If you are a WOHM, are you discriminated against at your child's primary school?

[Eleusis]

I generally feel out of touch at DD's primary school. So, I sent an e-mail to the parents and invited everyone out for drinks and a meal. 2 people showed up. And during the course of conversation I realised that we are the only mums (out of 26) who work full time, and hence never show up at the school gate. The other two had a few stories of how the school actually frowns at them. For example they are offered 3:00pm time slots for parent-teacher conferences and just expected to be available, etc.

I haven't realised the extent of the SAHM vs WOHM war zone... and I am rather pissed off about it. I think it is outrageous for the school to treat parents this way. I did know that these feelings are alive and well at the school gate. But, I am very surprised about the teachers' attitudes.

Is this common? Do other WOHMs have these experiences at your kids' schools? If so, how have you dealt with it? Are private schools the same?

Of course, not all SAHMs are unwelcoming towards the WOHMs. But, I so did not expect the stories I heard on Friday night.

Does anyone really believe there is a war zone? I know that every September there is a rash of features about how tough the playground is. I think there's even a book called something like The Playground Wars. It's all fake though isn't. Just a bit of media chit chat.

Does anyone really believe there is a war zone? I know that every September there is a rash of features about how tough the playground is. I think there's even a book called something like The Playground Wars. It's all fake though isn't it? Just a bit of media chit chat?

Oops. Sorry.

our parents evening offered a choice of 3 tiems between 3.30 and 6.30 pm, dh couldnt therefore come.
BUT it has now sunk in, have had meetings.. about SATs and other stuff which are held at 9.30 or 2.30 which I couldnt go to. since these were concerning DD3 it wasnt applicable..

so in that case.. there was discrimination... on the other hand, perhaps teachers want to get home too.. to their dc

der, of course it was applicable, concerning dd3, but as i have been through it twice already..it wasnt vital

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If I'd seen this on Monday I would have been a prime example of a resentful, discriminated-against WOHM. Two weeks before the end of last term, I asked if I could be one of the parent helpers on a school trip on 24 April. I filled in the form, asked the school secretary to pass on my request. I heard nothing. Seeing the date looming in my diary, I made a courtesy phone call to the school the day before the trip. 10 minutes later they phoned back to ask if I could go with them! Luckily my work was accommodating and I took flexileave at one days' notice. Did feel very overlooked by the school, though.

However when I turned up on the trip I found I was the only parent helper, as this particular trip was only a local, half day one and extra help was not usually needed. But the teacher, knowing I am a WOHM and remembering I feel out of the loop(we had talked about this at parents evening) was happy for me to go on it. And she made a point of telling me that she had earmarked me for a big class trip to later in the term.

Mind you, none of this would have happened unless I had made that phone call the day before - the school did not get back to me after I had filled in the form.

So the moral of this story is IME if you are a WOHM, to make some extra phone calls to the school, to pester just a bit more, as people don't remember to tell you things if they don't see your face regularly.

I am a WOTH mum and I have organised 2 of those 'get togethers' for mums in teh local pub. Both times they worked well. I did print up special invites which I asked the teachers to hand out. I also made a special effort to ask the teacher herself to come (they didn't) I had over 20 both times!

I don't feel discrimated in anyway, but perhaps I am lucky in that DH often does teh school run and he sometimes does a special drama day at the school so ALL the kids know him which helps.

We have worked v v hard at being involved with teh school when we can, I have a rule with work that I try to pick up on the first and last day of term (pref drop and pick up) and luckily my work are OK with this. They don't make me take hols to cover and I really apreciate it

got to go, sandwiches to make, shower to have, got to leave by 7.30 !!

I do find you have to work harder to form a relationship with the school. However well meaning the SAHM parents and teachers are, you can't expect them to automatically include you and tell you everything if you are not at the school gates.

I have already talked to the school about lack of notice for school trips. On several occasions (not counting the most recent) the school have told me I have been selected to be a parent helper just a couple of days before the trip. That is bad planning and it does distriminate against parents who cannot take leave from work at short notice.

However, the thing I find most annoying is the attitude that parent helper places on school trips should automatically go to parents who regularly help out at the school - it's a reward for their involvement so they get first choice. And I have encountered this attitude from some parents and teachers at my sons's school.

