PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING

Hello Forumites! However well-intentioned, for the safety of other users we ask that you refrain from seeking or offering medical advice. This includes recommendations for medicines, procedures or over-the-counter remedies. Posts or threads found to be in breach of this rule will be removed.

THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

13843853873893901013

Comments

  • fuddle
    fuddle Posts: 6,823 Forumite
    Noted y'all :) thanks.

    DD gave me a Mrs Fuddle letter this morning. It was from school. I wasn't best pleased. Last year they asked for my National Insurance number to which I refused giving my reasons. This letter goes into detail about how the school needs to have my NI number so they can request information about my circumstances to enable them to apply for the pupil premium. It seems that my word that my DD won't fit the criteria backed up by how I pay for her school lunches isn't enough because the school requires my NI on their file to check often in case my circumstances change.

    I haven't supplied them with my NI and I won't be either. They don't need my NI number and no amount of data protection policies shoved in my hand will change my mind.

    Am I being over cautious, paranoid and a difficult auld wummin' or would you do the same? It just feels intrusive to me.
  • Cheapskate
    Cheapskate Posts: 1,757
    Name Dropper First Anniversary Photogenic First Post
    Forumite
    Hello,fellow preppers - uni is finally done and I'm just starting to feel human again, so am re-joining you lovely people!

    Fuddle :hello: I certainly wouldn't give school your NI number! I thought pupil premium was for children from families on an array of benefits, including FSM, therefore evidence that you were on these would be enough? Our infant school lost a lot of PP funding when free lunches for all came in; the FSM children no longer had to apply, so school didn't have evidence. Maybe this is what your school is getting at? Very clumsy way of doing it, though!!

    Spent a while reading back, what a good way to spend time today, now that I have the time! I'm so glad I can get back to real life, prepping, cooking, crochet, etc., this summer, then prepping for winter, and the 'C' word...! :rotfl:

    A xo
    Jan 2021 GC £11.70/£300
    2021 mission declutter& clean 53/2021
    Jan NSD 7/31
  • thriftwizard
    thriftwizard Posts: 4,652
    Name Dropper Photogenic First Anniversary First Post
    Forumite
    Hmmm, surprise surprise!

    Really hoping my arrangement with my friend lasts long enough to get some crops out of her kitchen garden. Not that she's in the least bit flaky, but if her ex manages to raise the funds to buy her out in the near future, I think things could move quite swiftly & we'd be out on our ears as he'd apparently want to sell it to a developer ASAP. So we're using up everything that we already have, begging, borrowing & stealing the rest & crossing our fingers for enough time! The ground is very dry, almost completely without humus, and has been rotavated by her ex to neatly chop up all the bindweed & couch grass, which are thriving. Bless him, he's just offered to do it again... Luckily a neighbour was disposing of lots of (good) ground-cover fabric and someone else has offered some more. The middle of the plot is full of spuds which had clearly been too deep for the rotavator, as they're in lovely neat rows; they're not "volunteers" from seed but have come up from massive tubers, so we're leaving those to get on with the job and just earthing them up a bit. If you can call that poor stuff earth... Heartbreakingly there's an enormous mountain of well-rotted manure just around the corner, but it's very well guarded by a pair of elderly but delinquent & powerful goats. I'd need a small army of well-padded volunteers to distract them before I could barrow it all around...

    We have the use of a slightly-broken greenhouse, in which we've installed mini growhouses from the tip, covered in plastic bags from people's new sofas etc. to keep the moisture in. There's a water supply and a couple of butts too. Lots of seedlings coming up! Just about all of them seeds we already had & hadn't used, many of them several years out of date.

    I wish I could have prepped & planned it all, but it's pretty late now (though we had frosts only a couple of weeks ago) so we've just had to get on with it. Keep your fingers crossed for us, that we managed to get some returns on our "investment" of time & energy!
    Angie - GC March 24 24 £486.13/£500: 2024 Fashion on the Ration Challenge: 10/68: (Money's just a substitute for time & talent...)
  • fuddle
    fuddle Posts: 6,823 Forumite
    Cheaps I have been in touch with an old Primary Teacher friend of mine. It seems that because DD hasn't always been at that school they can search for her to see if she has been eligible for FSM at any point in the last 6 years which would trigger a payment for them from the 'Ever 6 FSM'. It appears that to do that they need my NI number.

    They should have been honest with me as opposed to insisting via a cloak and dagger verging on wholier than thou method. It still stands though, DD isn't eligible and never has been eligible they won't get a penny and they aren't getting my NI number. If anything, knowing just makes me more cross!

