Teachers unite around this stupidity and try for another day not to leave the profession

[Fstt1978]

Came in today to an email from a parent. Student deeply upset as we did not get her flowers after she played the 'main part' in the 'show'
She is Year 7. The 'main part' she is talking about? The narrator in our form class assembly about climate change. We were on stage for 6 minutes. It's the done thing apparently- she's seen it on TikTok.
Just blast me into the sun now and be done with it.

Oh God. And as the kid is only in year 7 you can look forward to many more emails like that!! Good luck.

Loving these creative responses! 😂

Or, OP, why not ride the stupidity wave and tell the parent you dare not give flowers to any one child, in case the others are so traumatised they lose the power of speech?

Lol sorry I am laughing at the stupidity of the parent. What an entitled madam they will be raising. It should only take her till she is about 35 to get out of this.

Yup. Education is woefully underfunded so let’s definitely spend what little budget there is on bunches of flowers for students for doing what they’re supposed to be doing

DS commented that she’s a bit stupid! Still muttering “flowers??? For an assembly???”

Youre right but dont they know you’re supposed to teach kids to create their own self worth, not constantly look for validation elsewhere 😂😂

Dear Parent,

Thank you for your email. In view of your comment I asked the IT staff to review Verrucca’s performance using the new VAR system we installed recently. Unfortunately the IT VAR review felt that in this instance Verrucca’s delivery did not meet the standard required for a bouquet. They suggest she works on maintaining eye contact with her audience and projecting her voice towards the back of the assembly hall. I hope this information will be useful for her in the future.

Many thanks for your continued interest and support for the school.

Dear x, thank for you for feedback. Take care.

Dont forget it’s against safeguarding rules to give pupils flowers

This sort of crap is a huge part of the reason I left teaching. Are your SLT supporting you on this? I was yr6 for 10 years and I've seen some madness. Once a parent made a formal complaint about me because their child didn't get the main part in the show. The child didn't want to audition, didn't audition, said they didn't want to be a main part.
Head teacher told me off for not giving them the part and said I wasn't inclusive to children with anxiety. Governors involved, statements taken. Unbelievable farce.

I get the kid is upset, her expectations were wrong. Fair enough. I get the parent is frustrated by this, calming down an upset child isn't fun. If the parent told you the story in jest that's ok too. But I cannot fathom the need to tell you this in a formal way. What did they expect as a solution? I'm baffled.

The parent obviously isn't very bright. I'd feel sorry for the kid to be honest.

Totally this!
My primary school child took part in the Shakespeare for Schools festival and the class reps organised flowers (and booze) for the teachers - goodness knows they needed!

Some parents took flowers for their kids but that's up to the parents

Dear parent, I'm sorry Sophie was disappointed, it seems her expectations were misguided. This is a good chance for her to learn to manage disappointment. Thanks for your support.

Due to this kind of bullshit, one school I worked at made every child write down whether they wanted a big part, small part or no part in the school production - then when we got the inevitable bullshit complaints from the parents we could demonstrate we were adhering to their child’s wishes 🙄. Fucking ridiculous.

Miley Cyrus springs to mind.

I bought both of my daughters a small bunch of flowers on their first dance show as prima ballerinas should be given flowers 😉. It was just a bit of fun and only did it once when they did their first one, I wouldn’t do it again.

exactly. what kid wants flowers. Packet of rolos much better.

I think it's mad that there isn't some kind of filter to delete or respond to these emails by the office, before they get to teachers

I had a father complain once that there was no birthday cake for his son. I will cut and serve a cake that parents bring in for a birthday, and I thought that was what he meant. I spebt the better part of my spare lesson the next morning trying to find what could have happened to the missing cake before I figured out that no. I was complaining that I hadn't personally baked or purchased a cake for his child.

When I was a teacher, it was absolutely a thing for flowers to be presented after school productions (although not after assemblies).

It was flowers for the teachers who had given huge amounts of time to the show. They were organised and paid for by pupils and their parents. The lead roles usually did the organising and presenting.

After major productions I'd often receive an £80(ish) bouquet and a £100 voucher for Waitrose or M&S. This parent had better start organising some collections if she wants things done the right way 😉😁

Sure, but YOU bought the flowers. You didn't expect the teacher to provide them.

ffs

That parent needs to get a grip! On a similar vein I have a friend who was ‘amazed’ (using the polite term for her reaction) when her new graduate trainee complained on the day she started that there had not been a ‘Welcome Cake’ when she arrived in the office.

What in the holy theatre gods nonsense is this?! 🙄How are these kids going to survive in the real world without their "lawnmower parents" to smooth the way in front of them?

I have a close relative who is famous on stage & screen. Not once have I seen them or any other professional actor receive a bouquet of flowers at the end of a stage performance!

I had a parent come to me at the beginning of the year, (y4) to say little Johnny has never had a decent part in any production and could I please bear it in mind. Very polite, fair enough. Come Christmas time he actually had a really good audition, so I gave him a good part - not the 'main' part but a line or two in almost every scene. He was happy, practice was going well. Cue mum sending a scathing email asking why, after our talk, he didn't have the main part. He deserves to shine etc. I

calmed her down but every week there was a different complaint. His costume looked stupid, practise was boring, the production was on at an inconvenient time, mum wanted to come in and 'supervise' practise because I wasn't doing it right... The boy was embarrassed of his mum's behaviour and just wanted to get on with it. On the day of production mum was staring at her phone the entire time!

I warned the next teacher about her - she may have destroyed her son's chances of fame the next year!

My sympathies OP. No wonder we're leaving in droves.