School and parent stories

bwana said:
What gets me is when they cancel swimming because it's raining.
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Don't they look at lightning alarm app and then cancel it if within 30km ? At my son's private swim, they do that - not sure about school events - not there yet.
 
Sideshow Bob said:
No man. My son's handwriting in "normal" was really good. Cursive didn't suit him and many others.

Do you write cursive yourself ?
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When I need to write I do, not the flow'ey ornate crap. Cursive suits anyone who's not left handed.

Sideshow Bob said:
Don't they look at lightning alarm app and then cancel it if within 30km ? At my son's private swim, they do that - not sure about school events - not there yet.
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No app - coach doesn't want to get wet.
 
I had the same experience w.r.t concerts when my daughter was in Primary School. The one vent I had was the school telling us the kids would have different performances over 4 nights. So we bought tickets for 4 nights. I ended up donating the last 2 nights' tickets on FB. The school made a killing with this concert.

My vent. When my son was in Grade 11 during the peak of loadshedding, his electrical technology educator resigned to work for his buddy doing solar installations and told the kids he would be earning 3 times his teaching salary. The school replaced him with an educator who read out of the handbook to the kids and knew nothing about electrical technology. Luckily my son was passionate about the subject and spent lots of extra time in the electrical workshop and self-studied. He managed to pass his senior certificate with a decent mark in the electrical subject.
 
Sideshow Bob said:
At curro, last week before term end is winding down period and I understand from teacher's point of view. Only one movie is shown and rest is split between some fun activities but not necessarily planned ones. So far, every class teacher has been exceptional. Kids are given homework for the holidays as well but it is optional and hardly anyone does it as far as I know.

Hardly anyone turns up in last 2 days before term end so they put grade 2,3,4 in one classroom - at least for movies.

1 week after term start is generally waste as well. Considering there are 4 terms, it does seem like waste of money. I have seen some parents (that have 2+ kids) give 1 month's notice in October and then they homeschool for December & January and then reapply in February. It sounds crazy but saves them about 15K per child for 2 months.

Reports at Curro are always uploaded on time. We got Term 3 results yesterday and it was last day of term 3.
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I struggle a bit for this whole concept of the school basically passive telling people to keep kids at home nearing end of term. Both public schools, youngest's current and my eldest's previous have that habit which feels substantially worse since covid.

And let me not start on the eldest's previous where a common thought was that all children must be equally improveshed or none may improve over others if you ask for extra material to assist a weak spot in your child's current learning. It seemed at times that lip service was payed about parents being more involved in their children's learning but when they do it not the case. Or homework marking/correction..... very differant from when I went to school.
 
Kosmik said:
I'll start with today's bug bear.

So , my youngest , 10yro, grade 4, is currently wrapping up thier term. They are currently also doing a school play, from 6pm to 8pm at night for the last few days.

Now I don't begrudge the play as it's part of the children growing up and school but at the same time, the play has segments of different classes and grades and for a child where they have a 5minute part... to stay for the whole two hours when they are "done" after 30 mins and never come back on stage again for the night is excessive.

The terms tests/assessments were also completed around the 16th, fine that's great but since then the kids were practicing but have also been watching movies the whole day. Now, I'm not talking educational movies or documentaries maybe around material or anything: it's all animated movies and typical kids fair and cartoons. And kids are taking sleeping bags and snacks to school to quite literally lounge around.

Now for me that's a issue because like most, we work full time amd pay over hard earned money for our children to have a education. Sure when I was a kid we had the odd video day etc however normally this was also in line with whatever we were learning as well ie: a medieval story when we were learning history on the dark ages. Good example we watched "Name of the Rose" covering that time.

But this has been going on since the 16th. And today we are also told, oh sorry, reports are going to be delayed till next term as well.

Am I wrong in being a little pissed that I'm paying the same school fees as normal , kids are not learning, reports are delayed and a few other issues. Pretty sure for most parents a BIG part of monthly costs is school fees and while fun for the kids, I'm not sending them to daycare, they are being sent to school.

