AIBU in thinking that this is an unfair expectation on parents

[GumballWaterson]

DD12 goes to a weekly Musical Theatre class which costs us £200 per term.

This summer they are doing a performance, two weeks of rehearsals followed by a dress rehearsal and three performances across two days. It costs £150 per child to take part and tickets for the show are £16 each. We have to provide a costume. Driving her to and from rehearsals and performances (an hour round trip) has taken some juggling with work, younger DC etc but all fine, that's what we agreed to.

A couple of weeks back they sent out an email stating "we expect all parents to chaperone or help out backstage for at least one performance or the dress rehearsal. You must let us know which performance/s you will be volunteering for by completing this form by X date". No "please" or "if you are able to" or "we would be grateful if", just a straight up demand.

When I dropped DD off this morning I spoke to one of the managers and politely told her that DH and I are unable to help. I explained that DH will be at work during the dress rehearsal and first performance and I will be looking after DD's younger brother, then for the other two performances one of us will be in the audience and the other will be at home with DS as he would not be able to sit through the show due to SEND. She responded with what I can only describe as a lecture, about how they "do expect all families to make arrangements" because "it really isn't fair on the parents that make the effort" and if they don't have enough chaperones the performances can't legally go ahead and "it's the children who will suffer if parents don't support the show". This was all delivered unnecessarily loudly, I got the impression she wanted me to feel embarrassed by other parents and staff hearing.

AIBU to think I shouldn't be berated for not supporting a business that I pay £600 a year in class fees to, in addition to the nearly £200 it's costing us for DD to do this show + tickets? Not to mention DD has given up several days of her summer holiday to help out at their under 5's dance workshops, for which they also charge parents a small fortune!
I don't want to stop DD taking part in future because it's good for her confidence, but I don't feel it should be my responsibility as the customer of a profit-making business to ensure their events are appropriately staffed. The only way we could make this work is if one of us doesn't watch the show, and helps out backstage instead but DD would be disappointed that we hadn't both seen her perform, plus we've already bought the tickets.

As I've said upthread, DD hasn't done a show with them before, just the weekly classes, holiday workshops and volunteering to help with the little ones.

I know and I was just asking how they’d taken that fact. I’d have thought they’d have been applying the thumb screws

Oh, apologies I misunderstood. There's no pressure for the kids to do shows. They have more than enough kids sign up so there's no need for them to get the thumb-screws out I suppose...clearly they save those for the parents once the kids have signed up!

Well you’ve told her now and she’s not chased. And the show is next week. So you can rest easy, the drama is over. She’s probs my forgotten all about it and up to her eye balls with the show

Maybe not but I've never felt it wasn't £20 worth! I didn't actually realise how good it was until I saw the same musical done by a school...OMG...

Well yes because you were watching performances directed and choreographed by west end directors and choreographers!!!!

SEND mama here. What this woman is doing is disability discrimination and I would have told her so, just as loudly as she tried to shame me. Perhaps you can do that next time you see her. I'm guessing she's not a registered charity or CIC but you could still check her accounts through Companies House, to see what the revenue is. Honestly, I'd be reporting them for safeguarding. There should be nobody interacting with those children who doesn't have DBS. If you CBA to do the legwork yourself, just tip off the local paper. They'll look into it. Total CF behaviour and a danger to children. Needs shutting down.

No but she's allowed to have a good moan

Go to the show,and after see if you can leave. They seem entitled and unempathetic and it’s not free. I will clearly explain to DD why we need to find another musical theatre. I had to take both my DDs out of the closest swimming lessons as one of the instructors was rude to my youngest. She proudly stood up for herself and that was their last lesson with them. I made a formal complaint and promptly enrolled somewhere else. Because a lesson that is more valuable than any extracurricular is that bullying and disrespect is intolerable.

Surprised they ask parents to volunteer without DBS checks in place? Odd

Our school has never asked for DBS checks, which I also find odd as my elder two went to a different primary and you weren't allowed to do anything there without having a check. (Mind, they only did it when you first joined and never again so pointless really).

