AIBU to want teachers to stop buying resources out of their own pockets.

[washandrepeat]

For years I've read about teachers having to pay for their own photocopying once the budget has been used up plus other resources. Now I am reading that some teachers are having to purchase their own soap and sanitisers for their classes as the budgets won't stretch.

We seem to be one of the only nations, not funding schools to deal with the pandemic. We also seem to have some of the biggest class sizes in Europe, especially compared to the wealthiest European nations. Since when did we accept this for our children? 21 is the average in OECD countries, 23 in France and 21 in Germany. These are some of the reasons why school there can go back with social distancing. Why do we put up with this as if we can do not better?

Why are property developers allowed to build hundreds of new properties in an area without a whiff of new schools to provide for the growing population in these areas?

This isn't a debate about should schools open or not or a teacher-bashing thread if anything this pandemic has shown how we never stand alongside the teachers. Perhaps if we'd listened in the past we might not be in the current situation.

AIBU to want the teachers to stop spending their own money to pay for the Governments failings and for Head Teachers to support them in doing this.

From reading this thread the teachers that are buying resources are doing it for themselves, to make their lives 'easier' and do 'fun' things. This is a choice teachers are making, no-one is making them do it. Effecting change is hard work and it takes effort, there are thousands of teachers, if they all said 'no' it would very very quickly become news and changes would be made.

Some real life possible solutions to help ease the burden on teachers:

1. Children to bring in own pencil cases and contents from at least Y3. Parents to provide this. Same as at dd2's school.

1. Schools request a voluntary contribution from parents. Dd2's school ask for £10 per term. Dd1's secondary ask for £15 per month.

1. Schools charge for all extracurricular activities run by staff. Dd2's school charge £20 per term.

1. The school set up an Amazon wishlist and appeal to all parents who want to buy their child's teacher or whole class/school something to order it from there. Again, this is what happens at dd2's school!

@brakethree do you think the Government will increase funding if teachers stop doing this? Many teachers provide pens, that isn't to do fun things that is simply so pupils can do their work.

The Government have announced teacher pay rises but they didn't provide sufficient funding for this pay rise, either teachers won't get this pay rise or some staff will need to be let go to free up funding to pay the increase to the remaining staff.

From reading this thread the teachers that are buying resources are doing it for themselves, to make their lives 'easier' and do 'fun' things. This is a choice teachers are making, no-one is making them do it
Now that is gratitude right there.
Do you really believe teachers buying resources are doing it for self satisfaction. The government is forcing them to do it. Personally I don't think it is the government's job to provide stationary for students isn't free education valuable enough with expecting it go not hit a parents pocket at all. Families in poverty excluded Oh yes I know taxes are paid I'd rather pay a little extra as we do for school supplies in return for an education where the teacher isn't searching for a glue stick.

@StarUtopia I didn't say that I spent £400 per month on stationary; if you take the time to read the list you might notice that little is stationary and quite a lot is textbooks or associated reading materials.
Each of my GCSE textbooks costs £25, I currently have 82 students taking the course, I have personally paid for a set of 30 books to enable my students to support their learning.
Specialist A-Level texts average about £20, I will leave you to do the maths...

From reading this thread the teachers that are buying resources are doing it for themselves, to make their lives 'easier' and do 'fun' things. This is a choice teachers are making, no-one is making them do it

If by "making my life easier" you mean managing challenging behaviour and better use of class time by having enough equipment so that kids aren't wandering around the room - yes, guilty as charged. If by doing "fun things" you mean preparing more engaging lessons which are not just chalk and talk or death by worksheet, then yes, guilty as charged. Sorry about that.

Ideally supplies should come from school funds but I do think that supply drives should become more common. The amounts I've seen quoted on Mumsnet over the years for end of year teacher gifts in primary are mind boggling. Hundreds of pounds could be spent on restocking supplies or paying towards practical resources.

Come on, people! It's stationery.

