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?

My daughter walks super fast now. I asked her to slow down recently. She said "sorry I just got used to walking fast at school so I get to class on time" her friend runs to class. They really don't give much transition time between lessons. I appreciate the texts are annoying. It is possible to get to the lessons but they have to be speedy 🙈

Instead of bashing the school, tell your kids to get their acts together & stop being bloody late! Put sanctions in place at home if it bothers you that much & they're not listening.

Schools can't do right for doing wrong - it's either too much communication or not enough. I don't think people realise how much learning is lost when kids are constantly late to lessons - not just for them but for the rest of the class who are interrupted when they saunter in after the teacher has started.

The lateness notification is undoubtedly automated & part of a wider attendance/timekeeping system across the school so is unlikely to change anytime soon.

And yes, I'm a frustrated teacher!

Those commenting, you don’t even seem to be listening to the OP. They text each time this happens and she has to log into a system.

My kids are at a strict secondary. We have an app that shows codes for anything they may have done or not done. However, comms from school are separated out, email or text if it is something urgent. This system they have of making you log in every time is highly unfair as you don’t know if it’s an important message. That is the point. Anxiety causing, they need to separate out info about your child you need to know now, from other information not time sensitive to that moment, even if they swapped to an actual email you could put your work address so it would come there. As I mentioned behaviour related could instead be done through this code system, they could then alert that you have updated behaviour codes to look at which you could then do after work when you’d actually see your children.

People coming on here berating you for not being bothered about disciplining your children need to wind their necks in 🙄. Personally I’d raise this with the school, their comms are poor.

How late are they? Do your kids have a reason eg previous teacher held class back? Is it always from same teacher?

dig a little deeper to see if there is a pattern. Do your kids have SEND which might be hindering them organising themselves?
are they having a cheeky vape in the toilets?

get more information and if needed then put a sanction in at home.

Those commenting, you don’t even seem to be listening to the OP. They text each time this happens and she has to log into a system.

I notice the OP hasn't come back to thus thread, so she is paying as much attention to posters as she is to teachers.

Depends on the reason. If it is them just being slow or chatting with friends, then remove phone/wifi privileges for the rest of the day each time it happens.

if it is because it is somebody stopping them, have a meeting with the teacher.

It’ll be something that sent out automatically by their registration system. So if they aren’t at the lesson when the register is done they’d be marked absent and then changed to late on arrival. It’s frustrating. Our school only does it for morning registration not per lesson. But o drop my child off. They’re autistic. They have reasonable adjustments in place. On reasonable adjustments is not to threaten detention as this actually doesn’t improve the situation (lateness, homework etc) and causes anxiety. They have a ‘routine’ which if interrupted on a morning can cause lateness. I got an email advising me my daughter was late to school one morning. I knew as I had dropped her off. We had a ‘routine’ issue. First time in 4 years she’s been late. The email is also sent to the students. So we both got an email advising she was late and any further late as would result in detention. I was straight on the email replying saying I was aware she was late, she has a reasonable adjustment in place and shouldn’t not be receiving threats of detention. Her attendance is 100% and this was not acceptable. I got a reply back straight away apologising as it was a generic email automatically sent by the system and of course they wouldn’t give her a detention if it happened again because of her reasonable adjustments. I said that’s great but the system doesn’t take this into consideration and has now caused a massive anxiety attack for my child. They apologies but nothing they could do. We just now have a slightly more stressful morning each day getting her out on time.

This

Your child is not behaving at school. You can't just opt out of hearing about it.

I always assumed this sort of thing is done in order to create an inconvenience to parents, so that thay then in turn try and sort it with the kids.
I'd try some kind of sanction for every text received - 'Little Johnny I am getting sick of these texts and I am going to get into trouble at work- from now on every time I receieve a text about your behaviour you will lose £1/2/5 from you allowance' and obviously' if there is an issue why you can't get to lesson on time you need to tell me and/or teachers' (on the off chance they are not pissing but having issues of some sort)

I have the exact same thing. My child has adhd. I have constant contact with school. She is often late to lineup as gets distracted. I have made many suggestions to the school about how they could implement various things to mitigate such as having her report to reception instead separate from her friends etc. She gets a bus to school is always there on time. I have also had many many conversations with her about this but what happens in the moment makes those irrelevant. The frustrating thing is you cannot reply to the messages so I end up emailing school. Giving a detention is pointless as delayed consequence will not change her behaviour which they know. I now ignore the messages as I’ve done everything I can as a parent to help and they ignore it.