In most schools, if a parent is always with staff they don't always apply for a full DBS for events. But you can always raise it as a query with the safeguarding lead/school governors/ Ofsted parent view. I was thinking that it's probably needed more by a private theatre school as the chaperones would be backstage, which can be very chaotic and staff won't know what's going on everywhere. I wouldn't be comfortable with that

Legally every child back stage has to be within sight of a registered ( which includes dbs) chaperone at all times. So a parent without a dbs would never be alone with a child ( except their own)

I used to be welfare officer for my DS football team. The number of parents who would drop kids off then go about their business as if it was a babysitting service, even when they were quite small, was shocking. They didn’t engage, didn’t support, didn’t help out. If there is no support from families these things wont happen and that’s the bottom line.

Not sure if it's changed recently, but it was a requirement that the DBS check had to be done by each organisation using the volunteers - they couldn't just rely on someone saying they had a DBS check for their job or another volunteer role in the last 4-5 years. So the "tick if you have a DBS check" may not meet the requirements anyway.

This did change several years ago when the Update Service was brought in.

however rules are changing again in the autumn & being supervised by other staff members will no longer exempt you from having a DBS.

I would want all the chaperones to be DBS checked. Not appropriate to use random parents these days where children are concerned. Who is their safeguarding officer. You need to speak to them.

The organisers should have made it clear at the beginning that volunteer help was required for the rehearsals & real events.

Poor planning

It actually is. If as a parent/guardian you choose not to be involved that’s not say others feel the same and it’s a god job too. All these activities for your kids don’t happen by magic and if the extent in your involvement is chucking a few quid at it you need to take a look at yourself. A baby sitting service will cost more btw.

Get out of this toxic regime now! Your life will never be your own and you are being blamed for things that are NOT your fault. What a despicable organisation, and one which is costing you a lot of money. Get rid.

Who is paying for all the DBS's for these parents to be chaperoning ? Surely they aren't having people who haven't been checked in any way , look after a bunch of kids.... I can imagine all the legal fun and games around that....
May have been answered before but it's the first thing that came to mind as I started to read the thread

I totally agree and what should be remembered first and foremost here is that OP and her DH are paying these people for a service and the sort of passive/aggressive' attitude she was met with when explaining the reasons why it was not possible for her or DP to 'chaperone' (which sounds as if it might be illegal anyway and should be checked out?! 🙄) is simply and outrageously not acceptable!! They need a short sharp shock as to what their expectations should be with regard to what paying clients can be 'told' what they have to do! 😡

Being honest, I haven’t read the full thread, so I apologise if this has already been covered, but as a brownie & guide leader (volunteer!) as well as wearing many (many, many many!!) other girlguiding hats over the last few years, this is a constant bugbear for many of us!

dance schools are for profit organisations, they charge a fortune, including to pay to ‘rent’ costumes that were bought from primark years before (personal experience of when DD attended & her cousin had to hire the same costume several years later) expect perfect attendance, including through the school holidays, with no break in fees, change weekly group nights at will, strangely coinciding with volunteer led events for the same age group, don’t have a responsible dbs checked adult doing the hand off of children to collecting adults, often as OP said re summer camp, have 1 adult & several unpaid teen volunteers, and make a very tidy profit from teaching our children to be in constant competition with each other!
girlguiding, and scouts, teach our children to support each other, to encourage each other, and to form friendships that are not based on oneupmanship! The volunteers, and they are volunteers, every single leader that you come across at a girlguiding, and I’d assume, scouting, unit gives their time freely to support the children in the community to learn life skills, together! From personal experience we run our units as inexpensively as possible with parents pockets in mind, especially in less affluent areas. We must adhere to specific safeguarding requirements, including at least 2 dbs volunteers in attendance, no adult without a dbs would be left alone with children, as if something were to happen that would compromise the safety of anyone, not just any child, any one, the volunteers would be responsible for allowing that to happen!
many units take the children away for adventure weekends in the uk for anything between £40-250, approx £5 per hour, max, all of which is spent on supporting kids have fun together learning new things, not a penny goes to the leaders, and rightly so, but (& not having a go at op or anyone else on here with this) it is soul destroying when a parent says dc can’t go cos I’m paying £150 for her dance costumes this month and I’m skint!
I'm proud to say that in our area we’ve never let lack of money be a factor in a child not attending a weekend away with our units, we budget carefully to ensure we can support those who need it, I was 1 of 4, my parents couldn’t have afforded to take all of us to half of the places I went as a child with girlguiding, that’s why I volunteer, to pay it back, and forward, but dance schools? In my experience, they’re in it to line their pockets, as cheaply as possible, the kids are their little cash cows!!
rant over 😉