Do you really believe teachers buying resources are doing it for self satisfaction

I'm not sure about "self satisfaction" exactly, but I've sat among too many chatting teachers where there's been a kind of competitive martyrdom going on - a sort of "you spent £500? I've got through £800 so far, but oh dear, I'm just a softy and anyway what can you do?"

Sorry, but I really don't believe it's helping in the long run. I absolutely recognise that refusing would cause problems in the short term, but is that really any worse than just allowing the situation to continue as it is?

This is going to sound bad... but I will pay for stuff to make my life easier, NOT for the children. If it’s something that is needed as part of the curriculum the school should pay. If it’s something that Just saves me time, I pay.

Not providing enough school places is a real issue though. When I started teaching at my school, it was a two form entry school in inner London. The playground was small but it was manageable, as was the dining hall.

Pupil numbers went up so drastically that we were forced to become a three form entry school. A new building was plopped onto the junior playground, taking up at least half the space. Now we have 12 junior classes but only 3 can play outside at any time as the outdoor space is so limited. They are like sardines in the dining hall and around the corridors. The main building is Victorian so only has one entrance and exit, which they all have to cram through in the mornings.

Thankfully numbers are slowing decreasing again now but at one point we had 36 in most of our junior classes.

I don’t know why ‘just’ has a random capital letter

@Useruseruserusee

Not providing enough school places is a real issue though. When I started teaching at my school, it was a two form entry school in inner London. The playground was small but it was manageable, as was the dining hall.

Pupil numbers went up so drastically that we were forced to become a three form entry school. A new building was plopped onto the junior playground, taking up at least half the space. Now we have 12 junior classes but only 3 can play outside at any time as the outdoor space is so limited. They are like sardines in the dining hall and around the corridors. The main building is Victorian so only has one entrance and exit, which they all have to cram through in the mornings.

Thankfully numbers are slowing decreasing again now but at one point we had 36 in most of our junior classes.

Flipping heck! Whereabouts in London was that? It's pretty bad where I live too, but not so much where I teach.

Why should that "sound bad" Matilda? Like most teachers I expect you're already giving generously of your own time and efforts and most probably your sleep as well, so why should that extend to your family money too?

With respect, can I suggest it might be that "I don't want to step out of line and be the one to look awkward" thing again? And can I take a huge risk and wonder if some if this is down to female socialisation / expectations around "nurturing", and that things might look very different if it was exclusively men who were being expected to stump up?

It sounds bad because I am effectively saying I value my time (and by extension, admittedly, my time with my children) more than the children in my class. Which is true. I do.

But I am also very aware that my own children are privileged, and the majority of children that I teach are not. I want my pupils to have as many experiences as possible. But when it comes to the crunch I’m not prepared to pay for it. I’m no martyr to the cause of equality.

I have probably spent around £200 a year on pens, books, TES resources for the last 25 years.... I'm fantasizing about owning a caravan at the moment, damn it all that tidy sum could have paid for it...

My sister teaches in a secondary school in one of Scotland's most deprived areas. It's a challenging place!If a pupil comes to one of her lessons without something to write with, they are automatically put in detention. No exceptions.
It's amazing how many of them will then find a pen in their bag. If the expectations of them are too low, then they just won't bother.

If Little Johnny didn't have breakfast, he can't concentrate, is disruptive in class and falls out with his friends at break. If I buy him a couple of Belvitas and a banana each day, my job is much easier and the classroom is more pleasant for the other 29 children. I pay 50p and LJ and the other 29 have a better learning experience.

Yes, we have tried to get him into Breakfast Club, but the chaotic nature of his home means that he never gets there on time.

@Meredusoleil

Let’s just say it’s not one of the more affluent boroughs. It’s all linked to housing, as it’s cheaper there than elsewhere it’s really crowded.

I qualified in 2004 in the heart of the New Labour years, and it was a problem right from the start.

I did stints of casual supply and carried my own stash of scissors, glues, pens, pencils, crayons etc because there was no guarentee that in any classroom those items could be found... if they ever existed.

