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?

But for your children, schools is very much part of their community, probably the largest part, given how much time they spend there.

No, for your children. It’s part of their community. Not mine. He spends more time out of school than in school. And he wasn’t interested.

His best friend lives next door. Neither felt that going to school for any event, was something they wanted to do.

They play rugby together and have a lot of friends in the estate, that go to another school. That’s how DS sees his school.

Dd is quite a bit older, she did enjoy these things. Which is why I did volunteer and attend. But it never gave me a great sense of community. It was still just a place where a bunch of parents were forced together, due to have children of a similar age. When dd left school (she is an adult now) and ds no longer wanted to go, we didn’t.

One thing that people aren’t really considering is the school itself. I am sure some schools are great at this and really make a sense of community a real tangible thing. But plenty of schools don’t. If you want people to feel it really is a community, look at how other schools have achieved it.

Ouch. That's not nice. I volunteer as a governor as its sen school and having a disabled child I feel passionately my school needs to survive. We are temporarily custodians in hopefully a long story.

I don't get any warm smug fuzzys. I get experience or interviewing and managing a head teacher . Sitting on appeals. Work experience I'd never get at work. Not one parent or pupil knows me enought to admire or fawn over me. I'm.a tiny cog in a big machine. My pay back from volunteering is on my CV. It's knowing there is a school place for a severely disabled child this September. Everyone has to belive in something or you never have the vote as a woman for a start. If we didn't have a passion for some shit then the world would be shitter for it.

This isn’t true for all Dc so no need to scrap it, although I’m sure if you donate to the PTA and not turn up that would be fine, the funds would be appreciated.

Then any benefit from the fundraising is due to more contributing

There are kids for whom school is the only nice thing in their lives.

If you say you are not part of the school community, what is it you are saying?

That kids who don't have the benefit of good parents are unworthy of anything and you don't care about your child's friends and it's ok not to care for the people in your child's life.

What an amazing lesson in life to teach your kids.

Not at all.

I'm not part of the school community. I turn up at 8:40 to oversee him walking in for the day, I return at 3:20 to pick him up at the end of the day, to then take him to after school provisions for me to continue to work. I don't know anyone there. I don't speak to other parents, I rarely speak to the classroom teacher except for parents evening, or the occasional phone call to be notified he's fallen over.

I don't socialise with or know anyone in that building. Son has a friend there, but we don't "hang out" or see that child or their family outside of school. We don't go to children's birthday parties who attend the school as we generally have something else going on and it clashes.

DS has a church community, a boys brigade community, a rugby club and community which we do loads for. Go to parties, events, away camps, all sorts.

School is just somewhere to fleet in and out of. That's it. School doesn't last forever, and it's 195 days a year, that's it. So there's another 170 days a year to do loads, and be part of communities, communities that will outlive and outlast a primary school.

Absolutely not. No you don’t get to that.

Kids who have awful home lives, tend not to attend many of this ‘community building’ events. Many don’t have the money to come have an ice cream and have hotdog and a go on tombola.

How are schools thinking of deprived kids when they have fundraisers and the kids know it’s another opportunity to see how different they are? Since all these things cost money? Even if you make it so they don’t have to spend money. They still know. They still feel different.

Children who have terrible home lives are failed by the system time and time again. I don’t have to volunteer at school to help a deprived child nor am I obligated to volunteer at school incase a deprived child benefits. Which they won’t. The systems failing children doesn’t oblige me to try and fix it.

I raise loads of money so that children from poor background can participate in 2 different sports. Make sure they have the right kit and safety equipment. Travel for competitions. So they have something other than school. I volunteer my time and drive and use my own petrol to transport kids that can’t make it on their own steam. A lot of the kids we help started the sports young but their parents soon lost interest and the kids still wanted to come. So we took on some of the responsibilities.

I don’t have to make the school my community when I already have one and we already do lots for those children. More that a summer fair.

These things make an actual difference. There has never been a summer or Christmas fair, that’s sole purpose was to give a deprived child a sense of community. And a child’s life has never been changed by a Christmas fair. Let’s not pretend that’s the intentions. They are fund raisers.

People have busy lives and they CHOOSE to spend their free time differently?

