To not want to pay the school’s voluntary contribution

[Millie2016]

This is light hearted because I will pay it, but AIBU to think the school asking for a voluntary contribution of £40 a year is a bit cheeky?
Last year my child attended 3 hours a day at the nursery and we were asked to pay it. It is an electronic payment against the child’s name so they know who has made it.
I reasoned it helped the school, improved resources etc.
Every week in the newsletter they published how much had been donated and how ‘short’ the fund was i.e. how many parents had not paid.
The thing is, with last years experience under my belt I now know that the school constantly asks for money/stuff. Weekly! Dress down days, PTA cake sales and even £5 to buy a piece of my daughter’s art work.... the list was endless and relentless.
So I’m left wondering, does every school do this? Am I just being a bit tight or are they taking the P?

Why start an aibu about it if you can afford to pay it and are going to pay it?

Whether school funds are being cut or not I don't have a problem with this, if 80-90% of parents do it then it adds thousands to the funds of the school which enriches every child's experience. It would actually be better if schools did this more as it might narrow the gap between private and state schools.

Personally rather than the pta guilt tripping parents into running the bake sale or whatever I'd rather just pay a proportion of whatever would be raised in exchange for not having to participate. Then anyone who wants to do a fundraising event can because they want to rather than because they need to raise the funds.

YABVU that’s very cheap for an education! It’s not like the board is taking the money for themselves, itsbeingsoent on making the school better for the children (including those from poor families who could never afford to pay this). Do you feel no sense of financial responsibility for your child at all?

@ImportantWater I don’t blame you.
These comments are interesting, especially as I’m just starting the school journey (DD in reception this Year). I honestly had no idea that some teachers were buying materials from their own money.

I’ve said yanbu. But schools are desperate and I’m glad to see you’ll be paying.

@AuntieStella the liberals introduced state funded education in the 1800s. Where did you get the 1940s idea from?

My son's school asks for a voluntary contribution towards the cost of materials in art and DT, think it was £20 last year. It is much worse in primary, always asking for contributions for various things, you even had to pay to see the xmas play

@BogglesGoggles it’s a voluntary contribution for extra curricular activities (not optional and no consultation on content).
Yes I do have a ‘sense of financial responsibility for my child’. That’s not the subject of the post.

I have also said YANBU but would also pay it and would prefer to pay a lump sum at the beginning than all the fivers/£2/£1 etc all year long.

I have no complaints at all paying the teeny tiny percentage of money asked for (ours is the same ish - £45) for the education of the children I chose to have.

Most parents have no idea the state our schools are in. In my local primary they are always short of essentials and teachers and TAs spend their own money each term on basics such as glue, pencils, paint. The PTA raises thousands each year and all of it goes on supplying the school with essentials.

Do you feel no sense of financial responsibility for your child at all?

It is one thing to pay for school trips and another to be asked for money for what should be a state funded education because of the massive shortfall in government funding for schools. Personally I am happy to pay for schools through my taxes,, as a percentage of my income. I am not happy for (in my case) every parent to be guilted into spending £600 whether they earn £22K a year or £120,000K a year - and in fact, as it is voluntary, for some parents who can't really afford it to pay it out of the kind of guilt comments like "can't you take financial responsibility for your child" encourage, and others who can easily afford it not to do so (as is their right). I am also not happy for as a PP said this way of funding schools to become the norm, as then you get schools in affluent areas having more funding than those in deprived areas, when it should be vice versa.

They are completely underfunded - so it is not cheeky, they are not making a profit. However, it is not ideal at all that they are having to ask for this in order to fund basic resources.

When my 3 were at primary I made a voluntary (unasked for) contribution.( a few 100)

As I worked full time with a lot of travel Iwas not able to do a lot of bake sales etc and that made me feel better
It was /is a fab school

But if you don't have the spare cash then don't make the donation

I started sending a cheque to the voluntary fund once a term, then stopped once I found out just how many parents weren’t paying for school dinners or swimming lessons.

