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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

School contributions!

104 replies

Redhandle · 19/10/2017 14:39

I've had to name change because this will out me if people read my other threads but I am a long standing member I'm sorry in advance as this will be long...

My DD goes to a faith school, and they only receive 90% of the funding that other schools do. I'm a good member of the community and I do my best to help out where I can. In this community majority of families are in their mid to late thirties, well established and have good and well paying jobs or have had enough years to make themselves comfortable. Me and DH on the other hand are a very very small minority in that I suppose we were on the way to that but we fell pregnant when I was in my early 20s, it wasn't planned, we had very little saved but we're determined to soldier on. Now 5 years later we own our own house, I work a few hours around school whilst my DH works incredibly hard in a career that is extremely demanding but financially incredibly rewarding and I am so proud of what we have achieved together. Now this isn't to say that we are extremely comfortable by any means, we pay all our bills, have paid off a few credit cards that we accumulated over the years that at the time we would have drowned without and are FINALLY now able to start properly saving properly and have another baby on the way.

My DDs school is relentless in asking for money and I am absolutely sick of it, they had a wealthy contributor who made up majority of the money that they lose out on BUT due to their poor choices that many people including myself were very unhappy with they lost them and now we as parents are being asked to contribute the recommended amount of £85 a month. I don't have a spare £85 a month which they just don't seem to understand. I have had calls at 9:00pm to ask why we are not currently contributing and I have just received an email (that everyone has received) stating that they are dissappointed with the parents who are still not contributing anything. I said to DH I think maybe the answer is we should contribute like £20 a month or something like that but he in my opinion quite rightly stated that there were several school meetings before they lost the contributor where parents were raising worries with the changes they were making and they ignored it and actually my husband stood up at one of these meetings and said this. He also thinks that if we contribute a fraction we will just continue to receive more demands as it isn't the amount they want. I don't know what to do? I'm so scared people will find out we aren't contributing because majority do and actually actively are so rude about parents that aren't in front of me as they don't think I'm one of them and I admit I'm a complete coward but then I don't want people to know my financial situation.
AIBU?

OP posts:
MidniteScribbler · 21/10/2017 22:38

Do you know it is illegal to deprive a child of any school activity because of the parents inability to pay?

I don't see this as depriving a child of a school activity. This is more like school fees. The OP presumably is able to choose a non religious school for her child where the fees are not required.

catkind · 21/10/2017 22:54

This is more like school fees.
Except it isn't, because this is supposed to be a free to access state education. If you allow religious schools to be a provider of state education at all (and I'd personally rather we didn't), it has to be actually free like all the other schools. Otherwise it's a private school taking advantage of state funding to make its fees really cheap. That's not how it's supposed to work.

bunerison · 22/10/2017 09:42

It's not like school fees and no ondovual child is denied anything. The government money covers all secular teaching. The school day is longer, in our case 8.30-4 to allow for religious studies teaching.

This is not taught by class teachers most of whom don't have the knowledge to teach it but by specialist teachers of which there are several. The additional funds also cover religious workshops, trips, speakers, books etc. Our primary has 2 security guards who are there full time. They are also there on parents evenings, for events etc and although the government makes a contribution it comes at a cost to the school. The security gates and CCTV were also improved last year at a cost.

Parents are made absolutely clear where this money goes and it's all very transparent but the school cannot deliver this without parental contribution from those who can afford to contribute. It's absolutely not a case of trying to be a private school via the back door.

Puzzledandpissedoff · 22/10/2017 11:07

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't our government already provide some of the funds for faith schools' security? There was a mention this week of Amber Rudd pledging £13.4 million this year to prevent anti semitic attacks, though I honestly don't know whether this is another smoke and mirrors exercise of the sort we see constantly?

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