It’s the end of term… the end of our first term at Parent Ping and the end of another odd term because of the virus.
The end of term has also been in the news after the Secretary of State for Education threatened schools and councils with legal action if they closed early. We’ve got your response to this, plus lots of lovely Christmas data.
But first…
The Parent Ping upgrade is LIVE! If you haven’t upgraded yet, just follow these 5 easy steps:
Upgrade Parent Ping in your app store (it might already have happened automatically)
Open the Parent Ping app and select login with email
Immediately hit set a password for your existing account and enter the email address you registered for Parent Ping with (clue: you will have received the upgrade email to this address)
Go find the password email you receive from us (it may be in junk/spam, so do check there). Click set password in that email
You will automatically return to Parent Ping where you can enter a password and login!
6 quick Christmas facts
🤶 90% of primary-aged kids have a Christmas jumper, compared to 63% of secondary-aged ones (the rest of whom are presumably “too cool” for such things). In fact, parents are more likely to have a Christmas jumper than their secondary-aged kids!
🎄 We were a bit relieved at Parent Ping towers that over half of mums admit they rearrange the Christmas tree (at least a bit) after their kids have decorated it… it’s nice to know we’re normal!
⛪ Over a third of you attended a church service last Christmas, we’ll check in a week or two, but we suspect this will inevitably be lower this year.
🎶 O Come All Ye Faithful was your favourite carol from our list… apart from parents aged 45-49 for whom Hark! The Herald Angels Sing topped the charts.
🎁 We’re up to 41% now on ‘who’s completed their Christmas shopping?’ A stubborn 1% of you still haven’t started though! We’ll ask for a final time next week.
✂️Mums are (marginally) more organised than dads when it comes to wrapping presents, but on the whole most of you put it off for one big wrapping session. Possibly related to the big wrapping sesh, most of you only put the presents under the tree on Christmas eve once everyone’s in bed.
The end of term
When school closures hit the news, a Pinger suggested that we check if this is influencing parents end of term plans. Like last week, there is an increase in those considering taking their children out early but overall, the majority are sticking in school until the end.
However, most parents also agreed that schools ought to be allowed to close early for Christmas. Whilst this is slightly skewed by the parents who work in schools themselves (as is consistent with concerns we have been reporting all term) a big number of other parents also agreed.
In the end, most schools finished yesterday but spare a thought for the 5% still going into next week! We also did a quick check whether it frustrated you when schools run a half day on the last day of term… it turns out for most of you it isn’t a problem, but a third of primary parents admit it is rather annoying (far less annoying for secondary parents).
Coming up next week
Parent Ping questions continue through the Christmas period (yes, even on Christmas day!) helping you find out ‘am I normal’ on all things Christmassy + some reflections back on the past few months. Don’t miss a question… Download the app and set your notifications to PING every day!