Schools demanding money with menaces

pollypenny

jackieblack wrote: »

The school pays.
If a school arranges a trip then they should be prepared to bear the cost from the funds they get from our taxes.
If parents contribute towards the cost, this should be a bonus to the school.
If the school can't afford to run the trip they shouldn't arrange it in the first place.
Schools shouldn't expect parents to put their hands in their pockets every time some teacher thinks a trip out would be a good idea.

Teachers think a 'trip out', a theatre visit, in my case, would be a good idea to bring the class study to life.

A play is not a play until it is on stage. Working with a script, the 'book' is what we can do in school. However, until there is some wonderful extra funding, pupils will not see a work brought to life on stage without parental contributions.

Teachers also give up much of their own time on school visits. The number of times I've been standing outside that school at 1am, waiting for some parent to pick up their child, usually one who towers above me!

jackieblack

pollypenny wrote: »

Teachers think a 'trip out', a theatre visit, in my case, would be a good idea to bring the class study to life.

A play is not a play until it is on stage. Working with a script, the 'book' is what we can do in school. However, until there is some wonderful extra funding, pupils will not see a work brought to life on stage without parental contributions.

As I said, some visits are genuinely educational, sadly some are not.

pollypenny wrote: »

Teachers also give up much of their own time on school visits. The number of times I've been standing outside that school at 1am, waiting for some parent to pick up their child, usually one who towers above me!

Yes, we all know that teachers are the most undervalued, overworked profession in the world, but one would hope that most know what they're getting into before they choose that career.
(However, millions of people regularly do extra, unpaid overtime for various reasons.)

Having said that, there is no excuse for a parent not to collect their child at the arranged time (presuming they are told what that time is)

paulineb_2

jackieblack wrote: »

The school pays.
If a school arranges a trip then they should be prepared to bear the cost from the funds they get from our taxes.
If parents contribute towards the cost, this should be a bonus to the school.
If the school can't afford to run the trip they shouldn't arrange it in the first place.
Schools shouldn't expect parents to put their hands in their pockets every time some teacher thinks a trip out would be a good idea.
I always paid up when asked for my daughter's school visits, and there were many of them, but I really question the educational value of alot of the trips. The children like going because it is a day out of school but, particularly at secondary school, my daughter often came home saying the trip had been 'a waste of time'.
There were a few (the battlefieds trip to France/Belgium for GCSE history was one) she did get alot out of, but I do believe these were in the minority.

Id just like to say, speaking as someone who has a family member who is a teacher, some school funds dont even stretch to pens and pencils, staff (including my relative) having to buy and bring in pens and pencils of their own when supplies run out.

Schools have been affected massively in the budgets they get (its a bit different up here the way schools are run, not by boards of governors) and sometimes there isnt spare cash.

And I agree, maybe there shouldnt be school trips if parents cant afford to bear the cost, but then you'd get some parents complaining that their kids werent being given the option of trips.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Treevo wrote: »

Even adult education is free.:cool:

Beyond level 2? When not eligible for LSC funding?


Considering that schools are theoretically staffed by highly educated individuals in and out of the classroom, it seems strange that so many have no idea how to use persuasive writing styles rather than get parents' backs up.

Nobody likes being talked down to, but some people working in education don't seem to comprehend how annoying it is to feel you are being spoken to as though you are a child. Especially when the subject matter is inaccurate or, my particular bugbear, where there are spelling or grammatical errors.


I would be querying the legal position on this. Something along the lines of 'I would like to clarify the situation, as the law says compulsory trips cannot be charged for, whether the contribution is voluntary...' and see where that takes the discussion.

jackieblack

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

I would be querying the legal position on this. Something along the lines of 'I would like to clarify the situation, as the law says compulsory trips cannot be charged for, whether the contribution is voluntary...' and see where that takes the discussion.

I suggested in post #22 that the OP should ask to see the school's Charging and Remissions Policy.
She would then have the facts with which to open such a discussion.

valk_scot

paulineb wrote: »

Id just like to say, speaking as someone who has a family member who is a teacher, some school funds dont even stretch to pens and pencils, staff (including my relative) having to buy and bring in pens and pencils of their own when supplies run out.

