Schools expect parents to pay, pay, pay

Haggy_3

As a governor and PTA member of my daughters school I know exactly how dodgy a tightrope the finances are.

BUT the real key here is to take action. Talk to your head, talk to the chair of governors...tell them in reasonable terms your concerns. We are all parents and some people cannot afford all these demands. That said it is always a real effort to get parents involved - and it would be nice for parents to realise that even if they cannot give money then they can (nearly always) donate their time.

I am shortly going to talk to the governing board about putting a limit on the number of outside charity collections that are made. Often, with things like (the very worthy) Red Nose Day or Tsunami appeal money is better donated by the parents who can (in true money saving style) use gift aid to make it worth more.

But do try to work with the school...it will help.

Haggy

bargainhuntersupre

I have thois as well. Our local secondary school ahs around £750k spare in the bank as reported by our local paper yet are always still asking for more money

The primary my 2nd child attends charges £16 a term for swimming- in the schools own pool . Swimming was free at the local baths when i was at school- what changed?

I have paid for red noses x2, red hair colour, £3 for the kids to be allowed to wear them at schoiol and more change for the collection they are doing
The primary raised nealy £5k at summer fete and another £3k at Xmas one. Its getting a bit much now

bethscott1970

I feel exactly the same. I don't have a problem helping out at school events nor do I object to donating time and money for school events however the main problem isn't them, it's the endless charity events being done. I have 11 year old twins at primary school and a 12 year old at secondary and so far since august we've had about 10 letters informing us of various charity fundraising in school. £1 each today to wear non uniform (or face ridicule from peers), £4 each for the "market" in school for red nose day (plus various items I donated for their raffles today), last month it was Lepra in school scaring kids with stories of leprosy (sp?) (daughter is still having nightmares). We've had sponsered silences, walks, reading and dances, all for non-school charities but the collections are done at the primary are done at the same time as the register so every kid in the class knows who hasn't taken part. We live in a rural area, with 1 house next door and no relatives within 350 miles so who is supposed to sponser them?

IvanOpinion

Busybee
Just in case you are concerned about my mention of PTA, I was not getting at you or anyone else, just making a general comment. The PTA in many schools is very poorly supported to the effect that my brother, who used to chair his own gave it up because in his words 'if the other parents can't give a !!!!!! then why the f**k should I' (shows the exasperation from someone that never normally swears). He had to phone me on several occasions to help move stuff, because the parents of the children were too lazy to get off their fat behinds and help.

It now appears the school pays professional people to move the same staging - the weird thing is that both men that they use have children at the school and never turned up to help when asked by the PTA - however it is different when they are being paid for it. What a waste of valuable resources.

bethscott1970 wrote:

We've had sponsered silences, walks, reading and dances, all for non-school charities but the collections are done at the primary are done at the same time as the register so every kid in the class knows who hasn't taken part.

I can understand sponsored dances and possibly sponsored reading but I have never managed to understand things such as sponsored walks and worst of all sponsored silences. Why don't they get the kids to do something useful ... how about sponsored lifting of litter from the local park, sponsored weeding of gardens for OAPs, sponsored cleaning for OAPs (or better still their own bedrooms), sponsored painting of fences, sponsored car wash etc. etc. Anything that is in someway productive. Let me guess the bleeding heart loony left liberal do-gooders have got in and claimed insurance problems or child labour issues ... next they won't be allowing you to take pencil cases to school ... oh sorry I forgot that has already happened ..see here for the full pathetic story

I remember doing all this sort of thing years ago as a cub scout ... good old 'bob-a-job week' ... you used to have to work for your shilling, nowadays they just knock the door and expect you to give them some money.

We live in a rural area, with 1 house next door and no relatives within 350 miles so who is supposed to sponser them?

Woo hoo at least thats one kid that ain't going to interrupt my viewing of 'Stargate' ... and just because the series has ended it does not mean you can interrupr my enjoyment of 'STar Trek Enterprise'.

Ivan

shrek101

We have just shelled out today £2, £1 each for each daughter for no RND no school clothes. 50p goes to RND and 50p for a local child who got struck down by a virus and now she is handicapped and needs sport equipment as she was a sporty person when she wasnt handicapped.

I don't begrudge the shelling out either, and I realise that in most cases the fund raising has some merits. Its just that one can only shell out so much, and when one is made to feel guilty if you don't it does leave some resentment when you are on a limited budget.

Prudent

culpepper wrote:

I remember book day which involved my daughter and the rest of her class aged about 5 being taken by the teacher into the hall at hometime and let to 'choose' books which mummy would pay for when she arrived.
I was furious as we had very little money and my daughter wanted a book of notelets costing £5 ,I told her no we couldnt afford them but we'd look in the poundshop on saturday which we did and found some she liked equally as much.
I do think sometimes that teachers think they are on very poor money and everybody else is richer than they are and can easily afford to fork out.

School book fairs often offer very poor value for money compared to many of the cheap bookshops/supermarkets. The schools do benefit from the profits in that they are allowed a percentage of the profit back in books.

I work in three schools. Two of them are in areas where many of the parents experience economic hardship. I feel that some of the children miss out because of the cost of the book fairs.

As a single mum on a tight budget myself I do not always let my child choose from the book fair / book club leaflet. I do buy her loads of books, story tapes etc from charity shops and sales. Sales at schools are particularly good value. If a new book by a favourite author comes out I usually buy it as somewhere like tesco.

Poppy9

You really must to talk to your school head if they are placing such a huge burden re charity collections on you. Our head is fantastic even though our school covers an affluent area not all parents are flush - though some are loaded he tries to limit charity collection to 1 per term. As I previously mentioned the giving of money is never monitored at our school. If people don't give no one knows unless the kids tell their friends.

