Voluntary contribution of £120 for school

[Voiceofreason92]

My son’s school have always asked for a voluntary contribution of £35 per year per child. This year they have decided to up it to £60 per child. I have two children. In the past it’s never been clear what that £35 is going on so have always reluctantly contributed. This year they have asked for money for revamping the year 1 toilets, building a ‘summer house’ style cabin as an intervention room and to support their staffing structure.

since September, it’s been in the newsletter every week saying they still don’t have 100% of families contributing and they would really like it. (Only 50% have) This week a letter came home in my kid’s book bag from the head teacher saying that they noticed I havent paid my £120 contribution and they really think it’s time I contributed for my boys.
AIBU unreasonable for not contributing out of principle that I feel hounded and it’s meant to be voluntary.
(this is a state primary school not a private one)

They must be pretty desperate of they’re sending out reminders. It is a lot of money though, especially when parents may have more than one child.

If you can’t or don’t want to pay op, I would just ignore it. We get begging letters from DH’s old school (he’s 53!) and ignore those, along with all the other organisations who send us repeated letters, phone calls and turn up at our door. State education is supposed to be free and you are under no obligation to give them anything.

The approach is cheeky, but with underfunding schools are being left relying on this money. I know this will be controversial but I think it should be mandatory, with the option to pay in instalments if needed. If no-one paid it all pupils would be impacted. Its not fair that some parents pay and others don't, especially if it's to make a point rather than being unable to afford it.

I was chair of a primary school PTA when we decided to introduce a voluntary contribution. We realised that 50% was the most we could get without pressure tactics which we decided not to do. We produced a newsletter once a term explaining what we’d been up to, how much was raised and what it had been spent on. Rather than going for a set amount we suggested a monthly direct debit amount of £10/£20/£50.
interestingly the wealth of the parents seemed to have no bearing on who signed up and it was pretty galling when those in the £2m+ houses paid nothing and a cleaner living in a council flat gave £10 a month.
Oh and for those people who think voluntary donations are abhorrent and “wouldn’t have happened in my time” just wake up and smell the coffee of what years of underfunding does to a school.
We spent the money on loads of things from stationery to re-surfacing the playground.
all children benefitted regardless of whether their parents contributed. Which means those that could afford and didn’t contribute freeloaded off those that did who were often less wealthy.
as you can guess I’m still not over the trauma!!

Errrr... Mandatory? And maybe not make school compulsory in that case? And maybe those families who couldn't afford it could just send their kids down the mines or up the chimneys instead? I really don't think you've thought this through.

I'm not surprised by the wealth/value of contributions mismatch. That's pretty much how it works in many areas of life. I think greedy, entitlement and lack of empathy have much to do with it.

I hope you aren't this bad with sales people

You’ve been giving the school £70 a year previously, you could have told them you’d contribute for one child at the new rate, given £60 and be done with the whole situation.

ours is a similar amount and we pay it. It’s a church school and gets less funding than non religious from the government. They need new playground equipment and a new roof. It’s for our children’s benefit. I see it as a charity

Ok

This

Is this true? Why do religious schools get less funding?

This has been covered. The financial commitment is often better than what they’d experience in a non Jewish school. Just ask my daughter.

This must be an affluent area with exceptionally low FSM kids. I’d argue the majority of parents are currently scraping by right now and definitely couldn’t casually shell out £60 per child per year for school renovations.

Yes

• Voluntary Aided (VA) vs. Other Schools: VA schools have more autonomy but, unlike voluntary controlled schools, they are responsible for a portion of their capital costs, making them more financially vulnerable to funding cuts.
• Reduced Capital Support: VA faith schools are expected to contribute 10% towards capital building costs. As more schools become academies or face budget constraints, the financial burden on religious institutions for infrastructure increases.

-

If you are reluctant because you can't afford it, fair enough. Send a politely worded reply that "unfortunately your budget does not allow you to make this VOLUNTARY contribution".

If you can afford it, YABU. School budgets are ridiculously tight, and every penny helps. I very much doubt the head is embezzling the money for trips to the Bahamas.

And remembering the pong of my children's primary school loos, refurbishing them sounds an excellent use of funds.

Surely if they made the voluntary contribution much lower like £20 a year they’d have a lot more than 50% contributions and then they’d actually end up with more…. Totally understand they don’t get enough funding but £120 per year is a lot of money for a lot of people. Do they have a PTA that organises discos and movie nights - ours charge £5 per child for these type of events 2-3 times a year, plus bake sales, summer fair, Xmas fair, Mother’s Day/fathers day shop, sponsored walks/reads etc which yes do all add up but at least the kids have some fun during these events and it’s only £5 here and there!

Personally, I’d be asking to see the accounts for these contributions, not to see which parents had paid but to see how much had been collected and how it was being spent…….not an unreasonable request surely?!?

At the same time I’d be reminding the school about all the ‘money raising’ activities they promote throughout the academic year and requesting to see the accounts for that too.

Given that the head teacher has specified what they are now raising money for it wouldn’t be an unreasonable request to want to inspect the quotes for those either.

All too often, people are pressured into coughing up before they speak up. There’s no way I would be handing over £60 per child until I knew exactly where previous monies had been spent, with receipts, and was confident that all other donations were being used correctly and openly.

I don’t know if making it lower would make it more successful. Our school tried something similar and just ended up with even less because people who paid paid less and people who didn’t pay usually didn’t pay this time, either.

Our PTA does the movie nights and discos, etc, as well, and I personally hate them - I’m happy to pay (and I do - our school is on the edge of a deprived area and I’m happy to cough up because I know for a fact that there are parents who can’t afford this stuff), but they also demand my time and I really don’t have much going spare. But… they’ve tried having a donation point open all year, and nobody pays into it. So I don’t know what else they’re meant to do to raise money. And our school as well is REALLY good at using connections to get work done for less, so it’s not wastefulness that means that we don’t have enough.

Still, I pray for the day that they do a ‘give us £100 upfront and we’ll not ask you to help with the plant sale’ option 😅

Coffee has it!

Give them the full OED definition!

i agree
no need to be narky about it
just pay what you can afford, if you prefer to pay in instalments try that.

That’s the problem basically. You’ve had years of austerity because people didn’t want to pay much tax to cover things like schools, hospitals, roads, defence, the police. And yet they complain like mad when they can’t get an appointment with the doctor or the police don’t follow up on their stolen car. I don’t see why they don’t see the cause and effect really.

If you want your kids not to have pencils, paints, school trips etc then don’t pay. But I suspect you want someone else to pay as is usually the case. I’m sorry if you genuinely can’t afford it in which case tell the school but I suspect it’s not that and your principles leave others to pay the price.

I think all state schools should do this. Call it an access fee. Schools don’t have enough money and the people who use them should cover any costs. Might help temper those who cannot adequately afford to cover their families costs.

WTF?!! 😱

But that burden should not be placed in the parents who are presumably already paying taxes