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?

@KickHimInTheCrotch so you couldn’t be bothered to book your child’s school dinner, and somehow that’s the school’s fault?

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.

I think these are amazing things that make a huge difference to a child's wellbeing and experience at school. I work but always take time to read each email and volunteer or attend if possible. At every event, there are always a few kids whose parents are clearly too important or busy to deal with this sort of "shit" and who don't turn up. I feel very sorry for them. They stand alone in the corner with the teachers who are trying their best to cheer them up. It's clear for everyone that they would prefer their parents to be more involved.

These sort of threads really reveal how low the bar for parenting actually is. And people are all shocked and outraged that kids have poor mental health or have difficulties staying in the school system.

As a teacher with a child in the school I work in, I totally 100% agree with the OP.

So many bloody unnecessary things that I question the value to.

There should be a calendar published at the start of each term with trips/fundraisers/experiences etc. on and that’s that. Nothing extra added so parents can plan. No random email/class DoJo or whatever notices -just that calendar at the start.

Then limit the number of these “events” to one per term. I’d rather DC were in class and learning.

As for parent involvement- I’m at the school and I can’t be involved with my DC’s education during the school day as you know, I have my own classes to teach.

I think my school is pretty good at contacting the correct parent for collection when children are ill but we do have a school nurse so that takes a pressure off the admin team. But really there should be a first point of contact on the child’s file which can be anyone from the contacts list - not just the mum.

All these people saying there should be one calendar at the start of the year - I can guarantee that a lot of schools do this (mine included) and parents complained when they weren't sent an email as they didn't check the calendar!

At every event, there are always a few kids whose parents are clearly too important or busy to deal with this sort of "shit" and who don't turn up. I feel very sorry for them.

If the school are able to run all this stuff, they’re also able to give decent notice of when parents are needed. I’m not too important to attend, but part of my diary is planned a year in advance. If I have notice I can swap things around, if the school decide on Monday to tell me I’m needed on Wednesday then, no I can’t reschedule work to attend because doing so will impact 20 other professionals that I’m delivering essential CPD to. Because believe it or not, I don’t sit waiting at the schools beck and call.

That's not what I said? I forgot, made a simple oversight.

The school expect me to be sat around at 10.30am with nothing else to do and can't think of an alternative.

Regarding first point of contact you really should tell them to ring dad first. Put it in writing too, they shouldn’t automatically be ringing mum.
As for the other stuff, if nobody volunteers then the event won’t go ahead. I imagine children ( and parents ) would moan if all they did was teach the curriculum and finish at 3.30pm every day.
No summer fayre, no Christmas fayre, no Christmas Carol service, no nativity play, no sports day, no dressing up days, no cake sales, no harvest festival. Just teach maths, English, science, minimum PE, history and maybe a bit of art. That’s it then pick your child up at 3.30pm.

@KickHimInTheCrotch yes but your anger was directed at the school for not solving the problem in a way you felt suited you best. It was your mistake and your problem to solve. You should be really grateful they managed to feed him, rather than ranting about how hard they made it for you. But mainly, you should remember to feed your child. It’s not rocket science.

I would've jumped with joy if id received that

I’m a private chiropodist. I can be up to 3 hours away. Dad works from home. Who do they ring first? Me. and when I tell them to ring dad, they get huffy.
They also refuse to have dads email down and don’t put him on all the school stuff. So it’s me who has to write down bake sales, remember the costumes, figure out the transition days and do the job of the useless SENDCO who has no idea and it seems is just a headless chicken.
After a full day at work, I’m expected to keep on top of school admin and it’s impossible. We have the newsletter sent once a month, but when is really inconsistent. I’ve asked if we can have a better form of communication because things like sports day, leavers assemblies etc, it’s NEVER mentioned if parents are supposed to attend. (My oldest doesn’t do sports day, but sports day leads into their leavers assembly, so are we supposed to attend or not?) and I need 6+ weeks to notify clients if I’m not available. It’s stupid.

This is literally our school. All events except sports day, WBD, CIN and it seems the leavers assembly are organised by the PTFA, which luckily you can just ignore.

And want about the parents who couldn't pay their bills if they have to keep taking time off work for this kind of stuff? Not every gets paid holiday / sick.

