To ask school to stop sending me these texts?

[SquiglePig]

I have 3 kids in same high-school.

They've started to send texts to parents everytime a child is late to a lesson, basically saying 'your child is late for lesson, please don't allow this to happen again etc'

My kids are never late to school in the mornings, ever.

It's my responsibility to get them into school on time, which I do.

I've had the discussion with them about getting to lessons on time but what can I actually do?

I feel like once they're on school grounds I don't really have physical control over how long it takes them to get to lessons even though I keep telling them.

Also it's not a text to my phone it's a text via the school messaging system which means I have to log in to see it.

I'm at work and I don't know if it's something important or not and have to check and I can get in trouble for being on my phone too much.

Please don't think this is me saying I have no responsibility over my children's behaviour in school, of course I do but I feel that I do not need to recieve a text every time one of them is late to arrive to a lesson when I've got them into school on time.

In my day there were teachers in the hall to usher kids to their lessons?

I don't agree- I am certain that the school will deal with lateness on the spot by the teacher speaking to the children as they come into the classroom, or at a later point in the lesson given how distracting this would be at the start of the class. I am sure that the messages are in addition- the school probably presuming that most parents are interested in their children's attitude to learning. (Clearly not so with the OP).

Well, I hope you're right, and I hope that the school communicates its approach to the parent body, so that parents are clear what they do and don't need to do about the messages.

As for attitude to learning, I'm interested but not "instant message when they're late for maths" interested. That feels a bit dystopian. I also expect teens to be teens, and for schools to be the experts in how to manage great hordes of excitable, distractible teens migrating between classrooms in a timely manner. I'm not sure I'm altruistic enough to summon up a heartfelt, barnstorming lecture on how disruptive intra-lesson tardiness is, even if it's true. I have battles of my own. But I would stand by the school when they deliver it.

Have you talked to them about why they’re late? It’s understandable for a few weeks in September, but in June they should have this sorted surely. Do you think it’s genuinely a reason like it’s after PE and they’re struggling to get changed and to the next lesson on time, or is it poor time management in general- which is very common and they might need some help with? Or is it they just don’t care? I’d be glad of the message so I could try and help figure out what’s going on. Like PP have said, you don’t have to access the message straight away, do it when convenient to you.

@MrsBurtMacklin Have you read the thread though? I don't see anyone at all saying persistent lateness is acceptable.

If a parent texted you daily about their child: "Gaming until 1am, please make sure this doesn't happen again", would this suggest to you that they actually cared about the issue, or would you feel they were pushing a problem off to you that is rightly theirs to manage while their child is in their care?

Yes of course serious and persistent issues need to be discussed between the school and parents should back up the school's discipline and vice versa. But this automated text message system doesn't feel like that at all.

You are annoyed every time you get a text.

The teachers are annoyed every time one of your kids are late and miss the start of the lesson, and don't know what's going on.

Surely they are essentially just asking for your support with this?

They are also letting you know so that it doesn't come as a shock when they don't achieve their targets, because they're missing 10% of their learning.

They are also letting you know as there might be an underlying reason such as smoking or vaping.

They are also letting you know so that you are aware when they haven't turned up as they may have left school and it's a safeguarding issue.

I think most parents would want to know. Unfortunately your kids have already learnt that your ineffective response is 'there's nothing I can do.'

Prosecuted for kids messing about and being late into class? Seriously? Can understand if not arrived at school in time but I'd be amazed at any court prosecuting parents for kids messing about in toilets or corridors

An automated text system is giving the heads up for later discussions. No need to wait for it to become "serious" or "persistent" as this has the capacity to be become the basis for argy-bargying about what constitutes serious and/or persistent: "You never informed us yadda yadda".
In the same way every late/not done homework should be notified. In my last school all this information was online for parents to check every day and the number of parents who never logged on from one term to the next was amazing.

Possibly the OP's children's school has had similar experience and gone for this level of intervention.

@echt
We probably don't disagree that much fundamentally.

But I think there's a level below which it's not sensible to just flag to the other party. It should simply be dealt with at the time. (Of course, OP's school might be doing that too, but the OP's post suggests not).

Then save bringing parents into the discussion when there is something material to address.

A parent whose child is a persistent food-refuser at home should probably raise it with the school. But texting the school whenever the child is late to sit down for dinner? ("please make sure this doesn't happen again"). Wrong approach. Parent's job to sort it out. School's job to sort out lateness to class.

all this information was online for parents to check every day and the number of parents who never logged on from one term to the next was amazing.

This suggests to me that the approach of notifying granular detail via a system, rather than flagging when there's a material problem for discussion, doesn't work particularly well.

Well said.

Well said. It's notable that OP hasn't responded to the people asking why her kids are late? What are they doing to make them late? That should be the focal point of your thoughts OP, not the school's communication system. Your children need to take responsibility for their punctuality and you still haven't gotten to the crux of the issue. Why are they late? It's your job to find out by speaking to them. You should be thanking the school for keeping you informed.

Basically:

Good messages:

School to parent (could even be automated):
"Little Johnnie has been late to class x times recently. We have dealt with it by y, and if this continues, z will happen. Please reinforce our message around the importance of punctuality. Please let me know if you want to discuss."