Plenty of parents strutting around in designer gear & driving fancy cars. I’m not up for subsidising their kids.

But schools in affluent areas get much less funding from the government than deprived areas; my school (affluent area) has zero children receiving pupil premium. So, they need parents who can afford it to make up this shortfall. I have no problem paying extra for those who can't afford it, but think those who can and don't are bang out of order.

When DS1 started secondary school in2001 his headmaster ran a new parents’ evening and handed out direct debit forms with a request for £40 a month. It seemed a lot but we were able to afford it.

The school ran an excellent programme of sports events and drama. Funding has been dramatically cut since then and I doubt any head enjoys begging but needs must. Without all these contributions (some of which, like Jeans for Genes, are for charity rather than the school) education would be a bare and for less enriching experience.

It’s tough but please, all parents, if you can find the money, please do.

I’ve used the website mentioned. My local high school has lost out on over £850,000 of funding since 2015.

The schools aren’t asking for money for the fun of it.

Our school is about to go into deficit and is going to ask for voluntary contributions. They have cut everything they can, switched all their suppliers to the cheapest option, encourage some early retirements, filled vacancies with NQTs instead of experienced teachers. And they still don't have enough money.

Schools are shortening the school week because they can't afford to stay open. We are in a crisis.

We've been asked for £1 a week for my reception aged daughter, dropped in a discreet basket in a corner of the classroom. Many of my friends are teachers and regularly spend their own money on resources like making play dough, glue sticks, cooking ingredients etc. Government cuts are frustrating, but that's the reality.

Yes I pay tax, but I'm many other countries around the world families have to supply school equipment like exercise books,pens etc. I'm just grateful education is so massively subsidised and such a good quality in the UK. it's really not a hardship for me as I can afford it. If I was struggling then I wouldn't feel bad not paying for it.

Ultimately if you can pay voluntary contributions then you should.

Nah. Ultimately schools should be well funded by taxation because massive inequalities in education and opportunity cause massive inequalities in society.

I think you could reasonably argue: Ultimately if you can pay voluntary contributions, and you voted for this government, then you should.

My sons school does this an annual contribution as well as voluntary contributions for every school trip or activity and then we have a barrage of chasing texts and emails when people haven't paid up Threatening to cancel

Just been asked for £16 for DS to do swimming lessons this term

I pay it I always do in my view it is to help the school and in turn help my Childs experience at school they are criminally underfunded and just the way of things now

If you’re pissed of, and you should be, look to the Conservative party who made these cuts. Write to your MP. Ask them why your local schools are losing funding.

I can see exactly why schools are doing this. One of the teachers at our school has just had to provide her own desk for her classroom because the old one had pretty much fallen apart and there was no budget for a new one for her. When was the last time you heard of an office worker having to provide their own desk? If parents can afford a little bit to make their children’s schools a better place, then they should be doing so. However I wish schools would stop asking for money for external charities. If they are so strapped for cash, then they should be scrapping all the dress up/down days in exchange for a £1 for children in need/hospice etc and concentrate on raising the money to help their own budgets (I realise how uncharitable that sounds, but if schools are in that bad a financial mess and parents are struggling to pay for both, surely funding the schools has to come first). But, that doesn’t excuse the government (and previous governments) for letting school funding get in to the dreadful state it is now in.

Once you start paying this, it just encourages the government to cut the school budget even further and pass on even more costs to the parents. It's fine to donate a bit of money for 'extras' but not fine to be paying for leaky roof repairs! It's not like education is free - parents are paying tax.
I always pay for school trips that my child goes on, I will pay for cooking ingredients, I buy my child coloured pens etc to use at school, but would not respond well to pressure from school to pay X amount per year in addition.

The correspondence states it’s to provide for a range of extra curricular activities that they choose to provide in school time

Just wondering how it's "extra curricular" if they're providing whatever it is in school time? After all, in this context the very definition of "extra" is outside ...