To wonder how to get school parents to volunteer to do anything?

[FishfingerFlinger]

I’m a somewhat reluctant volunteer for the school PTA - only reluctant because I have a full-on job (12hr+ days most of this week) another volunteer role and am frankly frazzled.

Trying to get volunteers to help do small tasks for the school fair and no one will do ANYTHING. Everyone wants the school fair to happen. Everyone moans if it doesn’t happen. But they think the magic fairies make it happen?

Some schools seem to have an abundance of volunteers making elaborate fairs happen. All I’m asking is for someone to man the bat the rat stall for half an hour and I can’t even get that.

What am i doing wrong here?

Of course a lot of people physically COULD but saying ‘I can’t’ is a way of saying I’m not going to. And that’s absolutely fine, whatever the reason behind it. Perhaps squeezing in one more commitment, while physically possible, would make that person miserable and more exhausted and it is absolutely fine for them to say no. What happened to respecting other peoples’ boundaries?

Getting snotty at people who say they can’t because in your view they technically can, is ultimate CF. No one is going to say ‘I don’t want to’ or ‘it’s not my priority’ are they! You are not entitled to anyone’s free time or sanity. It may be your chosen cause, your priority but you have no right to steamroller other people into doing what you’ve decided they should do with any snippets of spare time they may have.

As for parents managing to attend weekday sports day - most people will have a small and finite amount of flexibility with their employers. No one should apologise for prioritising showing up for their kid on sports day over volunteering on a tombola.

The entitled, bossy and condescending attitudes shown on this thread are exactly what send many people running from the PTA. I’m a grown adult, I don’t need this nonsense!

Maybe when people say "well X school did Y for their Christmas Fayre", maybe you should investigate why X school have more volunteers rather than make snarky comments about the fact they do.

Maybe their PTA are more welcoming to as hoc volunteers and don't expect future commitments. Maybe they're better organised at their events so people believe it really will just be half an hour on a stall. Maybe they run the meetings at more inclusive times or via Zoom. Maybe they're better at allowing parents to bring siblings along too. Maybe their PTA doesn't nab all the easy jobs themselves and only ask for volunteers to fill the other spots. Maybe they are less sexist and expect as much from dads as mums (rather than just communicating with mums and expecting them to pass on the message).

Or maybe it's something completely out of your hands that your parent community just can't do. But at least look into it and find out.

And let’s not kid ourself that this isn’t all just more wife work. Yes there are some dads that get involved at school but in my experience they do the visible, highly appreciated jobs, and get a large pat on the back for doing so while the women are running around doing the grunt work.

Quiz night compere? Bring in a jovial dad!

Shovelling the new bark chippings in a playground full of fawning mums? Pass him the wheelbarrow! And maybe a beer for his troubles!

Spend a morning sifting through stinking bags of manky second hand clothes people have dumped donated for the clothes stall? Mums, mums, mums.

How much money does do these PTA events raise ?

We see a lot come out of the events which helps, new playgrounds, gardens and trips etc

We raise quite a lot but I’d be interested to know what the norm would is in terms of amounts at other schools

Our PTA is amazing but very full on and expect it is down to one or two mega organised individuals who have driven it to where it is (there are a few ex management consultants who are no longer working and run it as if it’s a business). This means the events are profitable, everything is incredibly well organised but sometimes you do feel under pressure and it’s all a bit much. When their kids leave I’m not sure what will happen as not entirely sure anyone else will have quite the same enthusiasm or be quite as effective.

The most profitable things are alcohol so a bar/bbq on sports day can be run in 30 minute slots and most people are prepared to do a stint (including the dads) without it being too much effort.

I meant to say I can the point in supporting voluntary groups like scouts, but schools have vast budgets, I doubt the few hundred pounds PTAs raise makes any meaningful difference.

Why don’t you volunteer for the better jobs then ? And maybe ask yourself what the point of a second hand clothes sale is.

My dd went to 2 different primary’s and both offered an option to make donations as and when you could. I did. I did also attend plenty of events because dd enjoyed them.

Ds did not enjoy them so we didn’t. This whole thing if ‘but the kids love it’ isn’t always true.

@Northernparent68 the PTA I was involved with raised thousands of £s - not 100s.
But even £100 could purchase a whole load of books for classrooms. Discounted children’s books are available from plenty of places. You can even get box sets of popular books (eg Percy Jackson series, Wimpy Kid, Jacqueline Wilson, Puffin Classics etc) from places like TK Maxx or The Works for £10 or so.
£100 could easily purchase 50 books for classrooms. 50 books than some children might not get to read otherwise.

I Guess there’s always the exception, but generally speaking, it’s never the dads worrying themselves about all this kind of stuff. Always the mums, regardless whether they’re SAHP, working full time, part time, or running their own businesses.

Always us, trying to spin a thousand plates at once!

