Advice please-school runners in secondaries?

[wednesday67]

My DCs secondary school use the children in year 7 and 8 as school runners. This entails the child missing a full day of school where they sit behind the school receptionist and run around the school with messages for her. They are not given any work to do (they usually just read a book between running errands) and they are told it is their responsibility to catch up on the lessons missed. I think it is old fashioned and a waste of 2 full days of education (each child does it for one day per year), plus in a massive secondary it is really hard for kids to catch up properly.
I have been told by the deputy head, that this is common practice but I don't know anyone else at a school where this happens.
I asked the school if they could make it clear to parents that this occurs, (as it is not on any of the bumpf) and consider consent. They said they did not want to get into the issue of consent and see it as a community service.
I would like to know if this happens at your child's secondary school and if so what you think about it.
many thanks!

'necessary' no.
But schools have tight budgets.
It may be that by using pupils as runners they can save on the cost of one admin staff, and the money saved can go to something else. And the children get a sense of pride and responsibility. So presumably some schools see it as a win-win.

Ours does it and my dc have enjoyed doing it and it doesn't take much to catch up.

If they struggle to catch up from one day away, just think how bad a week of flu is!

Think your schools need to enter the 20th century and install telephones, wifi, Internet, emails etc etc. What a waste of a day for a child. I bet they love skiving off lessons for the day though!

Dds old school used to do this. A whole day too once a term.
Dd who has sen and REALLY struggles socially and was being bullied by that point was given responsibility of going round telling the kids who had skipped detention to report to the year head which i thought was a bad idea.

They also had to catch up but had to ask other kids for notes not the teacher.

Dd however loved it...

My dc did it, they loved it even though ds ended up in hospital,but thats a different story.
Its one or two a days a year in year 8.
Dcs school has awards for communication, they are way ahead on emails, school portal etc They were in the 20th c long before other local schools.

My DD's school didn't do this, and I am glad!

However I freely admit that both DD and I would've loved the opportunity to skive for a day!

DS's school does this. It isn't messages he runs around delivering, it's forgotten homework, lunch boxes and PE kits brought into reception by SAH parents. He has really enjoyed his couple of days doing this. No big deal in my opinion.

I'm a bit baffled by this post.

'
cricketballs

If I'm teaching how am I able to check emails, text messages (especially given one area of the school has direct reception for all networks) or answer a phone that is situated in a different room?'

Surely in most schools the office will take a message for you to call back when you are free to. I emailed my childs teacher yesterday. She replied when she got chance to.

It's not uncommon, and is a much looked forward to day by most pupils.

As someone said upthread, if they can't cope with catching up one day's lesson in a whole year, when in Yr7 or 8, there are far bigger issues than this to be tackling.

I know schools have tight budgets but I can't believe there's a single secondary school that doesn't have wifi. I suppose I don't really know what the children are doing and what kind of messages they're delivering. Presumably most messages for teachers can wait till the end of the lesson when the teacher could check smartphone/pager/texts.

It just seems like a hangover from the past that schools have dressed up as a benefit - personnel skills, time management etc And I'm sure kids look forward to it; most children like days without lessons.

Year 8s do it where I teach. They love the responsibility. As a pp said it is not messages but errands - pe kits, lunches, showing visitors - gives the children a sense of responsibility - they love having the door passes and keys! It is a different form of education, about being polite, smart and responsible.
We are a split site school so a needed service.

But surely they are being taught to be polite, smart and responsible every day at school, as well as learning time-management skills?

And even if they're not (which would make it a pretty bad school), if those particular skills are so important and can only be taught by the children acting as messengers, why are schools only allowing one day in one yearfor children to do it? Surely if it's that valuable for the children they should be doing it for a timetabled lesson every week.

Or else it's not really that valuable but just post facto rationalisation.

Year 8s do it at DDs school, as I found out last week, although I had seen them sitting in by the Reception all through last year. Picked out of a hat on the day so it's a bit of a PITA for the teachers when they're asked at short notice to supply self-study work for the student in question. But each pupil will only end up doing one or two days in a year. DD just did it; for those questioning the messages passed, they are usually urgent things, notices about attendance or absence, detention etc, not generally something that can wait. DD ended up hunting down some PE teachers out on the playing field for example. And she spent ages sticking address labels on envelopes for all Y7s.
On the other hand If I as parent contact a teacher they will reply to me in their own time, by e-mail, the runners are for internal communications.

This would be perfectly fine if it wasn't for the endless tedious fuss that schools make about the importance of our children attending Every Single Second of school because if they miss even a nanosecond their GCSE results will go down by at a grade, or even more Dire Things will happen.

Either its ok to miss a day now and then or it isn't. They can't have it both ways.

I've never heard of this system. (Going to check it doesn't happy at DC's school. Not keen. Though they do get pulled out of class to show new pupils around sometimes. DS was picked to do it and was very proud.

The school I worked at has yr8 runners. Each form/pupil knew when their turn would be. It was for one period per day per child although some needed up,doing it twice in their week if the form was small. They went to the lesson first, got their work and completed on reception between errands.

There was no way I could get cooking ingredients, packed lunches, keys, lunch money, pe kits, forgotten homework/books and messages from parents to their child. Parents were in and out all day with these things.

Mine did this in primary, I told them to put it on their CV as office work. The head really didn't get the joke and told them they couldn't.

My previous school did it with year 8.
They loved it - they saw another side to how their school runs; they took packed lunches, PE kits, shoes, Oyster cards etc to owners; they organised letters, collected students from lessons etc. It was seen as a really important job and taught them a lot of skills and gave them confidence. They were shown how to knock on a door and speak to a member of staff politely to ask for something or someone. Often the most poorly behaved or irritating child would be the best at that job as they could perform in a different role. They ended the day really exhausted but we always used to get them to write what they learnt and what skills they had used. Many used to say that they felt more confident and they liked being trusted and enjoyed working with staff and having a "real job" for the day. Many said they hadn't realised how hard teachers worked and that they never get a break etc.

It doesn't surprise me at all that some people can't see any value in that sort of day, however. Some people think that the only important thing in schools is lessons. I would say that the experience is more rounded when you have the very occasional experience that is not just a day of lessons.

My current school doesn't do this - I think it's a shame. Even if it was half a day, I think they gain a lot from it.

My dd (year 8) did this on Monday. The set up as like Odins described, where she had to get work from every teacher to do at her desk in reception.

She had tasks that couldn't have been done by phone. Taking packed lunches/PE shoes/violins that parents dropped off, finding a student that hadn't turned up at music lessons who was on the field.

Kinell I'm going to complain to school now that DS isn't being a delivery boy all day! And also he's not being shown how to knock on a door and speak to a member of staff politely to ask for something. Absolute disgrace of his school not to teach him this. FFS. No wonder he rings the bell when he gets home, I'll have to spend tomorrow evening showing him door knocking.

At my sons primary school the children take over the office,answering the phone and all sorts, I think its really cool and gives them a sense of responsibility.

Been teaching 16 years and never heard of this! Quite like the idea though - gives them responsibility and a different experience.

That's right SAHD - for some of our more timid or SEN students, interrupting a lesson and being able to speak in front of a group to an adult is a really big deal. And even confident students can sometimes get tongue tied in unfamiliar situations.

Our school does it. No biggie. They are supposed to bring work with them for the quiet moments, but they are usually kept pretty busy.

Conkers my post was in response to a PP who said why can't we have messages via email/text/phone call

West do recieve messages via email but there are also times when a student needs fetching (outside agency come to see them), a student is needed urgently, work is needed for a student not in lessons etc