Jo Green

Subscribe to my blog

By Jo Green - Fri 9th Sep 2011

 

Yesterday - Thursday the 8th September - was the first day of my daughter's second year at school.

I had already blogged about the issue of her having to move up to the 'big school' ( Click to read that blog HERE) on a different site two years earlier than she by rights should have been, but in recent days it transpired that the older year would be kept down at the smaller school in their place.

Not an ideal situation for anybody and unfair on a number of levels : on one hand the younger kids were perhaps ill-equipped and under prepared for such a move, and the older ones looking forward to and exited to be moving up to 'big school', only to be told at the 11th hour that this would not be happening - perhaps even seeing it as a punishment for being kept back ?

The reasons behind this were clear - a lack of space at the little school, and enough space at the big school to take in two classes (1 More than expected), but not three.

Moan over.

However, the issue that I was struggling to get my head around was that of school books.

Everyone knows that you can buy the school books either from the AMPA (Parents Association) at the School itself, or take the list away and try and source the books yourself. The fact that you are given about 3 days in which to get the books, and that there are around 5 or 6 to get, means that the odds on you finding a store that A) has all f the books in stock and B) are cheaper than the AMPA, inevitably means that 99% of parents buy the books from the school.

Easy.

Or so you would have thought..... come on, this is Spain - of course it isn't !

I received a text message from the school on Monday advising that Books would be available for collection on the Thursday, Friday and following Monday of the week, but it did not say which books, how much they cost or where and how to make payment.

On collecting my daughter up from school on the Thursday lunchtime, she handed me a list of all 6 books required together with the Factura - for 147 Euros. HOWEVER - this sum had to be paid in cash at the local branch of the CAM Bank, where the AMPA held their account. The receipt would then have to be taken BACK to the school before the books could be handed out.

The note, given to me at 1pm on Thursday, stated that the CAM Bank was open to receive payments between 8.30 am - 2pm every day, except Friday.

Meaning that basically Thursday was already out of the question, Friday was a non-no, and that approx 32 sets of parents (From my daughter's year alone !) would be converging on the CAM bank on Monday morning in order to make payment.

Why ? - Because the school would only be handing out books until 12noon !

Now, it wouldn't surprise me if this problem would be multiplied somewhat by every other parent who has children in other years at the school having to overcome the same obstacle, but IT WOULD surprise me if the School had spoken with CAM to forewarn them of this and to give them the opportunity to get a couple of extra members of staff in to man the counters on Monday morning.

So doors open at the bank 8.30am, then it's up to school by 9am to drop my daughter off and collect the books before A) they run out, 'cos I know they aren't going to have enough, and B) they stop giving them out, even though they know that a dozen parents are stuck in a queue down at the bank.

Am I being unfair and will everything run smoothly ? - I'll let you know on Monday.