Y7 London state secondary- PTA/whatsapp groups/socials

[Pisserdansunviolon]

Tell me what happens at your school please?

As a new y7 parent, I thought our PTA might do a set piece event termly with some kind of school fundraising purpose. Our school website mentions one- I emailed them a couple of times to find out more and offer to help out. No response, no sign of them around school. I can see that they ran an end of year thing for leavers but they aren’t advertising anything for this term/year so far.

I also hoped that there might be a central link to set up a y7 parents whole year (and/or per tutor group) whatsapp group for more day to day stuff. Nope.

Talking to parents at the other state secondaries nearby, they have these. Plus regular social activities or events for y7 parents organised by PTA and also social events for y7 parents by the school.

I’d like a sense of community with the other parents at our school, we all have several years there ahead of us. So I’d consider offering to set something up myself for y7 parents and to work with our PTA.

I’d love to hear what happens at other schools. What did you find worked, if you or your school runs things for y7 parents?

An example would be your child days they don't need to wear uniform P. E socks because 'no one wears them'. You can quickly ask and see that that's in fact true! Or, how to find the teachers email address etc.

Whereas I positively enjoy not having to read fifteen different messages about PE socks and just tell my child to take them and stop complaining.

I know a few secondary parents from primary but the kids have far more individual experiences. Different subjects, timetables, clubs, friendship groups. Any general information is put out by school. So the ‘do they need to bring wellies in today?’ type stuff might exist but you might struggle to know which of the 150 other parents would know the answer! The kids have to take much more responsibility for running their own lives.

Surely by year 7 you don't need to micromanage socks etc. If they don't wear them and nothing happens you don't buy a larger size later on and if they don't wear them and get negative mark on classcharts/detention or whatever you just give a disappointed look and second action and consequences will do their job

Inner London comp.
Yes they have a what's app for the year group, 6 form entry, just over 100 parents on it. There aren't messages going constantly on it, but useful for reminders to each other about date of parents evening, don't forget to sign consent online for such and such trip etc, also occasional useful stuff about the council running a parent info workshop on mental health etc.
PTA is pretty active: Christmas fair, summer party thing, quiz night, uniform sales, raffles etc. PTA meetings held in the evening once a term (I think, I've not been to one).

God, it’s so lovely NOT to be on a school
WA grp! We don’t have them in secondary, and the school communicates brilliantly with parents, and has a SIM for all info, and an updated website.
And I don’t have to read WA messages from people who can’t remember which day they do PE or when the bloody spellings are due or about spats between parents and teachers, or between kids ‘be never heard of!

The PTA have emailed around saying they are looking for our ideas for winter and spring events. So that’s great. I’d like to suggest something for the younger year group kids (silent disco?) and something for the parents (quiz night?) also trying to think of a regular thing to suggest that could get parents together- other schools around us do book groups, regular school gardening volunteering, etc. all of those have pluses and minuses.

What are the well attended activities at your schools? These could be whole school events or y7 +y8, and then older year groups separately? It doesn’t really matter if these event are organised by PTA, the school or just by keen parents with their permission, any ideas of what’s working well (or didn’t!) would be great

No WhatsApp group (thank god!) but there is a facebook group that was set up by a parent before the kids started in yr 7. It's not very busy and the school actively discourages parents from using it as they don't like the school to be discussed on social media.

I doubt you'd have much interest in parental book groups and the like. One of the benefits of secondary school is not having to interact with other parents!

My dd's school holds an annual champagne picnic in the summer. It's bloody expensive though so I've never been.

At secondary most parents throw themselves back into work if they hadn't already and have lots of commitments, so from what I understand it's very difficult to get people to commit to organising stuff.

Part of me thinks that at this age we should be letting the kids have their own experience of school without always stepping in to create a parents community, but that may be just an excuse on my part because I was pretty involved in primary and have had enough (another common tale I'm sure).

