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?

Wine?

I work full time I just don't have the time or energy for these things. Our pta is run by stay at home mums and mums who work part-time. I'm very grateful they put so much effort in to organise things, I just don't have the time though, I have 3 kids, one is only a toddler so if I ever have a random day off I have him. It's just not so easy for full-time working mums (or dads for that matter, there's nothing stopping them getting stuck in either!).

We have a mini PTAF alongside the main one where there's no expectation of attending meetings/planning, just sign up with email address and they get emailed when an event is coming up if they are free to help , even if it's half hour/set up or clear up.

No pressure on having to volunteer for everything, they also increased members by asking other parents in person rather than relying on FB posts and posters people are likely to glance over.

The school are doing a good Jon highlighting how all the monies raised benefit the children and subsidises 2 school trips a year per class and the residential

Op its hard but we had a cultural evening some years ago a great success. My husb says same nobody wants help in his football club.. but when my daughter went secondary I stopped the pta. But they got nobody new of parents. I guess when people work its harder.

In our schools when it came to this type of thing, classes were each allocated a stall which had to be filled with X and manned.

On one occasion a late text was sent out that one wouldn't be happening for lack of volunteers.

Lots of shuffling around and the cup cake stand happened.
Half the cakes were bought, but who cared, it happened.

Take the advice to allocate stalls to classes.

This works best if the Class has parent reps.

I was delighted to leave this stuff behind in primary, as we had a fair bit of it, not really for fundraising but apparently school spirit.

My experience is that it can change from one year to the next. In my 14 years of Primary school there was periods of brilliant PTAs and periods where they were considering not having one at all. Everything changes when a key parent leaves; you either get a really strong new Chair but find that people can't get used to new ideas or change (and friends of the old Chair start chattering), or you get a somewhat weaker team/Chair and enthusiasm wanes.

I was on the committee for a couple of years, but god it was a lot of work.

This!

When I was a PTA parent that was my approach. Also - get the older kids to pitch ideas and run stalls. They loved that and had some brilliant ideas.

Before joining I was really stand off ish with them, knowing they would be a shower of entitled bitches having read all about them here. 😁The head honcho recruited me for a 30 minute job at drop off one day. I was so surprised by the whole experience that I signed up.

These events built real community at our school. They also raised money that was put to really good use and to the benefit of all.

Years later I am still very good friends with most of the people I met there, and am profoundly grateful for that.

I’d reply “I imagine they had more parents willing to volunteer to help run that event than we do”.

Good luck OP.

MN hates PTAs. Apparently parents only do it to get in with the teachers so their kids get special treatment. Getting parents to help out is a thankless task, made worse by the vile opinions of many on MN.

I don’t volunteer but I don’t complain when things don’t happen at the school either. I wish they did a bit less actually.

I pretty much can’t volunteer as I am a lone parent of two with a very busy job. When I am not working/ doing laundry/ cooking/ doing general childcare things then I go to the gym for my own physical and mental wellbeing. After all that there’s no time or energy to volunteer for anything.

Perhaps they enjoy sports day and don't enjoy school fairs?

Yes I agree with this. Our PTA 6-7 years ago was massive, with some fairly strong characters. A lot of them left and some people took over who were REALLY cliquey. Then Covid happened and they also gave up.

Now we have about ten people who are involved regularly with a school of over 400 pupils. We all work full time so it's not like we have loads of free time to do this stuff, but we recognise that it adds financial value to the school, and generally positive experiences for the kids.

It is really frustrating to get tumbleweed when asking for volunteers. And like you say, if stuff didn't happen then people would moan about it!

Myself and some of the other Mums would be happy to join the PTA as we're all SAHM's with time to spare but our school won't allow us to bring our toddlers/babies along to daytime activities. We are SAHM's because we have no one else to look after them in the daytime.

We will join the PTA though, when our youngest start school, in a few year's time.

We nearly all volunteer. It can take a couple of WhatsApp prompts but we have very good fairs with lots of parents getting on board.

The PTA at my child's school is incredibly successful but.. .perhaps slightly too successful. They fund some lovely stuff but I don't deem it all necessary. I've taught in plenty of schools in very deprived areas where the PTA raises less than a grand a year. PTAs lead to massively unequal resources for children and hide the issue of underfunding with children in poorer areas being the ones who suffer, again. I support my child's PTA by buying raffle tickets and the like, but I'm not invested enough to do a whole lot more. Might man a stand when my toddler is older. I feel like a lot of my volunteering goes to the school I work at.

Totally agree! No one wants to help but they all complain because nothing was organised!
Firm believer of if you don't offer to help, you have no right to complain or moan about whatever is organised or not!

At DD’s primary school virtually all parents worked. The school realised their best source of volunteers were grandparents. They used to do a special grandparents afternoon tea & biscuits, each class singing as entertainment. It got grandparents into school and more likely to volunteer. Wouldn’t work in an area where people don’t live near family.

/Maybe they're all vegans and ethically opposed to bat the rat?🐀

Totally agree with this!
Also annoying is the ones that volunteer to do something, say they have it done, and then don't do it!

Austerity didn’t just affect school budgets

The benefits overhaul would inc removal of child benefit for some families, the two child policy, UC rules around work hours etc, its massively affected parents abilities to work part time and do that much needed community volunteering.

it’s one of the hidden costs of austerity.

I currently work in a job that has very limited hours but is essential for kids to get to school. There is no leniency with the benefits system anymore given I am in work and earning (not a lot sadly) and helping the community massively. My job is screaming out for staff.

most mothers have to be in full time work the second their kids are 3 years old. It wasn’t that long ago it was 16 then 11 then 7. For benefit top ups.

I guarantee you’ll see a drop off of volunteering that will coincide with those benefit/austerity changes.

and to add. I would be penalised by the DWP for committing to regular volunteering because I’d be intentionally making myself not available for work.

of course this isn’t all of the answer but it is some of it.

Yes, this! FT job, long commute, smaller children and caring responsibilities for elderly parents… I can barely make time to go to the Fair let alone volunteer for things. The endless guilt…

Struggling to wonder how you function daily with all this going on!

Does everyone really moan if it doesn't happen? I thought most people see it as an obligation and turn up out of duty, as I do.

Are you saying we could go without booking an afternoon off work, queuing up for face painting and other stuff that the kids do every other week anyway during birthday party season, AND not get moaned at for not volunteering? Sign me up.

Our school has the kids volunteer to man the stalls (yr5 and yr6), they have an hour with 1 or 2 friends on the stalls and then the next lot take over, works really well and the kids get to take some responsibility for counting money/change and dealing with customers etc whilst still getting to enjoy the stalls.

Otherwise, why would they go? It's hardly compulsory.

The dynamics mean it becomes a “big thing”. I tried to get her “out” of the yearbook (think “oh, just leave her out”), but these people won’t take “no” for an answer and she’s anxious about making what she sees as a fuss and having people talk about her. So it’s actually not as easy as that for kids in practice. These people already set the agenda; they don’t get to dictate my time as well. If I thought it was a good idea/worthwhile, I’d volunteer.

Why can't the children run the stalls?

We had our school fair last Saturday. About three weeks ago there were two sheets sent home with the hours our Dc had signed up to run the stall.

One was the responsibility of Yr 5, in their classroom, supervised by a teacher.

The other was a joint Yr5/6 stall and a week after the children had signed up for it (in class, no parents asked!) they sent out a form asking for parent volunteers to supervise.

We had to sign our consent that DC would turn up on time and remain there for the allotted time and give a contact number.