Can I take leave to watch my own child's nativity?

[wreckedteacher]

As the title says, can I ask for time off to watch my own children's nativities? I have to spend hours on end rehearsing my class to present their Xmas show to their parents; can I watch my own?

The other point, of course, is that Governors of all schools have some of the same responsibilities as Trustees of academies (in fact, in many standalone academies they are still just called governors because the roles are so similar). So in that sense, school management / governance has ALWAYS been in the hands of volunteers working a few hours a week or less unpaid.

When the MAT decides there is no profit to be made from a school and no other MAT wants to take it on then the school is dumped back on the LA which has significantly less resources than originally due to the number of schools which have been taken out of their control.

There is no evidence that academies are any better than LA schools and quite a lot of evidence of financial mismanagement with precious little independent scrutiny.

I will remain cynical about MATs for the foreseeable future having worked in a school which was pretty much destroyed by one. It was forced to convert after clawing its way out of special measures to “guarantee continued improvement” but 5 years later, has not had a permanent HT since conversion, student numbers have fallen to fewer than 400, the 6th form has closed and it’s in special measures again. It’s been “rebrokered” but the original MAT drew the process out because of financial issues - they got the School massively into debt (mostly because of the succession of executive HT babysitters it was paying extortionate salaries to) and didn’t want to have to take that with it. We were told over a year ago that all non-essential spending would cease, there were many redundancies, and the deal was finally signed very recently. New MAT taking over in January. The original MAT is huge - far too big to have any interest in the individual schools or students it runs.

Out School does an evening performance and a daytime one, on two separate days. I thought this was common practice, obviously not! A suggestion for future nativities maybe?

Evil, I agree with you, especially considering that not very far away is an example of a non-MAT partnership where the 'less good' partner school has progressed very rapidly, to the benefit of all.

Preschools are mornings only, not all children attend afternoons so morning performances are common at age 2-4.

Out School does an evening performance and a daytime one, on two separate days

How does that work with parents who can't/won't return to school in the evenings with their children? I can think of a whole host of reasons why some parents wouldn't bother and have personally been in a position where it simply wasn't possible. Do you discuss with parents before deciding on roles, for example?

Only the junior school does the nativity in our school and virtually all of them come to the evening performance. It’s one night of the year and if that’s too much trouble then I thinks that’s a pretty poor show!
Thankfully our school is a brilliant School with very supportive parents so it’s never been an issue. In fact parents who aren’t even watching at the evening performance take their children along as you only get 2 tickets per child to watch.

Yes I am allowed this year. Lots of sarky comments on here. I know a few teachers who have been allowed