Private companies running classes in state schools, DD can't go because we are poor, AIBU to complain??

[PollyPeppa]

We are below the poverty line as we have 3 DC's and DH and I are full time uni students. We worked in low paid jobs and decided enough was enough and are now hoping to get better ones after university.

DD's school had just started up after school Spanish club. We sent her along to the trial session and she loved it. We had foolishly assumed there would be a concessionary rate (as there usually is with after school clubs) but there is not as it is run by a private company so we can't afford for her to go again.

I feel this is very unfair to offer this as only children whose parents can afford to send them can go, I think it creates a divide in the 'state' system.

Thank you InWith, I am very reassured to know that you are out there somewhere making sure that children's interests are being put first :)

In fact - go and demand that you meet your Extended Services Coordinator. The role is only being funded until April 2012, but if there is masses of demand, and that person is useful to you, then maybe schools will see the importance of the role
DISCLAIMER - I am permanently employed, in another role, so this is not a stealth way of getting you all to ensure that my job stays! I just think that if used properly, this person can make sure that the money goes where it should! instead of ebing swallowed up in a decreasing school budget!

SCOTT - you said - 'If the school are endorsing a class (along with any responsibility that comes from that endorsement) then they need to make sure all pupils can attend if they choose'.

It's for the kids, man!
Actually - I love this part of my job. It's brilliant telling kids that you can pay for stuff for them - they don't believe me for ages!

:o

So it is alright to have after school activity just not in schools, my children have swimming in a local school half the price of the local leisure centre and a third of the price of local gyms, karate, scouts, rainbows. I learn French and Italian in the evening at my sons secondary school. There are oap classes, childcare courses, all of these should be stopped to make it inclusive I find this sad as long as schools offer free activities they should be allowed to offer paid.

If parents are prepared to pay outside organisations to teach extra classes, why don't they keep this closer to home and offer to pay teachers from the school to do extra lessons outside school time?

YABU why should other parents have to subsidise your dd going, if it were made free to some it would just mean that the fees for those that do have to pay would be higher.

meteorite the teachers have been working all day long! they might not want to. The people who do these clubs are self employed and often part time. The teachers are often full time and have their own families to go home to.

In the olden days before endless initiatives and tickboxes and other crap, teachers probably had more time to run clubs and classes for free after school.

No, it is fine to have after school activity in schools.

But unless the classes are available to pupils, regardless of their ability to pay, they should not be subsidised by the school in any way.

And no school should be selling their pupils' attention to private companies.

I am surprised that so few people (not even a school governor [shocked] ) see any issue with State schools playing a role in deepening the divisions within our society between rich and poor children

But they're doing no such thing in this situation, Prospects. They're enabling an external provider to offer classes that many children wouldn't be able to attend - for logistical as well as financial reasons - if they were held elsewhere.

Do you feel the same about LA provided music lessons? Because they don't come cheap - yet they offer thousands of children the opportunity to learn an instrument that otherwise wouldn't be available to them.

Perhaps we should ditch those too because they're not free. Leave it so that only children with wealthy parents who are able to afford private education or can ferry their DCs around are able to learn an instrument (or be introduced to another language or receive extra sports coaching...). That'd be really fair

"Perhaps we should ditch those too because they're not free. Leave it so that only children with wealthy parents who are able to afford private education or can ferry their DCs around are able to learn an instrument (or be introduced to another language or receive extra sports coaching...). That'd be really fair"

Actually, it would be no more fair or unfair that what is happening at the OP's school.

All we are quibbling about now is the level of parental income at which it is OK to create divisions between pupils who are advantaged and those who are not.

Clearly you want the level set below your income, but that's not about fairness. That's about sharp elbows.

And it's even as though there are only two options - either everything is free or everything is impossible for middle income families to attend.

There are ways to make sure that these kinds of opportunities are handled in such a way that they are not exploiting children and causing bad feeling for the children of poorer parents.

The number of adults who want primary school aged children to be taught AT SCHOOL that poor children will get less out of life than their richer classmates, and who think it very important that poor children get this lesson at as young an age as possible, is kind of disgusting.

SheCutOffTheirTails - [claps loudly]

good post, shecutoff.

tails - its arguable that the music lessons are more unfair because they usually take place within school hours. But it would be a huge step backwards if they were banned because everyone couldn't participate.

An after-school activity is NOT 'at school' even if it is physically within the premises. Its an optional extra. Some kids can't do extras because of money; some can't do them because they don't fit in with what the rest of the family is doing.

Now you mention music - that really is unfair.

This Spanish class isn't really teaching the children anything of any substance, and Miss Polly isn't really missing out on anything at all.

However, music lessons are horrendously expensive, and some outstanding selective state schools use music as an entrance criterion. There's a real divide there. I think they should certainly be subsidised for low income families where the children show interest and a willingness to practise.

Another one clapping for shecutoff and a big thank you!

I agree, kat2504. But you often find dedicated teachers running sports, music, drama and other activities out of school hours. And they do it for free. So why don't parents offer to pay these teachers for extracurricular activities, instead of some outside agency?

