AIBU to be baffled a mum had no idea the school fayre was happening?

[xAwaywiththefairiesx]

Today my daughter's primary school had a spring fayre after school on the school field. Ice cream van, face-painting, various stalls with games, the usual. All arranged by the PTA to raise money for the school.
There was a mufti day today, and the children were asked to bring a donation to the school as an exchange for the mufti, something like cakes to sell or a teddy for the tombola or a bottle of wine as a prize or something.
One mum wanders onto the field after school, with both of her kids in mufti, looking around bewildered saying "What's this? Is this a new thing they're doing? Will it be every week?"

And this is so weird to me because the spring fayre has been organised for months. We have lots of emails asking for donations, several more asking for volunteers, we've had at least three leaflets home about it, and she obviously got the memo about mufti, the whole point in which was for the school fayre!

My phone own child has been banging on about it for three weeks.

How can she get so unaware? I'm not judging, honestly, I'm just baffled how it got past her.

Is it just me? Could you miss something like this after all that communication?

How do people not know the term mufti? Or am I showing my age a bit?

On another note, I'm very disorganised to the point of forgetting what my son told me what he wanted for pudding about 5 minutes before....😫😅😳 (three concussions will do that to my poor addled brain!), so I am pretty sure I'd be "that" mum not knowing what's going on! 😅

Exactly. Anyone (including myself) who has time for Mumsnet/Social media/messaging friends and family etc, has time to look at school emails. There will be some specific circumstances (illness, deaths etc) where it is perfectly understandable school emails would go unread, but deliberately leaving them for 10 days is sad.

I feel sorry for the kids missing out if parents are deliberately leaving them unread (not talking about a parent having a busy day and looking at them abit late).

In the last week, i’ve signed a consent for a trip for the youngest, been informed of something we need to buy for lessons and paid for a trip for the eldest. I feel sorry for the school staff of the people with time for Mumsnet but not time to take 2 minutes to read about a school trip. Let me guess…they would also be the first to complain if the school stopped all trips and fun activities.

It's common to spell correctly and use grammar correctly, but a lot of people don't. Because they're poorly educated, I suppose. Because they don't read anything that's not on social media and never pick up a book. Because they don't engage with any form of art or culture that they don't think relates to their own direct experience. Because they don't pay attention to the world around them and absorb and remember the things that they see in print or that other people say in person or on the radio or in a soap opera or anywhere else (that one relates to memory to some extent of course - some people just remember what they hear better than others - but I think also to being self-absorbed). Because they lack curiosity. Because they switch off when something new comes their way. A person with curiosity and a love of learning is happy when they learn something new; a person without sticks their fingers in their ears and declares that the new thing either doesn't exist or isn't worth knowing due to its supposed irrelevance to them ("must be local"). And having a poor vocabulary works the same way.

Not really very profitable then if you raise just over 1k for months of work

That is a bizarrely judgemental post about a word that definitely has different levels of prevalence across regions, social classes, and ages.

When @xAwaywiththefairiesx first posted, she probably didn't anticipate that use of the word "mufti" would be getting people hot under the collar for 40 pages.

I think it's phenomenal, personally.

The PTA are parents doing it in their spare time, and the money is raised often through low-value things such as the tombola, raffle, cake sales etc. That's because the people buying are parents who aren't frequently swimming in spare cash so it has to be pitched at an affordable level. £1000 is a lot of money to raise when it's being done 20p at a time!

Anything that helps the school provide better facilities and resources for the children is great, imo. Whether that's £100 or £1000...

Too old to have heard of recent immigrants? My DC school would never use regional slang like mufti in school communications as we have a high proportion of immigrant families who will understand plain English like non uniform day or free dress day but not be familiar with local terms.

there should be a national PTA mufti fayre!

@ElsvietaI’ve a perfectly wide vocabulary, thanks. Not only did I not know what a mufti day was, when my curiosity (sharpened, of course, by that Oxbridge education I’ve got - not poorly educated either) caused me to research it, I learned its imperialist history and thought, “Why in God’s name are people so ignorant that they still think it’s acceptable to use this phrase?”

