Is this normal? My son's school is stalking me!

[OrdinaryGirl]

We filled out every imaginable form - like, 14 forms - before DS1 started school, and were anticipating the usual odd letter home, but it turns out this was a fairly epic underestimation.

We've just finished Week 1 of him attending full-time and over the course of the week, the communications from school have really ramped up.

Wednesday was 3 messages from the school app, one message in the book bag, yesterday was lulling us into a false sense of security with just the 2 messages in the book bag, and today I received 3 emails, 3 messages from the school app and a letter in the book bag! ALL ON DIFFERENT SUBJECTS.

I have bought a whiteboard and new notebook but this isn't going to be enough to organise me is it? Is this just a normal thing these days? I was at primary school in the 80s and remember we had about 4 letters home per term.
What fresh hell can I expect them to unleash next week?

I don't know whether I'll feel better if you tell me it's standard practice or whether it's just me, my kid has been inducted into the education equivalent of a pyramid selling scheme and the end of term fayre will involve a massive vat of Kool Aid.

Pse halp. 😳

Started school as in reception? I don't think I had that many letters from reception from the entirety of last year in reception! If it's secondary, I'm like you, we had about 3 newsletters per year with all info and very little else!

I would say it comes in waves.
The start of the year is always a busy time for communication.
Forthcoming dates letter
Welcome from and please join the PTA letter.
Thankyou for returning in correct uniform, please park sensibly letter.
Then the first fundraising event.
Topic plan for the term
How we do homework in this class letter

For reception as well there might be...
Please make sure you have sent in...(wellies, PE kit, only one coat etc)
Come to a meeting about how we teach phonics
Come to a meeting about how we teach maths
Come to new parents coffee morning

It'll slow down soon.

Huh? Please tell me more information. My drama llama is currently curious to know more now.

3 dc in primary: First week back and school wanted £6 each for school trip, consent forms for each of them for data protection, consent forms for two of them for swimming, letters for two of them confirming their swimming ability, consent forms for each of them to use the school library, two lots of wellies and waterproofs to be brought in, two baby pictures, two to bring a grandparent to school with a toy or book from their childhood, two to dress up with an eco-warrior theme and £167 for the year 6 residential trip! 😱 Ffs school!!!! I feel your pain op.

Letters letters letters ... it never ends!

Yes, you’ll have this hell for many years to come.

I have twins and our school sends everything twice .

I have learned that as soon as a communication comes in with dates in it, put them immediately in my phone calendar because they don’t always give you a reminder later.

I’m afraid you have to read everything because in among the inevitable dross there are vital bits of info.

We get shit loads of emais from the school! I'd forgotten just how many. Emails about things that they then send letters home about anyway. Random notices about things happening in the community. Endless bloody reminders about the new cashless payment system. And nits. So many emails about nits!!

I get quite a few texts from the school (maybe one or two a day) about general things (e.g. do come along to the Y4 production of wizard of Oz most of which I can happily ignore. Probably one book bag message a week - usually something about a school trip or class play which I do need to know about. Then the DC's come out with a verbal message for me about once a week e.g. "mummy I need XYZ for forest school tomorrow".

@puddleduckmummy yes it's Reception. Heaven only knows what they'll work up to by Y6.

@IdontknowwhyIcallhimGerald Gah! that's insane - have you considered recruiting some kind of intern & a second mortgage to service these requirements? 😱

@Happyandshiney we have twins too! 🙂 They are only 2.5 though so I have time to build up my coping strategies for the blizzard of duplicate information that awaits.

Good tip about putting stuff in my phone straightaway. The parents have started a Facebook group too so hopefully that will keep me on the straight and narrow.

Eternal vigilance, people. We can do it. If I could just work out how to stop needing sleep 🤔

Just to give an insight into the other side, I work in a school and we can never get it right. If we try to cut down on the emails and letters we get complaints about poor communication and if we send reminders we get complaints about too many emails. Lose, lose situation. And of course there’s always the parent who claims noby told them about the assembly, dressing up Day, trip etc and that they didn’t get the email. We can, however, tell on the system who has received and read their emails!

