to be fed up with ds's school NOT telling me what class he's in next year?

[edam]

Ds is in reception. Term ends in a few days. The teachers will NOT tell us what class they will be in next year (there are two possibilities). We have to wait for an email. Email turns up today saying 'click on the pop up'. Only there is no pop up. I dunno whether my browser's blocked it or not. Further email says 'if the pop up doesn't appear, press F5 to refresh'. Well, that doesn't work either. Why can't they just give me the effing link to their effing website (have searched it, found the 'if you don't allow pop ups click here' does not have the class lists). OR put a note in their bags or even just bloody well tell me?

I have no idea which teacher he will have or even where to go next year - each class goes through a different entrance. I know I will find out eventually but why do they have to make it so unnecessarily hard?

How completely ridiculous of them. School secretary?

Funny how they do this sort of stuff AFTER the selection process for schools has happened.

Why would the selection process matter? He's going into year one from reception so it should be straightforward. And I think I know which class, too, as they do it by age and he's one of the youngest. It's so daft to have to wait for confirmation and to know which teacher he will have!

Our school did this last year, only telling us the day before we broke up for summer.
Needless to say, it didn't go down at all well with parents and this year we have been given notice much earlier. Last year the teaching staff were under strict instructions not to say anything, despite knowing which classes they's be taking the following term. It puts a lot of pressure on them too I feel, for no good reason.

Well yes, quite, I'm sure it does wind the teachers up too. What is the flaming point?!

I am still surprised by the secrecy surrounding which teachers children will get the following year. I swear that the recipe to KFC is a less well guarded secret!
We found out on Tues, but only after children had been taken into assembly and had their new teachers announced to them. Our kids told us who they had when they came out of school.
Could just imagine the following conversation
'Hi Jimmy. Did you have a good day at school today'
'Yeah'
'So what teacher have you gpt next year then?'
'Dunno, can't remember'

Aaaaahhhhggg!!!

Yup, apparently they went the other day (only heard about this when ds was in the bath) but he wasn't sure if he was having Miss F or Miss H. Aaarrgghhh.

I just rang ds's school and we are not finding out till next week! No reports yet either....

DD will be told today which class she is in next year. The information is never leaked in advance and so all the children find out at the same time. They have transfer day tomorrow when they will all move up a year for the day and meet the teacher. I like that they are told just the day before because there is very little time for the anxiety to build up about not liking the teacher, new classmates etc. I would be pissed off if we were told on the last day of term because there is no time then to address any problems.

They don't tell you til the last minute because they want to avoid lots of parents going round to complain and trying to get their children moved to be with this child or away from that child.

One parent in dds class was told by the teacher that she should prepare her dd that she wouldn't be with her best friend - very kindly meant but it resulted in one very upset Mum having lots of meetings with the head and getting various children moved around to suit her dd. I can see it from both viewpoints really - as a parent you want what is best for your child and you don't really care about anybody elses. But the school has all the children to look at when they organise class lists. I don't think that the Mum in question got that by asking that her dd be moved to the same class as her daughter it meant that another child would also have to be moved who's Mum then might not be happy about that.

Sorry a bit garbled - I think that's why they leave it as long as poss before telling people - you can almost guarantee that there will be at least one parent who won't be happy.

I do think the children ought to be told before they leave for the holidays though - dd's school will find out next week - and the children will find out before the parents - they'll go to their new class to meet their new teacher.

I have no intention of moaning about which class he's in and I don't see why I should be treated as if I am a moaning parent from the off! What's more they split by age (45 intake so one pure Y1 class and one mixed Y1/2) so there would be no point arguing anyway.

It's blindingly obvious he will be in Class X as he's one of the very youngest. But not having older children I don't know the teachers and I don't know whether he's having Miss F or Miss H or whoever. Or where their bloody classrooms are. Am I meant to walk all the way round the school in September, calling out 'anyone want min-Babybel?', for heaven's sake!

I've managed to find the bleeing pop-up they are on about on the school website but it assumes you know whether to click on C1 or C1/2 and the letters under both those categories are signed by the same three teachers 'the KS1 team'. Aarrgghhh!

But why does it matter?

