Fair or unreasonable?

[bkgirl]

Child phoned v. stressed from bus to say had forgotten something and would I leave it in to school office before a certain time and she would call by the office to collect it (secondary school). I did but the school refused to give it to her saying the policy was that nothing would be passed over since it would be unfair to children who forgot things and they hadn't someone to bring them in.
What do you think?
Fair or unreasonable?

Hmmmm - I remember Thursdays being a real fun day at school when I was in Year 9. The school had 4 "double" lessons a week but each of those could be split down to two single lessons. On Thursdays I had 4 singles so 6 different lessons altogether. Plus it was the "rotation" day for Science (4 double science a week, only three sciences so you rotated round between the three sciences on a Thursday). And it was my day for extra maths after school. (I was in an extension class.)

So 7 lessons - one of which could have been any of three lessons.

Average lesson required 3 different things (text book, exercise book, homework book).

Plus general needed things - lunch, water bottle, planner, calculator, pencil case, paper, notebook, folder.

By my calculation that makes 29 things I needed that day.

We didn't have lockers so we couldn't leave any of them at school.

It's all very well to say that kids need to organise themselves and I was actually pretty good - can't remember ever forgetting anything vital - but 29 things! Including remembering which of the sciences were needed?!? That was ridiculous!

The teachers were crap at the science thing too - one in particular (chemistry!) would regularly start teaching us the same lesson that we'd had three days ago and when we pointed it out to him would say "oh - you're 9G - I was expecting 9J - cue someone being sent off to biology to find out if the biology teacher had 9J when he was expecting 9H. Surprisingly unsympathetic when we turned up to chemistry with the physics text book though.

My DC school uses a runner everyday, not aware of any backlash.

Why would you be aware of any backlash?

The office staff are very friendly and always seem happy to help parents/kids, (but the school only has 1400 pupils so I guess they have very little else to do).

Are you kidding?

Noble speaks so much sense. Children at secondary school are supposed to be taking responsibility for themselves. Why should they carry their pe kit to school if mummy pops it up later?

Teachers and office staff have much better things to do with their time. Actually teaching and providing a good environment for learning. They care very much for your children and saying that they don't care because they aren't prepared to run around chasing a child with a pe kit is grossly unfair.

melonribena - I would be aware of it because I am very active in the school community and make sure I am aware of parents views. Its office staff's job to deal with parents and children's problems, its a school. So yes if a parent drops off a PE kit and another pupil runs it to the class, all it takes is a few polite words from a secretary, what harm done?

Noble is a very bias speaker, I wouldn't use her as the oracle of common sense. DC would carry their PE kit because their parents bring them up to be able to carry their own kit. What parent wants to run after their DC unless necessary. Duh!

Office staff have better things to do with their time. Maybe, but its there job, hence my facetious comment! I dont see anyone suggesting they should run around after a DC with a PE kit, are you actually reading what is written?

Yeah, I'm terribly biased. I post my own opinions instead of agreeing with Bolognese

With budget cuts in schools there will be redundancies in support staff and so even less scope for fannying around with PE kits.

I'm imagining 20 PE kits stacked up in the corner of the school office. Along with multiple emails to multiple teachers trying to track down the kits owners.

Office staff have a million administrative tasks to do which keep the school running. If your school has sufficient staff to chase pupils with handed in kit - great. Most do not.

Am with noble and find you 'horribly bias' bolognese and the worst sort of parent.... the one who 'helps' in the office thus knows it all...
Noble is entitled to her opinion. We have 2000 in our school. It's not impersonal it's a mutually supportive community but there are limits to what we can do.
for noble....

Fair . Full stop. Children need to learn to take responsibility for their action/omission.

Has anyone seen the advert on all different kinds of parents and their parenting styles? People will judge others it's unfortunately the society we live in however whenever a child is in peril all parents (and I expect Care givers such as teachers and social services) will run to their aid.
I'm not saying a forgotten piece of homework is necessarily "peril" and similarly teachers have lost a lot of rights to discipline over the years resulting in a news article recently of higher abuse rates towards teaching staff from children,however if a parent deems the situation necessary (in this instance called before school) and not a regular occurrence I think it should be allowed, surely repeat offenders would be noticed and this pulled up on in reports/reviews etc. I guess what I'm saying is each case has a different circumstance/back story.
Hope I've made sense,

If you want repeat offenders to be noticed and action taken then you also add logging which pupils have had items dropped off. Regular reporting on the list of pupils. Then guidance staff being informed of the list of repeat offenders. Then whatever process is agreed to discipline those pupils.

I make that about 8 actions involving multiple staff per dropped off item from receipt to punishment. Or one teacher deals with the lack of item in one lesson with one action.

It's scale that is is the problem. Not one child with a helpful parent.

DD in year 7 recently forgot her flute and texted me on her way to school. DH took it down to the school on his way to work - music lessons are expensive and as we could get it to her, we did.

The school office were fine about it and DD picked it up on the way to her flute lesson.

