Schools expect parents to pay, pay, pay

hillside_2

Just re-read my posting my spelling and keyboard skills are a discrace. but I still hope you understood my point.Another benefit is that you get to know whats going on in youre school and your children get a great feeling of community. which cant be bad.,

jellyhead

i agree, there's a lot to be gained by joining the PTA. the more members they have the better, and if you're not happy with any of the ways money is raised you can stamp your feet in protest at the meetings lol!

i don't begrudge paying anything the school asks for but i suppose i might think differently if i had more than one child at the school. for me everything the school does is cheaper entertainment/education for young spud than i could provide and i think it's good for him to be going places with the school sometimes rather than as an only child with his parents, much more fun for him. i couldn't find the money to take him to see shakespeare or gilbert and sullivan as a family, or even the panto every year and he really enjoys that kind of thing, the film nights are great and the tuck shop i help run at PTA events is really cheap. summer and xmas fayres are a laugh and he gets to play on the dance mats/eye toy/karaoke or whatever hubby sets up with a load of kids his own age. the stalls hubby and i run at these events only brings in a max of £30 between us but it's all a giggle and the more parents there are running entertainment stalls the more the kids enjoy the whole fayre experience, it's not just about squeezing money out of parents for cakes they've baked themselves. a lot of the kids buying 25p glow sticks from me are really chuffed because they have never been able to spend £2.50 on one from a street vendor during fireworks, xmas lights events etc.

a lot of the trips, events etc. are staffed by teachers etc. giving up their own time, they do so because they think what they're doing is good for the children, they're not doing it just to annoy cash strapped parents, they realise that for many kids these cheap subsidised events are the only time they will go to the theatre etc.

there aren't many charity collections but those there are are really important and i do think kids should be made aware of how pampered and cossetted their lives are - i want my son to grow up to be the kind of adult who gives to charity, so even though i'd rather give more effectively through gift aid it does no harm to send a pound in for the charity collections, it's only the cost of buying a coffee while i'm shopping in town. i notice that any parents complaining about the money the school asks for don't begrudge the newsagent the money for their cigarettes.

anyway, we've gone off topic a bit - the original poster wasn't moaning about the money but was more upset about the methods of collection used, i think. i can't say i blame her, if my school had similar methods i'd be equally upset.

Sarahsaver

before_hollywood wrote:

sorry to sound tight, but it's your kids education.
a lot of the time, they only get pushed for stuff like that if they are really good at it.

I would say a lot of kids get pushed for stuff because their parents pay for it - how many of us know a child prodigy who is a 'natural' ballet dancing, violin playing, horseriding, fundraising legend in their own playground!
We would all perhaps pay whatever necessary if we HAD it, but when, like me, you have 3 kids, and they tell you they 'need £1 for red nose day at school', thats £3. Not a lot to some, but a lot to me when my grocery budget is £20 a week.
My kids wanted more but I had to put my foot down and say charity begins at home.
When the Tsunami happened there were events at school and my kids saved their pennies from their money boxes, they did it off their own backs rather than being told to. That meant a lot more.
I think it is very dubious for a school to insist on payment for swimming lessons if a child can already swim!

jellyhead

i agree sarah, i think being charged for swimming lessons is awful. if your kids were at my school you wouldn't have paid £3 for red nose day, you'd have paid the family rate of £1.50 (and you'd have had 2 weeks notice of it at least).

i think this is popular with everyone, just one kid in the family makes the payment or the parent pays at the office, no kids seem to be upset by not actually having money to hand in themselves as long as they know it's been handed in. some mums at our school have 3 or 4 kids there at the same time. one last week told her 4 kids she was paying at the office because she didn't have any change, kids were all happy and didn't know she only paid one pound at the office, she told the office staff she couldn't afford any more than that, school said every penny helps and gladly accepted her smaller donation and it was handled discreetly, no kids were embarassed by not paying up, i only know about it because she told me. someone said they had prefects collecting money at their school - if her kids had been at that school they'd have been really embarassed, either that or she'd have had to have found the amount of money requested to save her kids from feeling awkward but she'd have had to miss out on whatever else she needed the money for - in this case she was buying electricity (she has one of those expensive payment meters). when there are bigger trips the school do weekly payment schemes starting months in advance. even panto trips need payment schemes, especially for the mums paying for 4 kids.

it's easy for me to say i don't mind paying out, i only have one child but i also think the way schools handle money collection has a lot to do with it.

kazd

Your schools should do what ours did, rent the hall out to Rosemary Connolly classes and then send the advertising leaflets home in the children's bookbags!!!!

