To be angry with DDs school, she hasn't even started yet

[Downandout21]

Supposed to have a visit today from DDs teacher who is starting reception Monday.

I took an afternoon off unpaid to ensure I can give full attention. Appointment was 2.45. At 3 I called the school to ensure they had the correct address. The receptionist stated she would call me back when she finds out what going on.

It's not 16.00, no teacher and no phone call I've tried the school again but now just going to answer phone.

DD has expected the visit all day.

AIBU to be fuming

Wow that's really bad
I'd be so annoyed too

Tell them you tried to faciliate this once but can’t afford to take any more time off so any visits have to align with your working hours & give them times you can make it. My sister did this so one of the teachers did their visit at 7pm after bedtime.

@bridgetreilly

dhes allowed to be fuming, she's taken 1/2 day unpaid to facilitate this. Probably had her DD asking every 5 minutes when the teachers coming & the school hasn't even had the decency to let her know the teacher isn't coming. I'd be fuming too, if I was at home anyway, I'd be annoyed, but not fuming. I think losing pay tips over into fuming!!

@CutthroatDruTheViolent it doesn’t excuse it but it serves no purpose not to approach Monday with a positive outlook. It’s a special day. Starting her dc’s school journey off from a place of hurt or anger does not do either of them any favours,

Only in some areas!! My DNs had them in Sheffield; my DS1 of a similar age did not (Liverpool).

My first thought was that the visit before yours
revealed an immediate safeguarding risk- which would have likely mean the teacher doing the visits, the school administrator and the safeguarding lead would all be tied up for the rest of the day. You can see how amidst all that, someone remembering to call the next appointment might get overlooked, or everyone thought someone else had done it.

or they might just be shit.

no way of knowing really, so I’d “let it go”, if you can.

For all you know the teacher has broken down, been involved in a collision, become ill, or had a personal emergency. There are any number of reasons that they might not have been able to contact you. I’m sure, whatever has happened, it was not done to personally upset or inconvenience you.

To take it personally or be furious seems like a massive overreaction.

Expecting a Teacher to come at 7pm is out of order and ‘after bedtime’

What was the point? Its to see the child in their home

Goodness I hope the teacher hasn’t been in an accident or had a medical emergency.

Make up a simple excuse for your DC and redirect your energy & theirs to having a nice evening/bedtime. Regardless of the cause, let it go. Don’t let this poison your attitude towards your DC starting school or their excitement.

That's really poor of them. I'd be cross having to take a half day and disappointed for my DD, she would be the same having looked forward to it.

Frankly this is no excuse. The appointment was 2.45 not 4 oclock.

It's not intrusive, it's entirely voluntary and is so the teacher can meet the child in their own relaxed environment.

We weren't offered it with DC1 because of covid. With DC2 we didn't think it was necessary as she was quite confident about starting but she really wanted to have her teacher see her home. In the end we cancelled on the day because DH had to go to hospital.

Nobody is forcing their way into your home.

Get used to crap communication from schools then assuming you can drop everything for them, without them extending curtesy to you.

You only have to read a few school threads on here to see the contempt that parents are viewed with by some teachers.

Such a shame because a combined approached of schools working with parents and parents backing up teachers is so much better for everyone.

Luckily our local schools chose to visit children at nursery so they could get a few done at once.

Unless the teacher is completely incapacitated, time wasting is unacceptable, and there is no excuse. Rude.

Doesn’t bode well, but reserve judgment for Monday.

You get given days to do it, you don't fit it around school hours. The time slots give you barely any time to get from one address to another.

I’ve never in my life heard of home visits for new starters in reception. My DC were born in the late ‘90s and there was no such thing then.

@MSLRT yes the appointment was at 2.45 but if the OP was number 26 on the list and the teacher is still at number 19 then the teacher is simply not going to get to the OP at the end of school hours.
Yes the teacher could have phoned. They maybe a genuine reason for that. Who knows? The OP said she rang the school again at 4 and no one answered. Well that would be because the office staff will likely gone home and there is no one there to answer the phone.
It is a pain that the meeting didn't happen but the OP really needs to chill and go in on Monday and see how it goes at school. It could be the first thing out of the teachers mouth is "I'm sorry I missed the home visit.....".

You're not being unreasonable BUT I teach and we do home visits and honestly lots of things can affect it. They should definitely have rang - but it might just be that they ended up late with all and ran out of time for you

Same here.

My son spent a morning at the school with the teacher in class, thoroughly enjoyed it. Nobody came to our house.

You are not a teacher, surely?

Presuming with 15 kids in a class you're in a rural area which might make the visits harder...in our outer city school it's 30 kids and the teacher plus EYE/TA visits them all over the two week settling period when they aren't in school for the settling sessions. It must be exhausting for them, but it's a good for all the reasons mentioned above and helped my less confident kids to build a connection to the teacher more quickly.

Things do happen but very poor and unprofessional that there was no communication !

Teacher just goes to the various nurseries kids are at I wouldn’t have wanted a home visit rubbish you took time off but perhaps an emergency that couldn’t be helped

We declined the home visit, setting in sessions and staggered start - DT’s were fine as were their friends.

Yeah I'd be pissed off.