Short notice PTA

[Dandelion1993]

Just a general question really but does the PTA at your school just give incredibly short notice for their events and so on?

At my daughters school, we barely get two days notice for anything! This past week, they had non uniform on Friday and had to bring in a bottle or something for the summer fair tombola. They told us about this Thursday morning!

Why they needed to do that I don't know as the fair is at the end of June.

It just feels like they assume we all sit around waiting for them to give us things to do.

Is this normal?

Schools often give short notice.
If you're not happy maybe you could join the pta and give feedback or suggestions?

I’d give feedback that it is short notice.

No, we give several weeks notice, although still get accused of not giving enough notice!!

The reason we ask for things this early is because with various tombolas to organise, stalls, entertainment etc and very few volunteers the fayres are incredibly labour intensive.

I've emailed them and mentioned it to a member in the playground but it just keeps getting worse!

May just have to keep a cupboard of tombola prizes at home for when they ask!

That does seem incredibly disorganised. Hard to get parents on side when you're springing stuff like this on them at the last minute.

It is.

The only reason I managed this time is becuase I'm on maternity leave. When I'm at work it's a huge pita

If you're on maternity leave you could always offer to give them a hand getting messages out earlier

I bet they do it because if they ask weeks in advance people forget

Our school did the same thing on Friday. We did have more notice than you but the bottle could be anything at all eg. ketchup, shower gel, lemonade etc. So it's not as if a lot of notice is needed to wear your own clothes and take a spare bottle of anything from the cupboard.

PTAs are run by whoever is willing.
They aren't necessarily experienced organisers.
Sometimes the experienced organisers are met by opposition from other members of the committee who like to be more free flow.
Sometimes the school itself springs things on the committee because of changes to their planning.

The only things the OP can reasonably do are:

• politely suggest that a little more notice would be much appreciated
• volunteer

Ours does a half term schedule of activities - both on Fb and actually printed in book bags. Helps a lot to know what's going on and when, and means parents are more likely to engage and come along to things.

It could be the school (rather than Pta) that is the issue. The school will have to actually send the communicationevenif produced by the PTA so ultimately even if the PTA create it well in advance, the school can sit on it for ages.

I'm not on the PTA as I already do a similar thing at my daughters dance school. We always send things out earlier with a reminder 2 weeks before.

I appreciate that they do a lot for the school. They recently replaced the old library books at my daughters school, but just a little further notice would be great.

As I've said before, I've mentioned that parents need more notice and I know others also have.

My original question has been answered so thanks everyone 😊

My school are terrible for not giving enough notice. However I'm not sure a great deal of notice is needed for non uniform and bring a bottle. 99% of parebts would have those things readily available anyway.