Have the school done the right thing even though it punishes the wrong set of people ?

I never said the rep was right

I said that other parents, who chose not to be involved and chose not to do anything, as ALSO to blame. Leaving only one person in charge because you can't be bothered to help, or you think it's beneath you, means you are at fault too.

Having a team, even a small one, instead of one individual - who can make mistakes, who might be stupidly inefficient, who might be ignorant, who might be spiteful, who might have very strange ideas of what is right, is a recipe for disaster.

I doubt the hoodie supplier gave her any authority to act on their behalf, so legally she is a reseller. As she was not registered for VAT, she was not doing anything wrong legally by spreading the VAT across all the hoodies, although I personally think she should have charged it only to those parents ordering adult sizes. However, if the parents who received hoodies chose to take her to court, they clearly have a case to get their money back as the hoodies supplied are not what they ordered.

I still think those ordering adult hoodies should have stepped in at the time and said that it was their responsibility to pay the extra vat, not shared by everyone.

Surely there’s a local print company that will take all the hoodies and add one name underneath, then do another extra hoodie? If you explain the situation they may not charge too much for it? Worth exploring.

The mum who complained to the class rep ordered a child size hoody for her son so she had actually paid for her child's hoody in full. It was the class rep's unilateral decision that the VAT costs should be split between all the parents, not just the parents who ordered the adult size.

It's probably unreasonable to complain about inefficiency in a volunteer, but you can complain about a deliberately malicious act directed at a child due to the behaviour of the mother (who just questioned being asked for more money that she didn't actually owe because she ordered a child's hoodie which doesn't attract VAT).

The reps an idiot. What she should have done is leave the child's name on there as a class member (correct) but just refund and not order the hoody for the parent unwilling to pay (although if you order an adults size you should probably pay adult prices). Then give the adult refusing to pay the name and design and let them order theirs separately

If they wanted to make a point.

However, having organised several collections in the last however many years, I know some parents will put in £25 and some will put in none. We always sign the card from everyone but if the argument played out over £2.57 then just, realistically, no one has ever put in equal for everything.

What a mess though. School did the right thing.

You don't need to justify yourself. If the rep had made a mistake (like forgetting vat for adult hoodies) that would have been forgiveable. To eliminate a child's name on the class hoodie because you got a beef with his mum is imo unforgiveable. It's just cruel.

Agree, thats disgusting that the parent did that. Agree noinr ahohld be allowed to wear the hoodies. To allow them is basically like the whole of the school year bullying one child. Imagine if they committed suicide over this, extreme, but not outside the realms of possibility.

Oh that’s so bad she left them off. She should have at least communicated that to the school so they could advise.

I think I would have to look at what can be done to rectify it as I totally understand the schools position. But equally it’a a part of school life that kids look forward to. And also all the parents have paid for a hoody their kids can’t wear.
I would contact the print company to see if they can add a name on. Even if it means everyone paying a few pounds more. At the end of the day it’s about keeping the drama from the kids. Hope you get it sorted.

I do think they’ve done the right thing. The class rep must feel foolish as hell!

That is appalling behaviour by the rep. I can’t believe anyone’s trying to justify it. It would be one thing to decide that parent wasn’t paying for a jumper and not ordered them one, and another to completely remove that child’s name from the jumper. As if they never existed. What a nasty thing to do. That’s bullying and the school had no choice but to take the action they’ve taken and not facilitate the bullying being allowed to continue in school time. Wow.

I'm with you, OP. It was extremely petty of the class rep and tantamount to bullying. It's right that they're banned, unless they can first be remedied.

True. Some years we've done them like a list but they tend to choose the names inside the numbers of the year now.

Why?

It’s tricky but the school should foot the bill to reorder the lot as they should have better overseen the design before it was printed. They are being fair in their current approach but it doesn’t really resolve the issue and ideally something still needs to be done to avoid such waste.

My contribution was practical. I would help to prep for an event and clean up afterwards, as I knew the PTA committee were exhausted at that point. As a single parent I would have to bring my child and I always made sure they did their bit too. So I was bothered always. But the comments were interesting - their husbands did nothing but turn up at events and pay; the mums would comment how surprised they were that my child would happily sweep the floor of the hall (whilst theirs were just playing outside); others would do nothing (not criticise but not interested). A village takes all sorts. I did what I could do.

But the child will know that no one else’s hoody has their name on, and the whole point of the hoody thing is that it is a record of the whole cohort, which means no ones name is missing.A bit like playing cards when one of the cards in the pack is missing, it defeats the purpose.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the VAT 'issue' probably wouldn't have been so much of an issue if these parents didn't have their previous beef.

The mum who complained about the VAT was likely using it as an easy excuse to kick off and the rep/mum who removed the kid's name from the jumpers clearly did so as a dig at the mum without considering the wider implications.

Pretty pathetic on all counts tbh. School have likely done the right thing though, as shitty as it is for the rest of the kids.

oh you are one of those parents.

Not only refusing to lift a finger, but complaining about the way it's done, and then accusing those who give up their time to be "bullies who think they are gods gifts.*

To go back to the example I was discussing, if you think communications should be also done by emails, then do it yourself. It's easy. You take the Whatsapp info sent by one rep (you don't even have to create it, just copy and paste), you contact the school to have the email addresses of parents who accept or want to receive emails, and you send them the emails with the relevant info.
You receive the replies and you communicate them to the rep, via whatsapp or other.

Simple. See how it's done instead of moaning?

The problem is that some parents will complain about the communication, but will never offer to manage a different/ better way. So who think they are god gifts too important to deal with petty details like this? The rep working or the lazy parent?

Sounds like you’re the drama in yours.

what? Every child got a yearbook and hoodie - of course they did. We wouldn’t have left a child off like in the OP’s case. We’d have estimated a size for the hoodie and asked the teacher for the name if we hadn’t had a response from the parent. The yearbook we asked for photos from everyone so their child would have featured in many of them but they would have missed the opportunity to submit their own photos. Like I said, it was a lot of work managing all this for 60 children but we’d always put the children first even if a parent was difficult for any reason.

I’m not exactly rolling in money, nor do I enjoy waste. Oh and I also hate any kind of school raffle, parent pressured money making scheme…However, I would be willing to pay for another hoodie to be done for the child’s name to be included.

Why on earth did they decide to leave one child out? That’s horrendous and it’s the type of thing that will likely really bug a child of that age.

If it were my own child left off the hoodie then there would be war.