Cruel School?

Spendless

My kids schools (infant and junior) do not charge for events like this. Instead money is raised via the PTA by raffle tickets, school discos, stands at summer fayres and so on. A recent thing has been if you want to buy a tea-towel with your child's drawing on to celebrate them leaving infant school. All these things are optional if you want to buy them. The money then raised pays for events such as the one the OP describes. That way everyone has paid as much or as little as they can afford and have wanted to, but all children get to see.

Does the school have a PTA or 'Friends of' thebaileys? Maybe you can fetch up the school fundraising in this way instead of their current system.

Fang_3

onlyroz wrote: »

I think you're missing the point. School trips are usually excellent value precisely because such a large group of children are going together - because they'll get a group discount. Therefore, it provides a great opportunity for someone from a poorer background to have an experience that their family might not otherwise be able to afford. Take the extreme example of a ski trip. Yes, the cost will be quite a few hundred pounds, but it would cost much much more than this for mum and dad to pay for the whole family to go on a similar trip.

I went on two skiing trips at school, one to America and one to Austria, and they wouldn't have happened if the school had not done that. With my parents it wasn't about the cost, it was about where my parents were willing to spend their holidays and what they and us as a family as a whole liked and wanted to do. There's not a chance in hell of anyone getting my mother on skis on a dry slope in this country, let alone on a black run on a mountainside in Austria. But I loved it, and I learned a skill and I enjoyed an experience that I wouldn't have been able to do as a child with my family.

My point is that if I hadn't have been as a child, it's unlikely that I would've considered it as an adult, and so it broadened my horizons away from what my parents would normally do. It's the same with smaller examples such as a trip to the zoo, or the theatre.

Fang_3

pigpen wrote: »

I have been taking my children to the same school for the last 15 years and never speak to any of the other parents.. and half the time staff are unsure what is going on.. plus in order to ask you would have to have some idea something was going on.

You've never spoken to the other parents? Do your children not play with the other kids outside of school? Have they never been to parties or vice versa?

Fang_3

vaio wrote: »

That's where real life “we can’t afford it” comes into it and the distinction between "education" and "a fun jolly with free places for teachers & spouses” needs to be made.

Fun jollies are just what it says, not part of an education and schools shouldn’t be involved

Theatre trips are part of an education and should be free

Fun jollies? I don't think having the responsibility of looking after 30 kids 24/7 in a foreign country is anyone's idea of fun.

Gavin83

This is a difficult one. On the one hand, the play would go ahead regardless of their contribution so I don't see what difference in the scheme of things it makes. If it was an outside trip you had to sign up for it would be a different story.

However, is it also 'fair' to allow some parents to pay and others not to? If this is the case then the money has to come from somewhere, either the school or other parents effectively pay for other children. Option one, the school will either have to reduce the trips or cut them completely. Im sure if the parents of a school got a letter sent home saying there will no longer be any school trips as not enough parents are paying, they'd be on here complaining about it, am I not correct? Option two isn't really even a consideration IMO, as if you found out 50% of what you were paying was for another child, why should it even be paid? Once again everyone would be on here complaining about it.

Frankly if you can't afford a small one off fee for a school trip then maybe you should have considered if you could afford children in the first place. Im of the opinion that you shouldn't have a child unless you can afford to do so but many seem to go ahead anyway. £5 is not a lot of money to spend on your childs enjoyment.

kittiej

I agree with this vaio as the theatres which come to my sons' school are free for the children.

Trips to Folly Farm or Oakwood you not only have to pay for your child but as a parent you have to accompany your child as well and I didn't do it this time, I kept my 2 at home.

I can get cheaper trips through the social club at work, we went to the New Theatre in Cardiff and it was a fiver each to see Robin Hood -£20 for 4 of us - bargain. It would have cost us about £60 to go to Folly Farm.

I think the skiing trips are for the older children, and mine won't be going skiing should the time come. I would rather they stay in school and knuckle down to their education.

vaio

pjcox2005 wrote: »

I know I said I wasn't posting again but intrigued by vaio's comment.

Vaio, I think you would be hard pushed for the Government to raise more from taxes to fund "extra" (although worthwhile) activities at schools whilst repairing the current economy, NHS etc. Again choices have to be made.

Or perhaps, child tax credits are reduced, that money goes straight to the schools, and the bits that children may not receive in lower income families is the treats decided by parents (e.g. food treats, holiday etc should they have them). It may also prevent issues with those parents that abuse the system for their own gain (hopefully a limited number).

Actually quite impressed with that idea, children get more targeted benefit from the credits, less abuse, less time wasting by schools in sending letters and those that don't have children don't have to pick up anymore of the costs. The only problem is, it still doesn't help those families that already struggle and can't pay the extra fees, as they won't get more money.

It comes back to choices having to be made on extras.........

Welcome back

At the risk of expanding it into the political arena whilst I accept that choices have to be made I think the wrong choices are being made. We seem able to fund education in far away places, even India & China (if recent reports are to be believed our spending on schools building in Afghanistan is going up 40% next year even though the two I know about which were finished 2 or 3 years ago are still unused because there are no teachers.)

We can circle the houses forever muttering about budget constraints, hard choices etc etc. What needs to happen is a central political/educationalist decision about what comprises an “education” and then that is what schools need to provide and the whole package needs to be fully funded from general taxation and if that means adjusting CTC or basic rate tax, taxing the rich, the banks, or even cutting back on our national overseas jaunts/submarine based WMD then so be it.

Whilst I disagree with the overly complicated WTC/CTC system my own preference would be against using this to fund education which should be funded out of general taxation which whilst not being 100% progressive is the closest we have. Reducing CTC would be regressive/nullified by increases in other means tested benefits unless accompanied by a general overhaul of the whole system.

Fang_3

kittiej wrote: »

I agree with this vaio as the theatres which come to my sons' school are free for the children.

Trips to Folly Farm or Oakwood you not only have to pay for your child but as a parent you have to accompany your child as well and I didn't do it this time, I kept my 2 at home.

I can get cheaper trips through the social club at work, we went to the New Theatre in Cardiff and it was a fiver each to see Robin Hood -£20 for 4 of us - bargain. It would have cost us about £60 to go to Folly Farm.

I think the skiing trips are for the older children, and mine won't be going skiing should the time come. I would rather they stay in school and knuckle down to their education.

My skiing trips happened during half term, and they counted towards my PE mark.;)

kittiej

They didn't at the school I went to, they were part of the term

vaio

vaio wrote: »

That's where real life “we can’t afford it” comes into it and the distinction between "education" and "a fun jolly with free places for teachers & spouses” needs to be made.

Fun jollies are just what it says, not part of an education and schools shouldn’t be involved

Theatre trips are part of an education and should be free

Fang wrote: »

Fun jollies? I don't think having the responsibility of looking after 30 kids 24/7 in a foreign country is anyone's idea of fun.

Yet another reason for skiing trips to be removed from schools, the teachers don't like it.