Does you primary school charge parents for stationary?

[ILoveMyMonkey]

I’m wondering how many other primaries are expecting parents to pay the school for stationary. So, just out of interest and to gauge how common this is does your children’s primary school still supply stationary?

At my DS school the expectation is that you buy a filled school pencil case and then pay for top ups every year at, what I think, is a massively overinflated price. Needless to say I have refused and bought him stationary that matches what the school supply at a far cheaper cost - except now I’m getting demand emails

I'm not skeptical of schools being broke as I not only have children in school, but work in a school doing purchasing and there are lots of schools posting deficit budgets.
They are under real strain and i feel very sad how childrens education is being damaged, particularly vulnerable children.

I still dont think overcharging for stationery is the solution.

@Amateurish see that’s the other thing. We never received a letter about it. It was an email and in the school newsletter when they first made this change two years ago saying we had to do it, pay online by x date, no mention of donations or what would happen if you didn’t pay/can’t afford to pay etc and then at intervals throughout the year they remind people again to pay for the top up/buy the pencil case via the newsletter. I just feel really strongly that it’s not ok.