Schools and their shit - a rant

[Icannoteven]

Aargh! Schools and their incessant shit!

I have two kids, one leaving infants school and one leaving juniors for comp and this month has just been back to back bullshit. I’ve had approximately 3 billion emails from each school about events which require parental participation in some form or attendance at school during the school working day.

Leavers disco, dress up days, tombola donations, leavers assembly, leavers performance, end of term trip - parent helpers needed, parents evening, fucking bake sales, welcome evening, welcome day, welcome afternoon tea, Father’s Day event, summer fayre, parent helpers for summer fayre, summer picnic, non-uniform day, sport day, information evening, chance to meet the send team and on and on and on. A separate email for each one.

Jesus Christ. Am I supposed to take the entirety of July off to deal with school admin and attend day-time events? It’s so relentless. Add medical appointments on top of all this shite and it’s amazing any parent manages to ever hold down a job.

Do schools not think about the burden on parents? Do they think everyone has a SAHM?

You know SAH parents also have shit to do right.

It’s the lack of notice that gets me. DS’s school decided to drop in a parents lunch on 2 days notice this week. Luckily MIL was available.

Sports day is on 24th June, we have no idea of timings yet.

Re: calling mother first,

Thanks to warnings on here as I have a unisex name, my sex and title are deliberately not put on my DDs forms.

This means the only person who would call me first on occasion would be my DDs childminder but only because she would call/message the parent first who dropped the child off.

That's a lot of notice.

My DP was told once when dropping DD that lunchtime they were having an exhibition of the kids artwork for the parents to come to.

On other occasions we have been given a day's notice.

Be thankful you have the opportunity to attend these events if you want to. The teachers having to cover these events for the benefit of your DC are often missing their own kids’ events as a result.

No-one is saying the teacher should leave the class to look after a sick child. The office staff usually keep an eye on a child who is ill until parents can collect. The point PP are making is that despite clear instructions to the contrary the office rings mum (not the named primary contact) to collect the DD when she works 30 mins drive away and then gets annoyed when she says she will be 30 minutes.

Parents of school-aged children are expected to work (I believe those on benefits are required to prove how long each week they have spent looking for work once their youngest child is at school) and that means not everyone can be available to run to school in five minutes and sometimes, yes, the person in the office will need to look after a sick child.

If you can’t be arsed then don’t go.

And that’s part of the problem, the assumption that if you can attend every single thing it’s because you just can’t be arsed. In the next 10 days between two kids I have 2 dress down days, one summer celebration, one school concert, 2 school trips, one primary school graduation, two school discos a water fight and a graduation party. Only 4 need a parent to attend but they all take some diary management and planning - literally something every day til school finishes a week on Wednesday.

Its not that I can’t be arsed, I’m juggling constantly and need a minute.

I think it's wonderful that they are trying to give the children so many great experiences. If you don't want to attend any of them you can just ignore it.

This. Our teachers and PTA work like dogs on some of this stuff and I do try to support it/bung a shop bought cake into my trolley etc.

But - yes this term is long and really stuffed with things, seems to happen every year.

Yes, I would love it if school would just send out one accurate email with everything on it rather than, on consecutive days, We need a pound coin! Bring a bake! Bring swimming trunks! Wear yellow! Inset day! Field trip! D&T week, bring a cornflake box! Make a jolly jar! Oops, nit outbreak, check your kids! Phonics check! School play! Class barbecue, bring ketchup! and so on. And yes please to all these things being circulated on one medium rather than a combination of email, Famly, Teams, WhatsApp and posters.

The pro lem with one email is that lots of parents do not read anything and THEN kick off at the school because they were nit informed. Many times I'd get a mouthful they didn't know about 'the ......' I'd ask if they knew about the trip ? - yes - Well it was on the same letter as that.....and they'd still bloody argue.

First contact should be called, they're atcfailt for that.

All forms of contact, my sons school send atext message which then hits as an email link. Primary school, text messages and a physical newsletter, I don't know any schools who run a WhatsApp, lots of parents do but I don't join those.

Like you, I had children leaving infants and juniors a few years ago. I also had one leaving nursery and a separate preschool which meant I had four leaving events to go to in two days. It was… intense.

If the school rings me I always say “oh, is DH unavailable?” as his name comes first.

When I first had children in two different schools, thst September I had 103 emails from them. So I told both heads (nicely, in passing comments at parents evenings)… pointed out that if I, as a literate, office based, permanently online parent couldn’t keep up with them, there’s no chance some parents could. Things have radically improved since then.

the guilt at the things I don’t go to is still nuts. And the grandparents who cover the parents just makes it more apparent to my DC that they don’t have those either.

im so grateful for my kids schools for the opportunities they give but blimey, it’s hard…

I’m very grateful that schools put on so many opportunities for me to watch my kids.

This term we have lots on. There are events I cannot attend. My children know that but I make sure I booked A/L for the important ones and try to send another adult or ask a friend watching their child to keep an eye on mine - so my children feels included. Our school send out a calendar of events which is updated during the year but key dates eg residential and sports day are planned well in advance with a reserve day for the inevitable rain (like this year!).

