The things that I won't miss about my girls going to school.

Ellie has left school now, all she has to go back to school for is to collect her GCSE results. It feels so strange. I have been a parent to school age children for almost 18 years. Well if you count the time they went to nursery, when they turned 3 years old.

The school years have been a journey for me and my girls. It's certainly had it's up's and downs. I previously wrote a blog post about the things that I will miss about my girls going to school but these are the things that I won't miss about them going to school.

Nits/Head lice.

This was more a primary school thing but my girls seemed to have nits more than they didn't during their younger years and it wasn't because I didn't treat and comb their hair it was down to a couple of kids who's parents just didn't care. I was stood talking to a teacher once and discreetly pointed out the nits in another child's hair and the teacher said the school knew and there's nothing they could do if the parent wouldn't do anything. My girls and I lost so many hours and spent so much money on the nitty lotion but thankfully when they went to secondary school the nits seemed to just disappear. 

A pound here, a pound there.

Every week it used to be we need a pound for a non-uniform day or a bake sale, some charity or something like that. Of course I didn't mind paying but I did mind having to find the change and then the kids losing their money before they got to their classroom.

Parents Evening.

I hated parents evenings. We could never get in for the early appointments so had to come home and go back to the school only to be told the same thing every year. My girls are quiet, need to speak up in class but they try their hardest. The most frustrating parents evenings came in secondary school when a teacher had been teaching Becky for almost a year didn't even know her name or who she was. I gave the teacher a telling off, I thought he was going to cry. It sounds mean but I wasn't even sorry, he just seemed the type of person who wasn't right to be a teacher.

Bullying.

Both of my girls were bullied in both primary school and secondary school. Becky's was easy to sort as the school did little to help so we got the police involved but Ellie's bullies were relentless. They had telling's off, detentions, suspensions from school but kept going. We ended up moving house and Ellie's school thankfully. I pulled her out of school early as her old art teacher said to us at parents evening how she was so proud of Ellie, how she just ignores the bullying. Surely as a teacher she should have stepped in and stopped it when she saw it happening!

The school run.

I hated the school run, everything about it! If it was going to rain you can guarantee it would at either 9am or 3pm and we would get soaked. In the summer I always ended up sweating as school was about a 20 minute walk away. When Ellie was little she hated walking and would just stop and sit on the floor and scream. The walk was sometime too much for her little legs and I would have to carry her, no wonder I have a bad back now. I am not a people person so I hated standing in the school yard waiting for my girls. Thankfully I did have a couple of friends who were usually there for some moral support. 

Exams and tests.

When Ellie was doing her GCSE's I had sleepless nights, she was absolutely fine. I had awful dreams and felt anxious. I am so glad they are over now and my girls never have to sit another exam. Well as long as Ellie has passed her maths and English and doesn't have to resit at college. When my girls were younger they of course did their SATs and they were stressful. The school made a big deal about doing work at home but then in school had them digging up a garden. I would have preferred them to relax at home and work at school. Grr!

Teachers.

There are some amazing teachers and then there are the not so good one's. I have had quite a few run ins with teachers over the years. I could probably write a whole blog posts about the stories, like the one who said I had to buy Becky a bike so she could do her cycling proficiency at school and said she had to do it (she didn't), another who said we had to show proof that Stu's dad had died because Becky had already had a day off for his mum's funeral 6 weeks before (we didn't, this person was just being nosy) and the one who said Ellie couldn't have been bullied by a certain person because she was friends with her. Ugh!

Uniform.

The older the kids got the more expensive it was with jumpers and blazers all having to have the school logo on. When they were younger it was a case of trying to keep them stain free. We lost so many coats and jumpers over the years which all had to be replaced. Someone I used to know waited until the end of the school year when they put the lost property out and then got her kids jumpers in a bigger size, she saved a small fortune but I didn't have the guts to do it.

Remembering everything!

There is so much to remember when you have kids going to school. Everything from uniform and packed lunches to all the fun days, keeping track of the school holidays and teachers training days, when their PE kit needs to be washed and homework! It's a never ending list of things!

Musical instruments!

Both of my girls joined after school clubs playing musical instruments and they had to pick the most annoying. Becky had a tin whistle which seemed even more annoying than a recorder. lol The shrill sound of it used to go right through me and Ellie chose the trombone which was such a depressing sound at 7am on a Saturday morning when Ellie used to think it was a perfect time to practice. 

The illnesses!

My girls used to catch every cough, cold and bug going. The schools were always big on attendance so unless they couldn't move from their beds they were encouraged to go in which meant in the winter they were constantly full of cold as everyone just passed everything around. There was a time that Ellie had sickness bug after sickness bug and the school said she was having too much time off school so I took her back on their request. She lasted an hour before I had a phone call, the receptionist said she has never seen someone vomit as much as she did, it was a full on Exorcist reenactment. lol They didn't make her rush back to school after that.

What do you or did you hate about your children going to school?