The counter argument is that teachers and children know the regualar helpers better, but personally I don't agree this is right. Most working parents simply cannot help out regularly in the classroom much as they'd like to, so the main chance they get to see the class in action is on school trips.

When my oldest son left primary school, I suddenly realised I would never have the same opportunity to see him in class - secondary schools do not have the parent helper system. I really regretted I had not been on more school trips. It is so rewarding to see how a class interact. You learn things you never learn talking to a teacher on parents evening.

IMO every parent should have the oppotunity to witness how their child interacts with their classmates and schools should positively discriminate with WOTHMs, giving them first choice on school trips and other one off occasions. And ample notice.

Most teachers who have children at the school are mothers so I tend to find they are more likely to be interestd in and prefer the working parents (who are like them ) than this species of stay at home parent which is alien tto them and their own lifestyle so if there's any bias I think it's pro working parent. Terribly gewneralisation but the working parents tend to be cleverer and more interesting too because they had well paid good jobs and those who only worked at Tesco on the counter are more likely to give up work so may be another reason they prefer the working parents of either sex. Obviously that's a big generalisation and in some families a father or mother with interesting well paid job chooses to give it up to stay at home.

(eb. sorry about teachers. My ex husband is a teacher and I know they work long hours but the basic day tends to be shorter than your standard office job in a City and there are longer holidays and I thinm on average even comparing marking and preparation at home with unpaid overtime most managers do and business trips etc teachers work fewer hours).

so what would WOHMs appreciate from SAHMs then? It had honestly never crossed my mind that the WOHMs (like I said I think there are only 2 in our class) would be feeling left out or ill informed.

I have found that in PT meetings that a lot of the teachers say "Oh I know what it's like" when we are talking about childcare etc. But although I agree that teachers work long hours, I think there is a big difference between being able to pick your own child up from school, personally help with homework and have a dinner on the table at a decent hour, and my situation which is relying on someone else to help with homework ( bit of an issue for us at the moment as I feel it's not being done up to standard) and arriving home at 6.45 when if homework is not done, the kids are too tired to make a decent go of it.

I think improved communication is wht I would like. But, I don't think it is the SAHM's who need to privide. It is the schools job to communicate with the parents. In this day and age I do feel it is reasonable to expect the school to make use of technology. Our school has a single front page web site which used to say "comming Autumn 2006". They had to alter the message to say "comming soon" because Autumn 2006 has long since passed. There is no e-mail address (to my knowledge) through which I can contact the teacher directly. I find this rather prehistoric.

I do not expect school events to take place outside of normal school hours. But, I do expect events which are specifically for parents to occur outside of normal working hours. For example, I expect a parent-teacher conference slot after say 5:30. And I would REALLY like school newletters to come directly to my e-mail. If they want to pass it out at the school gate in addition, that's fine.

SSShakeTheChi, tbh my issues would never be with the SAHM's at my school, some have saved my bacon by informing me of events when notes were lost from schoolbags.
My issues would mainly be with the school itself, suddenly arranging a PT meeting at a time that I can't make, or giving the child a project to do, which involves going out and buying arty-crafty stuff, which has to be in by the following day! Our creche won't help with this type of thing so I end up with a child who is up very late, glueing things together!

"schools should positively discriminate with WOTHMs, giving them first choice on school trips and other one off occasions." What?
Why?
Lots of parents are in a position where they could feel excluded from school life. If you don't push yourself forward and make it known that you want to help/be involved then you are likely in most cases to be left alone. Schools are in a bit of a difficult position. On the one hand if they ask parents to help out, I have heard parents complaining that they 'have enough to do without doing for the school too' and if schools don't ask for help then other parents complain they are being excluded from school life and only 'the clique' get asked. So unless you let it be known that you are approachable and willing you will probably be left alone.
Wohms are not the only people in this position. I think this is a case of thinking the grass is greener. It might take a bit more effort as you are not actually at the school every day but there are lots of wohm parents who are very involved at our school.

Eluisis, while I agree with you on the notice I think it is a little unreasonable to expect a specific spot for a P/T interview.

When we have review day the school is open from 8 to 8, so I do a 12 hour day. I still had parents moaning that they couldn't get the 5.00 slot. the reaason was that someone else had already taken in, and I only have one 5.00 slot!

You can only give the times that you have.