I am mindful that most of the staff have children and miss their kids events due to work.

As for calls to collect sick kids - I work in the community too and cover a large area. I cannot drop and run - however a quick “Thanks for letting me know, I will call husband/granddad to collect asap” is no hardship. It takes 2 mins to make the follow up call to say “child sick please collect”.

Schools have a hard job, cannot please everyone but are trying to do their best. So thanks to all the school staff.

How sad that you don’t want to take any interest in your DCs school lives.

Parental attendance / participation is not compulsory. You can say "no".

It always baffles me when people have children, then complain when they have to parent. Did you not thoroughly research what having children involved before you had them? Were you not aware of how schools work? What school hours are? Is it not common sense that if your child is ill at school, someone will need to collect them? This is all so weird.

That really isn’t a lot of notice @Reugny . Just because your school gave even less. Neither DH nor I could make the lunch because we hadn’t had time to rearrange our work schedules.

Maybe home school them if you don’t like how schools operate. They aren’t for free childcare.

It doesn’t have to be that way. We used to get a newsletter once a week with a forward look for two weeks of dates, and a link to the school calendar that had dates for the whole year. Anything specific for the next two weeks was flagged, not just events but dress up days etc that need some time to prepare. They were good about explaining what kids needed for sports day etc very clearly (eg KS1, please come in sports kit with sun cream on and a full water bottle, wear t-shirt in house colours, their races will be 9.30-11.30 if you want to attend).

That allowed me to spend an hour a week going through the newsletter line by line, putting key things in the family calendar, buying a costume or ingredients or a prop to represent their birthday month or whatever online, and generally getting organised.

If school hadn't done that, I would have struggled to keep up with all the asks. And I’m organised and good at admin. I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect people (mostly mums) to manage multiple sources of information conveying unpredictable asks with short deadlines.

I assume you chose you be a working mum. What did you expect?

Same here. As the name suggests I spend a lot of time in court. DH is working at home 5 minutes walk from the school and is down as the primary contact and yet it's me having to text him frantically in the middle of a hearing to say the school is trying to call me again.

It also really annoys him, because he went part time specifically to be the parent on call and it's such a clear message that he's not seen as an equal parent.

OP, I have all of the school's emails filtered into a dedicated folder and check it once at the end of the school day. I agree the constant flow can be a bit overwhelming. The other thing that frustrates me is the number of documents attached to emails that could just be in the email - newsletters, letters about events etc.

These are minor gripes though. The school is generally fab and very responsive.

(Edited to put all my thoughts in one place!)

Edited to put all my thoughts in one place (see above)

This time of year is crazy. DH and I have both worked full time since our youngest went into P2, and we just used to ignore most things except sports days and concerts where it was important for them to have a parent there.

Despite telling the school multiple times they should contact DH or my mum before me in an emergency when I worked in CAMHS, because I would rarely be able to pick up the phone when I was in seeing families, they never listened and I'd get several missed calls before they would finally call him!

Our school has an online booking system for school dinners and if you forget to book one with 24 hours notice you have to send a packed lunch. It's a very MC area and I have many many issues with the dinner system but a while ago I'd forgotten to book DSs lunch but thought I had so didn't send a packed lunch. The school called me at 10.30ish and asked me to "pop over" with a packed lunch. I said no I'm at work at least a 40 min bus ride away, they can't expect me to take 2 hours (at least) out of my working day to "pop" home on the bus, knock up a cheese sandwich, walk to school with it and then get the bus back to my office. Didn't they have an extra portion of whatever was on the lunch menu that day? Apparently not. They got really flustered and said they couldn't feed him. I asked if they were really going to let an 8 year old go all day without food due to me making a simple error with their new lunch ordering system. Surely they could stretch lunch for 300 kids to 301 kids. Have they no contingency plan at all? They fed him in the end after much hand wringing. Ridiculous.

Bloody bastard schools doing all these extra things for your children.

It always baffles me when people have children, then complain when they have to parent. Did you not thoroughly research what having children involved before you had them? Were you not aware of how schools work? What school hours are? Is it not common sense that if your child is ill at school, someone will need to collect them? This is all so weird.

I was very aware of what is involved in having children. Expecting schools to communicate clearly, in a timely way when they need a parent to attend during the working day is not an unreasonable expectation. Sending a newsletter with all the required dates isn’t a big ask, expecting parents to turn up at 11 on a Wednesday with 2 days notice is ridiculous. I suspect you know this.

OP it may not feel like it now, but one day you will look back fondly at these years. Primary school can be a bit overwhelming at the time, but when you look back on it, it feels so much happier and simpler than what lies ahead. GCSEs and A levels are a relentless slog, and there is very little space for fun stuff in secondary school. Part of me is relieved the primary school days are gone, but part of me misses those cute events, and I’m so glad my kids had those experiences.