PTA members / school staff - what’s the hardest part of organising school events?

[LilacHedgehog123]

Hi everyone,
I’ve recently joined our school PTA and I’m amazed at how much work goes into things like summer fairs, discos, Christmas events, raffles etc.

I’m curious, for those who’ve organised school events before:
What part did you find the most stressful, time-consuming, or confusing?

Was it:

• getting volunteers?
• knowing what jobs needed doing?
• contacting businesses for donations?
• keeping track of money?
• creating posters/signs?
• managing things on the day?
• getting parents to actually engage?
• something else?

Also, what do you wish someone had given you before you started? A simple checklist? Templates? Examples? A “how to run a school fair” guide?

Interested to hear what people have struggled with!

I'm not part of the PTA but I do volunteer at school PTA events. We have a class rep for each class who has direct contact with the PTA, who then shares with us the up-coming events, confirms volunteers etc etc

It's all done via Whattsapp. I know joining a class whattsapp group isn't for everyone (mine is on mute most of the time!) but it is handy.

The PTA use AI to create posters of events that can be easily shared online/email/whattsapp with all the info easy to read on one post, rather than long wordy emails

We recently had our summer fair. Each year group ran a stall and parents were asked to cover half hour slots. Sign up sheets went up at the classroom doors and on the Whattsapp group.

Ask the parents to do the work to get donations-

We ran a bottle stall- donations from the parents with 'points' per bottle, the class with the most points won a special treat. There must have been 300 bottles donated!

Have you heard of jolly jars? The kids go mad for them and they are a really easy win as parents donate them so no effort from the PTA apart from collecting and selling

I think a PTA is just a reflection of the school culture and that can be good or bad. For example sometimes the Head feels threatened by the PTA and isn’t very helpful. Sometimes the parents aren’t very able to help because they have other important stuff going on and don’t want to say ‘I can do x but not y’. Then sometimes the PTA itself doesn’t look after its volunteers so it has bad blood and high turnover. So it’s an endless juggling act and I have absolute respect for people that can make it work. But when it works, it’s really great for the kids and the school.

Even if the PTA isn’t perfect, if your kids are at the school you should always support the PTA if you can. Even in a really small way.
The PTA builds ‘the village’ of adults around the children that everyone needs and wants.
I have done class repping and it can be absolutely thankless but also doing it’s the right thing to do. Step up and volunteer for it while your kids are still young, is my advice. It can also be very rewarding. You can make small changes to improve the school, which is also a good feeling because schools really need the help.

I also got very fucked off about it being all women helping. Something that worked was making job share reps per class of 2-3 people so nobody gets overwhelmed. Also means more potential event helpers can get roped in. We did get a tiny minority of a few class rep job share dads by doing this, which was great. Should be just a normal thing for dads to do, but until we reach that time..

I used to belong to one that was a real chore because the people who ran it were so negative and bossy. They hated any suggestions and ideas were always shouted down so most newbies only came for one or two meetings.