Oh fuck, I’ve no excuse not to be part of the PTA

[MoonBaby1]

I’ve used the new baby excuse for as long as possible. He’s almost two so that’s wearing thin. I only work three days a week and it’s flexible around school times.

It’s only a tiny rural school that relies on parent volunteers so I’m just going to have to dive in right?

I'm on our school PTFA but there is only one of them that resembles the PTFA Chairwoman from Bad Moms and she isn't in charge thank goodness, and everyone else is lovely and normal.

There are enough of us that we don't all have to do every event, and some of the parents do things remotely like printing, and flyering, and calling businesses for raffle prizes - we all do what fits round our lives.

But also I wouldn't feel guilty about not joining if you don't want to, its just if no one did it then the kids would miss out.

I would rather just give the school the money. It's the parents by and large who end up buying all the cake and whatever anyway. I'd rather just eat my own cake and chuck them the 20 quid

This. I know not everyone can afford it, or not per child, but I wish they'd just ask for £20 off everyone at the start of each term and be done with it.

I never joined the PTA either. School parents are scary (see all the school gate threads on here) and I liked to keep my distance from the Queen Bee (and alpha male) types.

there are 3, occasionally 4 of us at PTA meetings at my children's school. None of us are the "popular" types.

I'm there because my kids benefit from whatever we acheive, and a secondary aim of making myself feel better about being present at the school than I was feeling going in there when my SEN kid messes up again.. At least sometimes it's a nice reason now!

the added benefit is that I now am on speaking terms with most of the staff, which helps when I get called in for another meeting!

cologne it isn't just about the money though. PTAs are usually the ones who organise the xmas fairs. For many children the school fair Santa's Grotto will be the only one they get to see. That can't be done unless a physical person volunteers to dress in that all important outfit and a few more physical people to be Elves.
Summer fairs - they are an event. A experience for the children. Again the only place many children get to experience a bouncy castle, face painting and all that.
Secondhand uniform sales. A physical person actually needs to sort out the clothes.
It isn't all just about money for books and glue sticks - it's about community and experiences.

@bookmum08 - you are absolutely right. Our PTA does a number of activities purely for the children (out of the profits from fund raising activities and with volunteers) because we see it as being not just about fund raising but about community and giving something to the kids.

Yes. It would be abit joyless to go through primary school with not one fair or non school organised event. Have happy memories of those from my own childhood.

Also it’s over quicker than you know. You will look back fondly at the pta shit you had to do. Bonded for life to my lovely friend after we had to clear up a bomb site craft room after a Christmas fair with only cold water and paper towels there was glue baked on to tables glitter everywhere 😁

Don't do it. I felt guilted into becoming a school governor and it was a guilt ridden period of my life that I'd rather never repeat.

@bookmum08 I’m curious about what skills you’re learning from being in the PTA?!

I'm with Auditangel, I have avoided the PTA like the plague for years but help the teachers that actually have my boys in their classes.

You don’t need to actually join the pta to help out, I used to just help every now and then, I ended up joining and becoming chair, purely my decision. When I was chair we had members of the pta and we also had a few helpful friendly mums and dads that we knew we could call on to help if needed, some only liked doing certain types of things, like behind the scenes etc and that was fine, we were just grateful to have any help in any form. Ours is a small village school and I like to think it was a nice friendly pta where everybody was welcome, and we managed to do some lovely activities for the kids, and to be honest most parents got involved at some stage. Give it a go, you may be pleasantly surprised, and if it’s not for you that’s fine also.

Just say you dont really like volunteering. Or education. Or other peoples kids...

Just tell you are more than happy for your kid to be excluded from any activities that are using PTA funds and that they won't be using any new equipment that they buy - they will either use the old broken stuff or nothing at all.

Yeah just say no if you don't want to. I don't get involved with my kids PTA because I am woefully inadequate. I bake cakes for bake sales and drop them at the school office that is the extent of my volunteering. I am a parent at a school where nearly every single other parent owns their home, has expensive cars, good careers, holidays, etc these perfect lives and perfect parents. I am a student parent renting a 2 bed flat with my kids sharing a room and a husband who works really long hours in a badly paid physical job. We feel like terrible parents and terrible adults and embarrassed about our situation and being around PTA types just makes me feel worse and usually make me feel stupid.

I've had two very different PTA experiences. One that was fantastic, everyone pulling together for the good of the school. And another that involved sleepless nights, worry and eventually having to take legal advice on how to extricate myself formally, to prevent being investigated by the charities commission. That was fun.

Sadly the latter experience has put me off PTA for life. I would however be willing to set up a standing order and pay money directly to the school.

I never wanted to be a part if the PTA. I was forced to go to a meeting by my friend who was an active member but leaving the area and I've never looked back. I was shocked by how little funding our school gets, how much the PTA contributes, how under staffed they are. I'm now the vice chair and we work our socks off voluntarily because out of a school with 400 pupils we have an active board of 4 and approx 8 regulars that we can rely on for events. We dont get to enjoy xmas fair or summer fair with our families. If just 10 more people stepped forward we could do it in shifts and all start to enjoy things again. I despair at the parents who think its not their problem, they would be the first to complain when the disco, panto trips, fairs get cancelled. We all have a responsibility, if you all stepped forward, you wouldn't have to do it all because the tasks would be spread out. Also, we also need opinions, ideas, a partner, friend, parent who works somewhere or knows someone who can get us a freebie or discount to reduce costs of events. You may be so valuable to the PTA without even having to physically do anything!!