Schools have been affected massively in the budgets they get (its a bit different up here the way schools are run, not by boards of governors) and sometimes there isnt spare cash.

I agree, our school budget is allocated by the local council and it's very tight, if a teacher wants even an extra pencil she has to go and buy it herself,ditto arts supplies, any extra items for displays and all the odds and sods that brighten a classroom up. Ever since I discovered this I've made a point of taking in anything that I think might be useful to the school, like outgrown Duplo and Lego, leftover fabric and yarn, spare garden tools and when my BIL moved office I took in reams of old style headed paper for scrap and a full carrier bag of pencils, pens and such, all with the defunct company logo but no-one cared about that one bit. Even things like these packets of unwanted seeds you often get with gardening magazines are gratefully recieved by our school, especially if they're sunflower seeds. Old curtains and sheets for fancy dress outfits and stage use are also popular. Oh yes, and books for the library.

Not every school is a fee paying school, after all, or has an active PTA to fundraise for all of this, or a board of governers with a slush fund of money to dip into. My kids' primary school is an excellent one, well run and does brilliantly by the kids but they get the same council budget per head as everyone else, there's precious little left over for frills like trips unless the parents cough up for them.

Our PTA fundraises too to help with the cost of trips amongst other things but there's never enough and as family budgets get tighter so does the extra money coming into the school. There's more and more families that are simply unable to pay the extra for trips etc. I'm fortunate in that I still can and if £1 of the £3 I sent in last week for a trip helps subsidise the bus for the child of a harder up family well, I'm fine with that, I'd rather that than none of the children went.

I hear someone at the back saying that the school budget should be set higher then? Yes well, of course, but where's the money coming from? Higher council tax? Close down the old folks' day centre?

SingleSue

pollypenny wrote: »

Teachers think a 'trip out', a theatre visit, in my case, would be a good idea to bring the class study to life.

A play is not a play until it is on stage. Working with a script, the 'book' is what we can do in school. However, until there is some wonderful extra funding, pupils will not see a work brought to life on stage without parental contributions.

Teachers also give up much of their own time on school visits. The number of times I've been standing outside that school at 1am, waiting for some parent to pick up their child, usually one who towers above me!

I remember a fair few going out in the dead of night to either drop off or pick up eldest son for a school trip....it seems so weird being there in the wee hours and scary waiting for the coach to arrive, I've been known to be sat in my car brandishing my crutch or walking stick as a just in case :rotfl:

Lunar_Eclipse

balletshoes wrote: »

My DD is year 7 and has had no class trips this school year. i just assume its more a primary school thing.

I think it depends more on the school than the age of the children.

My Y8 daughter is going on 6 school trips this year. All are optional, although 5 are curriculum linked. Examples include going to the theatre to watch a Shakespeare play, a visit to the Eden project for Geography, French trip to France etc.

It is significantly more than my Y6 daughter who I think has two: a residential and a day trip, although she does have a handful of people visiting the school to cover topics such as WW2 (History), the Life Education bus (PSHE), travelling theatre (English) etc.

pollypenny

jackieblack wrote: »

Yes, we all know that teachers are the most undervalued, overworked profession in the world, but one would hope that most know what they're getting into before they choose that career.
(However, millions of people regularly do extra, unpaid overtime for various reasons.)
)

Thank you for your support! :cool:

Indeed many people do unpaid overtime. I wonder how many are slagged off for it, though?

jackieblack

pollypenny wrote: »

Thank you for your support! :cool:

Indeed many people do unpaid overtime. I wonder how many are slagged off for it, though?

I wouldn't dream of slagging anyone off for doing unpaid overtime.

However, in my experience, and generalising broadly (because I do know some teachers who accept this as part of their job without ever moaning about it, and I support these people enormously) teachers, as a profession, spend more time making sure everyone knows how hard done by they are than any other profession I know.
(I can only speak from my own experience and have friends and family members who are teachers.)