@Elsvieta
Well it’s clearly not a word used all over the U.K. if myself and several others have never heard of it! 🙄
I say this as someone who has lived in three UK counties and several areas in one!

I first heard the word from my Aunt. She was a house mistress at a girls boarding school in the 60s and 70s.

It is a British/Commonwealth term, not an international one. There’s more to general knowledge than imperialism and cultural appropriation.

At my age, I ‘m too old for Tik Tok.

That’s a very long winded way of attempting to insult every MN member who hasn’t heard the term mufti before.

Do you want a round of applause?

Regardless of your patronising, haughty and disdainful post, it still doesn’t detract from the fact that Mufti is not commonly used or known across the UK.

That’s me usually! Too busy with work and 3 kids, most of school chats are on mute and I barely check a school email unless a teacher brings it to my attention 😂

I’ve never seen the word ‘Mufti’ before this thread. Sounds like Muff which is is slang for female genitalia in Scotland so we’d never use it in the context of a dress down day for school 🤣 safeguarding would have a field day.

‘Fayre’ however is in frequent usage. School Fayre, Christmas Fayre, Baby and Toddler Fayre, Wedding Fayre. It’s only a ‘Fair’ when it’s a Fun Fair.

As for poor Mum

Maybe DH does the school admin
Maybe her mental load was full
Maybe it slipped past her in the 30 other school emails sent this week
Maybe she has a busy career or other things going on in her life
Maybe she forgot

Never ever used or heard mufti growing up in the W Mids in the 80s. Now living in Surrey and it’s used at the local state primary. Met with initial bafflement from some parents, in particular those not from UK and has to be explained. A few parents at the private secondary that my eldest attends have used it in our WA chat, again met with bafflement from some and a similar (if slightly more polite) discussion to that on this thread ensued! I think why’s annoying about some people’s reactions to this is, just because it’s YOUR experience that it’s always been used (once it sticks in a school it’s probably just gets used forever?) doesn’t mean it should be everyone’s? I reckon it’s just used in small pockets of - mainly the SE - England. And even there it’s falling out of use because it’s not a ‘plain English’ phrase.

I always felt the fair serves much more than just a profit making purpose though

It's a chance for the whole school community to come together in a fun way, and for children and parents to mix with teachers in a different, more relaxed, environment

It's often a time the school opens it's gates to the wider community too - a chance for children who will start school next year, children who have since left the school, people who live nearby etc to come along and feel part of the school

It's a lovely way for young children to be given a bit of spending money and get to go round with their friends

And it's some very affordable fun for those families who are living to a tight budget

This thread is nuts. Surely it needs to go into 'classics' for the amount of tangents away from the original aibu?! 🤣 OP well done on your fund raising.

I was never inclined to join our schools PTA but recognise it is a thankless task. My kids loved all the organised events and fayres etc and we always attended when we could, sometimes helped to 'man' a stall for an hour or help clear up and always managing to buy back the same bottle of wine or box of chocs we'd already donated 😅 🫠

(I've always known it to be mufti too!)

It still doesn’t detract from the fact that Mufti is not commonly used or known across the UK

So. What?

I thought it was. Now I know it isn't.
Others have never heard of it. Now they have.
Great.

But we are we arguing about it? It's so bizarre.

Mufti

Mufti fayre

There was no rage on my part, genuinely humour. You’re the one now coming out with swearing and insults.

You have no idea how old I am, I can assure you I didn’t grow up with Google. You’ve had 60 yrs to learn to read and apply a bit of critical thinking though.

I clearly said, I get that not everyone knows the word. What is funny (sorry if only to me!) is that you bothered to look up the word but didn’t read the actual answers. That just tickles my logical brain and maybe it makes me weird but hey 🤷‍♀️ also if I’d done the same I’d laugh too.

I wasn’t aware that MN was a competition for votes or “likes” so unsure of your point there 😂

Nothing wine based, vile or personal like your vicious reply. I hope you have a happy day after flinging insults and telling a stranger to stfu at 6am 😂.

Sadly most people have learned “that part” of the Internet pretty well.

Muff