FWIW I think that sending stuff by e-mail would be a great idea.

But I'm betting next months salery that some MN would think it an invasion of their privacy!

Schools can never win in this situation. For ever woman like you Eleusis, who would like to be more involved, there would be a WOTH mum complaining that the school swere trying to 'guilt her out' because she dared to work outside the home. And didn't schools realise that she couldn't get the time off to watch Flossy in the nth school play of that term.

Well, I actualy have no complaint about my particular school's p-t conference slots. I always seem to get one around 6:00 which is perfectly reasonable. The only time I ever was irritated was when the teacher was sick so all the p-t conferences were cancelled that day of the conferences. The school called my home phone and left a message on the machine. DH happened to be working from home that day and so sent me an e-mail to tell me. Had he not happened to be home that day I would have left work early to go to the school only to find no one there. So, I sent an e-mail to the school (which was mildly stroppy) explaining that they really needed to get communication like this to me at work. They have since then started using my work mobile number. So, happy ending.

If people don't want to be contacted on e-mail, they could always ask the school to take their e-mail off of the mailing list. But people like me who want e-mails could still get them.

The more I think about it, I think theschool needsto develop their IT skills and infrastructure a bit more. In fact, a recent ofsted report says their IT class is good, but they need to integrate the IT into other areas of curriculum more. I suppose this should perhaps be extended to the teachers and admin as well. Hmmmm... I think I might starting making some noise about how the school should lead by example and get with the times....

Some of them are getting there. Some have a system to text message all parents if the school is closed for snow or in our case they had it up on the web site that day very early on (along with gorgeous photos of the grounds in snow taken at 7am).

Newsletter by email we had at one school but this time it comes in the school bag but that's fine.

I don't want to go on school trips. I don't particularly want to socialise with most of the mothers and I can't even remember their teacher's names nor do I particularly want or need to know that. Now that might be because they're children 4 and 5 so the novelty has kind of worn off in year 22 of parenthood may be or it might just be I'm interested in other things.

Expect them to send people off on courses then, and expect parent to moan that the teachers are not in class

Although I agree with you.

I difficulty is that many teachers have no training in ICT at all. I'm one of the school experts on use of ICT, I even lecture on it to othe teachers, and when I was in school lap tops/ PCs didn't exist! I was 21 and in university before I even saw a computer, and that was a bloody great big mainframe

I'm got up to speed in my own time, because I find this sort of thing interesting. However many people don't. And with the burden of paperwork and marking that teachers already have out of school it is probably unrealistic to expect them to put in the extra in their own time.

There will also be the situation of schools having to dulpicate everything in E format and paper copy, to cover those parents who don't have/don't want to use e-mail. paper copies will have to be given to specific children. Lists will have to be kept, peolpe will complain that their privacy is being invaded, that they will be discriminated against because they don't have e-mail.

Some poor sod will come in for a kicking because the paper copy was given to the wrong child.

The potential of moans and groans will grow and the teachers' lives will become ever more complex

In the end , you simply can't please everyone, no matter how hard you try, and in the end our primary job has to be educating the little cherubs.

My DS?s old Primary was brilliant at communication. The HT wrote a newsletter which was left for parents at the pick-up place (not handed to the pupils to get lost at the bottom of the school bag). It was such a wonderful school that every week he had several good-news stories to tell us.
Just recently, they have stopped producing this in hard-copy and now only send it by e-mail.

MB, I don't think it needs to be that complicated. Send the e-mail to everyone who has provided an e-mail address. Post it on the board at school and leave a big stack for those who want to take a paper copy with them. Job done.

And surely they type things up in Word before they print them anyway. It's not like things are hand written.

And quite frankly, anyone who can't use the internet, a modern PC, and some industry standard word processing software (i.e. Microsoft Word), shouldn't be a teacher anyway. Now I have some sympathy for a 50 year old math teacher who wasn't taught these things in her day. But, I expect her to be willing to learn. I have this problem in my industry too (engineering). If someone is making an effort I try to take the time to show him how to transfer files, and send e-mails, etc. But, if he takes the attitude that it is beneath him and just wants me to di it for him, then I walk away.

Really, anyone who wants to work in the modern world should be able to communicate in it.

maybe if a parent offered to set it up. It wouldn't be such a big deal for the teacher/school?