School constantly asking for money

[abitofpeace]

Just wondering how it is in other people’s primary schools. Ours is constantly asking for money. Usually raffle tickets, etc but more recently some of the parents are selling stuff through the school and giving the profits to the school. It feels like everyday they ask for something!

There is also a monthly (optional) direct debit if parents want to pay regular. Are finances so bad that thee government need such a large boost?

I'm a school governor. My school's budget is so tight, it's shocking. And covid has added so much pressure - expected revenue from after school clubs and renting out the school hall has plummeted. And the increased costs of basics like soap, hand sanitiser, extra cleaning. The government funding just doesn't cover it. Its terrifying.

That said at our school any donations we ask for things like Christmas jumper day etc are for charity, and not that frequent. We don't ask parents to donate directly to the school at all.

I've just had to apply for free school means. My income has taken a whacking from covid, I was doing really well before but now it is a struggle and I'm a single parent.

Our school havent done any fundraising this year, as it is all usually discos, business enterprise, school sponsored walks etc. They havent done any due to covid. But this past month they've suddenly gone crazy with it and I worked out that over the past 4 weeks, since free meals kicked in for me, I havent saved any money because they're asking for the equivalent of £2.50 a day. I just cant give anymore.

If its any consolation, I'm in the office and there is an expectation i pay £2 to wear a silly hat to work and Im not even allowed to run round the playground!

I live in Ireland. We get sent a book list and buy ALL the textbooks our children will need from primary through to secondary education. It gets pretty expensive in secondary for that reason. In primary it probably costs me around £100 each year for books and stationery.

However, we rarely get asked for money during the year other than for a couple of annual fundraising activities. My DS is in primary and I’ve not donated any extra cash at all this term. They’re selling school calendars but I haven’t bought one (because the photographer they always use seems to do a shit job).

My DDs CofE school have asked for £1 since September. They do have an amazon wishlist and its a lovely school so when I get paid each month I do try and get something from it.

Applying for fsm if you qualify is probably the very best way you can help the school and your family. Every fsm pupil has a pupil premium - extra money for the school, to be ringfenced to help those students. I was fsm myself as a child - and I hated it, because in those days everyone knew it by the way the meals were collected. That stigma, thank God, is no longer there. In my school the number of students on fsm was pretty high and there is no way other students would know which ones were fsm.

I have to say a tiny part of me died inside every time the % of students on fsm went up and this was seen as a good thing because it meant the school would get more money (and given more leeway on the GCSE results). To me it was no cause for celebration when yet another family had a drop in income that meant they qualified, but it did benefit the school's budget.

If you think you might qualify for fsm please, please apply.

One solution to this. Never vote Tory

I'm a school governor and I've seen how much we lost since March, mainly as others have said, from not providing wrap around care, or doing clubs, or hiring the hall out like we usually do. The PTFA is really active, but again, we've been really limited on the events we can run. We've done some online bits for Xmas but everyone is wise to the fact that people simply have less money to go around this year. We've put together some Xmas boxes from spare stuff we had left over from previous fairs and we're doing a free raffle so people will get a ticket even if they cant afford to throw their pound in like usual.

The schools put out a newsletter already this year telling parents that they should only donate if they can afford to, and they wouldn't ask us to contribute if it wasn't needed.

@PizzaForOne

One solution to this. Never vote Tory

Also for everyone with Conservative-voting older relatives, try to discuss the impact on their grandchildren.

Obviously not if it will start a war, but actually people who don't use services gave no reason to think about the problems.

The problems in our schools are political.

If a school is installing expensive play equipment you can guarantee that it's ring fenced money. When you get a grant for something specific you can't just use it for something else.

It might appear that the school have prioritised play equipment over books or other essentials, but that's not the case. The choice will have been play equipment or no play equipment.

Ok so all the people who are not in a position to donate right now, please understand that they wont be offended by you simply saying no/ignoring the requests. They need to ask everyone in order that those who can afford it are reached.

Or would you prefer them to discriminate and ask parents their household income and only send requests out to people on over 50k?

If they stop asking, you might find that your child's school becomes a much bleaker place.

To the people saying "oh well schools need to manage budgets better then". Not all schools are equally well funded, it depends on a complex formula and is affected by pupil premium etc. Then costs vary hugely. A school in a knackered old building may be struggling with inefficient heating systems or expensive repairs and maintenance. A school where teacher turnover is low may have a very experienced staff that they cannot get rid of who are paid at the top of the pay scales (beyond the school's control). The first chunk of expenditure on children with SEN comes out of the schools own budget before anything additional from things like EHCPs, meaning schools with higher numbers of children with SEN have higher costs but may not receive any extra funding

What I found hugely irritating in one of the schools DS attended was the constant activities set up by the PTA that would cost parents much more than they would raise: Christmas jumper day (£10 for the jumper + £1 for school), fairy cake sell (£8 for preparing them, £1.60 raised selling them at 20p each), bloody book day (£10 for the dressing up +£1) for the school) and this was repeated every 2 weeks. They didn’t give us much warning either, I remember finding a note saying “tomorrow is medieval day, get dressed up and bring £1” or “tomorrow is cup cake day, bring 8-12 cupcakes tomorrow and money to spend!” I guess it didn’t occur to them that mums could be working full time, picking up kids at 6pm, or with limited time or financial resources.

