School WhatsApp wildness…

[Fruitbatdancer]

I’ve lost the will to read the school WhatsApp already…
they don’t go back till tomorrow and there already been 30+ messages today.
everyone whinged about no update from school, update sent, then they all whinged about the update. The slagging off (of the actually very good I think) school and staff is wild.
one of the email updates today was on parent code of conduct and it specifically said parents will be banned from school premises if agressive and inappropriate behaviour on social media! Made me lol as then they all bitched about it! It’s the same 3/4 mums.every. Time.

30 messages in and someone just asked if they go back tomorrow 😂

please tell me most parents are also reading this shite thinking ‘how do these people function in their day to day lives’?!

id remove myself but then I’ll be ‘that mum’ 😂

What sort of secondary school do your children go to that their parents are sending out invites on WhatsApp??

198 people on our Y13 WhatsApp group..all very civilised though!

I think it depends on whether there is one.

If there is one, and you’re not in it, you could very easily not get the whole class invites when they’re starting out in reception/year 1. We’ve had invitations to multiple parties that have just come through the WhatsApp, and I doubt the parents hosting have gone through the list on the WhatsApp group, cross checked it with a class list, and found another way to invite any missing children. Maybe they did. But I doubt it.
Less of an issue as they get older and choose a group of friends to invite. And definitely not necessary in secondary school!

If there just isn’t one (and there wasn’t at my DD’s previous school before we moved), then it’s fine.

This. I honestly feel like the groups are just feeding the people who can't be bothered to sort their admin/diary out. Why bother to make a note of anything yourself if you know that you can just get all the other parents to run around telling you when things are happening and what you need to do.

I have never once been added to a WhatsApp school group, how do these things even come about ? Not that k want to be part of that but I feel a little offended 😆

Ours is secondary and used for pta orders, dates of trips- school seems to forget to tell anyone a trip is on parentpay, general reminders of fundraising, spontaneous road closures where it affects most people (like this morning!)
To be honest, it's no drama and quite helpful.

I quite like the primary one, all the parents are really nice and it can be useful.

The secondary one though - oh my god - at the moment it’s all about their kids being added to whatsapp groups against their will (‘there just board!’). I mean: if you’re dumb enough to let your 12 year old have whatsapp (and your SPAG suggests you are) then at least make sure the settings are set to NOT let people add you to random groups…

Think ours was made by PTA, I only found out about it 4 years ago but missed the other 2 years 😂

OP - wait until there's a school trip planned, honestly people are mental around these, it's like their kids are going off to war, rather than a 2 hour trip to the local museum!

We have about 3 WhatsApp groups - all on mute. I’m only on there because of social norms. I don’t want my kid to be excluded from birthday parties because some mums can be petty when they see the ‘left the group chat’ notification. It’s silly playground stuff that I really thought we were over when leaving college but here we are 🤣

This drives me round the bend! People putting a screenshot into WhatsApp of messages that school have posted on the class dojo app (the app our school uses for communication). We all have the fucking app, Carole, our kids are in year 5 now, we know how this works!!

I never joined any of our whatsapp groups. From what I hear that is a good thing. There was one incident that was so bad that the HT called the parents in (both professionals in regulated professions) to (metaphorically) box their ears about their behaviour. I found that hilarious to be honest as both these parents really ought to have known better.

its a wild world on the WhatsApp group, I’m the one who hovers and never comments, I have it on mute & I just check it Incase I’ve missed anything from the school. It’s a little useful at times. There’s mums asking about lost PE kit that is never found on the WhatsApp group. Asking what PE kit to pack - my son is year 10 & there are still parents packing the kids bags for them & asking what ingredients they need. No wonder we are raising the snowflakes! The moaning about the teachers is wild!
at my sons primary their were parent spy’s on the group who would report things on the group to the head teacher who would then call the offending parent & tell them to take their post down 😬

We had a school trip last year (year 2 children), and parents had to send a snack. Lunch was provided but send a snack. Easy.

It was like people had never fed their child before. Endless discussion about what snack should it be!

