Money Moral Dilemma: Should the school have paid?

TeacherSue

Yes of course the kids should see the show!

For all sorts of reasons a few kids may not have the money for tickets. If a parent is an alcoholic or a gambler, there may be no money to pay for tickets. That is not the child's fault.
A relative may be ill in hospital and the parents have spent all their money on bus fares traveling to visit each day. The Class teacher should be aware of home circumstances and there should be a small pot of money to ensure that needy children do not miss out on treats especially when life at home is already difficult.

Right minded parents who can afford to pay would not resent the school subsidizing children who cannot afford to pay through no fault of their making.

Sooler

Carolann wrote: »

HOWEVER, if the parents of the children are known to genuinely have difficulty in finding money for things like this, rather than stigmatise the child the child should see the play like everyone else, even if the school pays. Most schools have a small pot of money for situations like this.

So in such cases your company still wants payment!!!

jackie16323

As someone has already said the school are breaking the law here. When it comes to external trips or internal activities related to curriculum enrichment they are allowed to ask parents for a 'voluntary contribution' and can if they wish include the proviso that if sufficient contributions are not received they whole event will be cancelled for all children, what they cannot do is go ahead and then exclude those children whose parents haven't paid. After all some people cannot afford to pay.

Revolver9

The school is at fault. My son's school send a notice out 2 weeks before an event to say that contributions are voluntary but if enough money isn't raised then the event won't go ahead. Simple. Some people can't afford to pay and their kids shouldn't be penalised because of it.

RiaMac_2

The school my children attend has a savings club where you pay £1 (per family) a week and this goes towards trips etc. If you want to pay more you can. I used to help regularly at the school and the staff knew which families were struggling financially but not once was a child excluded from any activity their family could not afford. In saying that though almost all the families who were in financial hardship took advantage of the savings club and were grateful for it. Letters explaining the activity (including its cost) and consent forms were always sent home with the children. If a parent did not give consent for whatever reason then the child could not take part but this would be explained to the child in private and not in full view of others. This school should be thoroughly ashamed of how it treats its pupils. So much for anti-discrimatory practice!!

sidsidwe

At my sons school this was paid for by the PA, as a mum whose financial circumstances have changed due to no fault of my own, I am very grateful.

I would hate my son to miss out and feel "different".

cha-cha-cha

I was until quite recently the Head of a very small primary school. Many of our children came from low-income homes. My Governors supported me in a policy of the school paying for ALL extras for ALL children - and even as a small school this was within our budget. We felt our policy was fair because:
1. Our main consideration was the welfare and happiness of the pupils.
2. It is not always possible to judge whether parents are able to pay or not; people can be very proud and cover up money problems.
3.There is a moral dilemma as to whether parents able/willing to pay should subsidise others.
Personally I really hope that no school would be so cruel to highlight a child's inability to pay. May I also make the point that we were recognised by Ofsted as having a particularly enriched curriculum so we didn't go without!

serendipity2706

As a teacher in a 'deprived' area, some of our kid's parents can't afford trips, other don't or wont pay.
We have a contingency fund for genuinely needy kids so they don't miss out. I would have thought all school would have this in place.

Mary_Hartnell

Every one who runs a voluntary exercise like this (I am assuming that this is a nice to have out of hours event) or runs some other type of "club" has this problem. Unfortunately society has produced a certain level of people who have a "can't pay won't pay" attitude to these "expensive" extras. Very often they are not the workers on minimal wage, because these people usually realise that education can lift their children from the drudgery of their parent's jobs.
For those parents who can can afford to drink and smoke and go on holiday to a "Costa" - the message has to be "Your kids are more important than almost anything else in your lives!" In fairness to the parents who realise this, it has to be "No pay = no ticket = Don't go".

durham_girl

janiebquick wrote: »

I thought that the dilemmas on MSE were 'real case scenarios'. This one clearly isn't as ALL schools have to have a policy for dealing with exactly this sort of situation.

It is real, it was originally posted on the Marriages and Families board a few days ago.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2604201