Dd loves the school fair. She’s also incredibly social and makes friends at clubs very easily. Neighbours too. Although we don’t live near family but she loves them all when we get together.

So she does have other stuff but I’d not want the school community aspect removed. If people want to contribute in other ways then fine. The whole thing doesn’t need to be scrapped because some opt out,

No one is suggesting they are scrapped though. I don’t think anyone thinks the people who enjoy them and whose children enjoy them, shouldn’t be allowed to hold and attend these events.

Maybe this poster meant her own dc not all dc

The children are fine, they don't need a pocket of plastic tat and naff raffle prizes. They need an education.

i do think that poster was talking about their own child. But I read that as that quote saying kids don’t need them. Not that they shouldn’t happen and kids shouldn’t ever participate in them.

They don’t need them on the same way they need an education. But I don’t think the poster was suggesting kids should only be allowed to do things they need to.

No one lives their lives by doing or having the things they need.

maybe we read it different. I certainly wouldn’t want to see them stopped if some kids and their families want to run and/or attend them.

Ok maybe it was just their dc

It was just my kid.

And no I don't think they should be stopped or scrapped, for those that want to run them and engage with them fine. That's up to you, you do you, I'll do me.

I just don't think some big guilt trip should be placed upon the parents who don't want to partake or volunteer. I don't think there should be some sort of requisite that when your child attends a school for an education that suddenly as a parent you have to deal with nagging about volunteering, that's all.

Who do you think would thank you? Or give the bottle of water? Or relieve you so you have time for a wee?

It'd be the volunteers who arranged the event. Who put up the gazebos. Who arranged the float and collected it. Who wrote the risk assessment. Who sourced the raffle prizes and had the tickets printed. Who spent hours co-ordinating volunteers. Who spent days visiting Costco, bookers, Asda etc to get the stuff for the bbq. Who litter picked after the fair because so many families left their debris across the field that the children would be wanting to play on Monday. Who budgeted. Who covered shifts for volunteers who didn't turn up. Who left their own children to enjoy the fair on their own. Who wrapped, folded, counted and sorted a thousand things so that the children could enjoy the event and so that the event could raise £ which will fund the visit from the panto or the tuning of the school piano or paying for a carpenter to repair the library's bookshelves, or the children could have a cracker with their Christmas lunch or the teachers could run a gardening group or Lego Club etc etc.

Who do want to thank you? Or maybe it should be the other people who didn't volunteer that you should feel resentful of?

Totally agree. We get families of four turn up (2 parents, 2 kids) wafting around having the fun of the fair? Say they can't help because of the kids?!
Whilst literally every darn fool volunteer is in the same boat or worse!

What?! Why on earth not?

Hahahaha

You have no idea how my PTA works. We’ve never had a BBQ or Costco cakes or wrapped presents. We go to the panto (it doesn’t come to us) and we pay for the tickets! I love this utopian vision of the way yours operates but that’s not my experience at all. And for the record, I was a teacher for 29 years including 10 as SLT and Deputy and the idea that we would ask the PTA to fund bookshelf repairs or Christmas crackers is frankly bonkers. The PTA pays for nice extras like playground toys or the presents for Y6s when they leave. It doesn’t fund classroom basics. And Lego Club is usually funded from PPG.

I think it’s perfectly fine to feel a bit hard done by for volunteering my time and not having a word of acknowledgment. You obviously think I’m unreasonable. Maybe that’s why you don’t get more volunteers.

Approach people directly and ask the parents in other years. Don't forget the dads! Sometimes you can even wrangle a few grandparents in. I have a reception/yr 1 and I always volunteer. The kids either help me man the stall or they go round with DH or other parents.

No @Tygertiger, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect your time to be acknowledged and valued.

But I don't think it should be the volunteer organisers you expect to do the thanking. Who thanks them?

For the record, I did always thank volunteers. We made sure they all had refreshments and weren't left on a stall to get on with it for the duration. I thanked during the day, we thanked after the event (personally and publicly).

No one ever thanked me. But they frequently told me how it should be done better next time. Or ignored me as I flapped a vin bag in front of them and asked them to littler pick on their way out of the gates.

Again, of course your time should be appreciated.

I'm reading all this thread with interest. I've already gleaned a couple of good ideas (tokens for volunteering) and had my thoughts confirmed (we have a volunteer coordinator at events to check on people).

