To think that an Early Year concert should be free?

[funtimewincies]

(My first AIBU, so please be gentle .)

Ds1 (in the Nursery class of a state school) has brought home a letter informing us that tickets for his Christmas concerts (held in school time) will cost £X.

We've provided a costume and we've been bombarded with various fundraising schemes and requests since he started in September, all of which I've supported. Let's just say that it's really beginning to add up !

I'm currently a SAHM but I'm also a teacher. I think that such activities are an important part of their education and the children get really excited if their family are able to be there to watch. I object strongly about this payment (on principle, rather than the amount) especially given the age of the children involved. If it was a secondary school production with incurred costs, then I can see the logic but not for Early Years.

I think that it's just a money-making scheme too far. AIBU?

YANBU. I've never heard of a primary school charging for this kind of performance. DS 2's school usually holds a raffle (pinching items from the PTA cupboard for prizes, btw) so that anyone who wants can contribute, but it's not in any way compulsory.

I didn't think you were allowed to charge? That was certainly what my last school told me.

our school often charges for things like this.

To raise funds for school apparently

I generally sneak in the back way without paying because I object to it tbh.

Have the event as free and sell raffle tickets or something equally crap to raise money, don't charge us to watch our own children sing songs (badly)!

YANBU!!!
I've never heard of schools charging either!

My DC's school makes a voluntary collection at the end of the performance (collection basket on the way out) and the money goes to a shelter for the homeless.

Our pre-school charges a nominal fee, but funds are very tight and they have to hire a larger hall in order to fit everyone in so it just breaks even. It would be unaffordable (or the session fees would have to go up) to do otherwise.

We charged - for charity (child at the school lost their limbs and we were raising money for the charitable trust set up in his name... year before that it was for a school in rural India that was being set up and one of the staff had gone off on sabbatical to work at), and the tickets meant we could disperse numbers across the performances to make sure we were under the limits for numbers in the hall.

Tickets - absolutely.
Charging - hmmm.

I know with some published concerts - as opposed to the standard nativity rolled out year on year - that if you charge you have to buy performing rights, whereas if it's free no licence is needed.

You have to be very careful about charging for events like this because of copyright on music and songs etc - do the school have a performing rights licence?

Also, if they are going down the "free drink with your ticket" route, they cannot give alcohol as the drink, because then the drink forms part of their contract with you. They can get round this by offering alcoholic drinks for a "donation" but are not allowed to suggest what that donation should be though most do

sorry just to clarify,my previous post refers to schools that do not have an alcohol sales licence

We're only allowed our allocated tickets anyway emptyshell so numbers are sorted out that way and it's in the school hall MumInBeds so no extra costs there.

I'm presuming that it's towards school funds but then so is everything that I've donated towards in the last week.

It's more the sense of 'your child will be disappointed unless you cough up' element to it. Money is tight all round, we've been tapped for loads of stuff in the run up to Christmas and for some families (particularly as we weren't expecting to pay for this) it might just be too much and their child suffers.

I think that they should be paying you to attend

Our school charges, including early years. Always has done, I thought it was normal?

It is usually £3.50 a ticket, plus there is a raffle.

I've no idea on the licence perpetually, but I know that when I was teaching we bought packs of script/music/etc. especially for Primary schools which are fine to use and could be reused every few years or so.