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?

When kids are at school, the staff at school are responsible for them.

Call it what you like, but the fact is that they are under the care of the school at that point and this enables parents to go to work to, y'know, pay for stuff. The idea that we are all sitting at home with nothing to do between 9-4 and can appear at the school in 2 minutes is patently ridiculous.

This of course doesn't mean that parents should send their kids in regardless of circumstance, obviously, but sometimes it's going to take me an hour to get there and frankly, the school just needs to suck that up.

Most likely if a member of school admin staff set this up, they would find they would save the time back twofold since the "Sorry, when's Sports Day / the Y4 trip" type queries would reduce. If the answer is always "Please check the school calendar", some of the parents would get the memo.

I'm not writing from the lofty heights - I run a volunteer org with a few hundred people and we are very good at making finding information straightforward, to everyone's benefit.

No one has said that they won’t collect a child who is ill. Just that it might take a little time to travel from their workplace.

School is childcare in so far that the benefits system expects parents of school age children to work. Because there, you know, at school. Ergo, school facilitates parents working. That’s all people are saying. Try walking into a benefits appointment and telling them you can’t work because your children aren’t in childcare, they’re at school. And let us know how that goes!

And unless you live in a city where there are boundless jobs available on the doorstep of your children’s school, you clearly have a lag time between receiving a call and getting to school. Again, try telling a benefits officer that you can’t work more than a mile from your children’s school in case they’re sick.

It’s all very well saying schools aren’t childcare but in the real world this is the system parents are operating in.

There is a blend. I accept that as a working parent I can’t do everything but sometimes the school is just inconsiderate. We have a school trip coming up. The children have to be dropped at the venue at 10.30 and picked up at 2pm 45 minutes away from school, there is no coach being put on. Thats basically a day that is going to need annual leave as the timings are just a complete pain. Every week there is something on this term that requires either lifts, parental participation etc and all it just adds up to become a bit tricky.

I just get frustrated because my job is relatively flexible given more than a few days notice. I appreciate everything the teachers do.

My kids school is not like that, but surely its all just part of life admin, doesn't take long

I can beat this. I work from home. I’m down as an emergency contact for my sisters kids (shes a teacher), after their actual parents. Got a call from the school to pick one of them up. I asked if they had spoken to my sister’s husband (who also works from home). “Oh well we tried mum but she didn’t answer and we know dads working so..”.

Sorry…what is it that you thought I was doing??

If they have specified the order in which to be called... then that person should be top of the list.
Hope that helps.

I 100% agree that it's all the events being somehow unloaded on the parents, and poorly communicated, that is the issue.

Facebook reminded me this morning of the time our school decided to swap our afternoon sports day to a morning sports day.... the day before. Cue 500 parents frantically trying to rearrange their schedules to accomodate.

Today was an absolute BELTER though - they sent an email about the Summer fair. The email says, "please see attached for the summer fair booklet". I downloaded the attachment (the mail service they use does not allow me just to open it from my mail client), and opened it. It's a PDF.... with a single line: the webaddress to access the online booklet.

And while thi si sjust one time, I have just counted - in the last 7 days I have received 13 emails from Parentmail. 13. So if every singl eone is this pointless and inefficient, I honestly don't actually know why more parents don't go crazy.

And to the parents whose male partners are down as contact 1 and don't get the call - complain. Loudly. Every time. I wish I had done that when DH was the SAHD. Not just for my own sake, but for every other woman in my situation's sake and perhaps it would have stopped DH from just happily abdicating responsibility for anything to do with school as soon as he could. Ditto, INSIST your husbands are on the class whatsapps. DH doesn't DO anythign on the whatsapp, but he's on it. And at the very least, this means he doesn't get to complain when I miss things.

I’m tempted to say enjoy it while it lasts… (though yes the end of term can be full on) because when they get to secondary you’ll be lucky if you get 1 or 2 events a year that parents are invited to and that’s usually just parent’s evening so ..,,

Yeah it gets much better then

Why don't you offer to implement that then?