Poppy9

jellyhead wrote:

yep, i don't think a primary school fayre needs alcohol. there are always a few bottles at ours but they're donated through choice, they're not asked for. i can't imagine school requesting bottles, a lot of KS2 kids walk to school alone, what if they drank it on the way? you can't really get anything bottled cheaply either, unless you got tesco value ketchup.

Sorry Jellyhead this did make me laugh the site of little ones drinking a flagon of cider on their way to school. I know someone will say 'well I remember this happening in X' .

As previously mentioned we have a bottle stall £1 a ticket gauranteed a bottle. If your lucky a nice bottle of wine, else it could be little or big bottle of pop, water, shampoo, bubble bath,sauce or even a can of pop. As most of the kids in our school come by bus its a problem of them carrying glass. Usually parents if delivering or collecting any day leading upto the fayre drop it into (not literally if glass) the collection box in the school. That way nobody sees you dropping off that dodgy bottle of blue nun or returning the naff bottle you won in the previous fayre. This stall lasts just 30 mins max and raises about £400. Quite where all these bottles come from we don't know as there are less than 200 kids in the school.

RE kids seeing books at the book fayre. Can't say I have ever had a problem with 'must have this book' nor have I heard parents complaining about. The teachers just take a class up at a time to look at the books. With the infants I don't think they even know they are for sale they just bring the leaflet home. Juniors are a lot more sussed and tell you they have seen a fab book but quite honestly if they are brought up to know they don't get everything they ask for they don't really bother asking. they might hint like mad though I just tell them to use their birthday money or xmas money if they love it sooooooo much. Funny how this clarifies their position on the book Nearer xmas I just say sorry no can do as xmas is coming and is an expensive time. Nice then when they find it in their xmas stocking.

kazd

Our school does the same re the book fayre and it really hacks me off. I have asked if we could have a brochure so that we can take our time to choose a decent book for the children but was told that it would take up to much of the teachers time! duh thats what the pta are for, we have a bit of a them and us situation at our school.

I can't believe that none of you picked up on my Rosemary Connolly comment, I was absoloutely flabergasted when they sent the leaflets home in the bookbags. Especially as the numbers are rising with children as young as six and seven wanting to go on diets.

jellyhead

maybe if it was marketed as an exercise class rather than a diet class it wouldn't be too bad. mind you so many kids are obese nowadays that there's probably more good in stressing the importance of losing weight than the harm which might be done to children who don't need to lose weight. i'm having trouble finding clothes for my son, all the shops seem to only make clothes for fat children nowadays! if diet information is given with an emphasis on healthy weight (e.g. the range of BMI considered healthy) rather than with an emphasis on being a boy shaped stick insect with plastic breasts (ie info given by school rather than the media) i don't think it can do much harm, especially nowadays where children learn that being too thin leads to premature ageing lol!

does your school not have a weekly newsletter? ours does, it's done in microsoft publisher (by the head i think, i wish he'd ask a teacher to check it for spelling and grammatical errors first lol!). all announcements or items of interest are put into the newsletter rather than having lots of leaflets about individual things. fewer kids are likely to be influenced by news items that that i think, they're more interested in the weekly menu printed on the back of the newsletter! specific letters about things requiring payment or written consent come in individual letters but most news items aren't really important enough to warrant individual leaflets.

JULIE

I must be very lucky with my childrens primary..... we do get asked to bring a bottle ( of anything) for a mufti day towards the xmas fayre...19p lemonade doesn't really stretch the budget!!
We don't pay for the swimming or music lessons after school,

world book day isn't too bad as we get given a slip that the children write on as to what book they'd like along with a brochure of a few other books however theres no obligation and if its a mufti day for any reason the children aren't policed for money and can still take part even if they don't contribute money/cakes etc......
we're also £1.00 a family

kazd

I have the same problem with my children's clothes. I got told once that Next work on the 50th percentile and M&S work on the 90th. My youngest son was 9lb 2oz when he was born and was on the 90th, now he is less than the 9th, he's just a little dot.