To think school shouldn’t be charging for this?

[Indella]

Our school has a habit of expecting parental contributions for everything possible but the latest 2 things we’ve had letters about I don’t think falls under what a school can charge for.

The first one is my child has now started the compulsory school swimming lessons. These are part of the curriculum and so can’t be charged for. However parents have to pay £3 per child, per week for the transport to the swimming lessons. Is this not the school’s responsibility to fund as the swimming lessons are compulsory?

The second one is an “art and crafts day”. Letter says children will be spending the day, still in school, doing Christmas themed arts and crafts. They have asked for £12 per child for the materials. This is being held at school, in school hours and is instead of the normal lessons. I legally have to send my child to school so it’s compulsory. Letter doesn’t say voluntary contribution so I assume again we have no choice but to pay but surely the school can do arts and crafts with the children that don’t cost so much. 28 children in the class so £336 of art supplies! Sounds like they are using parents to re-stock supplies for the year.

I know they are not huge amounts but add that to the fact we paid £3 each entry to the school Christmas fair (including having to pay for the accompanying parent) and £10 each for tickets to watch the Christmas performance. Plus the never ending non-uniform days it’s really starting to add up and it feels like the school are simply using parental contributions to fund what should be covered by the school.

AIBU to think these things shouldn’t be charged for?

they can charge for the transport to swimming they just have to cover the cost of the lesson. £3.00 a week seems ok if they are hiring a coach to take the kids. coach hire can be expensive.

The crafts stuff i'm not sure about.

The time to worry is when you get the school asking for loo rolls like my dd's old school used to do

@myself2020 - that's one of the solutions, not the only one. Even if it were the only other solution it doesn't give a state school the right to demand more money from parents. We have education free at the point of service - like most of the NHS. And like most of the NHS if you want to change what people can be obliged to pay for in order to receive that service you need to go through the democratic process and government. A localised committee of the willing cannot impose charges on others and should not try to coerce those others through disingenuous letters home and pretending it is an obligation rather than a choice.

I was a school secretary for yrs and buses are expensive. The budget the school gets doesn’t cover transportation. That comes from the school bank account.

To answer questions there is no artist coming in for the day. The charge is for art materials.

We have to provide costumes for the school play, the £10 charge is entry fee it doesn’t cover costumes and it’s per person. Last year it was £30 for us to go as I had to take 8 month old DN that I was babysitting. Yes we were charged for the baby as “other parents would complain about paying for their older child if they don’t charge for babies on knees”.

And they won’t close the school. Absolutely no way. My 17 year old went to the same school in a year group of 6. They’ve always had a tiny classes. It’s a very rural area and closing it would mean the next closest school is so far away it would cost the government more paying to transport all the children.

At the risk of being shouted at, please will everybody who is talking about the cuts in school funding from the schoolcuts.com accept that these cuts are not real, they are all theoretical cuts using their methodology looking forward to 2022 and beyond.
The reality is that all schools do need more funding but to be saying that schools will see actual cuts in funding is simply not correct. For my school this website says we will see a cut of £82000, the real figure is actually an increase of £71000 from April 2020. There are well over 100 schools in my LA and every school is scheduled to see some increase in funding from April 2020, whereas on this website practically every school is showing a theoretical cut.
I know that what I am going to rely on is the actual figures that the LA have indicated rather than this website.

My children's primary school only offers one block of swimming lessons per year to one year group. It never seems to be the year group my kids are in and only seems to be the Gaelic class for that year group (which mine aren't in). I don't know if they have offered as much as that this year, but that's what has gone on for the last few so I assume it's the same.
As a result I have to pay £25 per month so they can have private lessons. At the same pool and with the same staff as the school lessons, just on a Saturday instead of in school time.

3) If the children walk to the swimming baths they will lose curriculum time. What should they miss? It won't necessarily fall in a break.

This is still a school cost - whether they decide to "pay" for it with curriculum time or cash for a coach it is a cost of delivering swimming and one that the schools, not parents, are legally obliged to cover.

Since September dd2s S cn ool have had just under £100 out of me for trips, crafternoon, non uniform and other shit!

I sent them an email saying I will no longer be funding them. I'll pay if I can and that if they are that short on fund then they need to look at finding more long term investors.

I'm not their ATM and I'm sick of the SAHP PTA members thinking I have all the time and money in the world for them.

OP - vote labour

Just checked my parent pay account so you can see the running total that I’ve paid over the last 14 days to school.

£2 non-uniform day x 2 children
£3 to buy a present and wrap it at school for parents x 2 children (We also had to donate the presents prior)
£20 nativity tickets x 2 children as KS1 and KS2 do separate nativities
£12 arts and craft day
£8 entry to the school fair, so we could buy back the things we’d donated.