Yes! Yesterday i flicked the calendar over to check if the dog needs worming next month, noticed all the things that had been jotted down and said to my husband 'Christ I haven't even added the clubs yet!' 12 things on 12 different days. I have drawn the line at leavers assembly I'm not sitting in a boiling hall for 2 hours listening to other peoples kids going on. Especially as its 2 days after an hour and a half leavers play! 4 days before the leavers disco where we pick them up and return them 45 mins later! It must be an absolute nightmare for households where both parents work full time.

That's crazy, our school doesn't always use a coach, they might use public transport but I've never had to drop them late or pick up early because of a trip (aside from residential). Can you link in with another parent? I'm annoyed for you having to use a day AL!

I assume because she is not employed to manage administration at her child's school?

Yep, I was the one who brought up the school defaulting to calling the mother thing - we intentionally have, over the last 3 schools the kids have been at, listed the priority as DH as first contact, me as second and then grandparents as an emergency backup who can keep pinging our phones until they get hold of one of us. It's even specified in handwriting on the forms - call father first as he works from home and I can be out up to an hour and a half away on community visits (so that people get that fancy healthcare stuff that's all the rage recently).

But yet still they phone me - and have done so multiple times despite me telling them politely that, her father's at home, I'm in the arse end of nowhere, so can you ring him and he should be down as first point of contact anyway. The one yesterday taking the hump that I was half an hour away (luckily I was heading back towards home) was doubly ridiculous as DH was already en-route to school as it was near the end of the day.

And guess who's just rang again - gone straight for the mother and not the father?!

Plus, if the school is anything like ours, they're not inteerested in help. I offered my professional services in an area the school survey had specifically had flagged as a problem for parents. They didn't even hve the courtesy to respond politely to my email.

For me it's the double standard. If I receive an email asking if my DD would like to join Hockey club, I'm told there is a form to fill in. The form is a Yes/No form. Sometimes, if the answer is no, I don't bother filling it in. I figure that is a de-facto no. But that can lead to endless emails saying, "there's a form you have not filled in".

On the other hand, if I do fill in the form saying Yes, my child would like to attend hockey club, and my child does not get into Hockey Club, the school does not send out a note saying, "thank you for your interest in Hocky Club. Unfortunately, on this occassion, we have not been able to offer her a place."

To be fair, they don't send out a letter to say you HAVE been accepted. What happens instead is that if you ARE accepted, the day before Hockey Club starts you get an email to say you. now have to pay. This can be frustrating if you have now assumed your child did NOT get a place and you have therefore made alternative plans for Friday afternoons.

I appreciate the frustration, but think it's misplaced. These are events, nothing to do with administration (which usually involves paperwork or medicine).

Yes, your head's spinning because, as you rightly point out, it's difficult to hold down a job with all this going on. But this is an employment issue. Why aren't you getting parental support? Where's your reasonable dependent's leave? Why is your employer placing this burden on you when they could adapt their employment practices to accommodate parents and educators? Is their profit more important that raising the next generation?

Perhaps because I work full time clinically within the NHS, a significant distance from my home.

Then don't moan?

You attend "if possible" and then go on to heap scorn on other parents unable to attend? You must really hate yourself when it isn't possible for you to attend an event then.

Have you considered what the parents who don't attend might be doing? They might be a teacher, a doctor, armed forces, or frankly just not have the annual leave allowance or funds to be able to miss work (often on short notice), and seem putting food on the table and a roof over their child's head above a celebration assembly.

I get that schools are trying, BUT disorganisation really hits working parents, who doubtless feel awful if their parents are not able to come. Also, I think a lot is just a box ticking exercise to prove to Ofsted they engage with parents (even when to the detriment of the upset pupils and harassed parents).

As for the out and out discriminatory procedures that mean mothers are contacted first regardless of request, I have no words.

They might have shit to do but the whole point of being a SAHP to school aged children is so that you can be easily available for them and their school events.

No, but the administrators aren't doing it to her liking so if she wants it a certain way and they are unable/unskilled to do so then her options are sort it herself or shut up about it.