Form Schmorm

Grit has written a swingeing rant about forms here.

I too hate forms.

I don’t really know why I say this as if it’s somehow earth shattering news.  Everyone hates forms don’t they?

And the tiny minority of people who don’t hate forms must surely have something wrong with them anyway. Right?

My pet hate on the forms front, are the ones sent to me by the school.  This is because:

a) there are so many of them

b) so many of the so many demand money/help/raffle prizes/costumes/lifeblood from me with a nanosecond of notice

c) all of them without doubt are spectacularly stupid, and written in an ingratiatingly insufferable and usually patronising tone, which has the same effect on me as say listening to fingernails scraping down a blackboard, or hearing Celine Dion sing.

Recently I have had to fill in holiday forms.  This is because, as you know, we are going to Canada for a month very shortly.  This month long trip does not fit neatly into the holiday which has been allocated us by the government, and therefore we are required to justify why we wish to take our children out of school during term time.

It is not quite as bad as it sounds, as our holiday does overlap with the two weeks of Easter holiday.  We are only being naughty for seventeen days instead of twenty seven days.  Of those seventeen days, the school is sort of obliged to let us take ten of them on an ‘ooh, you are awful, but we just might let you get away with it,’ basis.  The remaining seven days are just plain evil, wrong, bad and in league with the forces of Beelzebub.

The form asks us for reasons why we are not behaving nicely and conforming.  I find this really irritating.  I’m hardly likely to write: ‘Because I’m trying to undermine the state school system from within.  Death to the petit bourgeoisie and all it stands for,’ now am I?  Much like those ludicrous forms you have to fill in on the plane when you fly to the States: ‘Have you ever or will you ever become a terrorist plotting the downfall of the Western World/built a bomb out of mascara and Gummi Bears/shared a jug of sangria with Osama Bin Laden?’ tick YES or NO.  Anyone who ticks YES really does deserve to be carted off to Guantanamo Bay and hung by their toe nails for sheer stupidity alone.  I’d love to know the success rates for catching terrorists using the old ‘fill out this innocent old form’ ruse.

So. Back to the holiday form, on which I wrote: ‘There are five of us in this family.  For all of us to take our holidays during the times you have deemed acceptable, would bankrupt us.  My husband is also required to work to contract terms, terms which do not fit in with holiday times you deem acceptable.  It seems therefore that if we wish to take our holidays together as a family we must take them outside of official school holiday dates.  If you have any problems with this, please contact me.’

To take the holiday we want to take at a holiday time to suit them would more than double the price of our holiday.  I don’t see them stepping up to pay the extra. 

What’s more, I always tag an addendum to the forms to say that we would be delighted to take academic work with us for the kids so that they are not behind in their work when they return to school.

Interestingly, the schools never ask questions about how we will expect the children to catch up with their work on these forms.  Even though, in my humble opinion, this should be their primary concern.  Because you know what? It isn’t.  They don’t give a rat’s ass if my kids are two, three or four weeks behind academically.  They care about the number of days absence the school racks up, because that’s one of main criteria on which schools are measured for success or failure.  Your child might be Mozart, but if they have a dodgy attendance record, the school authorities will be round like a shot, whereas the kid who can’t count to ten without taking his shoes and socks off will be left to struggle on manfully, as long as he turns up for school every day at the right time.  Ludicrous but true.

So I won’t play.  As long as my children are at a level of academic achievement I am happy with, it’s all good.  If that doesn’t tally with what the school wants, tough shit.

I am feeling particularly anarchic about this sort of thing after digging through the children’s book bags this afternoon to come across a pointless waste of paper,  school letter, which fills two pages.  It basically informs me that the government are spying, looking after us again, by asking our school to take part in the National Childhood Measurement Programme, in which they are going to weigh and measure our children and feed it all into their giant database of Big Brother style information.  Our headmistress says in reasonably bad English: ‘I feel it is important to support the NHS to gather the information they require so that the best possible health services can be provided to support our children to stay healthy.’  Because of course, knowing how tall they are is going to help them not to catch swine flu this week, and not actually just be used in fifty years time on some random government pie chart to say that in 2010 we were all pygmies compared to the giant race of superheroes we have been breeding ever since.  Good oh!

She then goes on to say that in addition to the height and weight measurement they may also want to know the child’s sex, address, postcode, ethnicity and date of birth.  Because knowing which road in Glenfield your child lives on will help them to protect your child against MRSA and possible infections of the water supply by cholera germs at the village pumps right?

We must rest easy because the results will be ‘confidential’.  Just like all the other information that has been  collected and then randomly given to dustmen, terrorists, left on park benches and sold to Sheila’s Wheels insurance mongers.  Phew.  Not only that but ‘No child’s height or weight will be given to school staff or other children.’  Double phew.  Just think what insane amounts of damage could be done by a rogue teacher who knows that Matilda is five feet tall.  Gah! I’ve just given it away now.  Will we never be safe in our beds again?  Especially if they break in and replace our beds with beds that are shorter than our children to make us paranoid, just like Mr. and Mrs. Twit.  OH MY GOD! It could like so happen, y’know?

Luckily we can opt out.  All we have to do is fill out the extensive form on page two, giving our child’s name, address, postcode, ethnicity, parentage, blood group, height and weight, and no more intrusive questions will be asked.

Thank you baby Cheezus.

But, should we decide to opt into the scheme and let them take these measurements the headmistress says: ‘We encourage you to request your child’s measurements from the PCT.’  It will take a month because these kinds of data are not just easily found using simple methods like a pair of scales and a tape measure.  Good God no.  We will have to put the data through big machines with spools and whirring things and buttons.  And should we wish to wait a month to find out such vitally important information we will, unsurprisingly have to fill out another form, which is attached for our ease and enjoyment. 

Hooray.  Because obviously I will not, as a parent, actually have any clue as to how tall or heavy my children are because I do not feed, dress or pay attention to them in any way in all the years I have been their primary carer.

A tree died for this by the way.  No wonder the environment is up the bloody swannee.