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?

Haha glad you like Johncusackswife , am thinking of starting a Tight-arse Yorshire mums hints and tips

DS1's only just started to accept dress up days, since he's been at a lovely little school that doesn't have a uniform in the first place. I've got him one that's more Nordic and wintery, rather than specifically Christmassy, this year, so he should get some wear out of it throughout the winter.

Shouldwe - there's some lovely soft fluffy jumpers this year that aren't overtly Christmassy but lovely and wintery. If she does get over the horror of wearing The Wrong Things In The Wrong Place, maybe something like that would be more acceptable to her.

We do have to thoroughly itch test for DS1 - my own neck is a good tester for that. DS2 (9yo functioning well below half his chronological age, so I completely understand the situation you're in with your DD) will only wear school uniform to school. Anything else is WRONG!!! and he's rather disconcerted when he sees other kids out of uniform. What he's wearing goes as far as dictating which way he'll willingly walk with me in the morning.

Bettyberry, I don't know about your PTA but I'm secretary of ours and I don't have time to make 100 odd nativity costumes.
The last month or so I've helped organise our Christmas fair, 2 Halloween discos, the Christmas cards (which took hours to sort out) and 2 non uniform days. I also work full time and have 3 kids.
Our PTA is made up of just 4 members plus 3-4 others who help at events out of a school of 250 kids!

What madamginger said. When I was on PTA (or ran it from time to time) I was a working parent with 4 kids and a husband working abroad. No time to make your costumes for you. I have also never spent anything like £10 making cakes for school. Some people are clearly deluded.

Most schools now have a class set of those naff costumes from Asda etc. Bought by money the PTA have raised.

Christmas jumper day - just wear a different jumper and pay your £2. No- one cares. I teach and did PTA for years. Really, honestly, no-one cares. It's about the children having fun and doing something for those less fortunate than themselves.

Really, whatever schools do, someone moans.

Likewise madamginger!

it wouldn't cost me more than 25p per cupcake to make (they get sold for 50p).

See, that's where you are fortunate to be in area where the kids/parents can run to that. They flog them for 20p in DS' school and, with the inevitable unsold stock, the PTA flog them off at 10p-20p for a whole bag of cakes the next day. It just doesn't make sense in our area.

Awww. It's fun. The children love it!

DS's school is doing this, for the second year in a row.

They were really strict, it had to be an actual Christmas jumper. Not a top, not a t-shirt, not a long-sleeved t-shirt, not a jumper with Christmas things stuck on it, not a jumper with a Christmas badge on it.

It had to be a proper, knitted jumper with a Christmas pattern knitted in it.

I was volunteering at the time and the Year 6 children were asking all those questions, and were told that if it was anything other than a proper Christmas jumper they'd be made to take it off, or sent home if they couldn't.

So it did mean parents had to shell out £10 on a proper jumper, and then pay for their children to wear it, or just have their child left out.

School actually makes a note of how much money each child fundraises, so people feel they have to take part.

We did Superheroes for Children in Need a couple of weeks ago. They gave us two days notice for costumes on that one.

They've had a book sale, poppy sale, sponsored events, donations of various items asked for on two different occasions, school photo's, and a trip costing £16 as well, all since September. Plus the usual raffles and things. And they have a charity chosen by the children as well, which they ask you to send in loose change for every week.

I think it's too much. Yet I feel a bit stuck as I don't want DS to be left out. In July when I forgot about Sports Kit Day he was really upset to be the one in uniform when the others were in various sports kits. Luckily it was PE day so I changed him into his PE kit in the playground, but I felt awful and they know people will feel guilty if they don't let their children take part.

Hygge, your post says more about your school than it does about bog standard Christmas Jumper day at 99% of schools in the country. what possible purpose could there be for a school to keep track of how much each child raises? Very odd.

RomCom, in my experience if you ask people to bake a decent percentage of them will bake. But if you ask them for a cash donation the response is abysmal.

Hygge - that sounds horrible.

I'm stunned that people go and spend a tenner on a 'Christmas jumper' for this event. It is patently not the point.

Hygge, that's so wrong, and so far from what my school does. I'm sure nearly every other school in the country is like my school. Complain.