Parent to school:
"Little Johnnie has been persistently refusing food at home. We are trying x approach, and if this doesn't work we will be trying y. Please reinforce our messages around this along the lines of z. Please let me know if you want to discuss".

Bad messages:

School to parent:
"Little Johnnie was late for class. Please make sure this doesn't happen again".

Parent to school:
"Little Johnnie was late for dinner. Please make sure this doesn't happen again".

Spot on.

Schools need to have thier own internal sanctions, not expect parents to do everything.
Ds goes to a special school
School have a ridiculous policy of not having any consequences apart from 'restorative conversations' for issues between pupils.

For anything else they e mail the parent and expect them to put punishment in place.

All I hear from DS is 'why do you care, mum, school don't even care, they never tell me off, so I'm allowed to do 'this' at school'
' this' is usually swearing, which he is not allowed to do at home. He knows this so doesn't.

I asked the school to stop putting this back on to me and to put some of thier own sanctions in place, so he understands that it is not OK and he is not allowed to do it at school.

This was so against their policy that they had to go the the board of the academy to ask if they could put sanctions in place just for my son, as I had asked for it.

They eventually agreed, and now he gets told off, or occasionally misses a break time, and it is beginning to work.

All schools need to uphold thier own rules, not leave it to parents. Children need to know where they stand and have boundaries with appropriate consequences.

Your hypothetical is utterly nonsensical. Parents and schools don't have some sort of equal split custody of children where parents stop being responsible for their children while they're in school. Of course a parent would be bonkers to ask a teacher to do something about their child staying up late at home playing video games or not being on time for family dinner because they're the parent and teachers are not. It doesn't work in reverse, because the role of a parent is global - we don't get to abdicate parental responsibility during school hours.

If OP is so annoyed by these texts that she wants to complain to the schol then either she's getting them regularly because one or more of her children has a repetitive tardiness issue (in which case she does have a responsibility as a parent to take action) or she's being unreasonable to fuss about one text every so often.

So my question to OP is what sort of consequences she has put in place for her children at home when they are late to lessons X number of times per week.

And each time Little Johnnie is late for dinner, text to the school office and make sure there's a consequence at school?

No, of course not.

Parents and school need to work together, and back each other up. That means grown up discussions on serious issues. It doesn't mean pinging minor disciplinary matters back and forth. Schools are in loco parentis for a reason.

I'd be pissed off with my kids, and also wondering whether the school took discipline seriously.

@AGoingConcern I don't think it's just the asymmetry that that makes a parent texting the school about being late for dinner ridiculous. It's because it's ineffective and an abdication of responsibility (Schools are in loco parentis for a reason, for school matters. Is being late for class a school matter? Yes).

I'd be interested what you think of an earlier hypothetical of mine, where there is clear symmetry in roles.

I take my nieces to the park, while my sister takes my child out to a museum. There's a bit of low-level misbehaviour on both trips.

Which of the below approaches do you think is better?

i) I "parent" my nieces on the spot, admonish and guide them as needed. My sister does likewise for my child.
ii) She and I spend the day WhatsApping each other when our respective children do something naughty?

I think i. is better, and more effective. I'd be annoyed at my sister if she did ii. and I think she'd be annoyed at me too.

Now, persistent and serious things are another matter. Which of the below do you think is better at addressing them:

School to parent (could even be automated):
A) "Little Johnnie has been late to class x times recently. We have dealt with it by y, and if this continues, z will happen. Please reinforce our message around the importance of punctuality. Please let me know if you want to discuss."

School to parent:
B) "Little Johnnie was late for class. Please make sure this doesn't happen again". (repeat x times).

I think A is better, and more effective.

I'm interested because while clearly you are right that parents and schools aren't symmetrical in responsibilities, I don't think that changes the result.

But it’s not minor if she is constantly being texted about her 3 kids is it.

If they are all constantly late she needs to address their behaviour. There is no reason for them to be constantly late to class, they are either lazy or dicking around. Each and every time disrupting a class and if the school did punish her kids she would be up in arms about that.

Hence why it is time for consequences each time it happens.

@Pootle23

Yes, without commenting on the OP specifically (we can't know if that is a parent problem, school problem, bit of both, or neither, and it's unfair to speculate).

If there is persistent or serious lateness then that's a problem. The school should raise it with the parent, especially if it's one family and not a general school issue.

I'd expect consequences each time it happens from the school though, plus a serious conversation with the parent about the pattern. I'd hope the parent would back up the school fully, and reinforce messages of punctuality at home, and consider imposing home consequences.

The tone of the text message makes it seem like the school is just passing the buck, with no mention of any school consequences, and no raising of any systematic issue, just repeated automated messages.

As well as the above being what I think "should" happen, I think it's fairer in the real world where some parents are great and engaged and others are feckless. It levels the playing field a bit between how those kids are raised, and allows the school to work out which parents are which type.

Try parenting and talking to your children about why you are fed up of the texts rather than bitching about the school shrugging and saying 'what am I supposed to do?'.

