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?

Millie2016 “. I honestly had no idea that some teachers were buying materials from their own money.”

My colleagues all did. I taught technology - food tech colleagues bought stuff to demo with and for pupils who couldn’t/didn’t bring ingredients in.

I’d often go home via B&Q to buy materials. At one time my power tools went in as I’d better tools than the school had.

We could have taken receipts in but as department quickly used its annual funding there was little point.

It’s not quite expected but in many subjects/schools it’s an unwritten part of the job.

I hated having to ask pupils to ask their parents for the donations.

It’s not right.

We pay £10 a month per child. I'd much rather that than scrabble about for £1 for this, £2 for that, £5 for the book fund.

Schools are desperately under funded, and they are trying exceptionally hard whilst on low and rarely improving salaries to educate your children. If you can afford £40 please give it, in fact give whatever you can afford as I'm sure they will use it well, I've worked in a lot of schools and equally I am certain they will not chase parents they know aren't in a position to help. Their reminders are most likely to check now that everyone has settled back into school and has five minutes to themselves that they have donated if they want to.

@ImportantWater you don’t pay enough in taxes to pay for state schools, no one does. That’s why we are running a deficit year in year out and funding keeps getting cut.

In New Zealand, we bought all our own stationery, cooking ingredients, school trips, swimming, and got asked for an annual donation. There are firm rules on what schools are allowed to charge for, and also, surrounding the donation - what they can and cannot do with non-payers - which is very little. The integrated (state but posh, with high 'donations' expected) schools generally try it on, though.

I was treasurer for our primary school. I thought budgeting as a poor university student was hard. It's a hell of a lot worse budgeting for a school.

My girls were aghast at the technology equipment in their school (an academy). It's like something out of the dark ages apparently. In NZ, we were moving to Bring Your Own Device - so once again, parents paying.

There was help available however, if needed and requested. Also, the option of paying the donation weekly or monthly.

Like over here, the schools are underfunded, and often oversubscribed. And yes, over there too, teachers are buying supplies from their own pockets. Along with a bottle of their favourite tipple, I always gave the primary teachers a gift card to a stationery shop. . .

I would pay 40 a year relatively happily but if it was 100s I simply wouldn't be able to afford it. It would also then likely result in my child having to miss out on say, the school trip, if that was extra on top.

I completely understand why schools are doing this and I would give what I could afford but it also does concern me that if parents are making up the shortfall, the government goes "ok, all fine, now we don't have to". You could argue for some kind of income-assessed contribution system, but I do think that as it stands, we should be pressuring for schools to be properly funded by the government through our taxes, (god knows there are things they could cut back on elsewhere right now) rather than expecting parents some of whom are very strapped for cash already to step in and fill the gap.

Schools are absolutely skint. Ours sent out a letter saying that they were no longer able to pay supply teachers, so if a teacher was off sick they would have to split the class. The government has cut and cut, and as PP have said, schools can only just cover the basics and teachers often end up paying for things out of their own pocket.

Our school asked for £5 per term in reception. In year 1 they are saying they don't ask as there will be paid-for trips, but I wish they would at least give us the option as a small parental contribution would go a long way. £40 a year is really not much.

@buggeroff and @Letsnotusemyname that really surprises me. I hear about the cuts but you don’t really understand the impact it has.
As an aside, our school is cashless. All payments are made through an app. The office won’t take cash (PTA cake sales etc are different).
I understand and agree with paying for trips and activities you sign up for. I guess I was naive in thinking any additions the school wanted to implement would be funded by them - like the yoga instructor.

My local primary school have asked for £120 per annum, per child. They have a fund that holds their charitable donations (raised through PTA events etc, so separate from their state funding) which has circa £500k in it, but they don't want to deplete that so are reducing their spending on school trips, music etc while asking parents to set up standing orders.

Yabu. Have you been living under a rock op? Surely you are aware of the devastating Tory cuts to the education budget?

My friend has a daughter at college. They ask for a "voluntary" contribution of £50. Last year was her first year and whilst she meant to pay it, the term "voluntary" made her a little lapse. The college hounded her until she paid it. This year she knew to pay it on time!

