to think state schools should not charge their students for GCSE revision sessions

[springflowers11]

even if they are out of school hours.
Is this normal?

Could you explain more? Are they hiring in extra staff?

Not at ours. School building, school staff.

I don't know, we have just had a letter home saying the dates and the price.is it normal do you know? I thought most schools laid on free revision sessions

When are the sessions? If out of normal school hours then at a minimum there are caretaking staff to be paid. I run mine for free (days in holidays etc) but your Head may have decided to pay his/her staff.
Schools have very little spare cash.
How much is the session-bearing in mind how much a tutor would be if you paid privately (even if you shared the tutor)?

A GCSE Tutor will charge around £40 p/h or more for sessions. If staff are giving up their holiday time they should be paid IMO.

Why don't you think the teachers giving up their time in their holidays should be paid?

My dh is doing two revision days, at least a day of related prep/follow up and he'll get paid for one day.

I think that's a pretty good deal tbh.

Does it say it's a voluntary contribution?

I think the rule is that they can't charge for something that's part of the curriculum (but can still request voluntary contributions from parents towards it), but can charge for optional extras.

That said, it seems odd for a state school to charge for GCSE revision sessions, as it appears to go against everything state schools stand for and is giving an advantage only to children whose parents can afford the classes.

My kids' school is putting on free classes, as has every other school I've worked in or attended (7 other state schools, I think).

Well if it's out of school hours then the teacher won't be getting paid. Many, many teachers do it for free but it shouldn't be an expectation. If you want your child to go, then pay. If you don't want to pay, they don't go. A private tutor will likely cost much more than the school are charging.

DH went in to school today, on the first day of the holidays, for a revision session with Year 13's - 1 showed up. Massive waste of his time, that could have been spent doing all sorts of other things either for work or with his family. His deputy suggested to him that he charge for sessions in order to make sure the ungrateful buggers actually show up!

Have they got an outside company providing it or is it for their regular teachers to run?

If school morale is low there may be issues enticing staff to provide these extras free of charge.

Schools have barely anything at the moment. Maybe they are trying to generate funds for elsewhere in the school.

Maybe they are trying to attach value to the sessions as students are not appreciating/using lesson time wisely.

I do revision sessions after school and repeatedly tell students and parents I am there to help - cheaper than a Maths tutor! I have had three regulars since September...

However I refuse to have anyone that has been disruptive to class or does not put in adequate effort in lessons at my after school sessions. They earn the right to attend through their learning behaviour during lessons. It's my time and it's not for making up because they gossiped through a lesson earlier in the week.

Know it will be busy in a couple of weeks before the exams. Many come, chat with their friends and count it as revision so do nothing at home - but that's a whole other issue!

Good luck to you dc - hopefully the school will explain their reasoning.

Also, sometimes external education providers will approach schools and ask them to send out letters to parents - is it definitely the school organising and running these sessions?

It's sometimes a bit sneaky as it looks like the school is endorsing the provider, but some schools don't cotton onto this until they get complaints from parents. Other schools don't want their pupils to miss out on the opportunity so they send out with a covering letter saying they don't endorse the provider, have not vetted them and have no links, but are passing on the info in case parents are interested (our school has done this before).

the school have rules prohibiting teachers from tutoring their own students for obvious reasons.

OP, do you mean the school prohibits the teachers charging for extra help, or they prohibit the teachers giving kids extra help?

I work 50-55 hour weeks in exchange for the holidays. Reasonable to me and I don't complain about it. But i don't run revision sessions - ever. I run regular drop in sessions for extra help for students of all ages, but do not organise specific revision sessions. The kids are taught well in class and expected to revise individually at home. I really don't see why I should do extra unpaid work. Particularly as I don't see how it would help - at some stage students need to sit down and learn the information they are been given, and practise past papers to improve exam technique.

Amelia, I don't think anyone was suggesting that teachers shouldn't be paid for extra work they do - I think the OP was querying whether, if the sessions ARE being offered, that cost should be passed on to the parents.

Some state schools use the pupil premium to fund one-to-one tuition and catch-up/revision classes. The teachers obviously get paid (often a respectable rate) for these classes but the cost obviously isn't passed on to the parents of those state school kids.