If you are comfortably-off and have state educated children, do you donate money to their school?

[LabradorsByTheSea]

A friend, whose business has done extremely well (now a household name) has recently donated money for a beautiful new sensory room at her kids’ state school. They are multi millionaires but will never privately educate as a principle. They’ve got great kids who attend lovely non-selective state schools. And we’ve always sent a fair sized cheque at bonus time to our son’s school, and pay for two spaces on any trips/ residentials.

We’ve got one in private and one in a lovely village school ( he will move to independent for secondary, but DD also attended a prep school so suez had a much costlier education), and it seems fair to give something, considering we could easily afford fees but DS is getting a fantastic, free education. We cannot fault his school, he’s had an amazing experience there. The HT always sends a thank you card and lets us know what the money has been spent on, so I assume it’s appreciated. And it always feels more worthwhile than our respective Oxford colleges who endlessly press us for cash.

I was just wondering how usual this is. And also, weather we should thinking about matching donations to a school in a less affluent area, as DS’s school has a very enterprising PTA, who already pay for great activities and facilities and I’m aware schools just down the road don’t have this. I’m not quite sure how to make an approach about that without sounding patronising or a bit odd.

I work there, but it’s effectively a donation of time as I work a lot more than my limited paid hours and I’m paid a very low rate for my qualifications/experience.
I also donate a lot of books for the library - some surplus from home, but also some purchased just for the library because the school has no budget.

I do in easy ways - I’ll give a few pounds more than suggested for eg sponsored activities to pay for new library books or if the HT requests donations of plants I’ll go buy a load to bring. I’d happily give them a decent sum of money, but I’m wary of doing so in such a way staff, or at least the HT, would know where it come from - or even worse the chair of the PTA who’s a fellow parent and a friend. I don’t want to be perceived as trying to show off or “buy” favour for my children or something. If there was a way to donate anonymously via the website or something I definitely would.

I just paid for private schools. When you give to the state school I wonder how that works in terms of charitable donation - do they get the tax on it too like a charity or are state schools not charities?
Also how you can check the head is not simply taking the money for a luxury holiday - unlkely but sadly these things happen - do you get to see the flow of your funds to the item whih has been bought? I would have thought books for a child in a bad school are probably more useful than whatever is a "sensory room".

From working in a school, lots of schools have a PTA and they are charities that fund schools. Lots of parents donate extra for PTA events.

Schools will often also have a school fund which will be audited separately from the schools accounts. This will be voluntary donations for trips and extras. Parents will donate extra to this as well.

The odd parent will donate a specific bit of equipment.

Ive given books, and small bits of equipment.

Xenia we donate via the PTA, which is administered and audited as a charity. I think I would take a feat of determination for the head to pull off a luxury holiday from PTA funds.

A sensory room is a quiet, safe place where children who find the school day overwhelming at times can go to regulate and be supported as they need. The one in our school is used for children with SEN (there’s a unit for children with additional learning needs, as well as children in mainstream classes), kids who have experienced developmental trauma (such as adopted children), our Ukrainian children and anyone who needs a little space and support. There is also a small side room used by the occupational and speech therapist and the school play therapist. It’s a lovely, nurturing space, again paid for through PTA funds and is very useful for those children who need it. Hopefully, you can see that’s a useful space. School books are also available.

Small sums is fine, we have done it for years, £10.00 per term per kid. I donated a slightly larger sum when my ds left year 6 to say thank you. Will do the same for dd at the end of year 6.

We’ve given plenty of money to DS’s state school. It’s supposed to be over standing (but isn’t) and has become increasingly shite. So we stopped.
other Dcs go to great private schools.

i do it in the way of donating items for school fundraisers. Example they have a fun food Friday every month and ask for boxes of candy to sell so I’ll send a box in. Buy books and supplies for our teachers use, in the US they buy out of their own pocket so this helps them directly. Next year I’ll donate a bit extra to the band program. It costs about US600-700 to get kitted out on top of the instrument and they have an angel fund to help a student that would struggle with paying that.

At a point when I wasn’t particularly well off but doing ok I would always buy art materials off the school Amazon list each term. Rightly or wrongly these schools really benefit from any extra drive by parents to contribute and raise funds

It should, but it does not. So schools are very happy to receive donations.

I don't doubt that schools are pleased to receive donations. But it's a slippery slope. If things can't function without donations but parents backfill, then what is the incentive to increase their grant funding?

We don’t donate at the level of whole rooms. We do make a donation every year though, as do many of the parents. It’s a state school that tends to draw from a well-off population. Our school has a sizable fund to work with and many extra amenities from those donations.

the school does a specific fundraiser for a sister school that doesn’t have as many resources.

Multi millionaires would be paying a shit load of tax, so contributing quite enough already I would think? I am not a millionaire, but DB is, many times over and he pays tax and pays for private services for his family. Why should any parent feel they need to donate anything when they will proportionately be paying more anyway? Genuine question, not goady btw

£50 a month as requested by the school.

We can afford it and am happy to pay, but I am a bit worried about the slippery slope of seeing schools and healthcare as things that have to be funded via charitable giving rather than taxation. A retrograde model that hasn't served the US very well if you ask me.

I think this is also a major concern- and the flip side is on the thread. Many schools don't have any parents who are willing/able to donate £50 a year, let alone £50 a month, and why should they miss out on things like arts materials, playground equipment etc?

I also think these donations seem to drop off at secondary school age- secondary schools don't get more per pupil funding, and arguably more expensive to resource.

That said, if any of you want to be the favourite parent at school, make a donation of 200 glue sticks.

Yes but not buying a new wing kind of money! I'm not wealthy! I give larger amounts than required for every fundraiser and go along to support events and am free and easy with the cash so they make a success of it. Sometimes donate £100 or £200 if there's a particular cause such as when the school got vandalised when the boiler broke, when they needed a new bus.

We do. We just paid for DS's classroom to have aircon installed as it gets boiling in there. We also have a standing order of £50 a month donation. State schools are woefully underfunded.

It's so funny how mumsnetters slag off parents who pay for private education and then buy houses at £££ in the most desirable state school areas and then donate £££ to their schools. At least private school parents are open and transparent about trying to give their kids a 'leg up'.

Levelling up for universities should take this kind of thing into account and it should affect funding of schools. Give more to the poor areas, those poor kids get none of this stuff :-(

How is this done? Is there a link on school websites etc? I've honestly never heard of anyone donating to a school before.

We arent well off so not in a position to donate money but i do regularly buy my childrens classes boxes of tissues, colouring pens/pencils, glue sticks etc.

If you can afford to donate to a school in a deprived area please do. I work in a school in a deprived area and the children can’t go on trips or have opportunities such as theatre companies coming in etc due to lack of funds.

No, we didn't. When each DC started secondary school there was a new parents evening so we could find out more. At both there was a PTA session to sign people up for monthly standing orders of c£20 per month. We didn't sign up because finances were very tight at the time. Also the funds were for sports stuff which isn't a number 1 priority for me.

Would I donate if I had £££? Possibly, but for specific projects. Not an all weather pitch.

No, it's never occured to me to do so! We always attend fundraising events and let the kids spend quite a bit eg loads of goes on tombola/activity stalls. But never thought of just giving them money. Out of interest, would you share how much you earn?

@MorrisZapp Our school has a trust that you can donate to or you can do it through the PTA.

Plenty of children in this country are in poverty though. Plenty of schools are also struggling as they don't have enough in their budgets. I don't see why you wouldn't help donate in this country too?