Ok is this a normal amount of involvement parental involvement ?

[naughtymummy]

DS is in reception at alovely state primary. We are realy happy with it and he is making good progress. In the last 2 weeks we have been asked to;

1. give a donation for the bottle stall 2)Bake a cake for the cake stall 3)Attend Xmas fair(friday afternoon) 4)Help take them to a pantomine( friday) 5)Attend carols in church (monday) 6)Make a hat for a hat competion (today) 7)Attend carols at school at 930 am for an hour (tommorow)
2. Provide food for Xmas party( thurs)

We are finding it a real challenge to keep up with all this as we both work. But I don't want DS to be the only child who does'nt have an Xmas hat etc TBH these things don't seem very voluntary to me. Am I alone in this ?

sounds pretty normal tbh, Christmas is extra stressful once they are at school IMO

This sounds quite a lot to me, but I don't have children at school yet, so maybe a bit out of touch. Perhaps it's just because it's the run-up to Christmas, so there are naturally more events taking place?

am also in middle of same amount of stuff but we also had to go to a fecking school bingo to fundraise for the fecking christmas parties

sounds normal
I pick and choose what I do tbh

Sounds normal to me.

Christmas is always a busy time of year.

Sounds totally normal

I suspect that it just takes a year or so to work out which ones are actually important and which ones you can skip!

That sounds normal.

1. give a donation for the bottle stall -normal 2)Bake a cake for the cake stall - buy one 3)Attend Xmas fair(friday afternoon) -go later 4)Help take them to a pantomine( friday)-surely not all parents have to do this - don't they just want volunteers? 5)Attend carols in church (monday) - normal 6)Make a hat for a hat competion (today) your dd is meant to do it surely? 7)Attend carols at school at 930 am for an hour (tommorow)-assembly thing?Not sure about this one.
2. Provide food for Xmas party( thurs)- all schools ask this

Okay it does seem to be an awful lot to ask you.

I am wondering of part of the activities are requests from school and part from the PTA?

Of course schools realise that not all parents can volunteer to do everything, hence asking for time or goods to be donated.

I think its just ther time of year tbh. things will settle down. In my kids' sc hool my biggest bugbear is the shows etc that are split betweeen nursesry ,lower and middle school so that I end up late for work 3 consecutive days as the shows are not always on teh same date. That is frustrating.

Tis xmas ,why shouldnt you all be stressed lolol-seriously by next year you willknow how to make good excuses

sounds about right but you don't have to do all of it

Normal, I think. Though our Christmas Fair is at the weekend, thank goodness. It's only like this at Christmas though, not all year!

Welcome to school! I never realised I would have so much to do once my children started school - it's like another part-time job, esp the run up to Christmas.

I'm like you - I do it all because I don't want my DDs to miss out or other kids/parents to think I don't care or contribute to the school activities.

Makes you very organised though!

How do you manage all the weekday working hours stuff ? It amazes me that they expect someone to be availble at days notice

I suppose the SAHMs and the part-time workers take up the slack with most of the working hours stuff. If you're at work, what can you do??? It's a good excuse (reason) to say no though.

Give a donation - takes no time

Bake a cake - buy one with your shopping

Attend Christmas Fair - if you can - if you're working you can't.

Help take them to a pantomime - you don't have to do this - I bet they were asking for volunteers

Make a hat - 20 minutes max

Attend carols - normal - you will be invited to assemblies periodically - you won't be able to go to all of them.

Provide food for party - buy some snacky bits at the same time as you're buying your cake for 2 above.

Don't see the problem.

Over the last two weeks (so not including easy things like donating to school fair etc) we've had

2 x requests to walk classes to cinema (did one but not the other)

1 x P1 concert

1x P4 concert

1 x music student concert

1 x trip to church

all within school (i.e. work) time so quite how they want us to take AL to go to these and cover the school hols, I don't know. The last 4 activities were on consecutive days and each took approx 1/2 school day in time between leaving work and getting back to work (I work less than school hours anyway to do the school run each way) so it's an enormous proportion of my working time. I'm sure there could have been better planning. Being a part-time working mum (or dad) is not uncommon these days (nor is it unreasonable).

Thing is, they always give details of everything that's happening so that people can get to as many as they can. Nobody's expected to do everything, promise!

I have had more than this in the last fortnight, 3 children in school and preschool. On your list, I'd do

3), 6) and 8).

The hat would be easy, my dc love making costumes and hats, and I would just send a packet of chocolate biscuits or something for the party food.

And I'd probably leave the rest unless I had spare time. Many parents don't attend these things, especially mid-morning services, at least in the schools we've used.

But I would try to go to as many things as possible in Reception - they are SOOOOOO sweet!

School may not expect you to go to everything but try picking one child's activity over another child's ... turns out though that despite best efforts and not missing a single performance since ds1 started school both he and ds2 would actually prefer their dad to go since I always do it ... you will never win

Sounds like ds school.I am in "Reception event shock"

Have done everthing requested so far,except managed to forget it was Christmas Carol Concert tonight.Only realised when I opened bookbag at 6.30pm to find letter reminding me of said fact,stating child should be back at school at 6.15pm.He was ehausted,so we didn't bother [bad,bad mummy emoticon]

It sounds normal to me, it is lovely at that age to have so much going on. Do what you can-no one is expected to do it all.

Seems like a lot during work time to me. We have similar levels of activity but xmas fair was a Saturday morning and the only thing during working hours was the nativity. Most festive events seem to be things the kids do during school hours without parents attending.

Normal at this time of year. This term is the worst ime as there is usually some dress as a book character event and we've had Remembrance Day, and a few other charity things too, as well as everything that you've listed.

If you work, at some point you will have to accept that you can't do everything, and you have to know your child and work out which events are the most important. Unless you are the only working mother in the schoool your child will never be the "only one" without a parent there.

Personally I am lobbying for a "make a financial donation" option for busy working parents who would prefer not to try to remember to have to bring cake, bottle for tombole, ditto jar of sweets and secret santa donation. Someone from the PTA can then just buy everything in bulk.