To donate money to school?

[catkind]

Serious AIBU, have I made some kind of faux pas here? Normal state school, not an academy if that's relevant. The head has been sending home letters complaining about lack of funding. Recently had one of those letters home asking for a voluntary contribution of £5 for specified activity. I really appreciate that they clearly make an effort to keep these few and far between and don't ask for money nearly as much as most schools. So I thought we'd take the opportunity to donate a little more.
Only to get a message back saying they're "not allowed" to accept it. What's the rule here? Or did they think I was trying to bribe them or something?! Thinking about it they are very restrictive about what they will let PTA spend on too, they have £1000s in the bank that they haven't been allowed to use. Do local authorities have very restrictive rules or something?

Schools will always welcome donations, however you may have to separate it from the activity. They are not allowed to make a profit of any kind on trips or activities so that may be the issue.

No, there is absolutely no reason for the headteacher not to accept a donation. As you say, they ask for them in one way or another through the year. My DC's school have recently introduced a "voluntary" donation of £60 per term. The last school I worked at had several parents who ran their own companies and accepted £1000s in donations very year, all audited.

Yellow is right they can't make a profit from the trip, so maybe someone in the office didn't know how to process it, but they should and could easily find out.

When you say PTA haven't been allowed to spend, is that because the school don't want what they want to buy, do they ask the school to suggest things they need or, as is common, do they prefer to spend it on high profile big ticket items? I worked in a school where the PTA bought a swimming pool. 30 years on the thing is a flippin' liability.

Hmm, maybe it's related to that yellow. They wouldn't have been making a profit though, activity costs a lot more than our contribution, with or without extra. And they didn't say we could donate it through different channels, just said can't accept it, so I'm not sure about trying again.

Perhaps I could suggest setting up a governors' fund or something for parents who want to help out. Is that a thing? But if they can't or won't spend PTA money, would they spend that?

It was definitely a message from the head, office staff were as surprised as me.

My understanding tips is that they can neither get suggestions from the head nor get the head to accept PTA suggestions. I think it would be fine if they had a big long term project to save for, people would get behind that.

I was wondering if head is not allowed to spend donations on things to enhance educationally? Other local schools have fund raised for eg sets of laptops though, so I don't think that's a rule.

I'm part of pta we give teachers money every term to buy things they desperately need

Like that idea allthewaves. I may suggest it to PTA friend. That's exactly the sort of thing I'd love our fundraising to go on, and I'd be much keener to make any random extra donations via PTA if I thought it was getting straight to the front line like that. (Would be interesting to see if it's "allowed" too... )

I have only ever given the amount they ask for.

I will sponsor my child or send in money for any other fund raising events if participating.

There can be problems accepting it otherwise, as all money must be accounted for and state schools are not for profit.