Ugh sorry I can’t stand this. Our school fair is today. We have other plans this weekend so won’t be attending. But if we were free to attend it would be the last thing I want to give up our free Saturday for! So for the fair we won’t be attending I have probably received 26,000 messages about. Weekly emails asking to help volunteer for the last 3 months. Constant messages in all 4 class WhatsApp groups. Several messages per week on the school Facebook group. Parents grabbing you in the playground. Three different days where we had to donate wine, chocolates, raffle items etc at the school gates. If I see a PTA member coming in my direction I will run the other way. I’m sick to death of hearing about the bloody school fair and all the guilt tripping. Can’t wait for today to be over.

School budgets are primarily spent on salaries.

PTAs (which raise more than a few hundred if run properly, more like a few thousand) can provide 'extras' that enrich the environment / experience / learning for our children.

For example: play trails, groups coming into school (eg theatre, science, animals), books, wet play toys, ipads, sensory rooms.

They can also provide a service in running second hand uniform sales, or halloween / xmas jumper / dress up costume sales.

At secondary the PTA I was involved in also provided DT / arts / music equipment so the school could give better provision, cameras for recording GCSE CAs (so they didn't have to keep sharing across departments), Geography fieldwork equipment so KS3 could experience it before KS4 etc.

I could have written this

Our school fair is today - been so hard getting people to help on the stalls

30 in a class and think have 5/6 of us helping all doing an hour slot

Yes I get some people are away at weekends /won't be at the stall

But I bet I see many of our class going round the fair today

But can't help on the stall for 30m

Yes they have kids. We all do. My 6yr will be with me on the stall unless her dad gets home from work in time

But 99% of them managed sports day which is a week day and time off work if they work

People want events to happen but don't end to help /volunteer

Absolutely this, with bells on!!! 👏👏👏

Sports day is totally different to a school fete. Sports day is a day where my child would be competing and want to see me there. The school fete is not.

Also, most parents can only take a limited amount of time off work, so they are not going to take time off for fetes if they’ve already had to do so for things like sports day.

Many of the class don't work weekends @MariaVT65

As I said I bet I see many of our class there wandering round playing /buying off stalls but won't give up 30m of their time to help run it

At our primary school the PTA raised around 5k a year which was written into the school budgets and basically paid for all the paper, pens, etc the school needed. The money was vital to the running of the school.

So people not volunteering was a real issue. Because the school couldn't operate without that money and I think so many parents just don't know that, because the schools tend not to want to be explicit about it.

And I think people are just very insular and selfish these days. School events are about community but people don't seem to want that (and then complain it's unfriendly...). It's very obvious on this thread.

@HarrietStyles but why don’t you want to “give up your Saturday” for a summer school fair. What is so terrible about it?

I'm a part of a very small PTA team (there are 4 of us) who were where you are but are getting there.

My advice: communicate well with parents. We allow volunteers to bring all their children, in fact the older children man stalls together too.

PTAs in general have a lot of reflex animosity to undo. But being defensive or bitter doesn't help. Be open, self-deprecating, invite questions about events, take suggestions in good faith and show yourselves not to be the twats they suspect you might be.

The rewards for us are massive, we do big great value events, giving the kids experiences that cost a fortune elsewhere. We raised 10k last year and paid for the whole school to go on a trip. For a tiny team in a small school in a low income area we do really well. It is a lot of work, but it's important to have a community around the school. We go hard on that and people do show up for us.

Good luck!

I think that is worrying.

As a PTA we were always firm we would not pay for things that were core school provision. It hides the school underfunding from parents and leads to the situation we are now in with teachers strikes. We only paid for extras.

I would rather just give my school £100 a year per kids than have to deal with the good awful bitches that are the PTA.

Lots of posts on here about being time poor but willing to donate directly.

They do/request both at my school (direct debit support and lots of events). However I bet if there was a thread “AIBU to think school are CF for asking for a direct debit or one off contribution” - the majority would be outraged based on prior threads.

I get it, most people are busy and some really don’t want to spend time at the school fair or whatever. All PTAs should have a proper treasury. If aggregated across the UK I would estimate PTA contribution to school budgets would run to the multi-millions every year vs a very small number of direct contributions.

It is sad - the hatred towards a primary school summer fair.
What is so terrible about taking children to an event where they get to be with their friends, get their face painted, play tombola and maybe win some bubble bath, throw wet sponges at the Year 6 teacher, play a lego speed build competition and win some Lego, buy a paperback for 20p, hook a duck and win a shiny pencil , eat an ice cream or hot dog, enter the raffle for a really cool (donated from local toy shop) prize, do remote control car races, make bead bracelets, dance to summery music……
What a dreadful way to spend a few hours!!
(obviously enjoyment levels will vary between children 😂)

But that wouldn’t be accurate would it?

It would be ‘are the school CF for asking parents if they would prefer direct donations rather than loads of different fundraising events during the year’

I don’t think most would be outraged.