    Just to be clear I'm not against the pupil premium and if the school could access more money because we have claimed benefits in the past then I really would supply the info they need. My problem is being treated as if I'm a fool. I'm not and woe betide anyone who thinks otherwise ;)

    I think I just have Primary School Senior Management fatigue. I've been dealing with them for many, many years now and need a rest!
  • DigForVictory
    DigForVictory Posts: 11,903
    Name Dropper First Anniversary Photogenic First Post
    Forumite
    edited 11 May 2017 at 5:33PM
    Just rolled in, cued by a Highland archaeologist - Home Bargains are selling 500ml Kilner jars for 79p. (News & store locator link stuck on the Grabbit board too.) Not only are these the genuine classic Kilners of the reasonably small but neither tiny nor vast size, but they're affordable.

    This means I can make "baking kits" & give away the jars at Christmas without wincing at the usual RRP of around £2.50.

    However, home made jam in a real Kilner jar has a special zing. 2l spring top jars also available, but I prefer the jars you can pressure cook.

    Fuddle - I don't blame you declining to hand your NINO over to school! The world has become a graceless place if the DWP check your child is eligible for free school meals thus, dumping the responsibility for rather secure data on schools.
  • fuddle wrote: »
    Am I being over cautious, paranoid and a difficult auld wummin' or would you do the same?

    I'd do the same.

    A NI number can be used to facilitate fraud.

    For that reason, I also wouldn't supply it to any Crapita goons.
  • GreyQueen
    GreyQueen Posts: 13,008
    First Anniversary Name Dropper First Post Photogenic
    Forumite
    :p Don't blame you for refusing to hand your NINO over, fuddle, that's an important piece of personal data and should be guarded carefully. The cheek of the school!

    Anyway, being an awkward wumman is a bad thing?! Ooops, I've been a bad 'un all my life, then.:rotfl:

    Been up to the lottie for an hour after w*rk and am continuing working on the soil fertility. Anything I get my hands on, I ask myself; is it compostable? or, failing that, is it a non-toxic burnable which can go on a bonfire and become potash?

    The second category is including some things like peach stones, wooden forks from the chippy, avocado stones and rinds, citrus peels and anything else I can get my mitts on. Add ground-up eggshells, tea leaves, and other things and I intend to maximise that fertility.

    I'm also saving the roots of things like docks and horsetails, which root deeply and drag up minerals from the subsoil. I'm letting them dry out in the sun (the docks are sitting on the bird-table atm) and, when they're good and dry, will be adding them to the burn bag for the autumn bonfire.

    This was a trick I got from an organic gardening book, the old boys used to do things like sling dock roots up onto a corrugated iron shed roof to dry out before burning.

    A pal who works for a small brewery gets cross if people refer to spent grains as 'waste' - he tells them they're a 'co-product' and the cows love 'em.
    Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness.
    John Ruskin
    Veni, vidi, eradici
    (I came, I saw, I kondo'd)
  • ivyleaf
    ivyleaf Posts: 6,431
    First Anniversary First Post
    Forumite
    I wouldn't be happy about giving the school my NINO either. You've told them DD had never been eligible for FSM so they should take your word for it!

    thriftwizard Good luck with collecting as much produce as possible! Had to smile though at the idea of the goats guarding the manure, sorry :rotfl:
  • thriftwizard
    thriftwizard Posts: 4,652
    Name Dropper Photogenic First Anniversary First Post
    Forumite
    Ivyleaf, I don't begrudge you a bit of a smile! But I'm well-used to goats, grew up with goats next door and at one stage members of my family upcountry ran Britain's biggest goat farm. However, these two were put up for rehoming & adopted by my friend's ex 14 years ago because they'd broken someone's hip. Their sense of humour is a little over the top, shall we say...
    Angie - GC March 24 24 £486.13/£500: 2024 Fashion on the Ration Challenge: 10/68: (Money's just a substitute for time & talent...)
  • Apple_Crumble
    Apple_Crumble Posts: 1,054
    First Post First Anniversary Combo Breaker Debt-free and Proud!
    Forumite
    Hi, I hope that nobody minds if I de-lurk for a minute but I just came across this book and I thought some of you might be interested. The Kindle edition is free at the moment.

    Preppers Garden Handbook: Seedsaving, Food Production, and Prepping Your Garden for Survival (Practical Preppers) Kindle Edition
This discussion has been closed.
Meet your Ambassadors

Categories

  • All Categories
  • 342.5K Banking & Borrowing
  • 249.9K Reduce Debt & Boost Income
  • 449.4K Spending & Discounts
  • 234.6K Work, Benefits & Business
  • 607.1K Mortgages, Homes & Bills
  • 172.8K Life & Family
  • 247.4K Travel & Transport
  • 1.5M Hobbies & Leisure
  • 15.8K Discuss & Feedback
  • 15.1K Coronavirus Support Boards