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?

They can if her children turn up promptly to lessons. Infact if they turn up promptly to every lesson she will get none of these messages.

They can't do much to discipline kids, if parents pretty much just undermine them by showing disrespect for the system and not taking lateness seriously.

They can't discipline kids effectively if the kids aren't taught to respect the school's authority.

That's the point.

They can give detentions but without the parent giving the kid a massive kick up the arse, it's mainly just nothing.

Kids reflect the attitudes of their parents...

The amount of separate times the two schools my kids are at, send electronic comms during the week is overwhelming. There's no thought for the person receiving all these messages.

I'd never message anyone as much as these school send emails & texts in a week. If it was a business I'd unsubscribe!

Then there's the various bloody apps.... One for food, one for events, one for maths, homework, it's endless!

I hear you OP.

Yep. And every time they do they take time away from teaching too.

Kids who are persistently late are a problem for the other kids as it disrupts their work. OP doesn't think it's her problem though and is pissed off every time she's disrupted at work and wants it to stop. The sheer irony and audacity of this.

It's hypocritical.

I have no time for parents who can't find time to parent. It's not that they don't have time. It's an active choice not to bother.

@RedToothBrush

Why is it's schools responsibility to parent and educate?

Again, I think we are just very far apart on what we think responsibilities of a school include. I agree with everything you have said about responsibilities of parents by the way.

I also don't see many of the quotes you have attributed to the OP in their post.

As for having lots of other children to manage. I certainly couldn't look after 300 people if they all descended for dinner. But if I opened a restaurant, and required 300 people to attend by force of law, it would be a pretty poor excuse that I couldn't manage such a crowd. That may not be teachers' fault individually, but let's recognise the problem and the constraints and come up with processes that work. I'm familiar with several countries with much less education funding and better discipline. I wouldn't want to copy everything from those systems, but discipline is not just a matter of money.

It's not for the school to have to parent the parent cos the parent is feckless.

Though we don't like it, some parents are feckless. The state requires their children to be in school for many years. If we don't see that as the right time and place to support those children (including with discipline), when do we?

Even from a purely bean-counting perspective, I'm pretty sure that getting discipline and education right saves a huge amount of social problems later.

No it's not for school to do this.

That's actually a social worker job. Schools are not social workers. Teachers are not social workers.

If they have kids who don't want to learn and parents who don't value education seriously then I don't think it's up to school to change that unless it's more serious than that.

If it's more serious then it should be dealt with by the relevant service via an appropriate referral.

That's part of the problem with education. Expecting teachers to carry out the role of educating and social worker in the absence of parents who are not bothered to parent and value education and discipline.

@RedToothBrush

Teachers are also not counsellors or medics, so presumably no personal or social curriculum. The are also not police, so no presumably no action on serious infractions. Just referrals to the professionals when things get serious enough.

What you are proposing is a system, I just don't think it's a very effective one. It would be hugely bureaucratic and expensive for a start, because fixing problems once they become serious is usually much harder than preventing them early.

And I think the people it fails most (as you've recognised) are the ones with the worst parents. I don't think that's good for the children or for society.

I don't think you can deliver education without a basic level of all the other components (put differently: I think an education without some level of social worker, policeman, counsellor is too narrow a conception of what education is)

The consequence of my view is that we need to design our schools to deliver all of those things, at least for the "normal range" of problems. Being late for class certainly falls into that normal range. Schools should manage that, and parents should back them up, but not by stepping into every small issue that occurs through the day. If providing that broader conception of education is too much for the role of a teacher to manage, then schools need to re-think how they will fulfil that mission. Bringing in other professionals on-site might be one way. In all the schools I attended, there was a full-time person responsible for discipline. Teachers mainly taught the subjects, but they didn't see their role as only that, and damn the consequences.

None of that detracts from what I think the role of a parent is, by the way, where I don't think you and I disagree much.

That's part of the problem with education. Expecting teachers to carry out the role of educating and social worker in the absence of parents who are not bothered to parent and value education and discipline.

This has always been part of the job of teachers in compulsory education. The point of it is to have an educated population (which is about children/future adults) despite the many things that contribute to interfering with that.

I wouldn't class being able to manage kids in groups within school as one of those interferers as I would expect any school worth its salt to have that sorted, but none the less teachers are trained and should be expected to deal with social issues. Children's development is the responsibility of the society they grow up in.

Why do you rudely keep @ ING me then?

I certainly didn't mean to be rude. You are taking time to respond to my contributions, which I appreciate, and I'm taking time to respond to yours. @ ing exists to keep conversation threads together.

(I don't think quote-texting is rude either, but when replying to a long message it can get in the way to quote the full text).

Anyway, I apologise if you felt I've been rude by using @ rather than quote. I'd be interested in what you think though of my thoughts on your ideas.

It is regarded as rude and aggressive on MN if done repeatedly.

I note you have done it again and then edited.

You get alerts for quotations anyway. @ ING is passive aggressive.

I like this. "Reinforce our message" is excellent - does not necessarily mean turn off wi-fi.

And in fact, the automated messages we get are along the lines of "Little Johnnie was late", so it is not even totally clear if it's for info or if I'm supposed to do something about it. There is a punishment at school so I have always assumed it was for info.
(and my Johnnie is rarely late for class, maybe twice a year, for which he gets an instant detention).