Schools have no interest in these groups tbh. They are often just an opportunity for moaning about the school. Consequently they have small numbers as they are joined by the kinds of parents who like to gossip or complain that the school is breaching their child's human rights. Realistically, any practical info is on the website or on the online platforms like go4schools. If you need to find out something specific that your child doesn't know then contact the office. The idea that you use the school WhatsApp or PTA to socialise is a bit odd.

One of the benefits of secondary school is not having to interact with other parents!
😄

London Secondary Academy here. School organised a quiz night for parents during the Summer Term (Yr 7). I wanted to attend, but couldn’t due to lack of evening childcare for our Yr 4 child. DH was working. There is a PTA. Two school apps are relentless in keeping parents informed about ‘school stuff’.

I eventually removed myself from the class WA groups in Primary as the first one got out of hand with constant questions re. info that could be found on the school website or by asking the class Teacher, asking your child or discussing with other parents in person/via direct messages or smaller WA groups. I left when the inane info and passive aggressive contributions started.

Re. Yr 4 DC - A four form WA group was created, which was too big. I swiftly left that for the same reasons listed above.

Re. Year 8 DC - As DD formed new Year 7 friendship groups, I kept abreast of who’s who, and who lives where (ie. Do they share the same travel route to/from school?). All of us parents have occasionally offered lifts home after school on rainy days. I work school hours and mainly WFH so I can pick up a few kids if the weather is particularly bad. When our kids started wanting to go out together socially outside of school after starting Yr 7, that’s when our children circulated their parents’ mobile phone numbers, so us parents could set up WA groups as and when for particular events, Birthday celebrations, coffee shop meets, cinema. The kids now tend to organise themselves on their own WA groups, Snapchat, etc. Us parents are still setting up small WA groups for parties, sleepovers, group days out during school holidays if a parent is involved, eg. a theme park visit.

Edit: I’ve never heard of Parent Class Reps in Secondary Schools.
Once children move onto Yr 7, most parents are relieved that they now have more time to invest in their careers, hobbies, existing friendships, younger children's’ friendship groups and ferrying children around to extra curricular activities, etc. Life is busy for most of us. Work commitments, childcare, household tasks, personal admin, school admin, etc is already enough without a school WA group.

In this situation there is a group of parents asking for ideas so there clearly are at least some parents with time/energy to organise things and raise money in this case, so that’s a good thing. I was worried there wasn’t. School certainly needs it. So any ideas of what worked would be great.

Agree that a champagne picnic wouldn’t appeal or be in line with most families’ experience in this cost of living crisis. Would also need a picnic area which isn’t easy.

I’d personally like to join a gardening group if there was one, but I know not everyone has time/childcare/health for doing that.

Likewise a book group is not for me personally. But it is very popular at a friend’s secondary. Horses for courses. Lots of options will be needed to suit the most number of people.

Thanks- quiz nights sound popular, and the parents who know each other could organise small teams (with more tables filled centrally if quizzers don’t come in a group)

Are you talking about fundraising or social/community organising? It seemed like you wanted to make friends but if it's fundraising these things have worked:

Battle of the bands - entry tickets and refreshments
Fun run
Refreshments at every school meeting/event

I do strongly feel that at secondary events should focus on the kids/families rather than the parents.

Spinet thanks. All of the above purposes really for wanting to be involved-school really needs money, this is becoming more and more obvious. I would also like to build more of a sense of community for the kids and wider parent/carer community as that hasn’t been much in evidence yet as a new arrival. I’m getting to know some of my kid friends’ parents but knowing a few parents in the wider year group would be nice too. There’s a tutor group whatsapp for day to day now which another parent has set up.

Thank you for the fundraising ideas, those sound good. I was assuming that kids wouldn’t want to do many things with their families involved for very long into the secondary years, but maybe I’m wrong about that? What’s the strong feeling against offering parent only activities? I can’t see many kids eg wanting to help to sort out the school flowerbed?

