School laundry service

[Workybloodyworkwork]

Just wanting to check whether I’m being precious here. DD is 16 and is in special school, she has a variety of complex needs. She has moved into the senior school where they are working to lower level qualifications and doing life skills, there’s a focus on employability skills eg hospitality, working in a professional kitchen, hair and beauty.

The school run a commercial laundry service, companies and members of the public pay a fee for washing and ironing. The actual work is done by students under the guise of gaining skills for employment, there’s students aren’t paid for this work.

Am I unreasonable to refuse to have my DD spend an afternoon a week doing other people’s laundry as part of her school curriculum. I have many objections to it, which I’m happy to explain but none of the other parents seem to have an objection. For reference my DD is very able to do her own laundry at home, so it’s not a life skills issue.

Unreasonable - give your head a wobble she’ll learn valuable skills
Reasonable - nope there’s all kinds of things wrong with this

YANBU. This wouldn't sit right with me either. Don't they realise that it has a distinct whiff of Magdelene?

Well what are your objections to it?

I think it does have a whiff of the Magdalene about it. I don’t think it’s fair for children to be operating a service that the school runs as a commercial operation and not be paid for it. It sends a message that these children are being prepared for low status work. It feels discriminatory in that mainstream children wouldn’t loose an afternoon of education to perform mundane tasks for members of the public. There’s something very uncomfortable about having the disabled kids do it.

If it was part of a wider curriculum around fabric and fashion, eg the kids were learning sewing and clothes care was part of that, and it wasn’t a commercial enterprise I’d feel more comfortable with it. A year of washing and ironing other people’s clothes isn’t educational.

Doing laundry? That would be a no from me. It's not exactly a highly skilled career that she aspires to.

I know colleges run restaurants, salons, childcare etc that use student "labour", but they lead to accredited qualifications, I can't imagine there's an NVQ in laundry?

i know of mainstream schools that do car valeting as a life skill and a qualification. The money collected is for school funds. If the pupils receive a qualification and the money raised goes to school funds for trips etc, i can't see a problem.
Is it because its laundry you object? Would it be different if it was another skill?

YANBU. If doing laundry were a life skill she had not yet mastered, or if it were an opportunity to hone other skills e.g. interacting with customers, counting money etc. then I think it would be ok but since your daughter already knows how to do laundry then it’s not furthering her education or experience. It’s just unpaid labour.

I think you're right, it's dodgy and not a good message to send. There's ways of preparing these kids for work that are more creative, more empowering and more educational. Feels very Magdalene laundries like mentioned. My kids' special school run their own cafe, where they cook the food too and they rotate the jobs, assess each area for their own school endorsed qualifications (the young people are generally not able to achieve other qualifications). They also have a business running card making etc and more able students take on supported work placements.

I wouldn't be over the moon about it but equally your child benefits from the income the school receives and learns about the workplace whilst in a friendly school environment where there is a lot of understanding.

No, they do work towards SVQs in hospitality, beauty, horticulture and professional cookery which I think is great. They aren’t learning how to run the business side of things either, it’s laundry and ironing.

Doing laundry as a life skill should be part of a student’s education. However, I would not be okay with them making money from my child’s free labour. I would definitely raise a complaint.

I cross posted! I am sure there are other skills as part of the course and there may well be a qualification involved- you would be surprised what available. As it makes you uncomfortable, why not ask for the course spec and the year outline to see what is covered. There is a huge push of learning intentions and success criteria for all so you can see what is achieved and if you disagree with the course aims you can see about an alternative.

This is one step away from having them stamping license plates.

If it is unskilled free labour, the educational value is limited. If it was an entirely student run business where they have to set pricing, account for costs, manage workload distribution and scheduling and customer records etc, then it could be very educational.

Presumably the aim is to learn 'work skills' which could be very helpful for getting an employer to take them on later.

For example: working with others, attention to detail, reliability, coping with boring repetitive work etc.

Lots of kids do unpaid work experience one way or another, and finding employers to provide this can be hard (my DD has just done a Supported Internship which is for students with EHCPs). Being able to put this on a CV may be beneficial in the future.

