To not want to get too involved with school life?

[Pinkrosesarebest]

Just that really. My twin sons are in Reception. So we are only at the beginning of our school journey really. I will help out in the future I am sure but haven't so far. I always send in money when asked. However 2 mums talked very loudly near to me and quite pointedly today and said it's always the same ones helping out, signing up or organising PTA events. Surely it is a choice rather than an obligation?

I couldn't agree more with this
"Some people are too busy to help. Some people are too shy to help. Some people just don't want to. That's all fine. But there is no need to attack the people who do. You are no better or worse than they are. Just different."

"i will probably also get jibes like this (along with comments about how my dc are suffering through me working)."

No you won't.

Yeah you are right Humphrey I did post that slightly tongue in cheek but it did really happen.

Our PTA has paid for enough iPads and laptops for every student to have access to one. They've bought several sets of instruments for the music room. Great play equipment for the playground. A kiln for the art room. A time out/safe room for children who need it. Professional standard lighting and sound equipment for our theatre.

Do you want your children to have access to all this? It involves parents actually doing something to help. No one is expecting anyone to give up their job or take it on as a full time role, but do SOMETHING. You could offer to butter breadrolls the night before a BBQ, show up on a Saturday morning with some gardening tools and clean up that overgrown corner of the playground, or sew a few art smocks of an evening. If you're at the shops and see constructions paper on sale, then buy a couple of packs and send it in to the school. Everyone has something they could do to support their children's school, and most of it doesn't have to cost money, or even too much time. I f we want our children to have those extras that enhance their schooling, then it's a team effort.

I got that all the time Hakluyt and also when DH looked after the Dc so I could WOH, I got sneering about that as well.

Hakluyt I can assure you my PTA is exactly as described!

the fewer people who take part in a PTA the harder work it is for those who do.this makes it harder to recruit newcomers, no one wants to join a sinking ship. Everyone has reasons they are too busy with work, family. nowadays there is no pool of SAHMs with time on their hands, they either have preschoolers or are back at work.

There is therefore a powerful incentive for PTAs to be inclusive and recruit new parents. If you go on the PTAUK website there is lots of discussion of this. "Cliques" in most cases are imagination not reality.

In the longer run I expect many PTAs will fold which is a shame. Once they are gone they won't come back. but if parents can't find the time then it's tough shit.

In the longer run I expect many PTAs will fold which is a shame. Once they are gone they won't come back. but if parents can't find the time then it's tough shit.

No, they'll expect the teachers to pick up the slack and run these events in order for their children to have all the little extras that they believe they are entitled to have.

I don't think my child is 'entitled' to have a summer/xmas fayre (ie loads of people crowded into a rammed school hall with the kids all hopped up on sugary drinks and demanding money for rubbish activities and prizes that break within minutes) and would much rather that the school asked those who can afford it to contribute £20 pa to the PTA fund a year. I've given up going to the events because I don't think they're worth spending my precious leave time on, and they're always a bit shit anyway. It just seems so backwards and parochial. Sorry.

In my kids school most families have two working parents, therefore most of the pta is made up of working parents, including me. Many of them see it as a way to get involved in the school if they can't be involved in the school day to day. The woman who runs the cubs works full time.
Usually over 400 adults turn up to the Summer fete, mostly from the school community but only a fraction will give half an hour to volunteer to do a stall. As others have said that is the most disheartening thing. Luckily we don't have the amount of bitchiness and sneering that has been on this thread, or it would just not be worth doing, even for the purpose of fundraising for the children.
We are asked for money for the school every year. I can just imagine how well it would go down if parents were asked to fork out another £50 a year for the pta and not even get a fete out of it!

Surely if everyone had to give money to the pta each year there would still be pta volunteers collecting the money and distributing it, because I can assure you, the school won't be doing it. They have enough to do. The only thing that would happen is that the whole thing would collapse and the schools wouldn't get the little extras that they do now due to PTA fundraising

My son spends enough of his life at school (including after school club a few times a week). I prefer to spend my time and money actually spending time with him and investing in extra curricular activities. I pay my taxes for his education. If the optional extras didn't exist, so be it. We could all volunteer to at our local hospitals too, after all do we not all want better health care? My son is my utmost priority, not his school. If people want to volunteer and donate that's fine but don't expect everyone else to share your values. That's not how it works.

