Do you volunteer, contribute or get involved at your dc school? Why or why not?

[Earlybird]

Just curious about who does and who doesn't, and their reasons...

UQD - the local parents do use it. The vast majority of kids attending live within a ten min radius.

I don't use it because it is awful...and let's be frank, because I don't have to. My money gives me choice, something the parents in the village mostly don't have.

And please don't say if my kids went there it would improve. It wouldn't. I already volunteer there and try to bring about change...without too much success.
The things that need changing will not be brought about by a few 'middle class' parents and pupils. The problems are too entrenched imho.

'In my experience the parents who moan most and complain about the school/teachers are the least likely to offer any of their time/help '

Yup.

Admittedly, many Mums don't work full time at my DCs indie school so they have time to help.
I do work but my hours are flexible - sometimes.

However there are lots of parents at the school where I volunteer who don't work and not one of them will volunteer. Straght in front of Jezzer I can tell you. God it pisses me off. Their kids are lovely but they don't give a flying fanny about their education. They don't read with them, talk to them. They don't even come to fecking parents evening. Aaaahhhh.

Our school does not allow parents to come in and help with reading. Parental contribution is largely in the form of fundraising. I am happy to help out on the PTA whenever I can because without the support of parents, our school would have no whiteboards, no playground equipment, no subsidised trips, etc. My DCs school budget has been slashed by another 30% this year so fundraising by parents will be even more crucial. Even without the pressure of slashed budgets, I would help out at school because I see it as a way of putting something back into the community. My childen have reaped no direct benefit from my being on the PTA - I would have to become a parent governor for that to happen !

Riven -officialdom would say it's failing because the children don't get blah de blah in SATs etc.

For me it is failing because it is a depressing place to be, with low achievement but worse, low aspiration.

Why is the question, I suppose.
At first I was very critical of the school itself. The building is old and grey. The playing fields were sold off and there is no green space.
The classes are too big.
The teachers cleeve to the NC like a talisman.
The Head Teacher is not far off retirement and is treading water.
Many of the teachers are demotivated.

However as I spend more time there I do question whether much would change if all those things were reversed because the parental input is so lacking.
The kids were asked to read at least one book or comic this summer and hardly anyone did.
Book bags go home and come back without ever being opened.
I set up an authors evening with a few mates and no-one came.

I get so cross for the children.

To be fair, there are some parents who do try but they are most definitely in the minority and eventually their kids get sucked into the black hole of school hating too.

Litchick, you need to appeal to the parents on their level. For many people I am sure that it is 'ignorance' that stops them from getting involved. On the whole, parents care - right?

An authors evening would probably scare the wits out of some of the parents but that is not to say they wouldn't have enjoyed it. The way to get parents involved is to 'mingle' at drop off and pick up time. Get yourself known and then make the invites personal, something like that.

Coffee mornings are obviously not the right set up for 'your' school. Like I say, find something that will make the parents feel comfortable about volunteering. Something where it is OK (or even positively encouraged) to bring toddlers too might be a place to start.

If you really want to make your volunteering worthwhile you need to try something a bit radical (like a big boot up the backside ).

I'm sure Litchick's volunteering is worthwile anyway!

You just can't tell what faint interest in books or reading might be sparked by having an adult show an interest in you and your progress. And that can change someone's life.

It sounds to me that she would like to make more of a difference. I suppose I should have said 'more worthwhile.

You are right about the kids but it is the parents that need to be inspired if the school is to improve.

To be fair, sometimes I do question what the bloody point is .

Dolly's right, in that we do need to get in amongst the parents and ask them to support their children.
The teachers say it's all been done before and the parents don't care, but I think they are quite ground down.

I do tend to stand off because I don't send my own children there and don't like coming across as high and mighty iyswim.

Also, I don't want to stand on the staff's toes - they're the experts not me.

It is a bit of a barrier that you don't send your own children there. Still if by some miracle the school were to radically improve you just might - right?