With regard to the school book fairs - agree usually poor value for parents although sometimes they have popular books on offer (i.r. HP thick hardback for £5). The better book fairs give the school back in books the same value that parents/kids spend. We have about 3/4 book fairs a year. Again totally voluntary. Kids are taken up during the day to see books if they like they can bring money into school during the week. Else parents can turn up after school and buy. I tell my child if I cannot afford to buy a book as I want her to realise the value of money. If its near birthday or xmas and she has been given money or vouchers as a gift I tell her she can use this to buy a book at the fair if she wants. Most of the books she goes for Jacq Wilson are the same price in WHS so ok value.

Busybee

I wasn't getting at you re PTA helping it was just as I was saying about fundraising another vent came to mind that out of a school with 200 kids only 7 parents help. Really p'd off at valentine disco. Only 3 of us could come that night. We were trying to sell kids sweets, man the doors etc. A group of mums of infant kids were sitting in the foyer as they didn't want to leave their little ones. No offers of help forthcoming so I asked if one of them would please take the entrance money (a very reasonable £1 which included a soft drink and small bag of sweets). "oh no came the reply".

jellyhead

i think the schools could sometimes be a bit more thoughtful about the way they collect money, ours is a lot better than most according to all the posts here, maybe some of the methods used at our school could be adopted in others, suggest it to the head :-)

we have 2 charity mufti days a year and a free one. money is handed in to the teacher but there's one amount for a single child and another for a family of children at the same school - it's assumed that the eldest child in the family will be paying (the family cost is only a little more than the cost for a single child) so there's no big fuss made about the children who don't hand money over to their teacher, another child in the family might have made the donation or the parent might have donated at the school office instead if they only had a note and wanted change. i don't think anyone is forced to pay, contributions are voluntary although most do pay there will always be some who don't pay but don't wear uniform, but there's no point embarassing the child - they have no control over their parents finances, it's a primary school. our school would never embarass any child by demanding money or telling them to wear uniform if they're not prepared to pay. children love dressing up for red nose day, all the red hair and wigs are good fun. there are 450 kids in our school and £324 was raised for comic relief today.

i don't know why some of you pay for swimming, i thought it was part of the curriculum? we get 6 terms of weekly swimming and the kids have to be shipped there in buses but nobody has to pay for it. music lessons are mainly the recorder but you can buy a cheap one from school for £3.50. other lessons (cello, etc.) have to be paid for and insturments hired or provided but they're outside of school hours and are good value compared to private lessons so i'm told, not many kids take part so there's no upset among those who can't afford it.

the book fair is advertised in the school newsletter and on the notice board but it's up to parents whether they go into the hall after school or not, most parents don't. scholastic books aren't cheap but there are specials where 2 or 3 books are parcelled together for 2 or 3 pounds. i bought a bunnies tell the time book this week for £1.99 and it came with a free sticker book, the cheap books are on the bottom shelf. i was happy with that, and happy for spud to buy a lemony snicket book as he'd have bought it anyway. he used his world book day voucher towards it. the posters said school get up to 60% of profits back to spend on books, they announced in assembly today they were able to choose £400 worth of books for the library so i guess lots of parents must have attended the book fair despite it being very low key and no fuss being made. the school wouldn't dream of letting kids look at the books before getting picked up by their parents, that's just really unkind. even better though is when they give out catalogues for 'the book people' - those books are heavily discounted, fantastic value.

the xmas panto is great value, the ticket price is less than the usual child price and includes the coach. it means kids get to see panto without their parents having to pay/sit through it lol! i know a few kids who never pay the voluntary contribution but our school doesn't chase it, they'd never stop a child from taking part in anything. other theatre trips take place outside of school, usually a sat afternoon matinee. last year was pirates of penzance, this year is the mikado. teachers take the kids in, you just drop them off outside the theatre and collect them again, all for the price of a cinema ticket. KS2 kids also go to the 'shakespeare under the stars' at the castle but it's only £4 a ticket, again it means kids get to experience shakespeare without the parents having to pay or watch, those who want to can volunteer as a helper and watch for free, i did last year and it was fab.

there's an xmas fayre and a summer one but both are really cheap and good fun, lots of parents appreciate the chance to see santa for peanuts, the gift is only choccies/sweets but it's nice for the children whose parents can't afford to go see santa in a shopping centre etc. there's never any pressure on kids to b ring in tombola prizes, school just asks for donations in the newsletter and parents take them to the office, no pressure on individual kids.

there's a cinema night too but it's always a current popular film and tickets are only £2.50, again it's cheaper than seeing it elsewhere. the discos (2 a year) are also really cheap and i sold glow sticks for just 25p each at the last one (bought them off ebay for 7.5p each). everyone was surprised at how cheap it all was, although the PTA needs to raise funds the emphasis is on all kids having a good time for less than the cost of similar entertainment elsewhere.

only the panto and shakespeare are compulsory (and kids still go if they haven't paid), the rest is all done through the school office so the kids aren't put under any pressure to bring in money or buy tickets for things all the time. generally though parents always appreciate all the events put on by the PTA, much cheaper than taking your kids to the cinema, etc. some parents complain about all the charity collections though, but having a set amount per family and also allowing payment to the office the child doesn't even need to know if their parents haven't paid up. having discretionary payment arrangements like this also allows some parents to make a token payment if they can't afford the whole amount, e.g. some parents on benefits will only pay for one child to go to the panto if they can't afford to pay for all 4. the PTA funds the rest.

jellyhead

by the way poppy, i don't like the idea of a valentine disco - they're primary school kids, is the school encouraging romance between them? :eek:

Savvy_Sue

I would definitely have objected strongly if there'd ever been any suggestion of compulsion to bring in a bottle for an adult tombola. There must be at least one parent in any school with issues of alcohol dependency.