I was under the impression that schools acted "in loco parentis" i.e

"The term in loco parentis, Latin for "in the place of a parent",[1] refers to the legal responsibility of a person or organization to take on some of the functions and responsibilities of a parent."

So arguably, the school does have the responsibility to be sorting this out.

I agree when there aren’t any mitigating factors such as ND kids. What really winds me up though is when school are lightening fast to contact me when there is an issue with my child yet when I send emails with positive suggestions to try to alleviate the issues (or communicate with SEND) it can take them a week to respond or they blatantly ignore it. I tried to help them with getting her to line up on time since they ask for help in the messages or to contact school if there are reasons- yet they don’t seem bothered about trying to resolve it. So yes it gets super frustrating when you are a parent that goes above and beyond to support them with what they are doing then they respond like that…

I'm sure they could sort this out easily enough, notably by taking your daughter's email address off the system for these automatic messages, or altogether. Ask them to consult their IT provider.

Your annoyance is targetted at the wrong people.

I had 3 kids at secondary and I’ve never received a message to say that they were late to lessons.

You need to tell your kids that you are sick of these messages and they need to sort it or they will get a consequence at home. They may not care about school consequences but you have the power to impose consequences at home that will stop this behaviour.

If the school had an urgent message then they would phone, not message you. It would be silly to message in that case because the first thing you would rightly do is to call them for more details.

OP I suspect if anything was really wrong the school would phone you, so I'd ignore the texts until the end of the day.

This attitude is a huge problem in this country nowadays, where parents want all of the rights but none of the responsibilities of bringing up their own children. A secondary-aged child is (one would hope) more capable and responsible in a range of things than a little child would be, but they are still a child. Children need a lot of guidance, care and correction - and that is categorically what their parents are for

What gets me about these threads is that people genuinely seem to think that if a parent says something to their child, they will magically comply when in school. Do people actually think the OP tells her child to be late for lessons? Of course she doesn't!

Meanwhile in the real world...

You need to tell your kids that you are sick of these messages and they need to sort it or they will get a consequence at home. They may not care about school consequences but you have the power to impose consequences at home that will stop this behaviour

What sort of consequences? The magic turn the internet off or remove devices? Yeah because that works.

I think it sounds as if someone in the school's Admin dept has too much time on their hands if they're going into Text overdrive.

This is so frustrating, then schools say kids can’t have mobiles with them so you can’t message to nag them not to be late. Tell the school since kids can’t have a phone all day nor can you.

I agree with you. Its up to the school to put a system in to encourage pupils to be in time for lessons. I agree the kids are at fault but the school must put the reward or punishment system in place in school.

I would suggest to the school to give kids detention for being late more then 2 times. That will nip it in the bud.

Schools can socially transition your kids without your consent, can expose them to porn (look at what your child is being taught) yet they have no responsibility for kids when they are in school. Teachers cant claim to know what your children need better than you and then disclaim responsibility for their behaviour in school.

You wont be able to stop them sending texts, ask instead that non urgent messages are not sent until the evening when you are able to attend to them.

For these kind of messages I think they should at least send texts telling you the content, not expect you to log on to the school website or other online system each time to read standard messages. I'm not working and that would drive me mad. Logging in should be for more detailed things, and even then the initial email should tell you something and then tell you what you need to log on for at a convenient time - eg school trips, headteacher's letter etc.

Don't log in to your texts. If there is an emergency the school will phone you. Opening the messages is making you anxious.

Once a week remind the kids to make sure they get to each lesson on time.
Ask the kids why it is that they are late?
Ask them to problem solve and suggest remedies.
If it seems that it is their fault for continuing to not hear the bell or continuing to go to the toilet after the bell etc then state a consequence. As in - you will have no movie night on Saturday night, I will not be driving you to your football until quarter time, you will not be driven to the catch the bus to the mall to meet up with your mates.

Speak with the school and require them to state what the problem is too. Why are your kid's late? Ask them their remedies.

School staff cannot physically walk children between lessons.

every late start to lesson is lost learning time.

personally I would sanction at home. Something they value.

Yes thats exactly what schools are doing, or ours at least...determining that my secondary school age children cannot possibly be too ill for school without a doctors note and therefore refusing to authorise their absences