To think that these are not signs that we live in poverty.

[Tweedledeedumb]

Had an unexpected phone called from DS's school.
All year 7's were given a survey and my sons answers indicated that we might be in need and the school were offering friendly help. It turns out that the questions that he responded no to were:

Do we have a dishwasher
Do we have a microwave
How many holidays abroad has DS had this year.

AIBU that these are not an indicator or poverty. I have never seen dishwashers or microwaves as necessary.

Both I had in the past and never used them. It is personal choice not to own them and we do perfectly well without.

As for the holidays, why is going abroad necessary when we have amazing places in the UK. Fair enough if they said holiday in the last 2 years but for all they know, I may have had 6 holidays last year.

I work in education so not knocking the school as we see these things all the time but this had to be the most ridiculous one to date.

The school said that it was fine and it was just to flag those needed help and they couldn't ask the children if their parents struggled to pay bills.

What do you think? Are these questions useful?

We don't have a dishwasher, decided a nice deep pan drawer was more important when we got our new kitchen fitted. We have a microwave, but it's in the garage at the minute (don't like it messing up my worktops and and considering chucking it). We did have a holiday abroad this year though.

The trouble with ‘if you need help tell us’ is people often won’t out of shame/pride.
So whilst those things on their own aren’t an indicator, it’s about trying to help. That’s not nosey or invasive. It’s trying to HELP CHILDREN. I’d rather the school potentially offend a few parents than miss a kid who could do with some support. Schools can’t do right for doing wrong sometimes.

Wow. I'd be pretty appalled at the school. But then people are hung up on the idea that if you have money you just have to get all the trappings of that. We don't get pricey or rented cars, we are quite handy so prefer to run a car ourselves. Whilst living in our current neighbourhood a handful of people have exhibited surprise when we mention something they consider a luxury. Apparently we font look like we can afford x because we don't care about y. It's very sad really that we're all expected to want all this stuff! School obviously have takenough that to an extreme!

That’s absolutely crazy!!

I’d have thought having a microwave but not, say, an ordinary oven/cooker was more of a marker for poverty than the combination of questions the school asked. Up until very recently a microwave was the only one of the three I did have and there were spells when I very definitely was living in poverty and surviving on ‘cheap’ microwaveable ready meals (properly cheap batch cooking not an option as I didn’t have a freezer either).

I commend their intentions but they need to have a rethink as to what markers they are using.

I've never had a dishwasher and would never own one either. There are only 2 of us at home, it's not that time consuming to wash dishes for 2 people!

We do have holidays abroad but plenty of people these days aren't flying any more for environmental reasons.

What surprises me most is that they assume everyone takes holidays abroad in the plural. Are we supposed to be in the depths of poverty if we've only had one skiing trip and slummed it in Cornwall in the summer?

We haven't been on holiday this year, we haven't got a dishwasher or a microwave - but it would be pretty offensive imo to say I live in poverty, because I don't, we have a £30k family income.

While it may be good that the school is offering help, a survey like that is surely going to have the children discussing it amongst themselves and it is going to make the ones who don't have x,y or z feel awful. Surely the indicator that a child may be living in poverty is being on free school meals? Having holidays abroad, microwaves and dishwashers are lifestyle choices and don't necessarily indicate the parents level of income.

How utterly ridiculous. We don’t have a dw or mw - I hate microwaves. I’d secretly love a dishwasher but we’ve no room due to the 2nd freezer 😊 (albeit a small chest one). Last year we went to Cornwall to a luxury cottage. We are (thankfully) not living in poverty and I count myself very lucky.

I definitely think maybe asking about a washing machine would have been more appropriate without having to go further. Who has time to hand wash when you have children?

Is there a fund for a 12 sitting Bosch?

Those aren't indications of poverty though, if the school are going to ask questions they should be better thought out than those ones.

Surely considering which children might be missing meals, going without a coat in the cold, wearing damaged clothing, never going on school trips etc would be raising the flags?

What's wrong with using the free school meals as an indicator of poverty. I know it excludes the squeezed middle class type poverty but it's a commonsense indicator.

