Strange school letter

Ada_Doom

fsm are a brilliant thing, how and why anyone would begrudge giving a child whose parents have very little money a warm meal in the middle of the day is beyond me. Taxpayers money is wasted on selling Northern Rock to Branson at a half a billion loss, taxpayers money is not wasted on feeding children who may otherwise not get a proper dinner. Get some perspective, and save your ire for targets that deserve it.

poet123

Imo taxpayers money is never wasted when it is spent on children.

Dustykitten

As I understand it none of this is really extra money. The funding formula has just changed to be more weighted in terms of pupils with FSM. Schools will be trying to register as many as possible to protect their previous budgets rather than gaining much extra in the way of funding. Like all things some schools will be 'winners', some 'losers' and some much the same as before with the money just being labelled differently.

bb999

I have no issue with anyone who is entitled to fsm getting them.

What I do object to is the fact that because a school has a high number of pupils entitled to fsm then it is funded more than a school in a different area.

For example, a primary school with 200 pupils and a very low number of fsm gets virtually no extra funding.
A similar sized school but with 50% fsm will get almost £50,000 more. This is not money to pay for the meals, it is extra money.

This means that school 2 can afford lots more books, computers, school trips or whatever the school decides. Where is the fairness in that? It is effectively punishing pupils who go to school 1.

bb999

poet123 wrote: »

Imo taxpayers money is never wasted when it is spent on children.

I totally agree, if it is spent fairly and not favouring some children above others.

Foggster

Harrietxxx wrote: »

I'm happy for my child's school to claim every penny they are entitled to, at the end of the day my child will benefit.

One teacher was telling me the other day that the allowance the school gets for building and maintenance is allocated on pupil numbers. Our school buildings are old and require lots of maintenance, yet we get the same money as the the brand new school down the road, how is that fair?

New schools do not get the same payment for their B&M or the same % of the devolved formula capital (although the govt. more or less wiped this when they came into power).

The new pupil premium was based on FSM students and made up for the shortfall in other budgets that were cut i.e. specialist school funding.

We encourage parents to register for FSM because like others have said it is an indicator used across a range of data to reflect the school and one would hope attracts more support both financially and from the associated services.

gravitytolls

ukjoel wrote: »

Just had a letter from the school encouraging all parents to register their kids for free school meals.

Fair enough however they then go on to say that you should register them EVEN if they dont want free school meals.

Apparently they then get another £488 for every kid on the register.

As a taxpayer and one who has been told that we are not getting a pay rise this year (so effectively getting a cut of 5%) I find this madness.

Its a real struggle to make ends meet and to know that I am now going to be paying more tax as a result of this does my head in.

Has anyone else had one of these or is it just my kids school.

It should do your head in that school shave to beg like this in order to make ends meet, it's outrageous.

Last year and this year, our children's high school are rationing paper, giving old paper with instrutctions to use the blank side, are checking exercise books before issuing another and instructing children to fill in any blanks, effectively having a ppiece of work playing hide and seek amongst the rest.

The primary DH works at, are asking parents to send in unwanted paper, have refused staff access to the photo copier, requests have to be run past the school sec first, who will check the guidelines.

As for your tax pennies, you should be shouting at your MP and anyone who'll listen about the collossal waste of cash on projects completely unrelated to this country, whilst our schools are unable to supply the basic tools to our children!

sneezyboots

School get what is called a pupil premium for 'poorer' children i.e those on free school meals to try and even out the balance of poorer children getting worse results academically. The reason for the letter is just so that children who are eligible for FSM but do not take/want them still get that premium sent to the school. Read here http://www.education.gov.uk/inthenews/inthenews/a00199131/schools-to-get-even-more-pupil-premium-cash-this-year

make_me_wise

ukjoel wrote: »

Just had a letter from the school encouraging all parents to register their kids for free school meals.

Fair enough however they then go on to say that you should register them EVEN if they dont want free school meals.

Apparently they then get another £488 for every kid on the register.

As a taxpayer and one who has been told that we are not getting a pay rise this year (so effectively getting a cut of 5%) I find this madness.

Its a real struggle to make ends meet and to know that I am now going to be paying more tax as a result of this does my head in.

Has anyone else had one of these or is it just my kids school.

The goverment does give this allowance to schools for each child registered with them for free school meals. The school where I work sent out the same letter to the parents of all the kids attending with us. We have few who take them up as we are based in an affluent area, but every little helps, both those families who need this resource and the school.

space_rider

I got the letter too yesterday. I was entitled to FSM as a child but I never claimed it due to the stigma attached to it. At my daughters school they do the biometric finger print thing so at least there isn`t the stigma attached to it.

I don`t object to the letter as there probably are lots of people who are entitled to school meals that don`t register. I know my older children never used it when I was on income support. They went to a school that had few children on the register for FSM and they had friends whose parents were quite well off. If I were on it now then I would register, as the way it`s done at my daughters school means no one needs to know apart from school admin.