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.

My sons went to bog standard comprehensives, both to ones that were considered the worst in their area, my youngest to one of the worst in the country.

Didn't stop them from getting class A grades, or going to Uni.

What comprehensive you go to makes no difference whatsoever to how you get on in life.

You either have it or you don't.

However when you have a child to provide for you do the best for them, putting your needs below theirs. Whatever they basically need they get, if you cannot provide it because you decided to go to Uni late that's your look out, you don't moan about it because of a choice you made.

School website and email, Abigail. We're living in the future, you know :)

That is life - there are loads of things I want for my kids (and myself) but I can't afford it. It is not in school hours so there is no pressure for your DC to go to the club. Sometimes you just have to say "no" even when you are working and have an income.

adding details of various clubs to the school website is more time consuming for the school than simply shoving a few bits of paper in the bookbag. I don't really believe that most children get the letters out of the book bag, read them and then pester their parents. I think it is usually the parent that goes through the book bag and decides what the child will do - I know that's the case in my house.

But 'the poor' don't have to go to an expensive club to learn another language, they can go to the library and get out some books and tapes for free.

Wanting to go to an expensive club, which, let's face it is not a serious language course but merely a bit of fun is a luxury, not a right. Wherever it's held, to be honest. Schools have to be community centres after-hours these days.

Nancy - I don't believe that actually. Sorting out leaflets and putting one of each in the bag of every kid in school versus knocking up a quick link to the company on the school website?

Yellowsubmarine - please point out exactly where on this thread anyone has said how dare the poor stop tugging their forelocks and have the audacity to want to learn another language or attend an interesting class after school. Because I've been on this thread all day, and haven't seen that.

You may also have missed the posts from someone who actually works for a company providing private after school lessons like this, who has stated that the rate that is being charged for the class participants is, in her opinion, already discounted. Her company charges a similar, discounted amount when they use school premises (and get subsidised rent), and charges higher rates for the same classes when they have to use different, more expensive premises.

I also think that some people are either missing or ignoring the point that the revenue that the school raises by letting private companies use their premises after hours goes back into the school's coffers, and benefits all the pupils. It can subsidise trips for pupils whose parents are on low incomes, or pay for extra TA hours - these are all good things.

I do wonder whether the schools could use some of this income to subsidise places in these classes for pupils like the OP's dd, but it would be bloody difficult for schools to administrate. If you made the subsidy available to children on free school dinners, then you'd still be excluding some whose parents are on low incomes but not low enough to get free school meals. There would still be people saying that it's not fair that their dc can't get the subsidy despite their circumstances.

noblegiraffe - most schools have quite a few outside providers of activities. The stuff that goes in book bags will have specific booking instructions, prices ect. If you just linked to websites the schools would probably end up fielding alot of enquiries that relate to the clubs that they can't help with.

There are also alot of people that don't actually use the internet!

erm, nancy, if the company is providing the course, the company can knock up an appropriate webpage for the school to link to answering all those questions far more cheaply than leaflets.

Or they could email an electronic copy of the leaflet out to interested parents.

And for the parents that don't use the internet, they could use....a noticeboard!

Can't help but think of the poor environment with all these leaflets which will mostly end up in the bin.

Fabbychic, I think that's a little harsh, saying the OP put her needs before her childrens'. I think the whole point of her going to uni was to provide her children with a better lifestyle, as she said previously that they were both stuck in low paying jobs before then. Surely this will be better for them as a family long term?

noblegiraffe - believe me if it's on the website the parents ring the school. This is what I do as a job - the schools we are linked to prefer to have leaflets

That says to me that the website is poorly designed. The future will catch up with them eventually :)

It's not an "opportunity to learn Spanish" any more than an advertisement fir an X-box is an "opportunity to play computer games".

It's an advertisement for a commercial service. And as many have pointed out, Spanish lessons like these are nothing to do with the school, and just a treat like any other, so there is no reason for special treatment.

Schools advertising to children like that is disgraceful.

If parents want to find out about private lessons for their children they can do a bit of research.

There is no need to be putting little notes about opportunities they won't be able to avail of into children's bags.

Teachers and office staff should not be spending any time sorting out leaflets to advertise the wares of private companies.

That is a clear abuse of public resources.

There is no reason for the school to do any administrator beyond booking out the rooms and taking payments.

Shecutoff puts it much better than me.

OP, I don't think your dd is missing a valuable educational opportunity, despite the publicity material.