Also, we have Jehovah's Witness children at school. They just wear their own jumpers of choice. As do some other children who don't have Christmas jumpers. As a teacher, I just want children to join in and be happy. What would happen with these children at your school, Hygge?

What do some schools sell cakes for?

Last bake sale I spent £3.50 on ingredients and made 24 over iced spangly cupcakes that sold for 50 pence each. That's not a bad return as a fund raiser

Yy to the pp who mentioned all the other charity fund raisers.

Love our school, harvest festival funds got toward a school sponsorship for developing countries which is good for the kids to learn about.

They won't follow the edicts from children in need and keep it simple, normally just mufti for £1.

And no daft costumes for world book day either , they decided it was to competitive and faffy.

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?

My thoughts exactly.

We don't celebrate xmas. One of my kids went in a red cardigan hand knitted by grandma (I think she even stuck on a sparkly snow flake or something). The other wore a creeper t shirt and a black and red hoodie. He gets hot so was in the t shirt inside. One likes dressing up far more than the other!

I paid the money and forgot about it. I feel I make enough effort for the annual historical dress up day to tie in with their history topic to care. I did choose this school for its inclusive attitude but would be fuming if they were treated like at some of the other schools people have mentioned.

I was mentioning the PTA at my school when I was younger.

120 costumes weren't made in one go. They had a costume cupboard. Parents had donated old dressing up clothes and fabrics. The PTA repaired costumes as needed for all plays. Many of the costumes they made were really simple. Two squares of fabric sewn together- sometimes they used a pillow case with arm and head holes cut out. Add a rope belt, furry waist coat and a tea towel on the head you had a shepherd. Fairies/Angels the same only with silver tinsel and cardboard wings. For the Joseph play we did all the brothers had t-shirts with an initial sewn on the front

All went back in the costume cupboard to be reused for other plays. The school did sell tickets for the school plays though. £1 each to come see it and that money covered the costs of costumes/fabrics etc for set dressing.

It probably does seem really alien to do it that way but it cut the costs to parents right down. Unfair these days that the mum of an angel has to go out and buy a costume yet the mum of the narrator spends nothing because they are in uniform.

Yes, this was a big school - 3 classes per year - school plays were put on 3-4 times a year. There was always the nativity for the primary kids and the juniors put on a Xmas panto. it was nothing like it is now with there being a class play every other week at DCs school.

With regards to cheap cake sale. One year I bought ready made fairy cakes and let the kids loose with icing sugar, water and decorations. Cake sales are all about how the cake looks- kids don't care about the sponge.

my kdis primary school ALWAYS reused costumes. We never provided them

"Since when did a Christmas non uniform day mean you had to buy a jumper?"

Since Christmas jumper day was invented. It was new in the last couple of years or so. But despite the fairly fulsome condemnation I both see here and hear in RL, it won't go away. Yes it was much better when it was just home clothes/Christmas dress up. But the damned jumpers are there as A Thing (something to do with ITV?)

I agree with you completely. Previously I bought the large foam shapes in the shape of snowflakes and sewed about 3 (very easily) on to my DS's normal sweatshirt and a hoodie. They just pull off afterwards.

It would only take a year's worth of parents to donate nativity costumes for a decent bank of them to be set up. Then each year would need the odd addition or repair. I think that storage may be an issue.

This year DD is an angel and requires a white dress and halo. I know that many people will say 'any white dress she has will do', but strangely enough she doesn't have a white dress as she would ruin it in under an hour. I am surprised that some children seem to have a rainbow wardrobe just for these occasions. Or 'just cut a hole in a pillowcase', but the only white ones we have are one year old and for the guest bedroom. I got her a white dress from eBay for £4, which I'm pleased with. But I would be very happy for the school to keep it as it won't fit in the summer and would get ruined anyway.

And there are about 10 angels, so that is quite a lot of white dresses to find in the middle of winter.

I would love a costume cupboard - ask for leaving parents to donate any relevant costumes and then say £2 to "hire" from the cupboard. However, it would have to be huge in my school.

All ideas for drawing on plain t shirts etc -my two own no plain t shirts, they all have words or patterns. And like a PP we have no old or white pillowcases.

You don't have to buy a jumper. Just stick a bit of tinsel on a normal jumper