Why do you hate the PTA?

If it was during a meeting… presumably the PTA liaison and indeed all other members would have witnessed this exchange!

If they did speak to you like that I hope you reported them to the head teacher or whichever teacher was the PTA liaison.

I work in education in an advisory role with many different schools. Sometimes there are misconceptions about PTAs arising from a lack of understanding about their structure and the regulations they are governed by. PTAs are charitable organisations and are a separate legal entity from the school - they don't come under the school's governance and are independent from school and from school staff. Any PTAs with an income of over £5K (most of them) are registered charities. This means they have a legally required governance structure, and a constitution they are required to work within. There are rules about how funds raised can be spent; for instance they cannot spend money on costs for which the local authority is responsible. They cannot raise money ostensibly for one thing and then spend it on something else. Etc.

On paper it is all great with clear decision making pathways. The PTA officers are the group's charity trustees, and legally have the final decision on how they spend their money, In practice I think this can sometimes appear from the outside like a few people making all the funding and event decisions while other volunteers are sidelined. But that's built in to the legal organisational structure.

In theory a PTA should consult with the school about what is needed and how funds should be allocated. Some PTAs do this really well, with others I have come across situations where it is practically war between the PTA chair and the Headteacher.

Personalities make all the difference. Like any small community organisation or charity, a PTA is made or marred by the people involved in it, and by their working relationships with school staff and with other parents. I have certainly come across 'PTA mean girls' over the years - certain women seem to make it their identity/substitute career and like any group it can get cliquey. I am sure there are also PTAs still operating on a SAHP model who are inconsiderate to working parents. And there are those where the PTA officers don't understand their own governance and organisational parameters very well. But I've come across others which provide a really positive experience for those involved and some legendary annual events. One or two personalities in this sort of group seems to make all the difference to whether the group is a force for good in the school, or a negative and scratchy experience.

For anyone interested, PTAs have an umbrella organisation 'ParentKind', which has a lot of useful info, ideas and resources for how to run a PTA well: https://www.parentkind.org.uk/the-ultimate-pta-guide-to-governance

In front of the entire PTA meeting someone said your ideas are “totally shit” and not to bother speaking. Right

Yep. That’s what they said.
Hence why I said “I WAS on” I’m not on the PTFA anymore because it’s too much stress

It sounds like being on the PTA isn’t for you

@ToffeeCrabApple

to be clear… in PTA meeting, someone said this to you

I was told my ideas weren’t welcome and they were “totally shit”. I was also told to not bother speaking up if that was all I contributed.

I hate mine because it’s a lot of faff for not a lot of results.
The PTFA in our case is always “raising money” but doing it in the least effective way possible. I was on our PTFA for 3 years and I saw firsthand the cliques that had formed with the “inner circle” being the officers and all the rest were general members. The general members were only given things to do that benefitted the inner circle, led by the chair, who was formidable.
I tried to suggest cheap/easy things (a school disco, a cake sale/cake raffle, own clothes days etc) all of which would be either very cheap or totally free, and got sniffed at. I was told my ideas weren’t welcome and they were “totally shit”. I was also told to not bother speaking up if that was all I contributed.
Then 2 days later it was “let’s do a mufti day” and everyone fell over themselves to tell the chair what an amazing idea it was and maybe we could theme the clothes to the classroom colours. (Of course my son got purple, which he has nothing in)
Our PTFA also “organises” the Christmas fayre, by which I mean I end up pulling the banner out and changing the vinyl lettering, I advertise for stalls, I beg borrow and steal everyone’s Christmas table clothes “to make it look Christmassy” and plead with the local florists to come and do a wreath making class. Another general member would buy in the food/drinks, make the mulled wine and get all the snacks. Someone else would get all the prizes and gifts for Santas grotto. The chairs DH was “persuaded” to be Santa. (we had to keep him stocked up on mulled wine ALL DAY LONG) and someone else wrapped everything. Then the chair and the rest of the inner circle would stand around looking smug with fresh lipstick and mascara, blithely handing out tickets to Santas grotto, whilst the rest of the general members ran around like blue arsed flies trying to stop two local bakers killing each other and keeping Santas wineglass topped up.
Just a total screaming nightmare….

