School Fees!!

niceday999

Robothell wrote: »

I must say I'm shocked with this - is access to education not supposed to be free? Am I just being naive?

I can see the point of charging for stationery (if they supply all consumables needed) but the rest just sounds like they're chancing their arms. Unless this is a fee for a private place in the school or for other "extras" like meals or trips or something I wouldn't pay it.

any of the "free" secondary schools i would not send my kids to should hell freeze over. If they have the ability to go to grammar school, why on earth would i mind paying "voluntary fees". you can not put a price on a good education !!!!

tessybear

I pay the voluntary school fee. It does annoy me that some don't pay when they can. Why should I pay for their children to use the school minibus etc. At my daughters school those children who are entitled to free school meals don't pay and I think that this is far. I am sure most people can manage to forgo a few take away meals, pints of bear or ciggys to pay the fee after all in the grand scheme of things it isn't that much each month.

suited-aces

Not long out of school myself, my school charged about £120 a year 5 years ago. I wouldn't let mum pay it. The reason was that uniforms cost a complete fortune, were only sold by one place, and as a 6th form prefect I witnessed the VP (whose daughter just happened to work for the sole supplier) the parents of 1st years that their kids would "stand out for the wrong reasons" if any part of the uniform was bought from anywhere else.

I wrote a letter (signed by mum) telling the school to consider the extortionate mark up on the uniform as our "voluntary" contribution, and copied it to local MLAs.

Robothell

niceday999 wrote: »

any of the "free" secondary schools i would not send my kids to should hell freeze over. If they have the ability to go to grammar school, why on earth would i mind paying "voluntary fees". you can not put a price on a good education !!!!

I agree - you can't put a price on good education. But the schools have put a price on it (some of them a few hundred quid a term by looking at this thread).

My question is a serious one - if your child has been awarded a place in a school on their merit then the ELBs are supposed to fund that. Why should anyone pay these fees, unless of course you are specifically paying for your child to go to a better school (i.e. on a private basis) or funding an extracurricular activity? Anything extra is just that - a voluntary contribution to fund extracurricular activites or better books or suchlike. It should not be going on essential buildings and staff wages like some are stating here.

I passed my 11 plus with one of the highest scores in NI and I earned my place in grammar school. I asked my dad about this and the school did ask for a contribution each year (I think it was £80 back then and he paid it each year) but it was voluntary and there was certainly no "naming and shaming" of those who didn't pay as there were a variety of income brackets included in my school.

Mistral001

Did anybody see the "Reel History of Britain" with Melvyn Bragg last night. It was basically a history lesson on what aspects of the British education system was like before the 11+ was abolished in the 1960's. Makes you think.

alex21

I have to pay £395 a year for my son at local grammar. I had to find that as a single parent on income support which the school was aware of as I went through them when applying for uniform grant. At no point did I think it was optional.

GoFigure

A local grammar school which a friend's child attends recently had a meeting with parents about their voluntary fee. Apparently almost 50% of parents were not paying it and most also didn't understand what it was used for (which perhaps explains the low payment rate). It was explained that in that particular school the voluntary fee helped to fund after school activities such as clubs and sports. I believe it was brought in by the school that those parents who chose not pay the voluntary fee would in future be unable to have their children benefit from such additional/supplementary after-school activities.