AIBU to think the new school WhatsApp mum is overstepping?

[Susan716]

Really weird incident happened my my daughters new school so I wanted some insight and reassurance it’s not a sign of things to come:

We have a WhatsApp group set up from an event in May where all parents are already in and not much activity apart from “did everyone get their forms in” type questions and “does anyone know what clubs the school does” it’s all very casual and parents with older children already at the school have been helpful.

yesterday we found out the form classes our children are in and we met our form teacher in person. Someone in main chat suggested this is a good time to create sub groups for forms and people started posting for example if you are in 7Xyz then join the group. All very friendly and nice till this mum let’s call her Q started ranting and saying “please everyone be patient, when I get home I will sort out” others just questioned that we’re here in person now so easier to set up but her response got very annoyed and said I said be patient. No one else responded on there so I assumed everyone okay with it. I wasn’t bothered right then and thought let her crack on if she wants to take the lead.

after a few hours she created a new community and then sub communities so the new main one for whole of year 7 and then 6 for the forms. She then asked a rep for each form and gave them admin rights, herself too being an admin in EACH form class! She then made it so the community couldn’t post in the main one but had to go though the class admin each time, so I couldn’t just post in the main one I would have to go through my rep who would then post on my behalf!

she then wanted us all to prove we were who we were saying by taking a picture of the name sticker we were given at the event yesterday which has our name, child’s name and form class. I’ll be honest I binned mine and didn’t keep. I was feeling very uncomfortable with all this especially as she kept shouting people down who questioned what she was saying.

I already know 2 mums there as our kids in same primary school so I messaged them and asked what they felt about it all - they just responded vaguely snd not much bother so I thought okay most people don’t care.

Another mum spoke up who I don’t know and questioned why she’s an admin of every sub tutor group when her child is only in one to which lots of people responded saying yes why plus why we can’t post in the main group for all year 7’s. She didn’t do in the way I’m explaining it was more being really nice to her type questioning like she’s scared of her. Q still got upset and said she said she was just trying to help. But I feel it was all rather crazy and wasting everyone’s time. She’s not in my form group thank God. Is this a sign of things to come? DD is my eldest and we’ve had WhatsApp groups in primary but not to this level of craziness! I should avoid Q at all costs and pray our kids don’t become friends yes?

it all feels really bizarre to me like why do all that when it was actually quite simple to do and she made it a million times more complex. Plus why did everyone just go along with it for so long and start posting pictures of their name tags? It’s like one person who I didn’t meet or know suddenly became our leader and everyone went with it. Only when sub group reps realised how much work it will be for them to get each member plus be the go between did one speak up and then it was just really nicey nicey. I really wanted to post how crazy it was but DH stopped me and said don’t do it.

Personal preference obviously but no, I would not like to be a part of a 200 person WhatsApp group used as a tannoy “can the parent of XY please make contact” x all 3 of my teenage DS! I honestly couldn’t think of anything worse.
If my DS found someone else’s jumper in his bag, he’d give it back to said person when he saw him next.
And as far as parents discussing teachers and school policies on a massive forum - this is an absolute no no for me for so many reasons.
But each to their own and I hope you get your place in the secondary school WhatsApp group sorted soon 🙃

Secondary school WhatsApp group!!!! You leave that shit behind on the last day of primary.

All these people running her down . Calling her names, controlling, narcissistic etc, its wrong. She must think she's been helpful. You don't know her.
You don't have to go along with it though..

I agree

and interesting that the two mothers the Op knew from primary - have very clearly fobbed off the OP’s attempts to bitch about the woman.

I think the kids can and do organise their own lives a lot more in secondary but yes, in year 7, there's some parental involvement. But you don't need the whatsapp for that. If DS wants to organise a party that requires me checking details with other parents, I would get him to get their phone numbers and I would then engage with them directly. A whole year whatsapp group is totally impractical at our school with 248 children in year 7 so even if we'd had one, that woudln't have helped as I would only have had the children in his form. Or I would drive him to a friend's house and while there, meet the parent and get their number. It' snot that complicated.

I also tend to agree that year 7 they should have phones, but I can actually see how if it's a smaller school and it's normal for the kids not to, that it's not that big a deal. Having said that, in my day, we didn't have phones but we did have landlines and we burned those up every day after school talking and organising things..... so I don't know how children do it today with no mobile and no landline.

Exactly. Primary year group 60-90 kids. Secondary 250-300 plus kids. What’s app group for that many sounds completely unworkable to me

No need for WhatsApp group in secondary school. You just ask your child for the contact of the parent of the child that you want to arrange something with. Your primary isn't that massive - some here have 3 form entry.

You do you but I'm so pleased not to be in any school WhatsApp groups now my children are older. I know of many such groups that have crashed and burned rather spectacularly.

You may also find that other parents don’t want to be involved. When DD wanted to meet a friend at the weekend she took the bus or walked. I may gave her a lift if it suited me or collected her if it got a bit late but I wouldn’t check in with the parents if DD could come/meet the friend.

