That bloody school is make life hard at this time of year

[Bluebluetuesday]

We're all running about, getting ready fir Christmas, blagging work for multiple periods if time off to attend school events, sending in colour coordinated gifts for the raffle, being harassed by the bloody class rep for teachers gifts etc etc etc.

Then the school send out an email and a text and a Dojo to tell us they've cancelled all the lunch bookings for next Wednesday as it's a special Christmas Lunch and we've to rebook if dc want it.
The bloody lunch on a Wednesday is a cooked dinner anyway, with exactly the same component parts as the bloody Christmas lunch.
It's just so bloody petty and annoying, they seem to be sending 20 plus comms a day at the moment and this has tipped me over the edge

Haha, like the dad who asked me for the 'executive summary' last year. That was the executive summary. It enabled him to talk to his child about the week without wading through word salad.

The reason dates etc are at the bottom is to ensure you read the whole email. The important bit, the learning, is at the top.

Being on the pta is a bloody thankless job involving trying to plug the gaps in school funding. You don't have to actually engage if you don't want to.

The class rep, unless they are actually harassing, is just trying to make people's lives easier by organising a collection. Again ignore if you want to.

The lunch thing is annoying but we had exactly the same thing and it took about 2 minutes to sort out.

So yep you are being a bit ott about normal school things.

You can probably insist your child stays in school if you need to. Most parents probably didn't want to come back again.

And inset days are a set number a year so it's not random just where the school wanted to put it.

Honestly schools can't win!

I think the school are sensible to have a training day this late in the longest term - gives the children a much needed 3 days weekend and if parents let them have some down time they may just manage to get through to the last day!

Wow we don’t have anything like what you’re describing. Have children in y6 and y3. Have to remember to book dinners but that’s the same every week, and Christmas jumper day but no events to go to unless you have a child in reception doing a nativity.

Ha yanbu, completely agree myself and a couple of other teachers have DC in our own school and we are constantly vetoing some of the stupid shit that gets floated at meetings that just loads onto parents..

Dress as a Christmas book character...nope
Make a Christmas headband at home.. fuck that..
Wear something that represents your favorite Christmas movie..are you shitting me
etc etc

Honestly, I've lost track with all the Christmas school stuff for my 2 kids in a primary. There are like 2 emails everyday each + PDFs + 10 WhatsUp messages. I grew up in another country in Europe and it was not like this - we didn't have all this parents' involvement in everything. School was there to teach, kids to study and parents to provide books/notebooks/stationary and that's it. Maybe two events a year when parents were expected to come + two parent-teacher conferences. Here we are expected to volunteer during school hours every month. Sometimes for half a day and sometimes for a day. I just got an email where we have to pay 15+ quid for some special event day next month, provide special clothes for kids on that day and they still need 8 parents to volunteer on that day. What is the money then for, as we are already expected to provide the clothes and workforce for it, I have no idea, as it was not explained.

Our school are putting on a Christmas event during school hours and it's £5 for parents to contribute. They put in a letter the usual 'it's not mandatory to pay but if enough people don't pay it won't go ahead'. All good.

Then they put a slip at the bottom with your child's name which said ' I have / have not (delete as appropriate) paid for this trip' and you also had to put your name on it. Thought that was a bit mean. Some people genuinely are going to struggle financially at this time of year.

And yes, the communications from school are endless. It's actually a bit overwhelming.

Our school have the normal Christmas stuff going on and have added in information evenings about all sorts to the mix. They seem to want us there at least 1 evening a week at the moment.

It's seems worse than ever this year. It's the first year I've not managed to keep up with it all and my DD is really upset we've missed the after school school disco and 'hot chocolate Fridays' but work have decided to ramp up the 'you must attend the office' message at the same time. Luckily she'll still make the Christmas party, Christmas jumpers, Christmas charity run, Christmas dinner, Christmas theatre trip, random PE whole school PE day, and two different dates for the Christmas performance one being in the evening. Each one is one a different day, permission must be booked separately and in advance online, the links to do have been drip fed over the last few weeks. Different lunch, uniform and pick arrangements for each one. Don't forget we're a cashless school except for the events that require cash. If you could also please volunteer for the trips, send in donations for the raffles (different colour items per class see last week's newsletter), fill up a shoebox for a sick child (contents restricted see other letter), send out cards, join in the teacher collections, and help your child learn the school play lines. Oh and your homeworks late, you've forgotten to send in a book for the book advent calendar and your child didn't revise their spellings. Don't forget wet weather clothing!

