no pay. When you put on clinics for teachers out of hours and without pay then they will do the same for you. Model what you expect of them by giving up your own time for them first.

In my other comment I literally said op was unreasonable to expect everyone to return in the evenings. However I don't think she is being unreasonable expecting ample notice. At my child's school I get told about these things months in advance

Your school does this, not all schools do. My older DC went to a primary school that had a later performance for every play specifically so working parents could make it and now younger DC is at a different primary who do the same. His nativity is next week at 5pm which is perfect because I finish lecturing at 3pm so can make it.

There are some things during the school day such as stay and play when they’re younger that we can’t always make but we try to rope in grandparents if possible.

Any school my children have been to has a calendar on their website with the dates shown way in advance . Yes the letter or email comes quite late - but you can normally get a clue on the website .

I was able to go to these things but my close friend wasn’t so I always took lots of pics of her kids and forwarded them to her - it meant she was able to sit and look at them with her DC . Have you got any friends amongst the other parents ?

I think teachers , like other essential staff have had enough of being taken for granted which is why there are fewer pastoral or social events being planned out of school hours. Not to mention the impact on already tight budgets for heating , lighting , cleaning , insurance etc. I think your childs school needs to cut out the awarding of certificates or at least limit it to one or two "prize" days per year. I'm sure many working parents face the same pressures.

Yes, I'm a ward sister so I know how it works. It's expected that you try and swap with a colleague but if that doesn't work out, there's ways round it. OP just said she requested last minute AL which obviously will be declined. It is possible to 'WFH' actually to complete mandatory online training which could be done any time of the day 😀 There's ways round these issues to make life a bit easier for staff.

However blaming the school for not offering an evening performance is strange given that nurses work shifts, how are schools meant to work around that? Even if OP is in a 9-5 role, she must know that most nurses aren't.

I still maintain that it's strange there's been no mention of this play until now, even from DC. I imagine her manager thinks this is disorganisation on the OPs part, which is very common, I get requests like this all the time. I usually can sort it out for staff but I can understand why some managers wouldn't.

I agree op, it’s very difficult especially when they’re primary age. We used to get grandparents to step in or friends of the family. Non working parents also helped by taking photos/video (when allowed) and making sure our children knew someone was watching them. The only thing you can do is to ask the school to give more notice for the bigger events like the nativity and sports days. They should be able to plan ahead for those. Ad hoc awards and certificates are harder to plan for.

Same here… if I wasn’t living next to school and wfh in a very flexible job I would miss everything too. And sometimes they have it at the same time for 2 year groups and then parents have to choose between children…
i usually take a picture of my DC’s friends and their work and send it to their parent who couldn’t make it

Our school tells us the date before term starts for big events like Christmas concert! The exact time was tbc (they said 1pm or 2pm start tbc) then confirmed it's 1pm-2pm last week.

Even outdoor events they tell us that the main date is X, backup date is Y just in case of terrible weather!

Your school sounds either disorganised or you're not seeing the right communications, likely due to all the fucking noise they send out (parent WhatsApp, school Facebook closed group and public page notifications, email, homework platform, paperwork in bags, SMS etc it's nuts).

My problem is not being able to spot truly important stuff Vs "can you donate to bake sales" and I never know which channel it's coming on so I have to check EVERYTHING

We have two performances (afternoon and evening) for this reason. Certificates aren’t every week for the same child. Usually once a year per child. We text the parent two days before but it’s not obligatory to attend as the whole school is there to applaud them and their photo will be sent to parent.Please remember that teachers often can’t make their children’s afternoon performances ever!

It is hard. With a relative that is a teacher, they can never go to any school event in school time to even straight after school so miss everything. She is always jealous of staff that can take annual leave.