AIBU to think this is grabby by the school and we as parents already give enough!!!!!

[Worryingwombat]

This might out me but hey ho!!

This afternoon a letter arrived home in the school book bag from the governors stating that from january the school would be asking for a £10 donation per term per family towards the upkeep of the school

As the school is a religious school they have to stump up 10% of the yearly building and upkeep costs

But drinking hell I will have £10. A term not so bad if they stopped all the other stuff but no letter mentions more fund raising!!!

So far since September we have had

3 non uniform days all had to find dress up outfits for both my kids ( I made 2 and borrowed for 1 of the days)
Gift in a bag donations
Bottle donations
4school trips to be paid
Music activity pay to take part
Bake cakes for school
Then bloody buy them
Christmas fair
Sweet jars
School photos at £28 a pop!!
Class photos

And next year
Easter party
Easter bonnets
Non uniform days
2 more outings
Donations for books
Donations for summer fair
The summer fair!!!

I give up I bet I will have spent over £100 when I've done and now they want £10 a term!!

I don't mind the trips as the boys get something out of it but the rest is a nightmare!!

I give up!!

So AIBU to think this is grabby and guilting me in to it !!

Not everything at my DS's primary went into school funds.

Money for Children in Need, Save the Children and other charity stuff was also part of this term's requests.

The school is trying to raise funds for a minibus. Not an essential I don't think, and there will also be the ongoing costs of MOT, insurance, tax, etc, before the school can use PTA raised funds for other stuff.

Just a thought about another way you can help your school without sending in money.
My children's school's are always very pleased to be given donations of paper from business. My sister's work often have surplus paper that they don't need and would have just put in their recycling, the school's were really pleased to be given the paper as they can never have enough.
once I took in A4 books of plain paper that they were going to dump and the school cut them in half so they could be shared out to more classes.

I'm sure a lot of people's place of work have things that they don't need anymore and would be happy to donate to schools, my husbands company donated their old (but nearly new) flat screen computer monitors to one school as the school could not afford to replace their old style 'huge' monitors.

DD used to go to a RC school before I moved her in September.

I shit you not, in the weeks leading up to last Christmas they asked for:

Christmas raffle ticket money. 1.00 per ticket and every child was sent home with 5 tickets.

A donation toward the costs of the nativity play. What the fuck this was for I have no idea, as every parent had to buy or make their child's costume. They then also asked us all to donate said costumes so that future performances could benefit from having them. That easily swallowed £20.

The school charged everyone £3.00 per ticket for the pleasure of going to watch the children in the nativity - the nativity we had all already paid for.

There was the Christmas shoe box appeal.

There was a charitable toy collection - had to be new toys to give to those 'less fortunate'.

There was a non-uniform day.

There was a school trip totaling £16.00 for a panto ticket and transport.

They asked for a donation towards the costs of the children's Christmas parties.

They sent home bags and asked you to fill them with stuff to sell at their Christmas fair.

Children had to be sent in with spending money for the Christmas fair so that they could replace all the junk parents had just gotten rid of.

We were asked to bake Christmas themed cakes and biscuits for their Christmas bake sale. We were then asked to come along and buy said cakes/biscuits. Children also had to be sent in with money to spend on a treat for themselves.

We were asked to make a Christmas donation to the RC church attached to the school. This would be the church that had just finished undergoing renovations that cost hundreds of thousands of pounds.

It went on and on and on. I'm a single parent on a very low income. They would have robbed me blind of every penny I had given the opportunity

My God, that is bad. think it makes me realise just how lucky I am with my DD school

School minibus... might open up options for after-school clubs, more swimming, cheaper trips... Might be a use for some Pupil Premium funding. Honestly, a minibus used creatively can be an amazing thing for a school to have.
Donation requests for charities are suggestions not orders - ignore.
Panto trips, swimming and other outings tend to cost more than we'd expect because of the horrible cost of coach hire.
I say if you can't afford to pay, or don't want to, then don't. But understand that in some schools, if they ask for money for what seems to be day to day expenses, their budget is probably very tight.
As said above, it's easy to find out, you are entitled to read public minutes, and any non-confidential papers that were dealt with at that meeting. Which would include budget plans and regular budget updates.

I didn't realise how VA schools are funded before. I suppose I'd never thought about it. Interesting thread.

Grabby? Yeah, because all the money is going to fund the teacher's summer holidays.

What do you think the money gets spent on?