Yes, they do Cat64 and that's the day we, and they found out - honestly! They also came home the same day with a letter stating who was taking which class. We all knew they were meeting their new teacher, but no-one knew who until it happened. Admittedly, there were a few staffing problems towards the end of last year and that was the first time it had happened like that. There was a major change around of teachers moving to different year groups and it was all very strange. They did know where they were going weeks before the end of term though. Present HT has a history of poor communication though which is improving, but very slowly.

As it turned out, one teacher left with long-term illness (unforseen) and another who was hired at the end of term, withdrew her acceptance of the post in the holidays and dd's teacher for this last year was only hired two days before term began. That said, he's the best teacher she's had to date.

Is there any reason to doubt that both teachers will be fine with your child? Usually when there are two classes in a year they get to do some stuff together anyway. and they all get to play together and choose their friends at play times. It isn't very supportive of the staff to be so anxious as it implies lack of confidence in their ability to handle the children regrouping for the new term. the practice of waiting till the last minute is good as it means that they don;t become unsettled in their current year/class I think.

This seems ridiculous. What if you don't have access to a computer? I would ring the school, say you have no computer (broken) and can they please tell you your child's class for next term so you can tell him?

I know what teacher my son is having but not my daughter yet. Mine finish on the 21st.

My son is having his class mixed and when they did it before they gave the parents 5 weeks notice. Lots of complaints so this year I have no idea who he is with and teacher is pleading data protection. Yeah, right.

my ds going into yr 2, don't find out until the day they start! It's a RAF school mainly and because of the high turn around over the summer it's the best way!

I have only ever known it to be this way growing up as an RAF child so was unaware not the normal!

I don't want to argue, I'm sure both the Y1 teachers are great, I'd just like to know his teacher's name and which classroom he'll be in!

For basic reasons like, um, going in through the right door to the right room. Is that too much to ask? (They don't all go through the same entrance, each classroom has an external door so you need to know which class you are in before you know which door to use. But even were that not the case, it'd still be handy to know who the hell is teaching my child!)

It was too busy and chaotic at pick up to question his current teacher and we had to rush to get to the doctor's surgery but one of the other mothers whose child's birthday is closest to ds reckons they are both in the class I suspected with Mrs H. And she knows where the door is. So I guess we'll just have to follow her come September... ludicrous.

er, I still can't understand why you've not just phoned the school ??? seems ridiculous to me that they email everyone..?? very weird I'd be annoyed too but I would have phoned by now !!!!

I am quite surprised so many of you haven't found out what teacher your DC are getting yet. Especially the little ones. Surely they should know as early as possible to make the transition easier on the kids.

I found who dd's new teacher was going to be back in May when we had a parent teacher meeting. Then we got a letter home stating the teacher they would have in June. Then for the past month they've been having sessions in the new class to make it much easier on them. So much so that dd is now saying how much she loves her new tacher Mrs F.

Mind you this is why I picked the school as it's such a good school, dd loves it and so do I. Not that I'm smug or anmything.

Except for reception starters, Usually we don't find out until about 2 days before end of term (so end of next week, at earliest). I don't have a problem with it... Unless they adopt a system of 'sign up for which teacher you want your child to have' -- probably best to leave it until as late as possible to avoid/minimise bun fights.

When my children were younger the HT used to announce in assembly which teacher each class would have the following year, who would take them to their new classroom at the end of the assembly. This was lovely for the popular teachers who got huge smiles and even cheers from the children - but the few unpopular teachers were greeted with a dismayed silence - or even groans!
It stopped after the year an unpopular teacher led a class out of assembly with five of the children weeping.

leo, I got the email at 2ish, read it, tried to make sense of it (referred to some pop up that didn't appear), went on the school website to see if I could find anything, got another email saying 'if the first one doesn't work, try this', tried it, emailed them back, managed to open something but discovered it didn't actually tell me WHICH class ds was in or who his teacher was.. then it was time to go and pick ds up. School office is closed by the time the kids come out and anyway, we had to rush off to the doctor's surgery.

At any rate, I finally managed to get an email out of them saying which class ds is in and who the teacher is, so mystery solved.