To question the cost of this pasta salad?

[Pastasaladage]

NC

School have emailed today and all the children in DD class will be learning to cook a pasta salad one morning next week.(it is part of their topic)

A lovely person who runs cookery classes is coming in to take the session.

Parents have been asked to pay £13 per child.

AIBU to think this excessive?!

Absolutely excessive! That’s actually insane.

I'd say £3 was more appropriate

It’s not the cost of a pasta salad though is it? Presumably it’s the cost of the ingredients to make the pasta salad and the cost of paying the external teacher to come in.

It’s fine for the school to ask for a voluntary donation of £13; it’s not fair for a state school to insist upon it. Not all families will have £13 to spare.

£13 each for 30 kids is £390! I assume this covers the wage of the person so is an activity fee rather than the food? It's very odd and stupidly expensive.

We pay £15/year for secondary D&T materials, so that's £5 for the whole term they do food tech. £13 per CHILD for a pasta salad? That's completely excessive.

Presumably that includes her fee not just the ingredients.

It is excessive to ask for that much, especially at short notice. What’s more, making pasta salad is presumably within the skill set of their ordinary teacher so it’s hard to see how they can justify the external cost.

So ~30 kids in the class = nearly £400 to teach kids how to make a pasta salad? I'm in the wrong job. Are the school getting some kind of kickback, because that is insane money for a basic cookery class.

What’s in it? Lobster and truffles?! Absolutely ridiculous.
And if it is to cover the cost of a teacher then that’s not something the parents should be paying.

Does your daughter go to the poshest school in the world? Will they be garnishing the salad with gold leaf?!
No fucking way.

I'd be asking for a breakdown of this price, see what they say.

Thats fairly excessive and seems like they are paying the person to come in.
We regularly do cooking sessions as part of our class topics and we don’t often charge parents but when we do the school or pta subsidise it to make it reasonable for the parents. I’d probably question why it’s so expensive.

That's definitely how much the person coming in is charging. They probably market themselves as a cookery teacher and "nutritionist" so they can charge even more by telling kids eating vegetables is good for you.

Wouldn't be surprised if they actually had some sort of inside contact with the school and was given the job as a nice little earner since the costs are split mandatorily between the kids. Nobody in their right mind would pay that much for to learn pasta salad.

For £13 a head I'd want her to be teaching the children how to make croissants with Bake Off level lamination.

I am rarely rendered speechless.

Two hours for a visiting teacher £100 tops.
Ingredients for pasta salad - £60 tops and that would be for a really nice one. Presuming it's for one serving and not a family of four.

160/30 = £5.30 and that's a bit toppy!

I'd politely raise this with the HT and I wouldn't suppprt it due to it being tone deaf.

christ is it gold plated pasta

Yes, it's a person who runs a cookery club. She brings in all the ingredients. There's around 25 children in the class.

Her sessions are usually only around £8 for two hours and are run as outside school; she offers after school cooking clubs.

No, it's not posh at all. Just a regular c of e school.

Why on earth are they bringing someone in? Surely that's the teachers job. A pasta salad isn't exactly difficult to make

£13 is outrageous. What happens if you say no you're not paying that.

The school seems seriously out of touch if they think all the parents have that kind of money spare

We £8 for cookery afterschool club in school (max 10 pupils) and £9 for an hour preschool session. I would say £13 is expensive.

£13 is about a quarter of my weekly shopping budget. I couldn’t afford that for a portion of pasta salad. It’s not even a hard skill to teach,

It sounds like school has employed an external company to come in with all equipment etc and run session.
There’s a company near us that runs cooking classes and is £20 a session.
If you don’t want child to take part I’d let school know it’s same as school offering a trip etc it should be optional.

Lordy, the school is insane. I wouldn’t pay that in a million years and I hope no-one else does so they have to cancel. I can’t believe there isn’t one teacher who can’t make a pasta bloody salad.

I would reply and say that £13 for the lesson is not financially viable for you as a family and ask them how they can help.

Tone deaf

Jesus, how out of touch are the school. In a cost of living crisis that £13 could be the difference between a parent being able to feed themselves or not.

I wouldn’t be impressed at all!

It seems very expensive for an ‘in school’ activity. I’m amazed the school would run an activity as expensive as this in the current climate. Neither schools nor (many) parents can afford to subsidise activities of this kind. My school (I’m now retired) had to stop lots of trips because parents couldn’t afford to donate and schools couldn’t afford to pick up the short fall. It’s sad, but cost and an over heavy emphasis on more academic activities, plus ridiculous teacher workload has put an end to the practical/fun learning elements in many schools. Such a shame!

Is it possibly a typo and was meant to be £3?