I'm with you Floozey.

It's fine to not get involved but please do not criticise others and what they do.

Hear hear! At my girls primary we have over 750 families. The same 20 parents do everything from canteen (it's different over here & doesn't work the way it does in the UK), uniform shop, Gov Council, fund-raising, helping in class, on excursions etc.

I don't mind doing what I do, I enjoy helping. What I don't enjoy is when the school is criticised for choosing to do x,y & z by those who never have any intention of helping to do anything that mean we can do a,b,c!

For example, we have to cut a few lines from the canteen menu recently as it was too much work for the 2 staff to do themselves. Lots of people complained & when the canteen asked for more help in the form of volunteers, so they could reinstate some of the stuff, they had.........ZERO applicants.

I run the uniform shop, with other commitments it means that I can only open for a couple of hours one morning. This has been complained about, yet no one else is prepared to do it.

It's like voting, if you aren't prepared to do it, don't moan at the status quo!

Just ignore them, there are always a few queen bee types, volunteering for everything That's a bit rude. You do realise that if the 'queen bee' types didn't do it, no one would? Can we please stop with the Queen Bee remarks please? It sounds very insulting to me. I don't judge those who don't/can't help, yet to me, Queen Bee sounds like a judgement of my willingness to help out. Like I think I am somehow superior for doing so, and I really don't think I am! I do it because I have the time & I enjoy it. No because I want to lord it over people. I joined the Gov Council to have a say in what happens at my dc's school.

I don't judge those who don't help, everyone has their own reasons & it isn't always possible to do so. I do get pissed off at those who don't help & criticise everything we do to better the school/make it run better.

To be fair, the "neurotic" woman that is always demanding playdates, isn't like that because she is on the PTA! But good way to bash us all & make us all look "neurotic"!

IT is true, of course that a lot of mums work, I do think though that the preschooler thing is an excuse. I did volunteer with dd2 in tow. A few times she has sat drawing in the office off the canteen, or 'helped' arrange the uniforms, or played on the staff PCs during meetings.

And she wasn't the easiest of babies/toddlers/preschoolers to be fair. But I just got on with it.:)

We are not there all day! I spend an hour in the uniform shop, a couple of hours in the canteen (when I can, as I have other commitments), perhaps an hour here or there for a committee meeting, less then twice a month, a couple of hours two evenings a term for Gov council stuff (usually after hours, so 7pm start). The thing that takes up most of my time is the book club. Again, parents LOVE being able to order cut price books, but forget to see that someone has to get the catalogues to the class, submit the orders, then divvy out the books to the children. That probably takes 8 hours a term (so 4 hours, spread out over the course of two weeks, twice a term). Again, when the lady doing it stopped, the same mum (me) volunteered! Thankfully, I have one other parent to help, so it isn't a huge job. Another case though, of parents wanting the service, but not being prepared to help. They would soon complain if we had to stop doing it!

Someone said that it is the parents who raise the money & the credit goes to the PTA. Well yes, YOU do pay/send in the money, but without the organisation of the PTA, YOU wouldn't be attending anything! You paid the money, you didn't do anything to physically RAISE it. And PTA parents pay their share too.

Strinkle. My child is also well behaved. Just because I don't helpout at the school doesn't mean my D.D is badly behaved. Sorry had to say that. Strinkle didn't say that! She was trying to point that her dc get certificates/parts in the plays off their own merits, not because of her involvement in the school. She didn't say that parents who don't help out have badly behaved children at all.

It is always the same ones picked. They don't give other kids a chance to shine. after all Every child matters. That is a problem that needs addressing within your school, you can't blame it on the volunteers/PTA!

its the parents who fork out the cash who pay for the laptops etc not the PTA. As I covered above, the PTA members will be giving too. They are also parents, so they dip in their purses as much as any parent. Also, it is the PTA who get the best bargains with equipment. We managed to get a discount on the cost of some stuff, so parents didn't have to pay so much. Little things like that, which you seem happy to overlook. We have also got better deals on residential camps. We hold election BBQs to raise money for equipment for your kids (and mine, of course) to play with/on.

