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The staffroom

Whether you're a permanent teacher, supply teacher or student teacher, you'll find others in the same situation on our Staffroom forum.

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Original poster

Sports day time change...

12 replies

spudmasher · 16/07/2013 19:36

New head.....skin still not thick enough.
So it was forecast VERY hot today. Our sports area has shade until 12pm. Our sports day was scheduled from 11am until 2pm with a picnic in between events.
Yesterday I made the decision to bring the start forward to 10am to maximise the shade and have the picnic at the end so we could go to the shade.
Oh my goodness...the complaints!!!
I really thought I had done the right thing...apparently not!!!
God give me strength!

OP posts:

robobear · 16/07/2013 19:41

Of course you did the right thing. Ignore the haters

HedgeHogGroup · 16/07/2013 19:44

HT here too. I think it depends on your intake. If you have a lot of working parents they may have made special arrangements to come from 11am.
Sometimes parents are just arses & complain for complaining sake... 'this isn't how its been done in the past' etc.
Stand your ground... quibble & soul search in private (or with your Deputy/Business Manager if you can trust them) but a stoic front to parents & teachers.

Original poster

spudmasher · 16/07/2013 19:49

It's not easy.
They are so rubbish at looking at communications too! So I put posters on the noticeboards, sent a flyer and parent mailed by email and text.....and about 10 parents claimed no knowledge of the time change.
I guess you can't please everyone.
Kids had a good time...in the shade.
....licking wounds.....

OP posts:

Picturepuncture · 16/07/2013 22:00

Comfort yourself on two fronts:

Working parents who genuinely couldn't change their arrangements/didn't get the message, turned up an hour late, saw half of sports day and had a lovely picnic with DC before having an unexpected hour to themselves before being due back at work (result!)

2.if you hadn't have made the call you would have had 20 complaints about the unreasonableness of sport in this weather and little Johnnys sunburn/ heatstroke /lack of a hat.

Picturepuncture · 16/07/2013 22:02

Oh and 3. You got to the position of head teacher without developing a hang up about calling kids kids baby goat paranoia . IME that's rare and to be celebrated

DowntonTrout · 16/07/2013 22:05

Better than our school who held it in full sun.-All day- no shade= heatstroke and leg cramps.

You did the right thing.

charitymum · 16/07/2013 22:24

You sound like great head. I'm a work on parent who has to plan ahead. I'd not have been cross. You were watching out for your children. TBH makes a change that sports day moved because of sun....been cancelled for last three years because of rain!!

WhoKnowsWhereTheTimeGoes · 16/07/2013 22:28

For most working people 11-2 means a whole day off work, so moving it to 10 really isn't unreasonable, I'd far rather have a last minute change than heatstroked children.

Our school has a set of about 6 gazebos, they put them alongside the track for sports day so all the children who are waiting their turn are in the shade. The parents have a choice of full sun in chairs with a good view or shade under the trees at the end of the track where you can't see so well.

reddaisy · 16/07/2013 22:41

As a working parent it would have been far better if the sports day was held at the start of the day in the first place so I could pop in and then go straight to work.

A late change to the time would definitely cause issues for me as my schedule is so packed and unflexible but I would habe understood. DD might not have if I had missed her race.

Hulababy · 16/07/2013 22:44

It would have caused me issues tbh, having a last minute time change. I work in a school and I have to arrange time off carefully and work things around it. I'd have had to try and negotiate a new time with my own HT, not always easy.

Curious - has one of your own staff come to you with a last minute change to requested time off, would you have been happy to permit it and let them still go?

BackforGood · 16/07/2013 22:48

Have to agree that I think the scheduling it for the hotest part of the day in the first place was the mistake. IME, it makes a LOT more sense to have it first thing in the morning both because it might be a hot day, and it's better to be running at the coolest part of it, but also because it's more feasible for working parents to come in a couple of hours late, than go in for a bit then get out of work and travel back to school then go back into work afterwards.

reddaisy · 16/07/2013 22:50

And the forecast has been clear for a while about how long the hot weather is expected to last so if you had made the decision last week then more parents would have been able to rejig their day.

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