The school also run a cafe where the pupils effectively run the business, plan the menu, order ingredients, price everything, work out their profit and have a chef teach professional kitchen skills and have a front of house manager teach them hospitality skills, all of which forms part of their SVQ portfolio. The profit made is used for their end of year trip, which they pick and plan.

From what I’ve been told that’s not the case with the laundry, it’s literally doing the laundry.

And yes it may be that the skill feels menial, and maybe that’s snobbery on my part. It’s not that I think it’s beneath her, I just think there are better uses for the time she has in education. I guess there was a time when kids with additional support needs would be filtered into low pay, low status work and it feels like a throwback to those times.

I think it sits with my feeling that professionals all too often have low aspirations for disabled children, and work to those aspirations rather than exploring where their strengths are and promoting them.

I worked in asn for 20 years and totally understand where you are coming from. I was adamant that experiences had to be beneficial and not just keeping pupils busy. I would ask to see the plans and outcomes and if it is as repetitive as you suspect, without new aims and lessons then you are within your rights to ask for an alternative for your child. Also how long does it last? In my previous school we had rotations of different work settings to build skills and teach how to transfer their learning. Will your child move on to the cafe at half term?

So she does a morning a week in the cafe, and an afternoon a week in the laundry - her timetable is fixed for the year. I asked for learning outcomes for both and got a comprehensive learning plan for the cafe (not surprisingly it’s led by a local business owner/restaurant owner). I’ve not had anything in writing about the laundry, her head of year waffled on about valuable life skills and teaching self care, but this isn’t that.

I would email requesting the laundry lesson plans to ensure a paper trail. The fact they have supplied for one course and not the other is questionable. I would keep at them. No point in any child being in a lesson that is not in done way valuable,
i am not a huge believer that every lesson has to be linked to qualifications and i do believe experiential lessons have a place but only when worth while.

I assume if she’s in a special school with complex needs, her needs must be pretty significant. What age can she be there until, and what are your/her hopes for the future? Is she able to express how she feels about the tasks and whether she wants to do it? Does the school feed into any supported employment programmes?

I can understand your concerns, but realistically I think a year’s work experience in a cafe and one in a laundry will give her a much needed advantage when trying to find work/activity post school. The work marketplace is dire for young people atm generally, but for young people with SEND it’s almost non existent.

Does your daughter want to do it?

I can understand learning laundry skills as part of a residential week in a school "flat" etc which a lot of special schools do, its part of learning to live independently etc.

Or more sessions for a young person struggling to learn this.

But this is not that. This sounds like a very old fashioned set up that they have got away with keeping because it keeps money coming in, but should be challenged.

Her needs are significant, some learning difficulties but in many ways she’s very able, she needs the protective environment the school provides and some educational support. With support she’ll be fully capable of doing admin type work.

In terms of does she want to do it, no she really doesn’t want to do other people’s laundry half a day a week.

“From what I am told” .. instead of creating a situation based on half a story, why not talk to college and find out what it going on. Your DD might enjoy it.

My DD is training to be a chef. The college opens a restaurant twice a week, she works in there either cooking, front of house, or behind the bar. She doesn’t get paid for it, the money is collected up and pays for 2 field trips.

If you read my posts you’ll see that I have asked for, and not been provided with, information about the laundry and the expected learning. Her school have a cafe that operates on a similar basis to what you describe. I’ve had no such reassurance about the laundry business.

What I’ve been told comes from other parents higher up the school whose kids have done this.

And she isn’t in college, this is 4th year of high school so would be equivalent to her GCSE year in England. Obviously she won’t be doing the usual diet of exams, but I do expect some level of useful learning and for kids not to be used as free labour.

I agree with you, it seems very inappropriate. But please tell me the boys as well as girls have to work in the laundry?

So what's the money used for?

Mainstream are woefully under funded I guess special schools even more so.

There may be kids at the school who have never washed or ironed any item of clothing. Im currently teaching my own teens to do washing and how to iron.

Why dont you ask for a visit and see what's going on.