To think that Christmas jumper day is a bad way for schools to raise money?

[Pico2]

DD is in reception, so this is her first year of pay £1 to wear a Christmas jumper to school. A Christmas jumper costs about £10 from Tesco (we live rurally, any savings on buying from Primark would be erased by the petrol cost). Much like other children she grows like a weed, so we'd probably only get 2 years max out of a jumper. We wouldn't buy her one otherwise. So a charity will get perhaps £2 over 2 years out of the £12 spent. I appreciate that it isn't obligatory, but like most parents I try to get DD to participate where possible. Am I the only parent to think that this benefits shops far more than charities?

I don't begrudge the money to the school at all. I'd just rather give the £10 ingredient money to the school than the £5 they raise selling my cakes and the time I've spent making them. But all of these non-uniform days are for external charities, not the school anyway. Again, I'm fine with where the money goes.

I've been a teacher, I know that not a penny of cash raised goes to the teachers and that they frequently spend their own money on resources etc. On the plus side, the teachers won't outgrow their Christmas jumpers if they've bought one. I wonder if many teachers have the energy to decorate one at the end of a very long term.

Dds just wear a cardigan/jumper with a Christmas brooch, or last year a felt reindeer tacked on, which then comes off after Xmas. Ds wears a tshirt with one on, because he doesn't do jumpers or cardigans.

The jumpers that Dds friends do wear, seem to get a lot of wear over Nov/Dec, so not a complete waste of money.

It's just a bit of fun.

Agree OP - even if you decorate your own jumper, the cost will probably be about £1. It's not an effective way to raise money and dress up days aren't fun for everyone.

Christmas jumper shop next year, before the event. Everyone brings in their outgrown jumpers and exchanges them for the next size up, charge £2 for doing so.
If she's your first and in reception, you are at the beginning of a long journey full of random donations and expenses that your PTA and school will have thought up, based on fundraising and fun. Cash in an envelope may be more practical, but a jumper day is exciting.

I can't attach bits to anything as ds would put them in his mouth. I've now gone down the route of old/cheap t shirt and fabric pens for most dress up days.

I got some light up spiders from the £ shop, the spiders come off the LED lights which have a battery pack - see if you can get some and just pin them to any jumper/cardigan.

I'm on year 4 of doing this and have never seen any of the children at school wearing DIY Xmas jumpers (and we are not in an affluent area). I didn't know people did that.

So I do feel obliged (as do all my friends) to go and buy one each year so my son doesn't feel left out.

EBay is good for Christmas jumpers.

Completely agree re dress up costing way more than the donation. Amount, ditto cakes.

I got a snowflake jumper from Primark that was a bit more general. Or what about a Frozen top?

We have this for the first time this year. I haven't broken the news to dd yet. She is 18 but trapped in an 8yr old body. I am already running a sweepstake on how far into her head her eyeballs go, how loud the sigh will be when I tell her and whether she will go down the school uniform route anyway. She most certainly would not wear a Christmas jumper outside of school and probably wouldn't tollerate tinsel or any such adulteration. She has a jumper with fur trim, might persuade her to wear that. She has only just grown to accept normal own clothes days. In reception she wore clothes which very closely resembled school uniform. School and home are separate and shouldn't be mixed.

My other two would love it!

I was going to suggest Frozen too if you didn't want to make. I bought dd an olaf jumper mid November last year as I knew this jumper day was coming and she's had a lot of wear out of it all year round. This year I saw a pretty cardigan in a supermarket with silver stars on that I've bought and she's wearing already that will be her 'Christmas jumper '.

I hate it. Last year I sewed tinsel on normal jumpers and added a flashing badge from Poundland. I finally unpicked the tinsel in March.

This year, I've ordered jumpers.

Kids love it though.

A Christmas jumper is now a thing that kids seem to be expected to have. Last year I sent DS in with a red jumper with tinsel tacked on which he thought was cool until his friends took the mick :( this year his school production costume involves a Christmas jumper I guess in a misguided attempt to make the costume easy/cheap for parents so I bit the bullet and bought one. He's happy but meh

The kids love it.

Look on EBay loads of 'worn once' ones going for 99p

Just broke the news- 'No, no, I'm not doing that. I don't have a Christmas jumper.' Well we could get you one. 'No, Christmas jumpers are hideous and would probably be itchy.' You could decorate one of your jumpers. 'No, I'm not. I will go in school uniform.'

I think that went fairly well .

Children do not all like random dress up days. It really isn't always fun.

Yanbu.

Many parents blissfully ignorant about state of some school budgets. Some parents I know waft around moaning about niggles like this ( not low income families of course that's different) I want to thrust a copy of the school accounts under their nose and shout "all the money is gone buy a fucking cake!"

Charity shops near me have loads of Christmas jumpers in at the moment. Win- win as far as I am concerned. DC can get a jumper very cheaply and another charity gets the benefit as well as the one the school are supporting!

BTW. I used to teach in a primary school and would have made a point of praising the creativity of any DC that came with " home-made " jumpers to counteract any child who might be tempted to say something nasty.

The kids love it.

No. Some kids love it. Some kids absolutely hate dressing up days. I have one of each and I do think that obliging me to spend money buying a jumper for my non-dressing-up 13 year old is thoughtless. And dressing a teenager up in something home made is social suicide unless it's extremely well done.

There are many lovely ways of raising money that don't require people to feed the market for throw-away fashion.

I hate it too. Everyone says customise one but we don't actually have any jumpers, they're just not something the dc wear. Tried charity shops for Christmas jumpers. I don't want DC left out so I am forced to splash out on something we wouldn't otherwise get at an already expensive time of year.

And you have no chance of teaching anything on a dressing up day. We do stuff like this despite trying to talk our head out it. We are about 50% FSM and we cannot get him to understand that £10 per child is a hell of a lot of money for our families.

However I'd just rather give the £10 ingredient money to the school, what are you making cakes out of for the ingredients to a dozen fairy cakes to be £10?

I am absolutely with you on this, it goes on and on. Bake sales are the same £10 on ingredients to raise £4 for the school.

if they are a certain age they won't want a customised jumper. If you've more than 1, it's a fortune.