to think that £4.50 per child is a lot of money

[cuteboots]

Ok so my sons school have arranged for a professional artist to come into the school to demonstrate some work and the kids can get involved. I just feel that this is a lot of money. They have said that you dont have to pay but if they dont get enough money it wont go ahead? It just feels like that at the mo and on a weekly basis we are getting letters like this asking for money. Am I being a bit unreasonable about this?

Fanks

I think you are being unreasonable unless you genuinely can't afford it. State schools are all very cash strapped so it's not unreasonable to ask for parents to contribute for activities such as this.

i get so wound up about this too, but I wouldn't begrudge paying a visiting artist/author etc either.

As a step parent to three and one of my own, all in school, it's really irritating every other week them coming home asking for money for this that or the other. And, don't even get me started on food tech in secondary school, at one point we were spending around £20 a week on food for their recipes.

All fine if you have the money, but if you are low waged, then it's a struggle, but you kind of have to grin and bear it, kids are bloody expensive.

I see it from both sides, though, i work in a school and in our department we have the most miniscule of budgets, we can hardly run our department on the amount of money that we are allocated. This year, I drew up one of those dreaded letters, asking for "voluntary contributions" towards materials used in the course. But we did stress that they are "voluntary contributions".

I felt like the enemy!! Yeah, the money we get from local government is supposed to cover this, but it doesn't. We could dumb down the projects that we do so that we use less resources... but we didn't feel that we could do that and still have a conscience although we have adjusted the projects so that we are making smaller items, therefore using less. So, we as a department thought that even if we get half of the parents to contribute a small amount, then it would enable us to buy materials and make for a better learning experience.

Unfortunately there's no easy way around this issue. Government cuts mean that this is only going to get worse.

I wonder if all these people who whinge about the voluntary contributions are actively involved in fundraising for the PTA? Or do they just think that everyone else should be doing it?

Our school has a very effective PTA which raises a good amount of money each year - primarily from generous parents and teachers. A proportion of that money goes towards subsidising trips and activities for the kids who genuinely cannot pay. A good friend of mine has had help like this for her two girls, as she really cannot afford the voluntary contributions. The rest of the PTA money goes on stuff like books and equipment for the school.

If that pot of money had to cover the cost of trips for all children, and not just the ones who couldn't pay, it wouldn't stretch very far at all, and opportunities for the children would be severely limited. Yes, in an ideal world, all schools would have ample resources from the government, paid for by our taxes, but it isn't an ideal world and that isn't going to happen.

If you genuinely can't afford the voluntary contributions, there should be no shame at all in talking to the school about your circumstances - I'm sure they don't want anyone to feel awkward or guilty about it. But if it's simply a question of cutting back a bit on other non-essential stuff, then I think you should cough up the money and be grateful that your children's teachers can be arsed to go the extra mile to give the kids a positive educational experience.

Depends on the area, in areas that have high levels of children having free school meal means the patents are on very low level income £4.50 will be alot of money out of the family budget.

YABU. Having children costs money, this shouldn't come as news to anyone. Areas that have lots of children on FSM also have schools that get more funding from the state. There is only so much the state can do, and while I think schools should be better funded than they are, I think those of us that choose to have children should take responsibility for paying for them.

Teachers can't win... damned if they try to improve the curriculum by using voluntary contributions... damned if they don't.... damned if they ask for money.... damned if they fundraise.
Its often parents who can afford to contribute who choose not to and those that can't who are 'guilted' into it.
We offer to support parents in fundraising if a trip is particularly expensive (a residential for example) but I've NEVER had a parent come to me with a fundraising idea!!!
Parents expectations are unrealistic

• about teachers' abilities to enhance the curriculum without (voluntary) contribution

• about schools' abilities to organise trips on a shoestring (our budgets have frozen/reduced too remember)
• about THEIR role in educating their child

Parents need to take a modicum of responsibility for their children's education instead of having unrealistic expectations and the need to criticise every time schools fail to meet them

Yay, bossoftheschool ! Quite agree. I know one parent (lives in £800K house; many holidays etc etc) who refused to pay on principle for any trips and boasted that she was never chased up. Finally, she said she wouldn't pay the £2 fee for a ticket to the Christmas play. She told me quite indignantly that the Head asked to see her and tore her off a strip and explained at length how much school activities cost.

Our DC's school did some lovely things and trips. Sometimes there was a voluntary contribution. With things like photos, uniform (ours had a logo jersey), school trips, cake sales, mufti days, the occasional specialist activity, I worked out that the overall cost per year worked out at about £3 per week, excluding school shoes. That was if one did everything. If parents couldn't afford it, they said something to their child like "I gave the £1 into the office yesterday when I popped in". No child would ever have been penalised. Yes, there were occasions when I though the £10 for a child's framed picture from the art exhibition was a bit steep for some parents but they were few and far between. I think it's an expense and it needs to be factored into the family budget because it means children's school lives are enriched and valuable.

There was a very active PTA and there were some very good 2nd hand school uniform sales (and very often the best stuff was creamed off and given to the children who needed it badly). The most moans also came from those who weren't facing hardship but who did diddly squat to contribute in the context of time or money. One lady who was a single parent always did her bit in giving time and always received her bit in kind. Another lad in a troubled home was always at the top of the football list and nobody ever came to put his name down or pay the bill but funnily enough the money that got handed in alwasy covered the exact number of children participating.