About ds's state nursery?

[thisthreadwilloutme]

DS has attended a state nursery (joined to the school he will attend) since September. Have name changed as so specific anyone at the same nursery will know instantly.

The nursery ask all kids for a 'voluntary' contribution of 2 pounds per week for snacks etc. Fine but they have a sheet and tick whether or not you have given your contribution which makes it pretty compulsory.

Every week on top of this they ask you to bring in at lest one extra item.

Since going back after the Easter hols we have had to take in an Easter Bonnet (after Easter), a bag of nectarines, a bag of apples, a bunch of flowers and this week we have to take in some bread from another country. We often get one days notice for these 'extra' items.

AIBU to wonder wtf they are doing with the voluntary contribution and also to wonder where all this food is going. There is no way my ds would eat a full bag of nectarines which is what we were asked to take in.

I don't mind the odd extra but it has slowly grown to one to two extra items per week. AIBU to want to tell them to budget their voluntary contribution a bit better!

Why not ask them what the money you pay is for and what they are doing with what you take in?

Id ask them where all the food is going.

Well as an example the bag of nectarines was for fruit salad, some people brought in a bag of apples, a bunch of bananas etc. They must have had a bucket load of fruit salad. Why didn't they just ask us to bring one item each???

We are asked to pay £1 per week which covers additional art materials, hatching eggs/chicks, catterpillas/butterflies, annual visit by a petting zoo, school trips including a visit to a Xmas play etc. All-in very good value for ££. It is a local council nursery.

We are also asked to contribute some fresh fruit weekly (there is always fresh fruit available for the kiddies to snack on) and a box of tissues once a term.

Just sounds like perhaps your nursery is a little haphazardly organised. If I got one days notice for foreign bread it wouldn't happen.

We ask parents if they would like to make a £1 contribution each week. It gets spent on:

Fruit for daily snack
Crumpets/brewd/hot crodd buns occasionally
Flour
Veg oil
Cream of tartar
Food colouring
Food flavouring
Seeds
Cooking ingredients for pizza/Chinese new year/Easter baskets/diwali etc

We cook on a weekly basis and make at least 2 batches of play dough a week, plus daily snacks.

If parents don't contribute, then we would not be able to offer the children the range of activities and food we are currently able to offer. There is no way the voluntary contribution covers all of our costs so we often rely on parents to make additional contributions of goods etc. if we are doing particular topics.

Cross, not crodd

My DCs pre-school used to ask parents for a voluntary donation for a healthy snack but got loads of one thing one the first week of term then nothing afer that!

Then we were asked for a £1 donation so the staff could buy the snack, I personally preferred this as I knew they would vary the snacks etc.

They have now stopped doing it as were getting so much money in now the numbers are so high that they couldn't spend it all on snack. As numbers are high they can afford not to ask for donations so they don't.

I don't think that a pre-school should ask for contributions for all activities unless they need to for financial reasons or if they can show that what they are spending the money on. I look after the finances for several charity run pre-schools and none of them need the donations as they are very busy and healthy financially.

I think a lot of the contribution goes on new toys etc which is great but seriously it looks like ELC has exploded inside the nursery. Outside they have some fab new toys, but surely there is a limit to how many new toys they need!

When you consider the rate toys will get broken then I would imagine that keeping a good supply of decent toys costs a fair bit!

YANBU for wanting to know where the money is spent.
I have had this with my 3dc too but their nursery gave a statement each term what was contributed, what was bought and what was saved for the likes of xmas parties and trips etc.. Maybe if a few parents mentioned it the staff would do the same.
I feel that the budget, when Nurseries are part of Schools, is prioritised with the majority going into the School (higher numbers of pupils, the need for curricular and educational materials) I'm not saying it's a bad thing, Nursery is more about teaching our children to mix, share and prepare them for School. So as long as parents are not expected to cover the costs for the likes of books, educational necessities then I don't see any problem with contributions of £1-£2 weekly.
OP- if the fruit was for fruit salad then one item brought in each wouldn't be enough to go around the class. 20 kids in the class given half an orange and half an apple each =20 pieces of fruit. Given 1/3 of an orange you would still need 7 of them. It's easy to think or like me forget that it's just your own child you're bringing in for, often it's not but all the parents from the class are doing the same thing.

P.s - this is nothing- Wait until DS is in the school...Trips, parties, lunch money, milk money, fundraising sales, raffle tickets, sponsoring, uniforms, I've probably missed some out too, seems never ending.

yanbu, ours dont ask for anything so it does seem a bit much how much yours are demanding you to bring in!