Aibu to not want to fill a smarties tube with £1 coins

[Invisimamma]

This will be outing if any parents from my child's school are on here...

Both children came home from school and nursery today with a tube of smarties each as a gift from the PTA with instructions to eat them and fill the tube with £1 coins or 20p, letter specifically states not coppers or 5/10ps. Apparently the tube will hold £12 of 20pences.

There will be a prize for the class who brings back the most money.

Now I have a few issues with this:

1. my friends child has a diary allergy was really upset he can't eat his treat (she didn't know this was happening so couldn't provide an alternative)
2. we still have lots of Easter chocolate and don't need more
3. dp and I both work but childcare and other costs are crippling us at the moment and we're skint, an extra £24 is really beyond us just now
4. we've just paid £46 snack money to nursery and £12 for a school trip for one and £8 for a trip for another (amongst lots of other recent school costs)
5. does anyone even has coins lying around the house anymore? I use contactless payment for almost everything and don't draw out cash.

The children have been hyped up about it and both have said they need to raise money for the school. I guess I'm feeling guilty that we're not in a position to participate/it's a pain in the arse idea.

go out to the bank? Come on, you're being ridiculous.

Gran, I'm raising money for school, I want to try to fill my Smarties tube!

OK, let me see what I've got in my purse - here's 50p.

Job done. No pressure. Back to whatever they were doing.

To quote the PP:

"Could you ask a grandparent to do it with them? Have they got £12 spare and wouldn’t mind changing it into 20p coins and doing it as a bit of fun with the dc?"

Do you tend to have 60 20p pieces to hand as a matter of routine? I certainly don't.

I quite like the idea as a saving money scheme for myself. Absolutely not for a school competition, ridiculous.

I personally don’t see it as cheeky. Schools are seriously underfunded.

You have the option to ignore it or return the smarties!

I’d put in £1/£2 worth of 20ps in so it raises something and covers the cost of the smarties.

My children's school did this last year. I think it's disgraceful. Our PTA organised it. It's encouraging unhealthy eating AND putting pressure on family finances. Awful all round.

Go to the bank... change some money Well, as our nearest bank is more than 10 miles away I doubt m/any people will be volunteering for that little road trip - adding pollution, petrol, mileage, wear and tear on the car etc etc etc.

Daft idea that shows, again, that some poeple can't always see beyond their own circumstances!

Look, if it’s a state school you really do have a moral obligation to contribute as much as you can even if that means going withoutholidays, new clothes etc

Bollocks! No, we don't. We have a moral obligation to feed and clothe our families, and this sort of twattery from schools is thoughtless because it badly impacts families who can already be struggling.

DD1 went to a state grammar school. I remember one year they decided that in order to raise money for a variety of things they would send home standing order forms and a suggestion that parents should pay a monthly £40 - £50 on a pretty much open ended basis. We couldn't afford it so I filed the form carefully in our recycling bin. A few weeks later they threatened my DD with a detention because she hadn't brought the completed form back!!

They sent another form. This time I completed it, by just writing on it that we couldn't afford this, wouldn't be contributing in that manner and I expected that to be the end of the matter. I signed and dated it too. Strangely enough, we heard nothing more about it.

Some schools just don't get the impact that some of these ideas can have on families.

go out to the bank? Come on, you're being ridiculous.

Gran, I'm raising money for school, I want to try to fill my Smarties tube!

OK, let me see what I've got in my purse - here's 50p.

No. The poster said “Have they got £12 spare and wouldn’t mind changing it into 20p coins and doing it as a bit of fun with the dc?"

I don’t know about you but my parents don’t tend to hold a reserve of 20ps. It would be a trip to the bank For sure to fulfil that request.

One set ofgrandchildren sed to go to a school that was always raising money for PTA funds and in the early days ( new school) they would raise thousands , and then just spend it for the sake of spending it . I always felt they should have at least donated some of the money raised at the summer / christmas fetes to charity . At least spending money at fetes is something you can choose not to do and escape the guilt .
One of my other grandsons came home with a request for money and he insisted his teacher said they had bring it in .

