Primary school asking for voluntary donation

[HoppingKangaroo]

My dc just started in reception class. Got a letter about a voluntary donation for reception class fund for £1 a week to be sent in with child weekly or termly. How common is this? Do most parents pay? And will there be more things to pay for on top of this - non uniform days, raffle tickets, trips or school christmas play etc? Just wondering how much everything could cost overall for the year.

The TA's tend to be with statemented children so it's doubtful that it's a case of overstaffing.

I work at a primary school and the early years department do this as they go through so many resources each week and the school can't afford to buy them. It usually pays for ingredients to make playdoe, ingredients for cooking, paints, art materials etc. Paying for own clothes day and raffle tickets are usually on top of that.

Our infants just asked for a box of tissues each term as they went through a lot but never heard of £1 a term!!

School are funded on pupil numbers but twice the pupil numbers doesn't mean that all the costs are doubled so some will need every penny or be in defict and others with larger numbers will have money for non essentials

A school that isn't full to the maximm will still need to heat all the classrooms, clean all the classrooms etc

It's extremely common, and dates back decades - it was in place in my (VA) school in the 60/70s

It always surprises people when they come across it for the first time, and as not all schools do it, you might never come across it.

It has to be completely voluntary though - that was specified in the Education Act of the 1940s that set up state education in this form in the first place, and remains in place today. That includes indirect pressure - so no repeated reminders, and nothing that gives pupils, other parents or wider staff who do not need to know, any idea of who is or isn't contributing

I think schools should be cashless. We sent in the odd £1 coin with DD in Yr1 and I never knew if she lost it or handed it in. I’d happily donate but would rather a single yearly bank transfer contribution instead of the constant request for coins which I never have and never remember. I know different schools do different things but all state schools have a huge deficit they need to make up through their own money raising methods. There are other methods such as “donatemyschool” who are a private firm that make money off of school fundraising which is morally wrong in my opinion.

This.

We used to do this in school nursery. It was ringfenced to be used on consumables, paint, glue sticks, pencils, craft stuff. I wouldn’t mind doing it now if it were voluntary. Majority of parents would pay it in our school but this depends on demographics I suppose. Teachers can plan more interesting art stuff if they have a budget.

Ours has set up a registered charity that provides resources to the school. The schools encourages a direct debit of £15 per month per child to the charity but I have no idea how many parents contribute.

It feels like a stealth way to tier schools but with budgets being stretched increasingly thinly, I can’t blame the school for trying to find ways to provide for the children.

The TAs are probably for statemented children and are a legal requirement if a child's EHCP says they need the support. I have two additional adults in my classroom who the parents probably think are TAs but they are there to support specific children.

Also, health and wellbeing lead won't get paid extra! Most primary teachers have to lead an area of the school and with the exception of English lead and maths lead, they don't come with any additional pay!

Funding isn’t equal across areas either, we are in an area where funding is low.

If you have a large number of pupil premium children that can help your budgets

Some academies are sponsored, others don’t get any different funding to state maintained schools (apart from the top slice not being taken)

I’m in the sw and we were asked for £5 per family for church school because government would only pay for 75% of maintenance (like a school roof- I felt that was bonkers as surely the basics of a school include a roof?!). They stopped asking once they changed to be in a MAT.

Our school is cashless. Donations are voluntary and are listed on parent pay which we use for school trips/ lunches. I think it’s a much better way of doing it than hunting for £1 coins. It also means that if a family aren’t donating it’s not embarrassing for the children.

I think this is increasingly common, plus there’ll be all sorts of fundraising events throughout the year. It definitely won’t be in place of costs for trips etc, those will be extra. Ours does it via the PTA, then the PTA pays for things like books and play equipment. It’s always voluntary though, there’s zero pressure, most is don’t online so the kids aren’t even aware if their parents have contributed or not. School budgets don’t cover their costs, so it’s understandable really.

Ours asked for £1 a week snack “voluntary contributions” but they’d chase you and they get free fruit and milk from a scheme so I used to refuse!

This was in addition at least 1 dress up and one mufti per half term and usually a trip or paid activity like disco, bake thing, etc etc per term for each child too. School costs me a fucking fortune.

It’s a number of factors but the following can cause problems

• number of children in a class. Schools are paid £x,000 per child with relatively fixed costs e.g. one teacher per class so the more children in the class the more there is for resources, subs etc. It’s better if there are 29/30 children in a class vs 25/26
• Level of pupil premium received
• Numbers of children with SEN. It depends on the area and how the LEA fund it but usually schools do not receive enough funding to cover the support if they can get funding in the first place
• condition of the building
• staff in place - more experienced staff cost more so if a school has mainly more experienced staff the staffing budget is higher

The recent pay awards haven’t resulted in increased funding to schools (at the moment) so pushing schools into a deficit budget. It’s going to be a really difficult year this year and following years if funding isn’t increased.

Sorry that should read “done online”, the same as @womaninatightspot .

We pay £40 per year donation. I have standing order set up for £10/quarter. Schools are struggling. They need all the cash they can get.

Most primary teachers have to lead an area of the school and with the exception of English lead and maths lead, they don't come with any additional pay! And for clarity, many schools don't pay extra for maths or English leads either (I've been accused of lying about this on MN before, that of course most primary teachers are getting loads of extra money for different responsibilities...they're really not).

We're asked if we'd like to pay a voluntary set amount per child per term at our Secondary School. . It's a fairly high sum.

We are already asked for separate payments for art materials, science materials etc - which are not insignificant.

We pay the requests for the specific educational materials but don't give to the voluntary fund.

Partly because it's expensive but mostly because the school seems to spend a lot of money on non educational stuff like murals etc. Although murals are nice they have talented pupils that could do an equally good job for free and if educational resources are tight then the money should be spent on things that are 100% needed for education in my opinion.

We were asked to pay 50p/£1 a week when my now 25yo was in Reception. It was so they could buy the ingredients to make play dough, do weekly cooking and they would sometimes do things like add bubbles to the water tray. It was voluntary and stopped after Reception.

Never heard of this. We live in a very affluent town but we don't do anything like this.

We do bake sales now and then but that's it.

The problem with this is
a) state education is meant to be free
b) parents funding by a regular 'voluntary' donation hides the fact that school funding is too low
c) schools in less well off areas won't get this extra, widening the gaps between schools

This I feel is different from PTA events which are 'meant' to cover extras, not resources for core curriculum activities.

Schools have always needed money, more now than ever.we paid a small amount each term .va church school. School trips on top plus things like mufti ,the life bus,speakers and so on

With my kids some have asked, some not.
It'd difficult though. I mean some classmates, the £12 a term is a chunk of the food budget. Others would spend more in Costa.
I got fecked off with one school when they just kept on chasing. I may have questioned the cost of the paper/ink/staff. It should be a one and done surely?