You'd better brace yourself for the madness that is a primary school Christmas. I predict that the Christmas jumper-jamjar-concert-charity-gift-nativity-costume communications will commence early November at the latest.

@Pud2 you make a good point. I am just being grumpy ☺️ I just can't remember it being like this when I was a gal 100 years ago.

Don't complain until you've read all the usual threads about schools lack of communication.

Tbh I don't really see the issue, short messages to remind you about things are useful imo, ignore them or put them in your diary, a few seconds of effort to not get caught out or find out important stuff is a good thing isn't it?

We’ve had similar, but I know the school were pulled up on their lack of communication at their last Ofsted so I don’t think they’ve got much choice!

Totally normal. I never what communication will be next, app ( which does not work properly), letter, email or random child comment. As someone else said, the random child comment will require something ( that I don't usually have) for the next day of course. It's insane. Two schools to deal with so twice the amount of fun with this. Both schools on the same site and use different payment systems. One uses two FFS so we have three different payment systems in total.

Aghhhh.

And don't imagine that you will get away with a flat sheet and a bit of twine for Greek Day (which, despite 17 emails a week, double because I have two children at the same school) you will only be told about three minutes before it starts) - Felicia Stevens will have Tarquin and Fenella in costumes pre-bought from Amazon (she has a wardrobe of "any theme day possible EVER").

It's such a ninefueld. I mean, minefield.

This sounds normal. Do you not want to know what is going on at your child's school? This is his community for the next 7 years. Not all the messages will be relevant to you or your son so delete those once you have read them. It is good schools do this because children do not tell you or remember anything. Believe me teacher could say at 3.04pm "remember to bring cardboard boxes for our crafts tomorrow" and by 3.06pm any memory of cardboard boxes is loooong gone.

I have a school in tray, a weekly schedule on the fridge and photograph all school communications (and party invites) the second they land in case they put into the recycling prematurely.

If it makes you feel better, I am the PTA secretary and receive my own letters back, x2

We get texts, app notifications, letters, notes in a homework book 😄😣. It's both funny and difficult to keep track of.

I would love to receive communications of this frequency!. I have to chase the school if I need any information on anything!

Lol our school was like that last year, new head this year and struggle to get any communication at all, even basic dates.

When DD1 started primary school, letters were still sent out in paper form, which obviously had a considerable financial cost to the school in terms of paper, printer ink, and staff time in distributing them around the school and putting them in all the younger children's book bags.

Then email arrived.

We now get weekly round-ups, fortnightly newsletters, half-termly Principal's Pontifications, and PTA emails, along with random ones about school trips, parents' parking, dinner money & chicken pox. One newsletter last term was 17 pages long! Then there is Twitter (several different accounts), parents' WhatsApp groups for each child, Pupil Planners, information evenings, the website and even the occasional paper letter scrunched up in the bottom of the book bag. Naturally, I do want to know about my children's school, but the sheer quantity of information to process and the number of different sources to cover, does mean it can be difficult to see the wood for the trees.

It's always worst in reception as they essentially have to train the parents - or as many of them as possible - in understanding how the school operates. Plus you cannot rely on a 4yo whereas a 10yo may have a slight chance of bothering/remembering to communicate a message.
I do sometimes think our school over communicates but then think it is probably worth the headmaster spending a minute on the first hot day of the year to remind parents to send caps in, apply sunscreen and not send sunscreen in etc than it is to have 20 or more parents in complaining the next day that their little darling got sun burnt; likewise, a minute on the last day of the summer holidays reminding parents that school starts the next day saves the office having to try & contact the few who have genuinely forgotten and so don't bother to ring in and say their child is "sick" (which all of those still abroad will do).
The only criticism I have of our school communication - and they do seem to be trying to address it - is that, for a first time parent at that school, the communication can still be a bit cryptic and a certain level of knowledge is already required. You also have to ignore some things which have clearly been copied & pasted from another letter and don't belong in this letter at all.

The initial September barrage of stuff is crazy then it calms down. At least we get multiple letters attached to one email so my notifications aren't binging all day.

Dies down then gets frantic running up to Christmas again.