DD forgot the ingredients for her food tech class last term. She popped into to see the teacher and was told to go down to reception and ring home. I wasn't able to do anything but DH took an early lunch and nipped into the co-op to pick up what was needed. He was able to drop it into school and DD picked it up at reception over her lunchtime.

We had a lovely lasagne for tea that nice ;) I cant see the fuss, its common sense. If you can help your DC then you do, if you cant then you say sorry. We are not talking about a 16 year old who does this sort of thing every day. The office was fine about it, my DH was fine with it and my DD was every proud of the results of her cooking. I cant see why anyone would punish a child for that?

From this thread it seems that some schools can manage parents bringing in forgotten stuff. And other schools decide that it's not possible and too much of an inconvenience.
Funny how different places come to different conclusions.

I can't see any school on this thread that says they can't do it because it's an inconvenience.

I think its ok to drop stuff if it makes things easier for school. So eg teacher gets all the homework together or sports dept don't have to try and find kit 5 minutes before a match. Otherwise I think it's down to whether office staff have the time. And either way the child should still get the same punishment as the one whose parents can't come running.

And as a parent, I think dd as an nt 12yr old should face the consequences for the most part if she can't organise herself. If I could get there, I'd drop something like a forgotten overnight bag for a sleepover, or homework for the teachers convenience after the school day had ended. But otherwise it's in her own long term interest to learn. And possibly this attitude is why she's well organised herself.

Actually, a lone homework dropped off at the office would be more inconvenient for me to deal with than a late homework managed using my usual systems. So please don't do that for my benefit!

I would agree with noble there that homework is different from other things and I can see why that's inconvenient for a teacher. I would not take a forgotten homework in or expect a teacher to accept it unless it was crucial time sensitive assessment stuff. If it isn't in class on the date and time the teacher asks for it then detention all the way.

noble short of dd forgetting a limb or a major organ, it's unlikely I'd ever get opportunity to drop anything myself. And I was thinking more if the teacher actually specified they needed it, so more a big project they planned to mark at half term, rather than a teacher being desperate to mark a quick 20 minute hw on Monday instead of Tuesday.

DP and I both work in the opposite direction from home from DC's school.

No one is available to run round after him.

This is such a niche issue

From this thread it seems that some schools can manage parents bringing in forgotten stuff. And other schools decide that it's not possible and too much of an inconvenience.
Funny how different places come to different conclusions.

I think a lot depends on how often it happens and what gets left.

If a child doesn't collect from reception what happens? What if it is cooking ingredients and they are not picked up?

What if it is the same parent every day?

I agree with Noblegiraffe. The school policy is fair and the only way kids can learn to be responsible for themselves is to work it out the hard way. I've just read 'The Gift of Failure' by Jessica Lahey. She goes into extensive detail about how over-parenting and not allowing kids to fail these days is doing them a disservice in the long run. It is hard to let go as a parent and I know I'll find it extremely difficult to follow her advice at times but ultimately I believe that by not rescuing your child you are giving them a chance to grow into responsible adults.

I didn't take in things for DD if she forgot them. She faced the consequences. She did always say it was unfair that people who lived near the school could pop home at lunchtime and get forgotten items, but she got detention. She soon learned to remember things, but still thought it was unfair.

My Ds school is very strict- last week he got an afterschool detention because I offered to pack his pe kit for him and forgot to put half of it in...normally he likes to do it and now I understand why! Lesson learnt always double check your bags.
however I think you can drop forgotten stuff off at reception although I never have- its helped DS to become much more organised and mature and I really think the school know what they are doing in preparing their kids for later life.

Hurrah for Noble and JanieSa and any other person who realises that dealing with consequences might just teach children to take some personal responsibility. Some children will take longer to learn (my DD2, being one of them) but I would do her NO favours by bailing her out when she forgets something (even if it were possible during the school day).

FAIL = First Attempts In Learning

If a parent wants to be their child's personal slave, then knock yourself out, but don't expect schools (who are trying to teach your children to be independent, responsible and thoughtful citizens) to support it.

Totally unfair.

Has no one in the school faculty ever forgotten anything in their lives and not had it delivered to them?

My DS is totally unorganised and forgets stuff left right and centre. I can't take it to him because I work. I wouldn't begrudge any child who did the same and had it delivered.

Everything has a consequence - doesn't mean you shouldn't try and rectify it before the consequence happens if you can.

Likewise DS got out of the car one day and left his PE kit in it. I called after him, rang his phone but he didn't hear me and phone on silent. I followed him in and gave it to reception and asked someone got a message to him to collect it or gave it to his tutor.
They didn't and PE teacher gave him a detention. I spoke to teacher and said PE kits was at school - reception forgot to deliver it.
He was let off detention but given a final warning - eg next time no chances!

If that is the school policy then it's fair as that us clear and applies to all if it is not the school policy then it is to fair as it is applied randomly. Each school has different policies on a range of issues, this particular issue is not fudenental to the experience