£14 trip to the pantomime
£55 breakfast club fees x 2 children

£194 in 2 weeks! It’s absolutely unaffordable. Granted £110 of that is childcare but even without that it’s £84 in 2 weeks. Right before the most expensive time of the year.

And if labour get in ofsted will be no longer. there will be no checks on schools to ensure that standards are upheld and that they stick to the curriculum. And when the kids leave school there will be no jobs as industry will be cutting back on investment and the rich will be moving abroad along with their businesses.

It's neverending at this time of year. YANBU but as people have said schools are underfunded and the best will usually try to make up the shortfall creatively. I think I've given the school about £15 this week in compulsory donations for raffles, purchasing raffle tickets, school fair etc.

I think the swimming is fairly standard practice. I'd be miffed at the craft day though.

@dreamingofsun the Labour manifesto pledge is to replace Osted with new body not stop school inspections
"We will replace Ofsted and transfer responsibility for inspections to a new body, designed to drive school improvement."

@Indella many of the costs you've listed are not compulsory. Non uniform days, presents, pantomime are all extras. The school I taught in made it very clear that these activities were open to all even those who couldn't pay and we had a fund for kids whose parents didn't have the money

@Sooverthemill Yes not compulsory but when your child is the only one in uniform or when the present choosing and wrapping is done during class, when all the children go to see a pantomime and yours is left behind with another year group it’s hard to see them as optional.

OP of that school fair, breakfast club and nativity tickets are things they can charge for but the non-uniform days and the trip to the pantomime (assuming it was in school hours) are not fees they can treat your child differently for (e.g. by refusing to let them participate) if you refuse to pay. The wrap a present and the craft day they can't make you pay for but they can refuse to let your child take home whatever it is they made if you don't. They still have to let them do the activity just like the paying children, though.

You do have to ask yourself if it's a reasonable return on the money for you as none of that stuff (except, perhaps, for the crafts) looks totally necessary for the curriculum so if parents refuse to pay they probably won't do them. The pantomime looks like a reasonable expense (to me

• not necessarily to you) but I'd be refusing non-uniform and the present wrapping (which I find somewhat objectional on way more than the cost grounds).

While I think £12 is alot for an art and craft day I do wish schools would give us more notice.
I've been told today ds2 has a non uniform day friday £2
Why couldn't this be put on the app (that weve all had to download) months ago. It's not the money for me it's just finding the extra at short notice which screws me over.

And if labour get in ofsted will be no longer. there will be no checks on schools to ensure that standards are upheld and that they stick to the curriculum.

our school was inspected regularly and got glowing reports. Nobody picked up on the fact that English-language classes had no books, there was no library and a long list of other things, because the last HT had used the money the school got for those things to fund vanity projects and make a big show of how marvellous Gaelic education is. It was certainly better than the less favoured side of the school, they had books and everything! The school library is now up and running again, because parents were asked to provide the books and we did.

So I have very little faith in school inspections doing very much good at all. I don't know how standards should be measures and maintained, but I can see very well that the current system has huge hole sin it.

I just don't understand why it's acceptable to ask parents to pay £12 for a 'craft day'. I'd rather them sing Christmas carols or play pin the tail on the raindeer. If they want to have a fun day then you shouldn't have to pay for it.

Iwantacookie for something like a non-uniform day, if you are happy to give you could just give at a time when it's convenient to you. They don't need to know how many people are paying to decide whether to go ahead with the activity and they don't need the money upfront to buy the "non-uniform"! You could give the money when you're finding things more manageable if doesn't have to be Friday. And if you're not happy to give, you don't have to. the school cannot legally stop your son from participating if you don't.

Everyone saying blame the Government, great blame them, nothing will get done about it, you either accept it or do something about it, getting other parents to refuse to pay e.t.c you never used to have to pay voluntary amounts for various things at schools, that is what we pay tax for, schools should be banned for scrounging money from parents

For all the points about underfunding of schools, secondary schools don't make any of these requests to parents - it seems like some primary schools are simply doing extra activities that they then expect parents to fund like craft days.

We have to pay for lessons and most of us already play for lessons out of school so we are paying twice. I've just received letter to ask for £90 school fund contribution, I get these letters twice a year. We also have mufti days in return for tissue paper for the classrooms and we have also just been asked for £25 towards maths books. I just have to ignore some of the letters, I will always pay towards the school trips but all these constant donations and the charity donations on top just gets a bit much.

We are in the NW and our primary charge £1 for tickets to the Nativity play.

They always walk to and from swimming even though the leasure centre is just over a miles walk. The kids hate the walk back, they're tired from an hour's swimming and if it's raining it's horrible.
On Craft days they allow family members

To join in and children are allowed to bring in their own craft things like felt tips and glitter

I think you should be grateful you child us being taught to swim for a measily £3. That’s not part of the state system. Your very lucky they do that.