However, I do completely agree with your points about the problems of private companies providing after school activities in school and how terribly hard it is to (at the moment) being in the position of not being able to afford this - albeit expensive - club.

Hope that yours and dh's studies go well.

'Nancy - I don't believe that actually. Sorting out leaflets and putting one of each in the bag of every kid in school versus knocking up a quick link to the company on the school website?'

Leaflets get pinned on noticeboards at home by interested parties and require no effort by a parent to find out about what's available, thus reaching a wider audience.
'Please sit on the carpet with your bookbag.'
I can distribute a leaflet to everyone in my class in under a minute, less time than it takes to tie the shoelaces of those that can't manage it.
Yes to the money from rentals benefiting everyone in the school.
If you want free everything, then you need to organise the parents and the wider community to run clubs without cost.

I find this thread so interesting. None of the schools i work with book their rooms out to external providers and then advertise to the children, taking a kick back. We audit need. We ask parents what afterschool provision they are interested in and how much they're willing to pay, then we organise it- through the school, sometimes via alternative providers. If parent/children are interested in spanish and there are no skilled spanish teachers, then we will source an external provider. Same if there is demand for science/football/music etc
In my experience it isn't that the school are randomly renting out their rooms, advertising to the children and making profit on the room hire (not in my schools, anyway - this may be the case elsewhere?) Rather they are responding to need, and offering provision which may be chargeable. In most cases schools will subsidise, or the company will offer a cheaper service as they are not paying a venue hire.
but it is so interesting for me to read some of the opinions here, and i think the main issue is communication, that looks as though is lacking in some schools.

A lot of schools let out to groups that have nothing to do with children, such as Slimming World, exercise classes, adult education lessons etc. A community school is encouraged to make its building available for the general good of the community, not just activities that are organised through the school as you mention above.

Downby - I would have thought that a teacher would have more professionalism and pride that to use her classtime (even a minute of it) to do flyering for private companies for free, and to do that advertising to a group of children in your care.

I have never met a teacher who would do something so tawdry and unethical, and I hope never to meet one.

Putting a leaflet in a book bag has to be far more effective than putting a link on the school website, as you are looking in the book bag every night. I doubt many parents are on the school website every night and as for noticeboards, what noticeboards are parents going to see on a daily basis. Generally you drop them off in the playground and pick them up from the school gate, so you aren't going to be anywhere near a noticeboards most of the time.

Yabu. It is an optional extra curricular activity. I don't agree with the idea of you being subsidised for them either. The working parents who can't afford it don't get subsidised. They just have to tell their children, no. These could be people working in similar jobs to the ones you both left, who can't afford to leave them to go back to uni to try to get themselves better qualifications and job prospects. You are already better off than them because you have that opportunity. Why do you deserve more than them? Even higher earning parents who just have a lot of other financial commitments have to say no to their children sometimes.

Their effectiveness is not, and should not be, the concern of the school.

Their responsibility is to the young children in their care, not to the people trying to make a profit by using those children to sell things to their parents.

Of course companies want to have their leaflets given a teacher's imprimatur and sent home mixed up with important school communications.

But that doesn't mean schools should do it.

What has happened to the idea of public service?

I am still struggling to see the uproar about leaflets going home!

Do you feel the same about book club type leaflets? What about if a local brownie pack met in the school and sent leaflets home?

It's a piece of paper, or a mention in a newsletter, most will end up on the recycling pile, a small handful will take it further.

Its unlikely anyone would be inundated with them, one or two a term at most.

The council wastes loads of our tax payers money on glossy brochures advertising half term clubs and summer holiday activities. These must cost loads more than a simple leaflet and I have never heard an uproar about those, even though the activities are fairly expensive.

I guess this is why the "Greater good" argument is getting so poular theses days, to deal with conundrums such as these.

The state system doesn't have the cash to spend on a huge range of after school activities in a large number of schools, it does what it can to reduce the cost of providing them by letting them used school premises so the price can be reduced. That means there is a price, that some people can't/won't pay.

The benefit of it being at the school to the majority of parents is that it simplies the logistics of kids' interests. For working parents (the ones wot are funding all that free schooling, remember) its a godsend as they know the kids are safe and entertained until the end of the working day.

Should those who can't afford it get a subsidy? Maybe, but you probably have to set a threshold price to trigger subsidies because the cost and hassle of deciding who should or who shouldn't be subsidised is expensive, and I'd guess that at £70 for 2 months its just not worth it.

If the choice then is between something that the majority can use, or making it so no-one can use, then greater good theory argues that the majority should get it.