Schooling asking for money

[The90sKid]

Maybe I am being unreasonable but I would love to hear other people’s view.

My child is in reception in a government funded academy. School organised an event during school hours on school premises. It was run by a business (for profit) which brought bugs into the school for the children to see, touch etc.

School then sent out a letter saying said activity took place and parents should now pay £3 something.

If relevant, my child enjoyed looking at the bugs and school did work around it. They wrote about the bugs etc.

It’s not a question of money but I feel that education should be free. If school partner with businesses, surely they need to secure the funding.

AIBU?

@Brefugee

Tell them that you don't want to pay because you weren't advised in advance and see what they say.

Ask if they put it out to tender and who the supplier was if you really want to poke the hornets nest

They wouldn't "put it out to tender". The teacher would have looked for companies who do this kind of thing and chosen one with availability that matched.

If schools didn't ask parents to help then our kids wouldn't get to do special things like this.

If you think that parents (and teachers) shouldn't be paying anything out of their pockets then you'd end up with the situation or schools only being open 4 days a week so save on heating costs and kids being asked to copy the board more to save on text books and photocopying.

Politicians generally send their kids to private schools and the people most likely to vote don't tend to have school children so they are happy not to fund education properly. This is a government who didn't even give schools extra for cleaning during the pandemic

The school needs to warn parents ahead of time as some people need notice to set aside £3 for the trip but a £3 trip is a bargain if you didn't have a school trip out of school this year. Mine are in secondary but when they were primary schools requested up to £20 for trips and this wasn't a rich area

Get used to it. School's receive completely inadequate funding and it's about to get a lot worse from September. Lobby your MP about it if you don't like it, not the school.

It's been like that for years (though normally you are asked prior!). The budget doesn't cover the extras.

As someone who has just had to pay over £300 for a laptop, YANBU. Our school is constantly asking for money, it’s never ending, and the more we continue to pay it the more it papers over the cracks of funding shortages.

@forinborin

I would prefer that the school had just declared that they need say an extra £50 per month per head and be done with all the bake sales and international dress as a potato day collections.

agreed!

I would prefer to pay upfront too, but many parents couldn’t afford this, but they can find a few quid here and there. Plus the kids enjoy the dress up days, school discos etc (when allowed) even if it’s a pain in the bum for me.

I don’t think it’s wrong to ask for contributions but it is wrong to exclude children if their parents can’t or won’t pay.

Yes unfair on parents who pay if there are parents that can but don’t, but I think children not being left out is more important

It’s also not ok to put pressure on kids to make their parents cough up, though this happens more in secondary. Or if the trip is ‘mandatory’ but expensive.

At SS I was left at school with the same bunch every time, we were the kids with single parents on benefits or very low incomes, while the rest of the school went on the trip. Same kids every time. Not nice but we accepted it for what it was.

Then we had a field trip which we had to do as part of GCSE. Those that hadn’t paid were kept behind and berated as to why, we explained this was how much our families had to live on for a week and the teacher just didn’t get it kept on saying we had to go and had to make our parents pay. We all refused and said we wouldn’t even ask as we’re not going to make our parents feel bad.

In the end the school, which was state but got lots of extra funding as the ‘best’, covered it for us and we went.