There are LOTS of families who would qualify for pupil premium funding but do not apply for it. Many schools are working on ways to encourage families to apply as it makes a big difference to school budgets. For example, if 10 families who would not have applied for PP funding do apply and get the funding, that would pay most of a TA's salary or the subscription to the schools library service for a year or for a precision teaching reading intervention programme or cover the costs of important teacher training that could potentially benefit a large number of students.

Financial disadvantage has a huge overlap with educational underachievement so schools are right to seek as many sources of extra funding as they can because good provision and good teaching benefit all, but have a disproportionate effect on disadvantaged children - and the opposite is true, that disadvantaged children suffer more from weak provision or disrupted teaching than their peers. When schools are so parlously underfunded (which they are) it's an absolute imperative to look for cash flow sources everywhere and then to use the money really wisely.

Haha that's ridiculous. My DD had the opposite as her teacher told them that a single person cannot live on less than £28k a year my DD told her that our family of 4 (me and three children) live on less than that and she called her a liar and that it was ridiculous to suggest that we could

Goodness !! No you’re right those aren’t markers of poverty !
We’ve NEVER been abroad !
Don’t have a dishwasher
Do have a 10 year old microwave though

Kids are fed, clothed etc and warm enough even if that does mean extra jumpers rather than heating on in winter and I would never think we are on the poverty line.
They need to re think their questions if they are going to try and get the info they need

-do you have 3 meals a day ?
-is your house warm in winter (as above either through heating or suitable clothing being affordable)

I was very very poor (single mum to five) when my kids were small. But the kids were the last to know about it - I made sure they got to go on all school trips, were wearing appropriate clothing (handed down from the child above, usually, but clean) and well fed.

I, on the other hand...

But the kids would have reported that they had a wonderful life, all right, maybe they ate tinned beans more often than they would have liked for tea, but still, they were protected from the worst elements of our extreme poverty.

So maybe kids aren't really the ones to ask about this stuff!

That’s made me laugh. Sorry OP.

For those saying the school should write "just say if you need help", that isn't how it works. At our school, there is free leftover bread and pastries and veg from tesco, but those in need refused to take it because they didn't want people to know they were in need. So the pastoral worker discreetly asked several families who had no need to start taking it. Suddenly, the uptake was much higher because everyone was doing it. Schools have become the community hubs for social care, health, child protection and safeguarding, crime reduction and loads of other things. Someone is trying to help. Just say you don't need it and move on.

So the kid who thinks they did go abroad last year because they went camping in Wales, and whose mum only had a microwave to cook with, no cooker, gets missed.

In the majority of cases - not having those things would be a flag of possible poverty.

I’m really not sure that true in the majority of cases, though.

No dishwasher - plenty of people have no room for one.

No microwave - vastly more likely to use a microwave to cook if you are struggling with money than a conventional oven. Also plenty of alternative lifestyle families who think microwaves are bad for you.

Asking if you’ve been on a foreign holiday this year... that’s not asking if you go on breaks or holidays at all, though, is it? No camping trips, UK caravan holidays, trips to stay with friends and family. And the timescale is bonkers - loads don’t manage a holiday every year even if they do go abroad every 2 years.

They need better questions.

Dear god
Surely a letter going out to say " we have a extra pot of money- if you are having trouble supplying lunch/ paying for trips, please come see us" is better than that nosey, useless survey

There is a thread on here atm about people who are tight wads and given what I have read on that thread I think some of those that really didn’t need the money would play poor just to get their hands on it

Equally you could be quite poor and have had all those things. We're not poor, just average but a dishwasher came with our rented flat and our annual abroad holiday is usually very cheap (out of season easy jet flights and then stay with relatives)
There's probably lots of not well off EU people that do the same, including leaving the kids with DGM in Spain/Poland etc for a few weeks in summer so they can work.

What ridiculous questions. We have a dishwasher and a microwave (need them for work) but I haven't been abroad since 2003 or been on a UK holiday since 2013.