A phone is quite useful, she may need it also for any school app or if she travels independently for bus/train etc.
Just lock it down properly and check it regularly.

no phone childhood sounds great but modern life for a preteen is difficult without one.
i want DD to always be able to reach us when out alone.

im sorry, I know you're looking for validation and I hate to break it to you but you, your neighbour, your friends and the crazy wattsap community organiser mum are definitely not normal. Whether your location of central London changes things I don't know, but it's definitely not the norm anywhere else.

I know you're not in secondary yet, but parental involvement really does drop off a cliff from the outset. You will eventually have to cave in and give your daughter a phone as otherwise she will miss out on A LOT by default. But the kids do also just chat amongst themselves to organise their parties and days out (not always though, hence why soon she'll be begging you for the phone). Trust everyone who is saying this on here, your input won't be needed (apart from to pay for things probably!) and you should be welcoming that quite frankly!

My eldest is in Y10. Apart from the parents I already know from primary school, I've only met 4 sets of parents (when they or me collected DCs from places). I only have a phone number of one of the mums because her DC left something in our house and she wanted to collect it.
No other contact is needed, trust me.
Let them work things out.

As PP said - you input will be to pay for things and drop off and collect from places when they can't be bothered to take the bus 😁

shes been watching too much Amandaland......... i would just go with it and not rock the boat, unfortunately people like this always seem to embed themselves in to school business but she might come in handy at some point

Apart from 2 families who are neighbours, and the kids my son has befriended since starting secondary, I wouldn't know anyone at all from his form, or year group. We've managed just fine without a whatsapp group. In yr 9 now. I've been added to a group for my primary son and it is driving me nuts...mostly just everyone putting in orders for tea towels the pta have had printed! It's on mute!

It isn't completely unusual.

DS1's secondary school had whatsapp groups for the year group (150 kids, almost all had a parent in the group) and some smaller ones for activity-related subgroups (sports teams, performing arts groups etc). Useful even now they have left the school - parents post summer jobs they hear of, other people looking for paid tutors for younger kids etc. After the initial too-much-posting-about-lost-kit it settled down to stuff like the trains have been cancelled, the trip is late/early back, last minute cancellations or additions to the schedule, there is a mufti day, parents evening bookings open tomorrow at 6 (thank the lord for that post every parents eve or I may never have got any appointments!) and that sort of stuff. Not social stuff for the kids but organisational stuff for parents and reminders for people that failed to read/remember the newsletter every week. Mostly sensible parent cohort who talked down the occasional nutters. Genuinely useful after about the first 9 months (when I had it muted more often than not).

DS2's school up to year 11 had them, and again mostly useful with occasional batshittery that was funny if you didn't get involved but his school for 6th form doesn't. I literally never know what is going on there - the newsletter is rambling and disordered so really easy to miss stuff I am supposed to know about. I wish it had one.

Flipping heck. That sounds awful. If I were you I wouldn't join. You don't need all that drama. I found it helpful to be in the year group Whatsapp group when dd's were in primary, but nothing has been set up for secondary...it's not needed at that age (thank God!). If you have any queries you can send a quick message to the school office or ask your child to find out. HTH

Nah. I would've paneer to her. I'd just quietly remove myself from the group and enjoy the freedom and peace :)

But when kids are at secondary school they don’t need mummy to arrange play dates or find missing uniform.

Having a WhatsApp group for parents of secondary school kids is embarrassing and mortifying. Please find a hobby you can enjoy and let your daughter grow up naturally and gain some independence and resilience.

Thank you, yes this is what ours is like- its parents supporting other parents

How so when you’re talking about 15/16 year olds?

The students don't book parents evening, to pick a random example so the remindes.fornthatvwere great. And at my school they ask the parents for the money for mufti day donations, not the students. And students aren't allowed phones out during the day so if a parent sees the trains home have all been cancelled and puts it on the group that means plans can be made to lift share etc rather than waiting until the kids have walked to the station and found there are no trains and start phoning home at 3.50pm.

Particularly useful for things like a coach being late back from a trip to save a whole bunch of parents uselessly sitting in their cars at the previous pick up time (pour school tends to let reps know this so they can share it).

Also, school didn't organise transport for gold DofE and we organised a coach to and from Scotland on there as the expected arrival time was earlier than they could have got there independently on the train and 50 parents driving to Scotland and back is stupid.

It has been very useful.

Woah this is really weird. Why can’t you all just post in the first group for the event in May? If enough people ask for lost jumpers etc there isn’t that the main group just by default? How do the other form admins feel about moderating 2,000 lost sock / when are the cookery ingredients due in / does anyone have a copy of the geography homework type nonsense?

No Whats App parent groups at either of my daughters' secondary schoo.

Don’t you get 8 million emails a day with all this information?

It waxes and wanes, sometimes nothing for a few days, then a topic will get a lot of banter, there are a few sub groups for trips etc so discussion that isn't relevant to all isn't clogging up the main feed. Now I think of it, its remarkably civilised.

Then the school is not teaching the children independence when they involve the parents so much.

There were no class reps at DD's school, we had a PTA but they only organised the really large annual events like fair and Christmas concert plus some smaller sport related ones for the teams who represented the school on county level to raise funds for kit and transport costs.

For things like DoE or sport teams - yes, I agree, parental help is required and then some form of organisation helps to avoid every family doing the same thing.