Let's not mention the rigamoral of kids are sick or maybe you need to travel on a Friday for a weekend break once year...

Vent done.
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Its a fair grumble but I'll say there is one thing worse - when they just send them home because nothing is happening.
My son is at a private school and they will close the school at the drop of a hat. The yoga mommies love it because they don't have to find day care for their little sh1ts. The rest of us plebs get really mad that the term is a few days less every so often.
Last year a teacher asked if anyone was coming in on the last day of term (watsapp group) and I almost lost it. Its a small fortune to send the spawn to these schools and if they cut the term short then we need some kind of refund.

My daughter is at government school and they also have this post exam issue where they come in just to watch movies, its really hard to motivate a pre-teen to get out of bed and go to school and watch other peoples choice of movie...
I'm impressed though because they have started to improve things a bit. Last term they had an enrichment week where every day they had a non-academic activity that would normally disrupt their classes. The girls had their "my body is changing" talk on one of those days, which was apparently very successful. They also have all the camps in the post exam days which is also fun. It takes a bit of creative thinking but they just need to "think out the box"
 
EmmanuelGoldstein said:
I understand this all too well. I opted for homeschooling because this BS became excessive at one point and at the time I was really under pressure at work so I changed things. Not going to elaborate much further as it is likely to cause an argument
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And then you decided to homeschool? Those two things make no sense together.
 
Teachers in modern schools are nothing more than overqualified daycare workers. They are not paid to educate children. They are paid to look after them.
 
Nerfherder said:
Last year a teacher asked if anyone was coming in on the last day of term (watsapp group) and I almost lost it. Its a small fortune to send the spawn to these schools and if they cut the term short then we need some kind of refund.
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Every term .... for the last three years......

An often the last week, nevermind day. My youngest grade is around 120 kids across classes, apparently something in the region of 30 for attendance this week...
 
SauRoNZA said:
Yeah I guess it depends the age of the kids or their ability to learn by themselves.

In my head it sounded like a full time job.
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Really depends on the kid too. Some can buckle down and do it, others not.
 
Sideshow Bob said:
One negative about Curro is that apart from cricket (and hockey for girls), sports culture is non-existent. Even if you come up with some idea (or some request to promote sports), no one bothers.
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Oh hell no in mine it's quite the opposite.

Hockey, Soccer, Karate, Chess, eSports in winter. Athletics, Tennis, Cricket, Karate, Swimming, Chess and eSports in Summer...and that's not counting the extra third party stuff that still does soccer etc through summer.
 
Kosmik said:
Really depends on the kid too. Some can buckle down and do it, others not.
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100%. My eldest at 11 could probably get away with it now at a push, but I still think better for it with guided assistance.

Then again nothing screen time as a carrot can't fix. :ROFL:
 
Sideshow Bob said:
One negative about Curro is that apart from cricket (and hockey for girls), sports culture is non-existent. Even if you come up with some idea (or some request to promote sports), no one bothers.
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Curro is a vehicle for fleecing parents to enrich shareholders.
In other words a school teaching kids how to be a greedy CEO like Bezos, Musk, Trump, et, al
 
Kosmik said:
I struggle a bit for this whole concept of the school basically passive telling people to keep kids at home nearing end of term. Both public schools, youngest's current and my eldest's previous have that habit which feels substantially worse since covid.

And let me not start on the eldest's previous where a common thought was that all children must be equally improveshed or none may approve over others if you ask for extra material to assist a weak spot in your child's current learning. It seemed at times that lip service was payed about parents being more involved in their children's learning but when they do it not the case. Or homework marking/correction..... very differant from when I went to school.
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At curro, teachers identify students that lag behind and have extra classes but no other help offered if kids want to do extra work for IBT etc - that is all on parents.

I understand of course as teachers have their lives but it would be nice if there would be some support for competitive students - wouldn't mind paying really. They do publish photos/results in monthly newsletter if kids excel in IBT so I suppose that is something.
 
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