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?

This. Worked with my teenage horror. A few phoneless days - instant result. But agree the messaging system is very clunky.

They can parent their children? It isn't groundbreaking. Give them consequences at home.

It sounds trivial lateness to lesson but when you work in a school it is very very disruptive. You have to stop your lesson every time someone is late. Often children are meeting up with their friends causing carnage in corridors and disrupting other lessons. Sometimes children don’t arrive at all and are basically truanting inside. It has become a real issue since Covid for some reason. We are talking about hundreds of kids too, not just one or two.

You need to support the school to get your children to stop doing this. We put our students on after school but then we have parents ringing up saying they are not doing after schools or can’t do them. Support the school. You CAN do something as a parent.

It comes up on the register.

I know. But when my 11 year old started yr 7, the corridors were her worst nightmare. Now in year 9, far less of a concern for her.

Sounds silly to me. More normal would be child late to x number of lessons detention as per school policy. Parent notified of detention. Child continues to be late escalated to Friday or Saturday morning detention. Again parent notified.

Are you joking? This is ridiculous.

It is so much better to find out at the time when it can be addressed, rather than in an end of year report.

Has anyone on the entire thread said it's acceptable?

The debate is what to do about it.

All those voting yanbu seem to think it's okay.

Give the kids consequences at home or all they will learn at school is that punctuality doesn’t matter. They might get away with it at school but once the behaviour transfers to the workplace it will matter. Their line manager will be only too happy to give them some consequences. We’ve done just that for persistent lateness and our ex-employee (new school leaver) seemed most surprised that they were actually expected to turn up on time like everyone else.

You're their parent fgs. It's literally your job to parent them.
Tell them to get the fuck to class on time.

'Right kids- another message like that this week and no TV/console etc.'

In your day schools were actually better funded and could have extra adults standing around. Not anymore....

You're being sarcastic right?

You are not being unreasonable, because I would expect a school to deal with this in school time themselves, and their stupid system means that there are so many false alarms that either you, or another parent, could miss something really vital about their child in amidst all the noise. I'd tackle it with the Governors from this safety point of view.

All those voting yanbu seem to think it's okay.

No, we think that this is the sort of thing that schools can, and do, sort out themselves within school for the most part. If there really is a BIG issue, then an actual letter home and a meeting to address persistent lateness would be suitable, not loads of spammy texts.

It might also be that the school isn't allowing time to traverse the corridors in some timetables, or enough time to go to the toilet, or to get PE kit from a locker, etc., and are just spamming this out to every child's parent on a regular basis, regardless.

Op can't do that she needs an enhanced police check.

Not true.

But op is getting multiple messages not just the odd one here or there. My two DS have managed to get through GB t secondary with out a single late. It is possible

My response would depend on why they are late.

If they are late because they are arsing around, then I would impose sanctions - pocket-money docked or extra chores imposed for every message received.

If they are late because it is impossible physically for them to get from one part of the school to the other in the time allowed or (after PE) because insufficient time is allowed for changing and showering, then I would email the school and ask them to either relocate the classrooms to within walking distance of each other within the allotted time, provide the students with a teleportation device or invent a way for them to stop time while getting changed after PE.

At least the school is doing something.

I'd give them a punishment at home.

My ds was regularly being late for school last year. The school didn't seem to care, I even enquired with his tutor if he needed a detention or two... nothing happened.

I started to ban the ps5 on evenings he got a late mark. He stopped being late after that.

What lessons are they late for

Is it a time thing so can't get from maths to history so always late

Are they in different classes and what age

Seems weird all 3 are late after you drop them off

What are they doing

And why would any teacher waste their time to discuss anything with a lazy entitled parent who is too busy and has important work that cannot be interupted (unlike, let's say, our lessons by ignorant lazy kids who are in school on time but cant be arsed to turn up on time to lesson), when the system can sent au atimatic text? Do you think I have the time to email 30 parents a day? I dont.

Part of the fun is I think, parents need to be inconvenienced sometimes to move their butts and actually do something. So annoying messages should be part of that.

We get these but emailed weekly with a round up of the week. Never had a late to lesson and I have 3 dc in year 8 and 11.

Tell your dc to get to lesson on time and if you get any more notifications there will be consequences. Support the school with the conversations you can have at home, understand patterns and if it’s certain lessons etc. this is about working with the school who is providing you with the information you need to be able to help them deal with an issue that’s arising.

Absolutely not.

Fuck sake, why do some teachers act like this? So contemptuous.

We mark students late if they arrive 5 mins after lesson start. That’s plenty of time to move around the building and they can even fill up water bottles/go for a pee in that time. If they arrive after 5 mins, they get a L mark and a message is sent automatically to parents. Some students have L marks 6 times a day, so they’re missing 30 mins in comparison to others. You need to have a discussion with your children and see how they can all be so late often enough that it’s a detriment to your working day.