Music lessons

[Cowsontheloose]

AIBU to be pissed off at the school?
My Dd11 is in year 7.
She has piano lessons at school and has done from primary.
So the lessons have been set for a Friday during Spanish every week. I was informed of this, I had no say when the lesson is.
I emailed the school to make sure she wouldn't be c'd for being late to Spanish, was assured my email had been passed onto the Spanish teacher and was all sorted.
Today she had recieved a late mark, knocking her 100% attendance down to 97%
She is distraught, she's a perfectionist. I dont see why she should be penalised for having an extra curricular, that they have organised.
Tried ringing the school, no answer. I've emailed but won't get an answer til next week. I just think it's unacceptable on a school sanctioned activity.

AiBU or should I just let it go?

I suspect they will fix this next week.

DD has a music lesson in school as part of a music scholarship so school are paying for it. She misses a lesson every week for it. They switch the lesson time every half term so no one subject is compromised over a year.

There are often a couple of occasions during the year where she'll get an attendance mark on the system and these are generally deleted within 48 hours.

Tell her not to panic and just raise it with either the teacher, her form tutor or the head of year.

It will be fixed, don't worry. DD had two absences marked on her record last week - one was because she was in a meeting with a member of staff and the other was because the teacher was off and so no mark had been entered (sixth form, so no cover). The person who deals with absences caught her on her way in a day or two later and checked with her what had happened, and it's now been fixed.

In your child's case, if the teacher took the register at the beginning of the lesson, that will have reflected who was in the room. They may or may not alter the record, but I'm sure they won't hold it against her. She's been recorded as late for the lesson (which is true, but allowed in this case), not absent from school.

In DT’s school, and any secondary I have taught in, lessons are on a rota. It’s not acceptable for a pupil to miss the same lesson every week, even for a half term. Fine in primary as the teacher can adjust more easily, but not secondary. DD’s music teacher would try and give year 10/11s the bulk of the lunchtime lessons, or ones partly over break. Sixth formers in study periods as far as possible. But never the same subject every week for a year!

How do they have lunch if the music lesson is timetabled then?

DD's school do not allow music lessons to be scheduled during PE or lunch.

Well if the lunch break is 50 minutes there is time for both. DC take a packed lunch and Eat as best they can. Schools with very short (30 min) break for lunch tend to have another break in the morning and many DC eat then.

Also why should lessons not be scheduled during PE? Why is is not permissible to miss PE but ok for maths? English?

I think because only 2 lessons of PE a week v 6 each of Maths, English and Science. DD likes PE but I'd have been more than happy to have had skipped it for music myself! 4 years in, the every half term switch seems to work pretty well.

The school is on a staggered timetable with different start and end times for different year groups (over 400 per year) so could get v tricky trying to work round all those for lunch slots - at least 6 others in DD's year have the same teacher so only 2 a week could even have a lunchtime lesson.

The school will almost certainly correct it next week. Our school also doesn't now use a rota, DS misses the same lesson each week. Bit annoying, but I guess it helps with them remembering when to go.

Ours are on a rota. It's done termly with one lesson being missed in week 1 of a 2 week timetable, and a different one in week 2. Next term, the 2 lessons will be completely different. The timetable is a nightmare to organise as there are 360 lessons per week. 6th fomers get priority as their lessons have to be in study periods or lunchtime. Students who can commit to a lesson before or after school can have a fixed slot, but as >90% come in by bus, this is tricky. All staff know the system and if they have a test or trip, they need to email our amazing administrator with at least a week's notice and lessons will be moved.

OP, I'm sure it will be sorted early next week. We have to mark our registers as absent even if I have seen the kid going into a music lesson (I teach Music!) as they are not physically in the classroom. I change it when they come in.

Thanks all. I'm so new to being a parent of a Yr 7 and it's such a massive change from primary. Learning curve for everyone I expect

The problem with PE lessons is that if you miss half a PE lesson, you can't get into the changing rooms to change. In one school I taught in, some PE lessons were also off-site.

Many schools rotate the lessons, but then kids have to be really organised about knowing when to go. I like the idea of changing each half-term - gives a bit of consistency without hitting the same subject all year. In practice, most of the kids who learn instruments are really good at catching up what they've missed, but if teachers know that they will always be missing in the same slot, they may be able to plan so that they don't miss anything crucial.

Sometimes a rota just doesn't work. DD was one of two students learning with her teacher, so a rota would just have meant they missed alternate halves of the same lesson. The other child was year 10 (DD was year 9), so she had break and 10 minutes of lesson time, and DD missed half of Spanish every week. Occasionally the Spanish teacher asked for a swap if there was a test. It was the best they could do.

@Pottedpalm Many schools now have very short lunch breaks. DS's is 35 minutes so on days when he has a lunchtime activity or a music lesson he skips lunch. Personally I'm horrified as we used to have 90 minutes which was time for a proper lunch and an activity (music lessons, band rehearsals, boardgames club, theatre club, you name it). But apparently this is just how things are now. It's quite sad.