Furious With School

[littlemissmoomoo]

My children's school asks for a contribution of £10 per half term per child. This is fine. I have 2 at the school, 2 others have been there and 2 more who will be going when they are old enough. I've always paid, sometimes I'll pay a little more if I can afford it.

I've just read this weeks newsletter and they have NAMED every single child who's parents are yet to contribute this half term. My children are on there. I gave birth 12 days ago. Before the birth, I was in hospital for 9 days. I was then in hospital for 3 days after the birth. My kids then all came down the sickness bug.

My kids aren't the only ones named, there are 17 names out of a school of around 80 kids. I'm absolutely furious, as I'm sure the other parents are, that we have been "named and shamed"!

Isn't the financial info the second piece of identifying info for GDPR?

So 'weedangerousspike has diabetes' would be a breach. Name being no1, health condition being no2.

'DC's name's parent hasn't paid x' name is no1, private financial info is no2?

that’s appalling
Yes write to the Head and to the Chair of Governors
It’s a voluntary contribution, and I’m sure that it is meant to be confidential- they should absolutely not be naming and shaming like that.

Op has vanished .if she's not a troll yes it's disgusting.

It's all about grey about GDPR.
They legitimately need to keep the info about the payments. Ie who has and hasn't paid.
Although maybe they don't? They 'expect' £60 x 80 (£4,800) per annum.
But do they need to keep tabs on who is donating? I'd say yes for auditing reasons.

But do they legitimately need to publish who do and didn't pay? Probably not. Maybe they do? If you wanted under freedom on information all information regarding donations to the school, would you reasonably expect to be given the nformation about the particular donors? Or just "£4000 donations"

So you could possibly say that Bob Jones not donating is GDPR issue...or is it? Have they "collected" the data? Or just saying they collected the data if those that did?

GDPR is a minefield!

That's appalling. I would complain very, very loudly. And I would never give a contribution again and I would let them know why.

I know this is chat not AIBU but YANBU in your reaction. That’s really terrible. I’d most certainly be writing to the head & the Chair of Governors.

Please do email Chair of Governors/Headteacher. That’s appalling, to shame people like that over a voluntary contribution!

Wind em up and watch em go

If this is a voluntary contribution I would stop paying and let everyone know why. If they can publicly shame you and your kids, you can publicly shame them.

They named and shamed you OP

Name and shame the school

The voluntary contribution is neither here nor there

Can you imagine a private school listing parents that hadn’t managed to pay term’s fees?!

Both scenarios - utterly appalling to publicise

It's bollocks

Not only do the not legitimately need to publish the names binary, they aren’t actually allowed to.

The Educational Act sets out very specific rules about voluntary contributions in schools and this is completely in breach of them.

Nope....photo of the newsletter or I won’t believe you OP.

No way would a UK school do this, they are too scared to breathe names half the time never mind post them in a bloody newsletter.

If you live abroad then possibly as I don’t know the laws regarding this elsewhere. Definitely wouldn’t happen on the UK though.

Yep come on OP...let’s hear the name of this school and see the newsletter for ourselves. Don’t be shy about sharing it,

I agree

If you don’t name the school then really - it’s a load of nonsense isn’t it?!

What sort of school is this? Very unusual in UK for this to be a thing!

Firstly.. I'm a busy mum of 6 with a disabled husband. Coming on to mumsnet is the least of my priorities, I tend to only come on at night when I'm feeding my newborn.

Secondly... I'm not naming the school. Why would I do that?

Thirdly... If you think I'm making it up then that is your choice but why on earth would I make up something so boring?

I have been in contact with a couple of the other parents and we are going to be speaking to the school tomorrow.

Good luck OP.

Ask to see a copy of their charging and remissions policy

My dd school used to call out the names in front of the whole class if they hadnt paid. I said it to head of chair and I never was asked for it again.

I believe the OP just because a school knows there are rules it doesn't mean they always follow them, mainly unintentionally (someone hasn't thought about the full consequences of what they are doing)
Our school accidentally forwarded all the emails of all of Year 6s parents to each other when they were trialling a new way of doing holiday homework (forgot to use bcc) they only realised that this wasn't a great idea when I sent them an email to suggest that they needed to be more careful with peoples data. They haven't done it since and they issued an apology.
Mostly I think mistakes or bad policies that schools have are because someone's thought 'oh we need to do x' but hasn't thought that they need to be careful/thoughtful and that there actions may end up having other consequences- in this case I suspect they were just trying to raise more funds but didn't really think actually this is a really bad way to do it and it's quite rude/ offensive.

OP, how did you get on when you spoke to the school?