If it was on public property then the school couldn’t have purchased and installed

I am researching defibs and came across this thread.

Of course the school wanted the defibrillator not to be open to the general public. Security? Makes totally sense why they declined your offer

Part of the reason I joined the PTA was just to make sure no MLMs could get involved!

Definitely! MLM should have NO place in schools. Sadly, it’s a major source of recruitment. A teacher at my kids school got sacked for using school data as a target list for her Arbonne scam back in the day. Absolute joke.

PTA could try a silent disco if the parents would support it by buying tickets

Yeah it’s probably something to do with DBS checks needed. And they don’t want too many parents there.
But if your child has SEND it may be worth a chat.
We do silent discos for lower years as find it more SEND and little one friendly!

Totally agree with this. I don't particularly like the events and trying to remember what I need to donate for them and when they are etc etc. I'd rather give the school a chunk of money at the start of the year. But at my DCs school there are definitely quite a few kids who don't get Santa/cinema trips or easter eggs except from PTA events.

There's a really sweet one at Christmas where people donate all sorts of unwanted gifts and the kids can buy them for £1 and wrap them up to give their parents a present that the kids would never be able to afford otherwise.

I don't hate our PTA at all, my only niggle is that a lot of their events like discos aren't particularly SEND-friendly (which I do get as they are volunteer-run) but non-PTA parents aren't allowed go to the event to support their DC, they are always strictly drop and run.

Tech is also hugely helpful for children with, for instance, dyslexia. My daughter is enjoying English now she has laptop to work from. There used to be such a huge gap between her thoughtful creative mind and what she was able to get down on paper. Now she looks forward to lessons.

Likewise I have vision issues and tech allows me to access books and newspapers.

It's a different conversation but seeing as how things like the national timestable check in year 4 is done on tablets, it seems only right that students who might not have access to things like that elsewhere are given a chance to practise on a screen beforehand.

Edited to add - and schools don't have the money to spend on ipads, that's why the PTA do it.

Ask for five volunteers gets four i join in for the fifth they continue to ask for another person the friend who usually joins in cant help much but they say come along anyway im not invited to the WhatsApp group to coordinate tasks

Ask for help setting up the fair I join in helping set up offer a couple of suggestions only to be continually told we dont do things like that or we tried that before and it didn't work so I stopped after couple of tries I did notice however that my idea was used but only when it was suggested by a friend of the head of PTA I took a tablet with netflix programs downloaded for my son to watch he shared it with the other children few glares about that huge amount of Facebook public thanks my name and a couple of others noticeably absent all her friends even one that hadn't been there were thanked for moral support one person was thanked for trying to make it (she didn't make it) someone commented thanks to cat for the kids entertainment pta head replied good job someone can afford netflix (she fucking has netflix)

Didn't bother again it was such a solo effort she runs around "doing everything" complained no-one helps but your made to feel unwelcome if you do help or your left to the side she would say can someone carry this bag to that stall I step forward nono its ok they know how I like it done its a bag of paper plates not complex equations

Not a fun time

Yes, I don’t feel like this about the PTA in my kids’ school who all seem sound tbf.

Yep. She's also saying pta mums are typically high career, their kids benefit from networking 😂 this is exactly the type of clueless overzealous patronising helicopter parent who looks down on others you find in some of these. Would love to send kids to private for the "network" but couldn't afford it so finds this is the solution. The role attracts these types. You know what, I'd love a study on how the children of these personality types turn out 🤣 Then another poster says up somewhere that of course pta kids aren't expected to be treated better. Direct contrast to the above post and posters who say thats their experience.

🙄

To be honest when I say "disco" for primary school it really was "lets go bumble around to some music in the hall for a bit and have a cup of orange squash as a treat".
They weren't really that intense 😂

These days most teachers have no idea which parents are involved with the PTA.

When I was in primary, it was well known that having a mum in the PTA made you a favourite for everything. The odds were always stacked against those of us whose mums weren’t in the PTA and the PTA offspring got picked for every award, special honour, main parts in the nativity, teachers always went on their side with any playground fights etc.

Yeah we had them at secondary right enough. Never at primary though.