I certainly wasn't trying to be passive aggressive. I'm sad that that has got in the way of our conversation.

(To be clear on facts: I didn't @ you in my last post, and I certainly didn't @ and then edit to remove it! That's an odd accusation).

The way I have understood MN etiquette: @ ing someone when talking about them would be passive aggressive, especially if discussing them negatively.

But in the way I was using the @ , it's to let you know I've replied to your without quote-texting which I know many people don't like because it takes up lots of space.

Anyway, happy to leave the conversation there if you don't have anything further to add.

No, I’m just glad DS left school before this sort of instant communication existed! What really is the point? OP can talk to her kids to find out why it happening; she can even impose sanctions, if that’s her thing. What she can’t do is go into school and escort them between lessons. If their behaviour is unacceptable in schools, the school should be imposing sanctions on the DC.

I get these, sort of. It's actually a push notification in the school app (which can be switched off), unhelpfully accompanied by an email urging me to check the app - which I do not filter, lest I miss something genuinely important or one of them has requested money through it.

Anyway, it's annoying as shit but I can't make the school change their process for me, just because my 12yo is tardy and disrespectful.

Therefore, I have imposed sanctions as follows:

If I get a notification, I bring it up at the dinner table that night and they don't get their phone back for the hours between dinner and when they go up to bed. (Phones go in a drawer at meal times and overnight)

Unfairly, I maintain the sanction, even if her "excuse" is good (got held back at end of lesson, had to use the loo etc) but this is because I found myself agreeing to too many of her excuses and eventually realised she was taking full advantage of my good will. Put simply: the girl cried wolf.

If you are getting that message then they haven't been to registration, I am pretty sure that's when your children become their responsibility. I suggest having a word with your kids and let them know this is not on and there will be consequences if it continues

What rubbish, if she is receiving that message it's cause the kids haven't gone to registration, this is when the school becomes responsible for them, Mum needs to have a word / consequences cause this is the kids fault not the schools

It’s not a teachers job to sheepdog your kids to their lessons, by senior school they should be taking responsibility and being punctual. This is disrespectful. Not only are they late and probably missing lesson minutes, by coming in late they are delaying lessons being started or causing disruption when they do arrive. I’d ask the school to tally up their late minutes and keep them behind after school or you remove time from their consoles or apply that time to helping out at home until the message sinks in. Your job to support what is going wrong at school by putting appropriate consequences in at home.

How should a teacher ‘usher’ a child along who doesn’t want to go? We can’t touch them. Words fall on deaf ears of some children. Detentions can be issued but ultimately teachers have very little physical power to make a child move. Unless they are hurting themselves or others.

This is absolutely symptomatic of schools utilising technology to abdicate responsibility and pass it on to parents. I went to secondary in the late eighties, where homework diaries, letters and phone calls were the only contact. I was self-motivated and my parents were involved but not enmeshed, which is what the constant involvement and responsibility passing requires. I’ll get my child there, if they can’t move along in time, give them a telling and if it’s persistent, give me a ring. Mine is about to leave and I cannot wait to delete the app.

Where I've worked a child would receive a sanction mark for being five minutes late (a C1) and a C2 for ten minutes (lunchtime detention). Your phone isn't pinging to tell you your child is late - it's telling you they've received a Sanction Mark. You might get a C1 for forgetting homework or talking in class and it would say that in a text instead. You are correct that SIMS automatically sends you (and the Form tutor) a message informing you about a C1.

In my last school these were demerits against Achievement Points so affected the student and their Form for total Achievement Points. Some schools operate a system that if you get three C1s in a week you get an hour detention after school. You need to find out why your children are continually late for lessons - is it a particular trigger-happy teacher or a long walk - or are they just getting there late after lunch? If it's not their fault you need to take this up with SLT.

speak to your DC and make sure they know they can’t be late. Sort that and you will not get texts. Schools have so much to do they haven’t the time to chase children round who can’t get to the lessons

Oh please.

Sit down and talk to your children. If you've realised their behaviour is impacting on your ability to work. You should also realise THEIR TARDINESS is impacting on every other child's ability to work.

Tell them to get their act together. And if the majority of other children can get from A to B on time - Why can't they????????

OP should talk to her children BUT the schools should be able to discipline the kids, too. Leaving all discipline up to the parents means some parents will completely disregard the messages resulting in absolutely no consequences for their kids and others will take a very hard line. While this teaches children that life is unfair, it will do little to actually stop the problem of children being on late to class. I would be very annoyed if the first step my DCs school took in addressing issues of discipline at school was to email me. If as suggested in other posts, the email is informing you of a sanction then that's fine.

Schools have to keep you in the loops about these things........ Because your their parent and schools can't cane children with bad behaviour any more
Heck, raise their voices these days and little Jonny's mum will be in school complaining next day

Why are your children always late? Chatting to mates? Spending an extraordinary amount of time hanging about the toilets or getting snacks?

My daughter has cerebral palsy and her senior school had 3 levels........ Never late to classes because it's not acceptable to turn up when you decide to arrive and disturb the class