Or is it better for parents to attend these things but kids freeze at home as the parents can no longer afford to top up the gas

See, when they call me before DH I ask them to check if I am listed as first contact « it might be a mistake, it is supposed to be DH, please can you double check? » and I stay on the line until they confirm that « yes, indeed, DH is listed as first contact, sorry about that ». It can take a few times but it works.

The post isn't about ILL kids though. Its about all these extra curricular stuff that parents are apparently meant to deal with/ attend.

Tbh I don't remember all this when I was at school and I think there were far more SAHP then. Mine worked full time and certainly don't remember missing them at school things

YABU. If you can't/don't want to participate then don't. Do you want those things to get taken away from all the children because it doesn't fit in with your personal circumstances?

The ringing mum first over the primary contact is annoying though, I'll agree with that.

All of those things are voluntary and given with a lot of advance notice. If you really wanted to, it's possible to adapt work hours, WFH or juggle things around so you can at least attend 1-2 events that last no more than an hour. Every adult manages to go to the dentist, doctors or get their car checked during working hours as well. It's comes down to a matter of priority and sadly, many kids are not their parent's priority once they've been offloaded to school.

OP's moral outrage comes from the fact that she doesn't feel she should be expected to read all those emails containing information that is clearly below her level of priorities. It takes 10 seconds to skim an email and decide if the info is important or not. I highly doubt anyone is actually in a situation where the option is to skip a school fayre or freeze at home.

Do you expect the school to be a personal butler service for you? You forgot lunch, your kid would have been hungry. The onus to get him food is absolutely on you, even if it's inconvenient. For goodness sake, you sound so entitled.

What about the paramedics and healthcare workers who simply can't nip out of work for a couple of hours to attend these things? It's not that they think they are 'too busy or important' I'm sure they would love to be there, but their jobs simply don't allow for it. There are many, many types of jobs where it's near impossible to get time out of the working day, especially if you're factoring in commute and very short notice. I do have a flexible job but some things in my diary are not easily moveable.

You would think teachers would understand this, being in a job where it's very difficult to take time off.

I do think school should be mindful of this, it's not the children's fault but its them that end up feeling sad when they don't have a grown-up there. Grandparents do a bit of it round here but my parents live too far away and work full time themselves. If they expect heavy parental participation more should be organised for evenings, but that comes with issues too (shift workers, siblings care, teachers time).

I was at primary school in the 90s and the only things my parents were invited to was parents evening and one assembly per year.

So it should stop for all children? Because some parents have jobs that don't work with the scheduling?

Very few things at school are mandatory. I work in health care - I go to the events I can, and not to the others. If it's really important I try and make work but there are occasions my kids have been a bit disappointed. That's how life is.

We are two FT working parents but I don’t mind the events as our school does

• one email at the beginning of the school year and then at the beginning of each term with all dates.
• most events timed at convenient times, straight after drop-off / just before pick-up. Our parent evenings starts around 3pm (school ends at 4pm) and after-school club is free this day
• prizes for best costumes or projects are never given to the ones clearly made by parents or store bought, they reward originality and not execution. This means less pressure for us to spend hours on sewing the perfect outfit or spending £15 on amazon every time. And kids genuinely have fun making it.

Schools put huge amounts of work in for the benefit of your child. If you cannot attend simply RSVP no thanks. Don't feel pressured to do things you have no time for.

Share the load of admin with your dcs' other parent. It's really not difficult.

I work full time, am a single mum and have a list of events/dates/requirements on the side of the fridge.

Sports day, swimming gala, founders day and outings get done. Cake sales, raffles and other minor stuff does not. Easy.

I'm not saying everything should stop but there should be less. The balance is wrong. A few events spread across the year with plenty of notice - great! Multiple events in a short time period with very little notice is problematic.
We've had 6 things in two weeks totalling over 15 hours of working time, it's getting ridiculous!

Yes not mandatory but majority of kids have an adult there and I don't want to let mine down. Thankfully we've only got one year of primary left.

At my DCs primary school they acted like the mother was at home waiting to respond to requests with no notice
Which is particularly odd as all the staff were working women
My DH and I worked together and if he answered the phone they would say hello Mr A can we speak to Mrs A
Very odd

These are the choices you make. Advocating to decrease activities for all the children because YOU can't make it to them is horrible.

One of the best days of my life when I didn't have to deal with schools anymore.
Them days are a thing of the past.

Mind you my child left at 14.