I just think that at secondary the kids need to start 'leading' on everything to do with school - in families I mean, obviously not the actual school - and having the parents doing social events in school without the kids sort of undermines that. In primary the family is basically the 'customer' because they're a unit and it should be so, but in secondary that needs to change. The community has to be student led because the kids need to start growing away from that family community. Our job is to support the kid from beneath where before we supported them all around, if you see what I mean. That means parents don't get as much benefit from the community of course - but that's a transition too. Of course I don't expect everybody to agree with me about that, it's just my view.

My kids' London state secondary is very mixed and without fail it's the rich/middle class parents who organise and attend these social events and that tends to then reinforce the boundaries that already exist in the student population. I'm sure that NOT doing the events is not how to tackle this but it is worth thinking about.

Kids have attended things with their families like the fun run and the parents were the audience along with the kids friends for battle of the bands. The kids roll their eyes at parents being there, no question about that, but they turn up with them in tow, so... 😁

Are we taking about State or Private/Independent Secondaries here? As there seems to be a difference in socialising for parents via the school/a PTA.

We considered sending DD to a private school that had a Parents Cafe’, where parents could visit any time during school opening hours, book appointments to speak to school staff and also work from the cafe. The PTA was unsurprisingly also heavily involved in organising social events for parents.

Our eldest DD attended a State Secondary a long time ago, that I was involved in from time to time. The PTA were focused on raising school funds and managed a highly successful monthly Car Boot Sale within school grounds. There wasn’t much organising re. social events for parents.

if you’re interested in joining or creating a local gardening group, try searching for a local FB group or creating one. I don’t think this is something that a lot of Secondary Schools would facilitate for parents.

If you’ve got the time to organise a parents’ social group at your DCs Secondary, you should create one. ‘Build it, and they will come (or not?)’.

Thanks I do appreciate what you’re saying about it self reinforcing groups but isn’t the absolute ideal to have genuinely inclusive events for the whole student/parent body and to get ideas from all parents of what they want (like this PTA seems to be trying to do?)

If it’s more likely that parents with more resources in money and time will have more ability to donate/volunteer, and that the money raised is going to benefit to all the kids then not running events that will tap up the richer parents is a missed opportunity?

I have DC with SEN and so I understand some kids will be very independent and self organising to an extent but that would also as the blanket norm exclude my DC so like everyone else, I’m just winging it with all of this.

I'm not against fundraising. It's necessary isn't it. I just think the social life of a secondary school is different from that of a primary because life becomes less family focused as children grow away from us.

I have a kid with SN too and I'm also winging it! I think separation will be much slower with her. But I work with young adults and as a result I've worked out that the best thing I can do for my kids is to support them into making their own way in the world without leaning on us for everything. And I'd rather that started at school where there's a supportive environment around them than when they're trying to make their way in the world independently. Maybe it's a stretch to say that parents at school organising socially separate from the kids is part of that, but it's what I think nonetheless.

Thanks Spinet I do really appreciate your perspective on this. Food for thought for sure.

It wasn’t a thing in our ‘outstanding’ S London state secondary.

People would have thought a parents WhatsApp group was weird, I wouldn’t have signed up to one. The relationship is so much more strongly school-pupil and not parents.

Parents turned up for the concerts, productions, parents evenings, but that was it, really.

My Dc would have cringed if there was a parents WhatsApp.

Yes re. organising small teams for a Quiz Night, although, the school instigated the idea of small teams and organised food. I’m not sure how well the small teams went assuming most Y7 parents would not know each other or have even met at that stage.

In addition, Yr7 friend groups often change after the end of the first term.

@Pisserdansunviolon

Are we taking about State or Private/Independent Secondaries here? As there seems to be a difference in socialising for parents via the school/a PTA.

Apologies; I’ve re-read the thread title, which states ‘state secondary’.

I have one in primary and one in secondary. Secondary has 300 per year group. There are no PTA organised activities. We have a class whatsapp group but it’s not active except at the start of year 7. Parents aren’t involved like in primary.