£5 donation for head teacher to sign passport applications etc...

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Thoughts on this?

The money goes to the school fund. It says a donation, not a voluntary donation.

Does this seem reasonable or unreasonable?

That seems really cheap.
I think its an excellent idea and very good of the HT to donate the money.

I can't see how this would exclude poor children. Passports and travel are very expensive so an extra £5 would hardly be the figure that prevented a child travelling.

I think it's a great idea too.

"GPs are no longer in the list of approved signatories due to the high amounts they were charging."

?? Are you sure about that??

We have a friend who is a GP and their signature was fine when we last renewed.

@IamFriedSpam she is not pocketing the money herself!

I think it's reasonable, it's a £5 donation to the school the child attends what's wrong with that. If you can afford and passport and presumably a holiday abroad then finding £5 shouldn't be too hard.

I also think it's perfectly reasonable - and a bargain when compared to my GP's charge (£23 currently).

It does take a fair bit of time to fill in, plus if the passport office contact them to check details it will take a lot of time out of a very busy day.

If you genuinely can't afford it, then speak to the Head and plead your case. But, as others have pointed out, if you can afford a passport and presumably a holiday (or why would you even need one?) an extra fiver is nothing.

Very unreasonable, head teachers have enough to do without having to spend time doing unnecessary paperwork . .. There are lots of people who can countersign passport applications, most of them not battling with making choices between TA redundancies,teacher redundancies, or heating their schools next winter

I'm a bit torn about this one. On the one hand, if a head gets lots of requests, it seems perfectly reasonable, and I agree that if you can afford to go abroad you can afford a small donation to the PTA.

I have two reservations though. There is actually a wide circle of people who can sign Passport forms, so people who don't know someone else more closely might be disadvantaged in other ways.

My second reservation is whether it is appropriate. The Head would be signing to say that they know the parent and not the child. Fair enough in a small primary - but in a larger school would the head know the parent well enough?

Great idea. Teaching time has been eroded by form filling so this is a good compromise. The money is going into school funds.

Reasonable only if it's voluntary. 'Donation' implies voluntary but it depends how it is administered.

Passports are not just for holidays, they can also be for school trips overseas, and can be an additional barrier to children from poorer families participating on trips. Hopefully the school is aware of which families would struggle to find the money and would not impose the donation on them - it is worth asking the school governors or PTFA what policy is for this. If the £5 donations go towards subsidising trips for less well off families I would heartily support it.
At my ds's primary school which has a fair proportion of children in receipt of free school dinners, a significant amount of PTFA fundraising goes towards subsidising school trips.

It is also worth bearing in mind that fully paid up members of the middle class are likely to have several family friends who can sign passport forms for them, so are less likely to have to ask their children's head teacher.

They are selling themselves short, they only need to be a fiver cheaper than GPs.

I think it's actually a good idea.

@Ethelswith, it clearly states that doctors can sign for friends. They can't sign for patients that they don't know well.
It's nothing to do with them charging but is to do with them signing forms for patients they hardly know. It's weird that dentist and nurse and pharmacist can still sign though.

Ethelswith,

GPs can sign for people they know personally, just not for patients anymore

They're signing to say they know the parent for the specified amount of time not the child.. how many head teachers in bigger schools actually know the parents anyway!

We have 500+ kids in our school. Even at 20 mins per child, say just 50 per year - that's 16 hours!

I can see why heads actually refuse full stop to be honest.

@2014newme I see my dentist twice a year, but I have never had cause to meet my doctor in the 7 years we have lived in this area.

I'm surprised the head will even sign them at all as they now have to enter their own passport details. I think a £5 donation is a great idea.

dentist and nurse and pharmacist can still sign though.

But it's the same thing - you are confirming that you know the person properly, not just seeing them every six months for a check-up or yearly at an asthma clinic.

I could still ask my friend up the road who is a nurse to countersign for me because she knows me socially. I couldn't ask my practice nurse who only knows me as a patient.

As long as it's a suggestion rather than a demand I think it's a great idea. I do them for mates and their DC, and because you're so wary of making even the tiniest error they do take a while. And I'd expect this to be done outside of working hours.

people who sign passport applications can be called and quizzed by the passport people if anything needs clarified

to be fair I have signed lots and never been called by the British passport office.

I was once called by the Irish passport office though. I don't know if they still allow non-Irish citizens to countersign Irish passports but they did about 12 years ago.

For those stating it's unreasonable stating they might not be able to afford £5.00. They can afford passports and foreign travel. So those posters abu

Our head didn't 'charge' but she did ask for a donation and I gave £10 for two passports.

Interesting points about the head knowing parents/children.

Our dc was into Year 4 before head finally stopped asking, "and you are............"
(me: "namechange dc", awkward smile,)
"that's right, namechange dc's mum and they are in.........."
(Year 2)
"of course, year 2."

Brilliant idea. £5 is nothing. If you can afford the holiday and the passport, you can afford £5.