Schools asking for parental contributions

[ButamIwhoyouthinkIam]

I’m sure this one will be divisive and is partly down to personal politics but I’m interested in the consensus.

state funded primary, good catchment, in deficit, like many others.

email last week to suggest a voluntary contribution from parents to cover essential materials, lays out case etc. but already have quite a few requests annually for enrichment and also trips. Has active PTA and most families donate to this through usual calendar of events.

email sets out rising costs of utilities etc and asks parents to plug the gap. I’m not sure this is the right solution for something that is inherently gov funded and it feels like a slippery slope.

IABU: it’s reasonable for schools to ask this and for parents to be happy to pay

YABU: a different option eg lobbying gov or showing the deficit would be more reasonable. Contributing financially allows the funding problem to be hidden

£150k in reserve is really not a lot when you think of the annual cost of a teacher (with NI and pension costs)

How much are schools asking for? I’ve never come across it before.

The funding formula is often schools in urban areas receive more per pupil than those in rural areas. Schools that are disadvantaged are often in urban areas.

1. schools have been underfunded for years. If you wanted to lobby someone or vote differently you had ample opportunity. Or do things like this not matter until they directly affect you?
2. Go on your schools website. It will say if it is a trust or charity. In which case they are perfectly entitled to ask for donations to cover costs. They will report annually to the charity commission and their finances will be a public record on the charity commission website.

I fear that this is going to become more common as schools struggle more and more for funding.
However, I agree with the OP that if the school is asking for financial contributions, then the school financials should be transparent for the school community.

I once worked at a school that was always begging parents for money, doing fundraisers, making everyone feel very guilty if they didn’t give. However, it was a small school, and they had a massively bloated middle management with 8-9 different ‘curriculum managers’ whose jobs were a complete mystery to all of us teachers who never saw any of this ‘curriculum’. We were up until all hours planning lessons, writing worksheets etc. and these people never interacted with us or gave us any support. No lesson observations, no work with the SEN students, nothing. I now work in school leadership, and to this day I cannot figure out what those people did all day.

I found out later that their salaries were almost double that of the teachers. Getting rid of a few of those jobs would have saved the school a lot of money.

Yes this is definitely more common and the more affluent the area, the more funds are collected.

My friend’s central London state school raised £250k from parent funds in a year alone. Their campus looks like a private school - with proper cladding and all - what a complete waste of money whist some poor school can’t even get bare essentials.

Also it annoys me that these rich students in London get the free school lunches - why am I funding them! I am all in support of free lunch for the students who can’t afford the lunch - definitely should be means tested and use the additional money to elsewhere !

Like someone said above, it’s state vs state when it comes to schools

It’s always been the case that schools in poor areas get next to nothing from parents and probably won’t ask. They possibly get lots of pp money though so might be ok financially. Middle class schools often expect more, but get much more through pta. This could be spent by school on necessities but pta always want it on “extras”. The time has come to be realistic. I’m not sure if School fund accounts can be charities. Very likely are. Therefore I don’t think donations have to go through pta but schools local to me have asked for donations for at least 20 years! If you have not had requests before now, you have been lucky.

I think a lot of parents are unaware of how bad school funding is. I no longer have school aged dc but have been a school governor for many years, and it's about as bad as it has ever been after years of reserves having been eroded.

Our school has an in-year deficit again this year, and if we continue on the current trajectory, our reserves will run out in around 3 years. It is an excellent school and heavily oversubscribed.

We have been lobbying the government for years now. Successive MPs from both parties have been invited in, and have been shown the accounts. We have written to anyone who might listen. We are just not being funded properly.

This isn't a case of inefficient practices or money being mismanaged. We have on two occasions now voluntary had "experts" from the schools funding agency come in and have a look at why we are regularly in deficit. On both occasions, their conclusions have been that the school's finances are extremely well managed and that there are no further efficiency savings to be found.

We haven't asked for parental conversations yet, and there is a far reluctance to do so. But we may end up with very few choices available to us. Personally, as a parent, I would have been happy to pay if I realised how dire things really were. We have tried to be transparent with parents about the ongoing situation, but I don't really think anyone believes that the government would let a really excellent and successful school go under. I don't want to believe that either, but we are getting increasingly close to the brink.

Our local state secondary school asked for this and I always paid it; it covered the salary of the school nurse among other things. I felt that was a worthwhile extra.

According to my kids, however, many of their friends’ parents chose not to make the contribution, even if they seemed quite well to do. It was worth it to me and I was grateful that there was high quality free education available to us.

At primary level we had to fund raise to buy some unusual but necessary books because the educational printer did not have an account with the education authority; therefore official funds couldn’t be spent on them. Us parents knew why those books would be beneficial and we raised the money as a team. It had over 40% kids from a deprived background so the school head would not have asked for a direct contribution per child.

Many schools are struggling balancing their books , with some in deficit.

This is down to very poor funding for decades but now on the teachers wage rise which is only partially funded. Teachers must be paid these wages and schools need those teachers so not much can be done.