The fundraising was badly thought, hugely ineffective and costly for parents. It was not achieving much bus costing parents a lot of money.

Next school’s PTA asked for a monthly donation, whatever you wanted/could afford, and NOTHING ELSE. No pyjamas day, no cupcakes, no silly activities. They never asked for anything else . Donating £5 a month was probably twice more than what I was donating to the previous school but a saving of £20-30 a month on what it cost me to set up DS for the day.

I’m sorry to hear schools are so under funded, if I could do more financially I definitely would. The problem though seems to be that the wealthier parents who can afford to give more to the school are favoured, photos with the headteacher, etc. Their children are also favoured.

By all means the school should welcome support but perhaps donations should be received without it seeming like people buying favour with the school.

There are legal implications on regular donations to schools and/ or the PTA which, if they are a charity, can claim back gift aid.

I'm on our (secondary) PTA and setting this up and implementing it is actually much more complex than it should be.

It is my experience that parents like to donate in different ways. Some expect an 'event' like a fair to take part in, some will only donate to something that they think is important (eg Xmas party for staff versus garden project which will benefit the kids a lot more). Some just want to give money and move one and some don't or can't donate at all.

As a PTA we have to cater for all these to generate the maximum benefit for the school which really needs every penny.

Don't give if you can't but maybe you can give of your time. This is just as valuable and a much scarcer resource.

Also this being favoured thing is rubbish. I am having a terrible time with the school with DC who has mild SEN. I don't get any sort of preferred treatment but then it is not my intention to use the role for anything other to support the school.

'clique' 'favourites' etc. are just ways of dismissing people of whom you know very little and providing a justification for not joining in yourself. If you got more involved you might find they are just hard working parents like you.

@abitofpeace

I’m sorry to hear schools are so under funded, if I could do more financially I definitely would. The problem though seems to be that the wealthier parents who can afford to give more to the school are favoured, photos with the headteacher, etc. Their children are also favoured.

By all means the school should welcome support but perhaps donations should be received without it seeming like people buying favour with the school.

Very few HT's ever allow donations to be a path to favour children.

It's the same with the children of PTA or Governors. A few shit HT's allow it to make a difference, but the vast majority don't.

When it comes to praise in newsletters or photos on the school website you'll probably find it's a fundraising tactic. In one school I worked in there were two Dads who owned businesses. The HT knew that a strategic "Thank you to Dad1 for the donation of X" would guarantee a mached, or higher, donation from extremely-competitive-Dad2

Most donations go unnanounced in most schools.

About 50% of parents at ours pay a standing order to the school every month and claim tax relief as a charitable donation. They couldn't do what they do for kids and the buildings without. But benefits all the kids not just those who pay

Being catholic also means we have regular events to extract cash as well lol

There is a website where you can see the reductions in school funding over the past 10 years. Most in our area are a couple of hundred k short on what they were a few years ago. They do need the money. For new equipment and resources, extras like play equipment and replacing non essential non educational things like bike sheds, coat and bag storage eyc. Think how many teaching assistants that money could fund. They are desperate. Its not compulsory and as long as there is no pressure to pay if you cant afford it then I think it's fine to ask

Oh yes - reading books for the library. My school librarian nearly cried when I brought in three big boxes of children's books my grown up dc had left at home when they moved out.

We managed to resock three shelves full of books through staff donations like this. Yest another example of school staff propping up the school budget.

We work with the school to agree that whatever we are fundraising for is what they want. Your judgements as a parent as to what they should spend money on are misplaced IMO. The school know what is most needed from a holistic rather than individual perspective.

Schools are struggling but so are parents. I would be tempted to contact the school and say the constant requests are upsetting and can they limit them. Better still, present a calendar at the start of each term with each fund raising activity on it so you can plan to contribute or not, in advance.

School funding is a joke, I’m happy to give them extra money to be able to educate my child - I’m lucky that I can afford to. I’ll pay the £1 here and there, take food and toy donations etc. Am just in the process of helping to organise a way for parents to donate cleaning supplies, because schools have had to pay out loads for these with no extra funding at all. It’s all voluntary. If you can’t afford it, nobody would want you to struggle to pay. If you don’t want to, that’s your choice.

Budgets have been cut and lots of schools are looking at huge financial losses due to Covid - eg income from breakfast/afterschool clubs that were closed during the first lockdown and income from renting out in the evenings and weekends. The school I work in has lost over a hundred thousand pounds in this way. We are looking at cutting staff as there is nothing else we can do. We also haven't been able to run our usual big fundraising events. So yes, things are very desperate!