So, don't worry about standing on the staff's toes, at least not when it comes to parental outreach. What I suggest is that you set up a gazebo type shelter thing in the playground and encourage all the mums with toddlers in buggies to come over for 10 mins after drop off for 'story time'. Then you read a great story in your bestest voice.

All joking aside, I'm not actually joking . I think something like that might really help.

I'm sure litchick's volunteering is worthwhile. It's just that I find it hard to read something like that without it coming over a little Marie Antoinette, if you know what I mean. Probably mean of me to say so. I wouldn't volunteer is any school other than one my own child went to. I've sometimes done readings for free in other schools, but then I've known I'd get book sales from it so it's not in the least altruistic...

I know a few "failing" schools in our city and they were pretty bad to start with, but they are even worse now that people aren't using them. And by "people" I mean educated middle-class parents with a choice.

So many middle-class parents have so much 'fear' that they have no more 'choice' that the rest of us.

I like the sound of "indie school". Is Damon Albarn the headmaster, and do they all have to wear regulation Brett Anderson/ Louse Wener floppy fringes, and sing Shed Seven's "Going For Gold" at assembly, before going off for Applied NME Interview Technique?

Let them eat cake ...but I do know what you mean and am sensitive to it.
But I'm not some toff, trying to show how the poor folk should carry on. Yes, I might have money now, but I was brought up on a sink estate with very little.
Neither of my parents had any education past 14 and I went to a rotten school. I certainly don't consider myself middle class.

I got involved because the HT asked me. I met her at a poetry reading and she was moaning about the lack of help she had. I'd had a few sherberts and agreed.
I was only supposed to go in and listen to reading one morning a week! Once in there it was difficult to ignore how loudly this place is creaking.

And if I'm honest, which I always am on MN because why not, I volunteer more at this school than DCs because I feel they have more then enough in life. Too much actually.
Their school is better then anything I could ever have dreamed of. Doesn't need me iyswim.

Litchick - I recognise 100% the type of school you are describing. My sister used to be a TA in a school like that in a rough area of London. She has said exactly what you said in your long list @ 14:17.

What you are doing, as good and as selfless as it is, though is trying to make up for parents who do not care and teachers who wish they were somewhere else.

I just do not think it right that any school (and especially a state school) should rely on people like you to make up for lack of resources or complete indifference to children's education exhibited by staff and parents.

I ALSO think a lot of parent 'helpers' do stand on staff toes in better schools and the higher the school in the league tables and the more pushy the parents the worse it gets. I have seen that first hand.

My job as far as I am concerned is deliver my DCs to school properly fed, properly clothed and equipped, with homework done and ready to learn. It is not my job to constantly push my nose in the school and do the LEA or staff's job for them.

Which, with that attitude, is probably precisely why your childrens' school is quite glad that you don't get involved.

I wonder if you think paying for the education excuses you any further commitment, and wonder if you weren't in a position to pay for that education (and lets face it, in this economic climate, who knows what's ahead of them), if you would you demonstrate the same complete indifference to education that you criticise other parents for?

'It is not my job to constantly push my nose in the school '

Just how is hearing children read or raising some money to buy stage blocks or new library books pushing your nose into a school?

I don't recognise the people you describe, beta. I'm so pleased I don't.

I do but only because im training to be a TA. I am not in my ds class though as they dont allow it which is a fair point.

Litchick, I am also very impressed with your volunteering at a failing school your dcs do not attend. That is selfless, despite the fact it can be soul destroying.

What is to be done? Does your friend the HT have any ideas about how to increase parental interest in their dcs' education, even if it is just to supervise homework?

Please don't be too impressed, I don't do anything fabulous - just another pair of hands really.

Blueshoes, I really don't know what the HT intends to do. She is not far off retirement and has given up the ghost a bit. That said, a new Deputy Head will start after xmas and I wonder if she might razz things up a little. I know she's very keen to start things like a breakfast club because far too amny kids come to school without anything decent inside of them.