It’s completely ridiculous how much my DGCs schools bombard parents with info these days. There’s so many different apps that have to be navigated. I suspect each teacher/year head has their favourite and uses that rather than the school agreeing on a single format for all classes. Plus it’s evident there are no policies for how many communications go out to parents. In my various jobs comms with customers were always highly controlled and anyone sending unauthorised messages would be in big trouble.

In my daughter's secondary school only those who book Christmas dinner can eat in the canteen as normal hot dinners/hot takeaway snacks are off that day

Christmas stuff for my middle son is difficult because he's autistic and doesn't participate in a lot of class activities. For example today the whole school are going to a pantomime at the Marlowe theatre Canterbury. It's a trip 11.30 to 4.30. my son is staying home as he has absolutely no desire to go (but my year 8 daughter would have LOVED it)

This is absolutely spot on. I note some of the teachers on here seem frustrated that they are working so hard to do all of this stuff and feel unappreciated but kids don’t need this much stuff to make Christmas special!!!

Im sure it’s hard work for the teachers, and it’s bloody overwhelming for parents, just cut it right back.

Nativity, Xmas disco and maybe a Christmas school lunch is what we had years ago in the 90s and I’m not scarred.

It’s a symptom of all the over top shit parents are supposed to do nowadays and I hate it. Pumpkin patches and millions of Halloween activities, advent boxes, Christmas Eve boxes, the bloody elf.

Kids don’t want it either.

We had an extremely productive pta meeting last autumn. Turns out one of the teachers did not take it well, ended up with the pta chair (who wasn't actually at the meeting) quitting. But anyway, we did manage to get the Christmas hat competition where they needed to make a hat at home for the day they have school Christmas dinner changed to them making it with their friends in school time.

Teachers wonder why there is a widespread conception that they have an easy life. THIS is why. 2 parent working households don't have time in December to make a Christmas hat with their child (as young as 4). Also one year we had 6 days notice on the Nativity costume, FFS!! Maybe if teachers lives are as tough as they say, they to would find these pressures unmanageable and adjust accordingly.

The answer to this is to send your child to a shit primary like DDs, where they just did very little. I can’t say I’m that sad about it now. There would be a Christmas performance of some sort usually at 11am so you had to take the whole day off if you travelled for work.
90% of their interaction was something called ‘open afternoon’ where you could come and look at your children’s work, and most importantly, take your children home early. Every bloody term.

Yes! I've actually got kids who really couldn't give a shit about this stuff, one of them hates Christmas and I still feel the pressure - why?

Looking back to my dc's primary days, I used often to think that if any of the school leadership had ever worked in a more commercial environment, they woukd have been far more en-pointe about communication.

As a switched on parent, however, I recall endless calls from other parents about "is it the cake sale on Friday?", "when's the trip and when does the money need to be in by", etc. So I can also understand the school's frustrations and used to have to bite my tongue to say "just get yourself organised and buy a fucking planner.

It drives me mad how many communications school send out. I think it takes a certain type of person working a school office not to think lets combine these comms to make it easy for parents rather than how to do I make myself look busy sending out email after email.

If I communicated to my stakeholders (who I need to influence and persuade) in a way which didn’t work very well, I’d do a lessons learned and work out what needed to change.

I get that teachers and office staff don’t have time to do this, but I think it’s an SLT responsibility (maybe when things are quieter in the summer holidays) to work out communication that’s more effective for parents and less work for teachers and office staff. They could just ask around, and copy a similar school where it works well (there are some).

And I do appreciate this is all more work in their holiday time - but it’s invest to save. Fewer queries from parents, more trips paid for, fewer urgent calls home for costumes etc would all add up to less work overall.

The problem is parents don’t read what they are sent.
One year school sent out a list at the start of the year with every single date on it, every trip, every show.
One of the mums harassed me everytime something came up, complained she hadn’t been told, why did I know ahead and she didn’t. I was in her kitchen and the list was on her fridge. Some people do want spoon feeding.

I completely agree. But even she is a lot easier to deal with if the answer every time is a standard email with the same link to the school calendar, which contains all the information.

For me it’s the last minute notices about things, especially any involving money. I knew about the Christmas fair well in advance and I’ve been to lots over the years now to know how they go down. Each child generally needs at least a tenner and I get ripped off by things like reindeer hot chocolate bags I could make myself and a tombola with shit prizes. Standard but I know it’s coming.

Yesterday we were told last minute about a sponsored reindeer run. They’ve happened before granted but we have a week to raise the money.

My son starts reception next year and you are all terrifying me! I barely manage to keep it together with work and one child in nursery 😬

The problem with ours is finding the new stuff amongst the many many reminders. I don't want reminders i want to be able to find the original handy table with all dates for the term on it.

I think teachers should work towards one information, update and photo dump a week, everything in one go. It's much more organised and professional.