Our local primary school yrs ago would ask for some basic supplies likes boxes of hankies= pencils but never an amount per month which pp have mentioned.

I dont know of any schools asking for 'general' donations like this.

This was normal in my school in the 90s. Parents could send a donation to the school fund every Monday.

I pay my taxes. I pay for school trips. I will not be paying for essentials or hills that school budgets should cover it masks a problem and parents are an easy target. Schools need to be lobbying the government about this nit chasing cash strapped parents.

We had this at DD's school in the 2000s but it was only like one letter at the start of the school year asking for a donation of X amount. We always donated but we were in a financial position to do so.

Is this school in the NW by any chance?

You can look at school funding/spending here https://financial-benchmarking-and-insights-tool.education.gov.uk/find-organisation
Trusts will also have their annual returns on their website sites.
School funding is tough.
There may be enough to have kids in the classroom.....but there are struggles to fund the additional staff that add value, there are struggles to fund the enrichment activities - especially if parents don't fund it.

Schools and trusts are crying out for governors to support schools. If this interests you there will be opportunities locally.

If you want to campaign you need to write to your MP and tell them your view.

This is a good idea. I suspect many parents would want to know that their money is going to their child’s class rather than into a general pot. From my involvement with my children’s school I am aware that some parents are asking the school to pay for their child to go on trips when the Head is confident they are plenty able to afford it themselves (e.g. child has had a brand new iPhone confiscated at school) and I would not want to be funding things like this when finding an additional contribution is not easy for me. I’d be much happier buying supplies for my children’s classes to use to enhance their learning.

Reserve means they’ve underspent in previous years and carried it forward

The council won’t let it go under though. As long as the spaces are needed it will be funded. Being in a deficit doesn’t mean the school is going bankrupt in the traditional sense. It’s on paper. The bills still get paid.

One of the primaries DS was at asked for £20 per term and the took out the trips from this. So panto at Christmas, swimming in the summer etc. If there was any left it went to the end of year party.

the next primary asked for everything individually. A couple of quid for the bus fare for the library trip and so on. That was a pita. I preferred the first way, but that was convenient to me. I appreciate others wouldn’t feel the same.

I think there's some misunderstanding about school budgets using that calculator. In our local authority (I assume similar elsewhere) we have to budget on a three year rolling budget. It's not allowed to go into debt in any of the years. However, you also have to keep reserves for building upkeep, large refurbishment projects etc. So the school can be almost in debt but have a large reserve because they have to redo the toilet block or whatever.
Some money is ringfenced e.g. a certain budget has to be kept for building upkeep, ultilities etc. Staffing is always the largest cost but there are only so many ways you can keep that down.
Not only have school budgets not increased with inflation, they haven't increased when pay has increased. This involves cuts in other areas. If you consistently underspend in resourcing then you'll end up in a position where you need to replace lots of things at once and can't afford to do so.

I don't disagree that lobbying the government should be done but it woukd be more powerful if parents led the charge as schools are ignored.

My DS1 secondary school is asking for donations specifically due to extra cost for SEN funding. The govt does pay for this but apparantly it's not enough. I don't think any parent who doesn't have a SEN child will contribute- that's the talk among parents atleast. They would have been smarter not to specify SEN because it reduces the parents who feel concerned and it also singles out us SEN parents as we are made aware of what a burden on the system our children are...

I remember all the year 7 parents being asked to an introduction meeting at my daughter's Secondary school 20 years ago . They used it purely to put pressure on the parents to sign up for a monthly direct debit to help fund the school . Not saying I agree with it , but surprised it's taken other schools this long to do the same if I'm honest.

Those saying it is OK for disadvantaged schools as they get Pupil Premium, I'm not sure that's correct?
Pupil Premium has to be spent on the Pupil Premium kids as things above and beyond the normal offer, for example English and Maths intervention. It can't be used for general resources or paying utility bills.
So they may be 'awash with money' as I think a PP said, but that money is ringfenced.

DC primary school did this 10 years ago via direct debit. Nice catchment area. They did a lot with the funds.

Flip side is at the same time I was a governor for 4 years at a deprived primary school who was in a deficit budget. We had to cut teachers and merge classes. We fought tooth and nail for funding due to massive spike in SEN and other particulars of the schools that made it challenging. I wrote letters to our MP, the Minister for Education, Director for Children’s Service - the lot.

If I was a Head I’d ask for it because budgets are so tight parents have no idea, but it does make the disparity between catchment areas that more stark.

Education has been under-funded for years, so if you think it should be funded by govt you’d be right, but wrong to think it actually is.

As a teacher I’m a bit cynical - there often seems to be money found when it’s of interest to the right people.
Id be more willing as a parent to pay if there was a specific project. As you say ‘ongoing costs’ is vague and unhelpful in making a decision plus the pressure on parents is very difficult especially asking mid year; we do at least cost out parental contributions for trips etc across the year and don’t add to them.

parents not paying wont help change the systemic shortfall though. The govs well aware schools are underfunded and that due to changing numbers the funding will change significantly. There not going to increase it because parents won’t pay