Day 95

I have noticed a lot of change in schools, dear Reader, with my children's time in school to my own. I have seen that now a lot of the schools my children have attended seem to become adrift from parents so to speak. By this I mean they no longer want to include parents or communicate with them, or even listen to a parents point of view.

Now I am not talking about clingy parents who will not let their children out of their sight and are overbearing and pushy. I am talking about your average 'normal' sensible parent that would only contact the school if there was a problem that you really needed to know was been sorted out. Thsse that also really care about their children's education.

Do schools have any rights to keep things from parents? Can they go over parents heads with things like P.E. excuse notes taking the decision to make them do P.E. even though the parent wrote for the child not to do it. I can understand if a child is bringing in notes every lesson, but what about if this was just a one of P.E. note for a child with good reason for missing P.E.? Does the school then have any right not to inform the parents that their child did actually do P.E.?

Does the school have the right to make a child with a note from home, get into their P.E. kit and then take them for a chat and then for the P.E. teacher to make the decision without talking to the parent for the child to do P.E.? It says strongly to me that if a child is made to put on kit that they are basically been told that they will be doing P.E. that day.

What about when you email the school, would you expect a reply from the teacher you have emailed. Yes you get the lovely friendly secretary kindly letting you know that your email as actually been given to the person. But is it right that some teachers will not even acknowledge your email or even bother to reply. One would expect much more from say a form tutor too, who you trust with the welfare of your child when they are not with you. That they are there to support your child, if your child is having any problems.

And at the end of the day, dear Reader, is there any point in trying to sort things out with school or if you feel the need to complain doing so? In my experience I think it just makes thinks harder for the child in school and that there is a strong divide now between teacher and parent. Where they once worked together they now would appear to be on completely different sides.

So why do we get the call for parents evenings? What is the point anymore? I am strongly considering not going into my children's school again and for me to learn of my children's progress through chatting and communicating with them. Because after all if there was a problem school would not involve the parent.

School as become a place for politicians and politics. It is a mine field of red tape and a total lack of common sense. School is out of date, not modernised for the children who live in a completely different world now to what the education system was written for. But can school survive without parents? Or the way they are treating parents? Only time will tell.

Evening all x x x