Parents still contribute to school trips etc, the school are reducing subsidies. So e.g. if the school used to provide some free music tuition, it's all now paid for by parents.

I've not RTFT so I apologise if anyone has already posted this.

I'm a school governor so I see first hand how bad the cuts are to our school.

If anyone is interested you can see your school budget, and compare it to other schools in your area, or other schools of similar sizes on the website below. If you feel money isn't being spent correctly then raise it with either your chair of governors or your head.

schools-financial-benchmarking.service.gov.uk/

I hope all the parents aghast at school contributions keep this foremost in your mind if you even consider voting Tory, a bunch of Eton educated millionaires don’t care about your child’s education. Any promised investment from that bunch of liars will be borrowed money hence putting the UK into more debt.

Some grammar schools ask parents to set up a monthly direct debit.

£30 per family is reasonable if you don't have money problems imo. I'd rather pay less than 50p per week than the teacher sub my child from their wages.

@Nextphonewontbesamsung in a way yes! I’ve been a SAHP for 4yrs and in all honestly haven’t really kept up to date with issues like this since I stopped work.

Not saying that’s ok, it just is what it is IYSWIM.

I think a lot of parents prefer a lump sum rather than £1 here, £2 there.

I don't have children of school age yet, so this is to come I'm sure, but there is no way I will be paying "voluntary contributions" towards the school. I would pay for my children to go on extra curricular school trips and the like but I'm not funding the school. That is all types of wrong. Whether I can afford to pay or not is beside the point. If we have free state education in this country then I expect that to be as stated.

I do have teacher and TA friends and I know that they have regularly worked longer hours than they are paid and have paid for supplies themselves. I sympathise with the conditions but it is a choice. If more people pushed back then things would change. in my opinion the whole way of going about it is wrong. Things only change when people start making a stink.

Schools are underfunded? Make the government listen. Use your unions. Protest about it. Go on strike. Write letters to your mp. Yes it will be inconvenient, but seriously. Wtf. You should be able to do your job within the hours required and with the necessary equipment. No more and no less. If you can't do that then there is an issue and it needs shouting about.

People listen to those who shout the loudest and that is a fact. By accepting cuts to schools (or anything else for that matter!) and going to the parents to bridge the gap, this is just creating an even larger problem. Because as far as the government are concerned, there is no issue because you are managing. This is exactly the same in many businesses across the world. People often leave in droves because they don't get the support and are expected to do more than what they are paid for.

yanbu.

I know schools are struggling but our nursery the head teacher stands at the door requesting the "voluntary" donation from every parent once a week. They could not make it more clear that this isn't voluntary. If it was truly anonymous I wouldn't mind but it's the way it is done that annoys me.

Make the government listen. Use your unions. Protest about it. Go on strike. Write letters to your mp

That will do the square root of fuck all at the moment with a government only concerned with Brexit. The best thing you can do is not vote conservative.

The pragmatist in me cares more about my children's educational experience, their school environment, the resourcing, and the teachers, than making a political point. I really don't believe that not contributing to their education because it should be free is going to make a positive impact any time soon. Certainly not soon enough to count for my kids.

Where else should the money come from?

Well the tax that I pay for a start!

Dd school ask for:
£60 swimming
£40 for clubs
£70 for trips
£60 top up

Plus brand new toys/gifts/books and bottles of alcohol twice a year.

Its pretty galling when they then buy a brand new minibus that's hardly ever used and put in playground equipment that no one is allowed to play on!

Well the alternative would be that the parents are paying for all books and stationary like other countries do.

Think about, how many workbooks, pencils, glue sticks, paper, paint, rulers, highlighters, arts material etc you would have to buy. I am 100% sure it is more than what the school asks for.

We got a similar request recently and really struggled to know what to do. School funding has been decimated in some area so I can see why they are making such requests. I was worried about actually hiding governmental incompetence by contributing and also worried that this will lead to massive inequities in schools in more and less affluent areas, which is just not OK. We decided not to contribute.