I am the same my oldest is year 7 and youngest is year 2 and really I wish I had done more as it is a good way to help with making new friends and if you help when you can it is appreciated, the ways to fundraise these days are changing in this modern world.. also together with Teachers support as well it is good on your cv as well these days..

If your Comms skills are good, just write one really good sponsorship letter template or funding bid template & either give them to the Chair to use as they see fit or send them out to businesses yourself with the reply back to the Chair. I raised nearly £8k doing this; I felt completely absolved of selling raffle tickets for dodgy prizes after that.

Ok so I am involved in our PTA. Started as treasurer as no one else would, am now co-chair. I've lived through skeleton crew years where we cancelled events (notably, the summer and Christmas fairs) because we simply couldn't get people to sign up/ show any interest in helping. Everyone wondered why there was no fair, and all the three of us could say was "three people and their families can't staff a fair." We now have a few more people involved, thankfully, and we're able to properly have a normal calendar of events which the children love. Nothing excessive: Christmas fair, one disco per term, summer fair, one quiz night for parents.

What is frustrating is to hear from parents when you finally decide not to hold an event due to lack of volunteers, all of a sudden everyone says they could have done it. Well, if you ignore all the bookbag begging, and the FB page asking politely, what else are we going to do? Everyone wants to have events at the school but no one wants to help make it happen. I absolutely appreciate that you'd rather spend 100% of that time with your family but if everyone felt that way, well, etc. We're never going to be a group that "stands out with a clipboard getting people to sign up" (a comment I'm seeing a lot here!) but I bet those schools actually manage to run some decent events!

Now that I've said all that there are PTAs out there with some very cliquey people in them, they seem to join as a pre-made group and it's very much a popularity contest. I'm fortunate that our school doesn't have much of that, so most of my impressions of volunteering have been positive. I've made some good friends and I'm not a school gate mum at ALL so this has been my main source for info and interaction with other parents.

If you're still reading and actually want to help the PTA, I suggest just signing up to help at an event to start. You can avoid the pressure you might feel at a meeting, and you can get a feel for how the committee treats people. If you like the look of things, offer to help more. If not, then don't. Maybe try again next year, because turnover is definitely a thing due to children moving on or volunteers leaving.

If you have absolutely no time or interest: donate a bottle or two to the tombola requests.

All these people saying the pta raises much needed funds that enhance your childs education, yet our schools pta only seem to make money for playground equipment and a few tablets. Money cant go towards extra teachers or additional lessons, so doubtful it enhances education. At the end of the day, pta stands for parent/teacher association..so shouldn't just be about fundraising.

You're not obliged to do anything. Not sure why you think you need an excuse, you're an adult

I joined our PTA because it was about to fold, because nobody wanted to do it any more. I wouldn’t describe it as fun exactly, but the other committee members are all nice, ordinary people doing it because they think it would be a shame for the kids if the Christmas fair and Halloween disco stopped happening, and because the school needs laptops, swimming transport etc etc.

There is no bitchiness or cliquiness. No advantages for the dc of the PTA. We are delighted and grateful when new people muck in.

I pick and choose what I get involved with - usually the adult orientated stuff like jumble sales and gardening. You wouldn’t catch me in Santa’s grotto, for example, and that’s fine.

Op, if you can help out with something, do. Every small contribution is appreciated as it reduces the workload for everyone else. You don’t have to take on a committee role.

And as a pp said, please don’t contribute to the tedious cliches about ‘PTA types’. It’s so unhelpful.

Just say no.. doesnt matter where in the world you go, the PTA parents are all the same. 😂.

OhCaptain skills I learnt being in the PTA...
Lets see.
I learned how to gain confidence in having to communicate with people I didn't know.
How to be proud of my skills and interests and spread that knowledge to others.
How to put up gazebos that appear to be missing parts.
The legal parts of putting on events like alcohol and gambling licences, rules around first aid.
Learning what books are popular and sell well at secondhand book stalls and which ones don't.
How to do crowd control - cake sale chaos and grotto queue madness.
How to obtain decent products for prizes, games, gifts etc at the best price.
How to approach local businesses for support.
How to research and gain parental opinions on what money can be spent on.
Who is the best parent/teacher at doing the bbq.
And lots more...
Now I personally didn't do all those things but that is the type of things that being in the PTA (or any other community group) can teach people.

I did the second hand uniform for a while storing it in a grim old cupboard setting up tables lugging it all out selling it clearing it all away. It was a shit job so after a year said I wasnt going to do it anymore. The moans and complaints! I heard one group complaining and said sweetly that they were welcome to take the job over I could show them where everything was. Tumbleweed.....

Just say no.. I have hardly worked due to illness in reception and year 1 and now in year 2 and starting to get less time but still, NO, I said it back then, a few pta mums dont like me but.. so?