As an NQT I had a tough set 4 group who didn't give a fuck about school. Out of 26 of them, there was one lesson where 20 did not have any writing equipment. I have no idea how many hundreds of new pencils and pens that class alone stole, snapped or chucked out of the windows. In my career, thousands have been carelessly or maliciously lost or destroyed. It's so disrespectful and soul destroying.

I used to pay £6 a go for jumbo Pritt Sticks and have one per table. We are now talking about the Gove years and management expecting sheets nicely glued in... with no glue provided to do it. Teachers not meeting the standards were going on capability left right and centre. Especially experienced expensive teachers. A week or two after spending £30 on a new set of glue sticks, one boy was repeatedly thumping it on the desk despite being given warnings to stop. He was issued with a detention for the disruption caused by the noise, damage to my personal property and repeatedly failing to follow instructions. His darling mother raised hell about me giving a detention for tapping a glue stick on the desk. Absolutely no respect for learning or the property of others.

The child I did not begrudge was the very dyslexic boy who I taught for a few years and ended up with him Fri p5. He asked to borrow a pen. I realised that he was never going to get to Fri p5 with a pen still on his person, so that night put a nice grippy one in the shopping trolley then clipped it to his book the following week. He was really grateful, and duely kept it on there all year. He was a good kid and cared and was worth the extra gesture.

Teachers want to teach, and they want to do it well. They end up subsidising their classroom so they can do their job, do it well and avoid being pulled up by SLT.

Since leaving teaching, I don't miss the weekly visit down the stationery aisle to keep my classroom functioning.
Unfortunately I'm still paying out for my own child. With dyspraxia, dyslexia and ASD, I've had to buy his own computer (no budget in school) and particular grippy crayons and sprung scissors to make it easier to function in the classroom. I say had to... no one is making me, but if I don't do it, no one else will.

The grinding problem is that no one other than the class teacher will take responsibility.

I've been Business Manager in three different schools now, a deprived area primary, a very affluent Infant school and a secondary. Staff at my schools only buy their own resources when they can't be bothered to follow the proper procedure or miss a deadline. It's taxpayers' money we're spending so there have to be some controls on it, but I am constantly telling them not to buy things themselves.

My department heads (or class teachers in primary) are asked at the start of the year to bid for what budget they need. I've never needed to refuse anyone what they asked for and usually, at the end of the year they haven't spent it all.

They do sometimes buy things themselves but that's because they need it "now" with no time to order it from our suppliers, not because the cash isn't there.

IME where teachers buy things themselves it's because either they've left it to the last minute to ask for it or they don't want to go through the process of "justifying" why they need it and that process is there for a reason, to protect and get best value from the budget.

@eatsleepread

My sister teaches in a secondary school in one of Scotland's most deprived areas. It's a challenging place!If a pupil comes to one of her lessons without something to write with, they are automatically put in detention. No exceptions. It's amazing how many of them will then find a pen in their bag. If the expectations of them are too low, then they just won't bother.

It needs SLT onside and I wish they cared more about that than regulation skirts/ trousers/ shoes. Too many capitulate to nasty, entitled, beligerent parents who raise hell over "trivial" things like that, and it just ends up unermining the teacher who just wants to actually get on with the job of educating.

We will all need to pay quite a bit more tax if we want to have better funded schools/NHS etc.

Dont get the idea that things are simply magically much better run in other countries and their governments are somehow making the same money going much further.

You either spend more on schools but pay more tax OR you make different spending decisions, so you spend on schools but less is spent elsewhere.

I think your comments are fair and reasonable, finny, but the problem for teachers is we don't even have enough admin time to do important stuff that people are shouting at us about, so putting in a requisition for glue sticks is very very far down the list. In that system, you are also completely at the mercy of your HOD who may be disorganised, hog resources or not care if their team buy their own. Treat your staff like grown ups and at least provide a stationery cupboard with basic supplies like board pens (that's what my school does and no-one abuses it).

Another tip - ensure new staff and new HODS especially, actually know how the ordering system works. I've had to find out for myself in every school!