Cruel School?

Fang_3

thebaileys wrote: »

Bit OTT!!!

Im talking about £15.00, thats how much it would have cost the school.

This time, and then the word gets out and some of the other parents wonder why they should bother paying if the scum get it free? Then it costs £40. Repeat. Until none of the kids do anything.

It's about the principle of the matter, and the school did the right thing.

pjcox2005

I don't have children, but presumably any costs of children not paying has to be covered or the activities don't go ahead.

So I guess the school has options:

- Let the children watch, hope it's a one off and doesn't encourage those parents/and or other to stop paying.

- Don't let the children watch and send out a clear signal

The benefit of the latter presumably allows them to continue to put on worthwhile extras for children, otherwise they either have to get other parents to subsidise (who will probably complain at the level of costs for each activity), use up other parts of the school budget (e.g. gym equipment, new books, staff costs) or cancel them.

Do the people complaining about the cruelty of the school think any of the three above costs cuts are benefical for the child (assuming we accept parents pay their taxes and shouldn't have to fund others)?

POPPYOSCAR

I prefer to live in world with a little bit of social responsibility and personally do not like the idea of small children being singled out like this.They are at school/nursery and should be treated all the same.Its bad enough for some kids with the parents they have without making it any worse for them.

pigpen

We've had cases where the family trips have all been funded by social services.. because the parents are druggies/in prison..

we have also had lots of the Immigrant famiies not have to pay because they 'don't speak good enough english to understand'.. bear in mind most of these families are here to go to the university so speak perfectly good english!

This is far worse than the school funding a child from a familiy with a low income. I don't see why they should help the families that are not prepared to help themselves either.

Though, if they had allowed these 3 little ones to watch the play without their parents having paid.. who would have known? It was only known about because one person asked why they were being taken elsewhere.

piratefairy

I do agree that it it difficult to know and we should not speculate as to why the children's families did not pay in this instance. Perhaps they didn't feel that the cost of hte event and the benefits were more beneficial than something else they could have spent the money on for that child.
I do think that the school ought to have asked for a donation but not enforced the entire amount for those who found it difficult to afford.
However, why would all the other parents have automatically known that the three hadn't paid if they had let them stay and watch? Also surely it singles them out early on as potential victims of teasing in the future if similar things happen in the future and they are not involved. Which is a shame, but unfortunately how some kids seem to work.

thebaileys

I totally agree pirate fairy no one would have been any the wiser, and in years to come if this happens again the children will be singled out by others.

I pay £1.00 a week for fruit, now I know that not all parents pay this.
So should I be annoyed that I am subsidising the other children!

Should the teacher tell little Johnny 'No your not allowed fruit'

They are 3 and 4 for goodness sake!

kittiej

TBH I get fed up of school asking for money every (what seems to be) couple of weeks and since I've 2 children at the same school it's twice the amount. We don't claim Tax Credits and we have really struggled at times so you don't have to be on benefits to be poor lol.

I'd much rather have some sort of 'social club' scheme where I just pay the school £1 per week per child in term time and let the school get on with it.

If there's anything left in the pot then I wouldn't mind if it helped to pay for school equipment, or to help others out etc. just don't send anymore of those blinking letters home, what a waste!

If I'm honest I can't stand half of the parents at school but I would never take it out on their children.

Maybe the parents weren't aware that they could pay weekly?

galvanizersbaby

My children both went to a private nursery at age 3-4 (not associated with any school).

The day fee paid covered most essentials but trips, farm?! coming in to the nursery would cost extra.

If I had not paid for an activity I would expect my child not to take part - luckily there weren't too many of these activities so I was able to afford it.

I think it's sad that some children are excluded because their parents won't pay/can't afford to pay but I'm not sure personally I'd expect other parents to subside my child/ren.

pjcox2005

Ok, take the ages out of consideration as i think that makes it very emotive.

In this situation you've got 4 children who weren't allowed to watch. Taking 'thebaileys' example (best figures i've got but accept they could be high) that they have paid £18.70 in the last 2 weeks for their child on extras.

If the parents of these 4 children don't pay every week then over the course of a year (52 weeks but accept it could be less, I just didn't want to estimate summer clubs) the school for this one class would have to find another £1,944.80 per year. (A school with 5 classes would be close to £10,000 per year).

That's quite a lot of money to take out of a school's budget which presumably is already allocated to the 'basic' cost of teaching. This has to be funded!! The simple fact of life (as i'm ignoring debt) is that we can only buy what we can afford therefore because of this something would have to go. Is that the extra activities for children or the key requirements of education for a child?

To those suggesting others pay, if you add this to say a 30 person class (i.e. 26 paying kids left) the parents would need to pay an additional £74.80 each. What if this pushes them over budget so have to stop paying for their kids. Should the other parents pick up the second rise in costs as well?

People do talk, people do find out if others are getting things for free and this would cause the teachers an issue. Either way they offend but I would imagine (and we are assuming its a money thing) that they've simply had to say, if you can't afford the extra activity then your child can't attend.

I'm not saying it's great for the child but a cut off point has to be reached at some point.

andrealm

But they won't be paying that amount every week over 52 weeks. The school year is 38 weeks, summer schemes, if they exist at all are a completely separate issue and have to be paid for. I don't think £18 over 2 weeks is typical. I doubt very much if the class goes on a £10 school trip every other week, or has a theatre come in once a fortnight. Other weeks there probably won't be anything except the £1 for fruit.

At my DD's nursery they asked for £25 a term and that covered snacks, treats and the costs of people coming in, such as a farm and magician.
A few parents didn't pay it, but the children never missed out on anything, and rightly so. I'm happy to subsidise people who really can't afford it, not very happy about subbing those who just don't want to pay, but I wouldn't want to see their kids miss out.