What exactly is the difference between a language teacher giving extra classes out of school, and a private company doing so? Oh, the private company insists on being paid for it. And they exclude anyone who can't pay. So - why shouldn't the school drama/sports/music teacher cancel the free extracurricular activities, and set up extra paid activities for those who can afford it? There's really no difference, but there would be an outcry...

That sort of arrangement might end up being a bit financially dodgy with respect to taxes and stuff. The teachers are employees of the school and it might get complicated.
Also many teachers are happy to offer some extra curricular activities for free because they are dedicated and they enjoy doing that once a week. But dedicated teachers alone cant provide the sort of extended service that government and parents seem to want.

'If parents are prepared to pay outside organisations to teach extra classes, why don't they keep this closer to home and offer to pay teachers from the school to do extra lessons outside school time?' Because normally we are knackered after teaching 150 kids on average a day at secondary level, and quite frankly, if I chose to cancel an after school class I taught voluntarily I could, but not if I was paid to do so.

I think some posters are taking the school's actions out of context. Hiring premises out creates an income stream for the school, and ticks the community classes and after school box. Does the OP have any objection to say an adult education class taking place there? If not why not, as not everyone will be able to afford to attend.

Paying for classes also ensures that people turn up - I teach English as a Foreign Language to some Mums at ds's school on a voluntary basis. It pisses me off greatly when they don't turn up and don't let me know because they feel free to waste my time, as it isn't costing them money.

The majority of music teachers within my area are self employed, hired by the school to offer lessons for a fee to cover the cost of their employment, rightly or wrongly no fee then no teacher as the schools budget cannot afford them.

InWith has clearly explained the obligation of schools to provide a 'varied menu of activities'. Both free and paid-for activities fit in with that.

However, as an ex-senior leader in a primary school I find some of the moaning on this thread very depressing.

I went to primary school between 1979 and 1986. Two primary schools in different areas of the country, but both in pleasant, fairly well-to-do areas.
Were there any clubs on offer? No. Nothing. We received very, very little in terms of curriculum enrichment. Perhaps the occasional trip. The most exciting thing that ever happened in my first school was that one year we got a new headteacher who decided to put on a school production, with proper stage lights! The schooling experience of children attending primary school nowdays is hugely enriched by the 'offer' of a wide variety of opportunities.

Teachers are not obliged under the terms of their contract to offer extra-curricular clubs, however many do. I have done so twice, once on a voluntary but paid-for basis (no other member of staff was running a club at that time) and once as a requirement from that school. However, the workload of the average primary teacher is pretty significant (I have generally worked 55 - 60 hours a week) and it is a big drain to give up that period of time after school when you could otherwise be sitting down in a quiet classroom to get on with planning, marking and all the other tasks required of you. It is also unlikely that the workforce of a primary school will be able to supply all the skills in gym, dance, capoeira etc that clubs might demand.

No school I have worked in has received 'kick backs' for distributing leaflets. Indeed, I am aware that the school office or head has often filtered out and binned the truly unsuitable offerings.

Moreover, the facilitiation of such a club runnning on school premises does involve work and effort on behalf of the headteacher. Fielding the phone call, meeting with the representative to find out exactly what they are offering, checking for valid CRBs etc, explaining that yes, you do have to make sure each child is collected by an adult at the end of the club.... If the school is also doing the 'wraparound' by helping the club to collect the children from each class, so they don't have to be collected by their parents and looked after during the gap, then that is positively helpful to working parents or those with other commitments. My last school actually had to employ somebody especially to handle the process of collecting/dropping off to after school clubs, because all staff would, quite rightly, be busy in their classrooms at the end of the day.

So, YAB pretty U.

I suggest that you speak to your Headteacher and ask if the PTA can set up a bursary fund for after-school clubs.

Rather than berating schools for offering these activities and stopping any child at a state school from benefitting from them because it's "not fair on the others", we ought to be looking at ways of making them even more accessible.

Putting pressure on politicians to convince them of the merits of broadening access would be constructive. Preventing schools from enabling outside providers to offer extra sports, languages, chess, music and so on simply lets them off the hook and does nothing at all to decrease inequality of opportunity.

simply lets politicians off the hook I should have said.

"The number of adults who want primary school aged children to be taught AT SCHOOL that poor children will get less out of life than their richer classmates, and who think it very important that poor children get this lesson at as young an age as possible, is kind of disgusting"

DH was poor, dirt poor. He was bullied, sneered at and ostracised because of it. It made him determined to do better, it made him reach for the stars, it made him want more than he had, and made him want more for his children. When his 'mates' were hanging round the park drinking he was at home studying (because he also found academic work very hard), when he couldn't keep up with the college course he had chosen he joined the Army to get a wage and studied in the evenings. He sent money home to his mother so his youngest sister wouldnt go through what he did. He knew what being poor meant and it made him want more. He got more.

No-one has said that it is "very important that poor children get this lesson at as young an age as possible" but sometimes, it's not always a bad lesson to learn.