Would this annoy you?

[emsiewill]

Dd1 is in yr 5, brought home a letter yesterday about an activity weekend for yrs 5 & 6. The trip is on 29 September to 1 October, and costs ?85. ?20 deposit must be paid by next Monday (18th September) and the whole amount by Monday 25th September.

Now, we are fortunate and are able to find ?85 without too much pain, but I am very aware that there are plenty of people who would find this difficult at such short notice (my sister is one). They have said that people can pay in installments, but really, how many installments are possible in 2 weeks?

Is it unreasonable of me to write to the head and suggest that they could have warned people about this trip before the summer holidays? They may well have not had confirmed dates and / or costs at that point, but they would have known it was coming up fairly early in the new term, and they would have been able to give a ball park figure.

This trip takes place every year (dd been looking forward to it since she was in reception lol), so they definitely would have had enough information to give people an idea of the timing and costs.

The dds don't want me to write ("why is it always you who does this kind of thing, mum?"), and the last time I wrote to express my opinion on the school's appalling lack of communication skills, I ended up editing the newsletter . I try not to be negative when I write about these things, but to offer to help in some way (hence the newsletter), but I really believe very strongly that people have no right to moan about things if they are not prepared to do something about it.

What would you do in this position?

They should def have told you before the end of last school year.

We have just had a letter yesterday about a YR6 activity weekend 8 - 11 June next year (£170!)

I would write if I were you

you have a point. However, you also say that the trip happens every year so presumably most people know about it and could have been saving up.

But maybe a reminder that it is coming up at the beginning od the autumn term could go in the summer newsletter.

Definitely out of order.
Our Yr4 classes go on a 3-day trip each April and the Yr6 classes on a 5-day trip in September. For the shorter trip (cost about £50), we have about 6 months notice to pay. For the longer one (about £185), we get the first letter in November, have to pay a £20 deposit by the end of December, then have until the start of July to pay the rest.

But most people would only be aware of it through their children, who wouldn't know when / how much (well dd didn't, and she is the type of person who likes to know about everything).

The newsletter is a whole other story, actually, I suggested it as something the headteacher could produce (and I would put together or something), but the head has washed her hands of it, passed it to the PTA, and is not forthcoming with information to go in it. She even complains about us using the school photocopier to reproduce it.

This is just the latest in a string of non-communication incidents - there were 3 inset days at the beginning of term, dd1s class never got the letter telling us about this ("Oh, Miss X always forgets to give the letters out" says dd1). The same letter also gave details of the new dinner money price and no doubt other useful stuff.

Because most children go to the school by bus, many parents are hardly ever at the school, so there is no "school gate grapevine" and letters home are really important.

can you tell this is one of my parp subjects? Can you parp yourself on your own thread?

Oh, and when we do get letters, they can be really confusing; they say one thing in one language, and something different in the other (Welsh medium school, so letters in Welsh and English).

...somebody stop me...

Our school puts all letters that go out on the web site therefore we can get them through that. Don't often miss one but DD1 (10) told me about one she missed at the very end of last term and I got it from the site.

ha ha ha ha ha ha (hysterical laughter)

A website? Now you really are having a laugh.

Yep, this would annoy me to. In fact, the way our finances are right now I don't think I could produce £85 by 25th September.
I don't think it's at all unreasonable for you to expect some kind of reminder / basic information before the summer holidays. My ds's school is similar in the way that there isn't really a 'school gates' culture as a lot of the children either get the bus or walk home themselves, as ds does. They are pretty good at giving out letters though and ds is even good at actually letting us have them - totally different to his older sister.
As for the information about inset days, where I live they are published on the local authority's website for about two years in advance as are school holiday dates.

Yes, school holiday dates on the local authority website, and there's a document on the same website with information on inset days.

Guess which school's part of the document says "TBA" instead of detailing the inset days?

Hmm, not a lot of use then
Where we live all the schools have the same inset days, which makes it a bit easier