And how does this work in practice? You issue party invitations on a whole class group to the chosen few, thus making it very clear to the other parents that their kids are NFI? Or you create a new WhatsApp group for the chosen few, so the parents of the NFI are still non-the-wiser and wondering whether their kids have been invited/why they haven't been? How lovely that technology has sped up the exclusion process!

Honestly it’s absolutely hilarious. If anyone is on Instagram there is a comedian on there called Hannah East, she hits the nail on the head with WhatsApp, hilarious

Yes, I frequently used to question how these people get by day-to-day when they ask the most inane questions about every detail of their children's school lives. "Is it non uniform?" "Does anyone have the spellings?" "Can children take crisps in their lunch box?" "When do school photos need to be paid for?" "Has anyone else had a missed call from the school?" And on and on.
I was tempted to make my own up:
"Can children take pets in for show and tell?"
"Is it wear a newspaper on your head day?"
"Do children go in wearing their swimsuits and swimming hats on swimming days, or should they be in uniform?"
"Can younger siblings join the class trip to the water treatment plant?"
"Did anyone else's child come home with War and Peace as their reading book, or just mine?"

We have a road near us that floods every winter and every single morning from November to March would start with a 6am text from one of the usual suspects saying "Does anyone know if Mason Road is open this morning?" No, Amanda, we don't. Use Google maps to check like a normal functioning adult.

Thank goodness I'm out the other side of this nonsense now with older children.

I've noticed that most of the time it's sheer laziness, people don't seem to ever check their personal emails. My guess is that they have given the shcool one of those 'throwaway' gmail/hotmail addresses set up and forgotten about so it's easier to just ask someone else.

I am not on any school what's up, that stopped at secondary but all what's up groups seem to follow the same pattern.

You have a parent WhatsApp group in secondary?!?!
Absolutely not, leave that thing today.

Yes we’ve had both situations. Whole year group parties posted on the main chat (“X’s birthday at the village hall on Saturday 1st 1-3, everyone invited”).
Or people just using the main chat to find the phone numbers of the parents of the children being invited, because with so many parents working you don’t see them all at the school gates, and teachers won’t hand out invitations in class to just a few children (which is fair enough).

I’m not remotely bothered that there are parties happening that my child isn’t invited to, and certainly don’t view it as exclusion.

ETA - we’ve never had a party that is only for a select group mentioned on the whole class group. So we’ve never had “X would like to invite A, B, C, and D to her party. Here are the details”

Had one of those "helpful" people in one of my university WhatsApp groups. Insisted on posting the updates to the degree group, vast majority were irrelevant except to the people in her module or tutor group.

I muted all my Uni chats and kids never had them, small primary school had no need for it and no attention seeking parent set one up.

Whatsapp didn’t exist when mine were at school but if it did I would have great fun sending wrong answers to silly questions. What day do they go back? November 75th. How do they access their lunch account? Through the wardrobe. Who do we speak to about this? Jemima Puddleduck. Great fun.

If there’s over a hundred people in the group and it’s secondary school, assuming that your dc is capable of communicating with you, no one will notice that you have left the group (or does it say fruitbatdsncer left the chat?).

You don't need to be on it so leave. I've never been on one of these chats and never would. I'm friends with a couple of school parents I'll talk to them on WhatsApp but no desire to communicate with every parent about little timmy's pe kit.

Edit this is a secondary WhatsApp, even more batshit!

There are often whole class or whole year parties in reception so an invite is sent to the entire group and then obviously people can identify parents if they want to invite specific kids only and separately message them.

This isn’t new. It’s been going on for years.

When party sizes reduce, most will already know the parents of their kids friends and it comes off a school WhatsApp group.

In 4 years of primary, my daughter hasn’t ever received a paper invite.

Really? Never had one in primary (state) but now in secondary (private) there is a WhatsApp group for the class every year. I have to say it's well managed by the pta parent who set it up starting with rules of conduct and also told people to not take up space if nothing important to say/ask for and to respond with emojis when possible to avoid notifications. It has actually worked cery well and the pta dad who runs it immediately tells someone off if not abiding to rules. Def no slagging about anyone..