We all have different needs and different priorities. One of the things that makes my PTA a good organisation is that we acknowledge this and all do what plays to our strengths. I detest second hand uniform sales, we make very little money per hour of volunteer time, it takes loads of storage and people use it as a middle class dumping ground to assuage guilt whilst anything good is sold on the small ads. However, and this is the important bit, someone else is doing it because they think it is important. So long as that continues, it will happen. And when it doesn't we'll look again at the proposal to replace it with a needs based bursary.

Quite a few comments in here made me chuckle because it's like there's a script. I worked with volunteers for a long time. My personal view is that shaming or threatening volunteers backfires massively.

In the school context, telling parents 'we need this and if you don't do it bad things will happen' is both threatening and just irritating. Don't assume people can drop their lives to fit in or that they will want to.

Phrases like 'it's always the same people'; 'no one cares' is annoying as hell and, frankly, implicitly smuggy-pants.

NOBODY is a completely altruistic volunteer. Even very very tired busy people who volunteer do so because they attach a personal reward to it: a benefit to their child, social kudos, warm fuzzy feelings... whatever. So don't masquerade as a saint. Nobody likes being implicitly told they are 'less helpful/committed/community-minded' etc than others.

I seriously believe that the simple words 'I don't want to' - no explanation / justification attached - is a valid reason to not volunteer and should respected. Not everyone gets a 'reward', whatever that is, for volunteering. And why should anyone do something they really really don't want to do just because others who got involved do so because it makes them feel good...?

I am a serial volunteer type. But I draw the line at engaging with our old parent council because their tactic of going around the room and asking each person in turn to say if they could help galled me - I will not be publicly put on the spot and shamed or judged. Result: parents stopped coming to meetings. No volunteers.

I do still take tasks on, but strictly on my own terms and always with the knowledge I might get no support and have to do everything myself. And I will never ever whinge or complain about it or guilt trip or manipulate people into helping. My commitment, my job. Odd though, I never really have that problem. I always end up with help.

There's an annual task which no one would ever do because it was tough to drum up support and very hard work. I took it on because I didn't want my kids to miss out (selfish, self interest...and I'm honest about that) and I always have enough support plus the teachers and staff behind me. I think it's because I appreciate any level of help, and don't demand more or complain about the others who don't help. I think people know they can do what they can, and they will never be talked about negatively for not doing enough. Those little bits of help all add up. And more people help me every year.

My 'reward': my kids benefit, I've grown to enjoy the camaraderie from parents I'd never ever know ordinarily... but also, I love the sour expression on the PC chair's face be because it's become one of the fun events on the calendar and I stay cheerful and relaxed about it. Winds her up so much.

As a primary school teacher and a mum, I see this from more than one angle.

I get asked as a teacher to volunteer at PTA events. To be honest I sometimes force myself to because I know it will raise money our school desperately needs. Honestly though it's not my thing at all and I just want to get home to my family after a long day's work. Weekends I want to chill out and do my own thing.

As a parent, it's probably the last thing I'd want to do either.

It's funny because I do know people who have PTA as their middle name. They're always out volunteering for things, signing up as parent governors, running groups.

But it's just not me. And I think people like the above are a growing minority. The ones I know are SAHMs with nothing better to do, and this stuff is their hobby.

I volunteered to read with kids and as a parent helper on school trips at DD's school, but was put off joining the PTA formally because of the bitching and political positioning that PTA members publically engaged in (loud arguments in the yard about who had good or bad ideas, capabilities, etc.). I did help out at a couple of events, but definitely kept a safe distance from the BS. I have no idea if this is typical of other PTAs, but may explain some reluctance to join in.

It's almost always people - within the PTA. It tends to attract useful and much appreciated members - who are also clinically controlling (which is why they are there in the first place), and some who are domineering, arrogant, unfriendly and cliquey. It may be only one, two or three bullying cluquey individuals in a group but they'll do a great job at putting everyone else off giving any help. One or two nutters is all it takes for people to absolutely detest the idea of having anything to do with them. Even though they would love to help.

Sorry - how to - you'll need to change how the rest of the members are perceived and get rid of the one or two nutters that put everyone else off.