What are the school supposed to do? It's hugely disruptive and disrespectful to the other kids and teachers to be constantly late. You say it's not your responsibility this giving the impression to your kids that this isn't important and hell, why should they be arsed and take responsibility either.

Pathetic.

I don’t think schools or I agree with your conception of in loco parentis, which in modern day is very limited in scope.

Beyond that, your entire response revolves false binaries that assume that these texts are the only (or even primary) school response to tardiness, or that a school imposing an in-school sanction means parents shouldn’t also be taking action about a repetitive issue. Of course schools should have some sort of in-school penalty for tardiness, and this one likely does. But schools are institutions responsible for educating hundreds of students at a given time with high staff to student ratios. Unlike your hypothetical sibling, they’re not voluntarily taking one niece out for a treat on a Sunday. They also have limited ability to sanction and reward behavior simply due to the reality that students have so little baseline freedom in school that it’s difficult to create consequences that are both impactful each child and also within the scope of a school’s authority and resources.

Whatever sanctions the school has been able to impose so far are clearly ineffective for OP’s children. OP can either take action with additional consequences & rewards at home as the parent or can wait and see what happens when the school escalates… and then will probably be one of the parents on here complaining about having to rearrange their schedule because the school had the nerve to issue an afternoon detention.

@RedToothBrush
What are the school supposed to do?

About misbehaviour at school? I agree that parents have responsibilities (including reinforcing messages about punctuality and respect), but to argue the school can't or shouldn't be doing anything about lateness to class is odd.

@AGoingConcern That's interesting, because RedToothbrush has also just suggested that schools can't do much to discipline children.

I'm not intending to set up false binaries, by the way. I've recognised the school may well have done other things that aren't in the OP's message. And I've clearly stated that parents should intervene in addition when there are persistent issues. But I think the automated messaging system focused on low-level repetitive problems is working against that. In hospitals and aviation, for example, part of good safety design is to make sure you don't have excessive warnings that lead to humans tuning out.

What additional powers or resources do you think schools need to put in place to deliver more effective discipline?

Michaela School shows it can be done without additional resources and without selecting the intake, with amazing Progress 8 results. Now I recognise Michaela has a strongly self-selecting parent body, and probably a pretty good gene pool too. But not lots of extra resource. How much of that model do you think can be replicated, or are there other approaches you would try? Or is the current approach the best we can get to at scale on current resourcing?

Yes, schools are limited in their ability to discipline. I’m not going to get into some comprehensive conversation about school reform, not least because you probably won’t like my opinion about the self-aggrandizing living embodiment of a Roald Dahl villain at that particular school.

If OP is getting so many texts that it’s becoming an annoyance, they need to address the tardiness at home instead of asking the school to help them ignore the issue. Parents are parents 24/7/365. We do not get to check out and make our children’s behavior someone else’s problem.

They're in school already!

They have how many children to deal with, perhaps doing similar.

Discipline starts at home. And yes school should do something, but they can only do that if supported by home who take this seriously rather than shrugging and bitching that they been told and it's not their problem.

Of course it is. Read the riot act. Ground them. Remove privileges. Anything. Except shrug indifferently going 'huh, what's am I supposed to do, I'm just the parent' and complaining to the school. Well yes. Parent.

What do you think the school are going to do in a response to that? It's not going to help and it's not going to lead to a partnership with school to help resolve the issues. It's just going to mark you as a twat of a parent who doesn't give a shit and is obstructive rather than proactive. It won't help your kid on numerous levels.

You effectively become another problem.

Genuinely. It's not for the school to have to parent the parent cos the parent is feckless. They don't have the time and resources to. Step up. Stop expecting everyone else to do the work whilst you stand there flapping like a wally going 'but what can I do?'.

The answers isn't 'well I can't do anything' accompanied by a wet 'well what am I supposed to do'. That's defeatist without even trying. It's not asking all the questions you should be doing like 'is there another issue with my child like anxiety?', 'is my child a disrespectful little prick who needs more attention from me and more discipline and more education in what is expected of them and why?', 'how can I work with the school?' rather than just seeing this as a series of irritating texts. And rather than picking up the phone to bitch and whine, be proactive and ask the school questions aimed at starting engagement with them. 'what are other parents doing that I'm not doing which might help this situation?'. You know try.

The OP starts off from a position of 'i cant', 'its not my responsibility', 'why should I be bothered', 'why isn't it school doing all the work'.'This isn't important'. And then wonders why their children have got such a bad fucking attitude from their example.

It's all negative responsibility dodging.

Parents need to be in a position where it's 'i must', 'i have to', 'what other ideas can I search out'. You know positive attitude, looking for a resolution rather than a closed door in the face.

Schools are overwhelmed by an epidemic of parents doing this. They simply don't have the resources to pander to it. Schools send out texts like this to try and get parents to do something without starting a confrontation which lengthier attempts at phoning parents with a shitty attitude which is much more time consuming and not any more effective.

Genuinely, in the past this isn't an attitude from parents that would be this widespread. It is parents responsibility to actually parent. I don't understand why this is a difficult concept to get your head around tbh. Why is it's schools responsibility to parent and educate? They are loco parentis not actual parents. This isn't a substitute for a parent ultimately.