Some here don't see the importance of volunteers/PTA, but believe me, if we all stop going it, your kids will soon suffer with old, dated, worn equipment. No where to play, extra costs on basic things.

Who do you think would arrange the disco, the school fare, the new books, the new equipment if parents didn't help? The teachers do not have the time & resources to do it all. I think many schools would suffer greatly if they didn't have helpers.

Good posts different name for this.
I was beginning to feel disheartened. I do volunteer stuff at school and depressing to think that some might think I'm a sad, do gooder type with too much time on my hands. I fit the volunteer stuff in. I'm not floating around being a lady that lunches [not that anyone should care if I was!].

I avoid it. I don't have time. I attend events and buy stuff though. Each to their own.

I compromised by not getting involved in the committee or any organising but always volunteering to help out at functions. Worked for me.

cruikshank if you would rather not have the summer fair and would prefer to just hand over £20, then do that. Give it to the PTA and tell them you won't be able to attend the summer fair, but here's your contribution. Or you can overpay on other things like cake sales, non uniform days etc that the PTA use to raise money. Failing that, make sure you donate items for the summer fair. You don't actually have to attend to support them.

To be fair, the "neurotic" woman that is always demanding playdates, isn't like that because she is on the PTA! But good way to bash us all & make us all look "neurotic"!

Yes. Because that's what I said.

Another case though, of parents wanting the service, but not being prepared to help

Actually, I don't want or need any service the PTA might offer. Please tell me, what you know about my life and what I do and don't do and how much spare time I realistically have to be able to volunteer at my children's school? Does what I do and what my life is like somehow filter into you by me standing next to you in the school playground?

For what it's worth, I am a full-time teacher and, single parent with 3 children under 10. I have huge responsibilities related to my job which take up many an evening during the week. I also care for my 80 year old mother, saving Social Care/the NHS thousands. I also fundraise continually for my local homeless charity which takes up most of my evenings, whether or not they are free. I volunteer with the Beavers one evening a week, and several weekends a year as well (and have to pay for childcare for some things related to this, despite the fact it's a voluntary activity). Other people I know have partners on shift systems or who work away regularly, who are active members of various clubs and socieities from judo to train spotting, who are active in their churches or who quietly support the local hospice. Most work full-time. All of us love our children dearly but have no desire to be involved in their PTA because we do other stuff. Despite this, we are subjected to the over-loud whisper in the school playground about how we can't be bothered and how wonderful the PTA are. No, you're not. Or at least, you're no better than we are. We all do 'stuff'. We all have responsibilities. There is no law that says we must make the PTA our first responsibility.

No, I'm not prepared to help.

fedupbutfine

If you don't want/use the service then you are exempt from what I said, are you not? And I believe that I did point out that I understood people were busy!

No one is obliged to help, but like I said before, I wish that those who don't, when they would be able to, didn't have little digs when we have to cut back on hours/stuff offered.

I am talking about the parents at my school who moaned that we had to remove 2 (daily) home-baked (school baked ) items from the menus because the volunteers couldn't cope with the workload, or the parent who told me that I should open the uniform everyday (I can't, I work (volunteer) two mornings a week & help in class/the library on other days) because not everyone could get there on the day it was open.

The parents who refused to help with the latest fund-raiser BBQ (an all day-er, at the weekend, as we had an sports carnival) but yet moaned that we didn't raise much as we had to close early because there was no one to staff it. Not to mention the food that went to waste because we had to close it.

Well said fedup

No, you're not. I am certainly not better than anyone who doesn't help (for whatever reason), but then again, I don't remember saying I was!

I have been on the other end though. Here (Australia) we have national volunteer week, most places do a little something to thank their volunteers. Our school did a high tea for us all in the staff room, prepared by the paid staff of the school.

A couple of parents who haven't helped at the school invited themselves, but because the staff knew they hadn't helped, they got turned away. They seriously couldn't understand why WE got something, when all the non volunteers got nothing!

It is that sense of entitlement that I don't like.