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

If it’s any consolation, I’m a TA and my children’s school and I can’t keep up either.

My issue isn't that they are doing so much. I'm happy for them to do all these lovely events, and I will.support as many as I can, and manage my kids expectations accordingly when i can't. I just want the communication to be more joined up and cohesive, and it to be easier to find the info I need. Schools seem to subscribe to the train of thought that the more communication the better, but actually concise, structured communications are so much better than having it fired at you like its being sprayed from a shotgun.

I forgot to mention the bloody thing started at 10am in the morning (buried the lead there. Sorry!).

That's outrageous! Is it a state school? I think they have an obligation to have the kids a certain number of hours a year?

I always hated this. They never give you any real notice and just expect you to be sat waiting for updates and changes.

I was a teacher in Primary schools for 20 years. We used to hate all the endless extra workload in December. The children were knackered and frequently sent in when they were ill so we'd get it too , be ill for the Christmas holidays and then come back on the 4th ready to catch the next germ). The push to do all the things ( nativity, panto, carol service , party blah blah) came from the top. If you pushed back and suggested slimming it down a bit you'd get a bollocking in front of the rest of the staff. So you just went along with it . Parents are shattered, teachers and children are shattered and full of germs. The first Christmas after I changed to a different job my son said " we actually had Christmas this year mum. It was brilliant".

I mean whose bright Idea was colour coordinated raffle hampers!
Buy a Christmas jumper, buy a hamper prize donation so they get to wear the Christmas jumper, buy raffle tickets for hamper - so paying several times over for one fundraiser.

I bloody hope not.

My son’s school is specifically for children with complex needs, autism, and challenging behaviour.

If they’re testing my stress levels by sending me a new piece of paper with a date/some information on, when they know my shouty kid spends his evenings pooing on the carpet, they can fuck all the way off.

Stress test - failed!

It is in my classroom.

Have I read this correctly? You class a meeting that gave teachers an increased workload as 'productive'? If two parents don't have time to make one hat how on earth do you think one teacher has time to make 30? Your idea of who has the 'easy life' is somewhat warped.

Teachers have 25 hours a week to task the children they are teaching to do various activities, including hat making. Or they can always give them a cheap Christmas cracker with the Christmas meal with a hat inside funded from pta money.

Working parents want the choice to use their family time in December how they deem necessary, not dictated to by others. Visiting family, seeing Santa etc.

I work 50% of weekends.

How hard is it to log in to parentpay (or whatever) snd select yes?

also make a bank transfer to the rep

both these things take 5 mins combined?

Oh yes, our school is doing that this year. To raise funds for the PTA I assume, which seems to have spent that money on installing a Christmas tree in every classroom. Nice? I suppose so. Essential? Hardly.

My magic ignoring powers are working overtime right now.

They do this as inclusion - some kids don’t get parties - some don’t see santa - etc etc

I personally think the amount of time spent on kids missing lessons for plays, concerts colouring card making etc is taking away form education.

Parents need to step up!!

Love the phrase 'working parents' when wanting to appear sooooo busssy. Many teachers will be parents too and are trying to balance their children's needs with those of the classes they teach. I wonder what would be the state of this site if schools did the sensible thing and did nothing at all for Christmas, especially the dreaded Nativity or other play.

How was it done 40 years ago without quite so much hassle for parents? My mum didn't have all this nonsense in the 1980s and she was one of the few mums working, and there were still nice Christmassy things going on at school. Now nearly everyone works and schools have piled the pressure on kids and parents over the years. Something has to give.

Nobodies saying do nothing, they need to do school Christmas celebrations in school time (including the prep), so families can do family Christmas celebrations in their time. If that means toning things down a bit, that is fine.

It's not a hard balance to find.

Pesky fucking schools - how dare they try to do nice things for the kids at Christmas.

That's a very standard pta thing and it's just a colour allocated to each class so if you are red you at most have to bring in a box of malteasers. And it's not mandatory in any way.
And yes all the money for the pta does come from parents but it does go back to the children!

I just treat items donated to the fair and the money i give for DD to go wild spending at the fair as part of my annual charitable donations, I'd rather fund local charities including DD schools, than 6 figure salaries for CEOs at large charities with track records of corruption.

Well said. Having in worked in quite a few schools during my long teaching career, a complaint from some parents is often lack of communication. But when you’ve sent a letter, put it in the weekly newsletter, put on the school website, reminded by Dojo and told the child to remind their parent/s and the parent still says they didn’t know because they ‘…don’t bother reading any of that stuff’, you really wonder why you bother. (True story)
Life for schools would be so much easier if they weren’t expected to provide all of these events, lovely as they are. I bet there would be loads of complaints if they didn’t happen. Just think back to Christmas 2020 when none of these activities could take place and how sad that was.

My DC’s infant school is amazing, one letter with all the dates for the term sent at the beginning of that term. Everything on the white board outside the classroom and there’s a weekly newsletter with learning updates and a reminder of the dates.

One Xmas play, no costume needed, Christmas dinner needs nothing special doing, one Christmas jumper day and a raffle. Simple but enough nice things for the kids. The teachers are worth their weight in gold.

The Junior school is a nightmare. A termly email with the dates on is sent but half of them are inevitably wrong or changed.

I thought Class Dojo would be an easier way to keep up but it’s hideous, multiple notifications very day day for every little thing for each and every class (16 of them) and club, the calendar section is full of irrelevant crap so you can’t find the information you actually need. I don’t give a fuck about Year 6 Djembe club being cancelled or String Orchestra rehearsals. Why can’t it be filtered by year group?!

Its technically the same school but the difference is mad.

“”being harassed by the bloody class rep for teachers gifts”” - don’t you realise that the ‘bloody class reps’ organising a collection for the teacher is saving you time and effort in sourcing your own gift at the same time as saving the teacher from receiving 30 Best Teacher mugs ? You seem rude and ungrateful.

I’m a school office manager.

We get complaints we don’t communicate enough.

We get complaints we communicate too much.

We get complaints we haven’t notified of dates, despite it being in the calendar online since last year, and in the newsletter weekly.

We had a complaint we aren’t doing enough fun stuff (every day for last week of term, there is ‘fun stuff’ going on).

etc etc.

Catering only told us last week of a special Christmas menu. The set up on Arbor was an absolute pain. I was liaising with Arbor. They weren’t sure what was wrong. Eventually we figured it out. But that took 4 days to sort.

Its an absolute pain!

Not everyone wants to buy the teacher a gift though. I didn’t! DD sent a couple of cards.