They often get requests for school trips and holidays and the requests for payment are just before Christmas

This particular idea is poorly thought out and I would do it at our school. However state schools are desperate for money. They can barely afford staff let alone all the other necessities a school needs. £7k in the bank at this point in the year is normal for a PTA. ours is currently saving for a new set of laptops we need £10k to get enough for a whole class to use. Currently the IT the school have is so unreliable that they often have to abandon IT lessons altogether. There’s a whole section of the syllabus our kids are missing because the school equipment isn’t fit for purpose.
I understand it’s annoying and if you can’t afford to contribute that’s fair enough but if parents don’t pay then no one else will buy the stuff the school needs. It’s shit but that’s where we are with education in this country at the moment.

Sorry that should say i wouldn’t do it in our school or the opposite of what I said

I don't know how old your kids are but could they do any odd jobs for close friends or family members, sweep their patio, weeding, hang some washing out for a couple of pounds?

If they could raise a fiver each from other people then surely could them just top the rest up with a pound or two of small change then you've donated about £14-15 to the school which is OK.

givemesteel - we have no family around, friends have similar age children, being bombarded with similar requests. I am always very reluctant to approach anyone for fundraising.

Also, we teach DD that helping at home is part of living there, she doesn't get money for jobs.

gamerwidow - I totally agree. But I think the best fundraisers our primary PTA did were less "in your face" and less comptetive.

The one which made the most money apart from firework and bi-annual Summer party was the ice cream sale in Summer term. Parents could do it or leave it, most did it to treat the children but you weren't expected to do so.

Thanks to no set-up costs and a huge margin between costs for buying and revenue for selling they made a fortune.

Look, if it’s a state school you really do have a moral obligation to contribute as much as you can even if that means going withoutholidays, new clothes etc.

What absolute BULLSHIT

OH and I chuck the shrapnel into a jewellery box in the bedroom. Grand children had a request for coins. I was glad to get shot of it. The children brought home those little jam pots to fill which I thought a neat idea.

Our PTA is amazing and basically funds the playground, books, kitchen equipment and other basic stuff that the council can not afford.

It’s a sad old state of affairs

Look, if it’s a state school you really do have a moral obligation to contribute as much as you can even if that means going withoutholidays, new clothes etc.

Absolute bollocks. Our school is letting go of a large percentage of it's teaching assistant staff due to government funding failures, but it's still utter bollocks. The moral obligation is for the GOVERNMENT to properly fund our schools with the money it receives from taxpayers to do so. Their failure to make the wealthy pay their fair share is the problem; it's not parents who can't pay more on top of the taxes and bills the already pay!

When I was at school they used to make every class collect copper coins to make a copper snake. It was quite good fun as a child, the school would draw a start line in the playground and then each class would put the coins out in a long line and the longest one won a tin of chocolates. It used to take the whole break time to put them all out (and pick them all up)!

The school used to raise a reasonable amount because it happened every year and we all took it very seriously saving up coppers for about 6 months! Me and my sister had quite a few arguments when my mum got 1p change as to who’s turn it was to have the 1p for their class!

Never mind the money, I’d have been very cross if the school had given my kids Smarties. They were strictly off limits as the orange ones in particular sent them completely hyper.

But presumably the other couple of hundred parents were fine about it, so... 🤷🏻‍♀️

YANBU.They should be grateful for what you can afford. Besides the awful allergy risk they have caused, expecting £12 min is CF territory!

One way to make money for the PTA is to set up easyfunding. Then when people shop online, the retailers make a small donation to the cause. I think that provided the PTA is a registered charity, it should qualify.

Look, if it’s a state school you really do have a moral obligation to contribute as much as you can even if that means going withoutholidays, new clothes etc.

Hahahhahahhaha!

Very annoying , don’t do it or fill it with coppers, 5p’s or 10’s they can’t demand £12 , grrrrrr!

As Chair of a youth group, I wouldn't ask our families to contribute like this when I know that some are struggling to make ends meet. I wouldn't like to make anyone feel under pressure to pay, and certainly wouldn't give a prize to the child that donated the most.

That said, it is harder now to obtain grants than it was a few years ago, and I guess the PTA thought this would need minimal input from themselves (volunteers are also hard to come by!) If only they'd left it at "please put any coins into the Smarties tube that fits", it would seem less grabby.