Is it normal for primary schools to expect so many payments?

[ThisRealFawn]

I have twins in Yr 5 in Primary School and recently (in the past 2 years) there are just so many things to pay for. I appreciate that the school are taking the children out to do things but it’s all at a cost to the parents that we just cannot afford easily in these pricy times. This is a state school. Not private btw.

last term we paid for:

music lessons x2 = £130
forest school x2 = £40 (plus £100 ish worth of weather appropriate clothing)
residential x2 = £300 (plus all the stuff they needed)
costumes for school play = £40 ish

so like £700 ish

this upcoming term already we have paid

music lessons x2 = £130
weekly ice skating x2 = £130
Sherwood forest trip x2 = £60

so another £300+ already before the term has even started

Is this normal? How are people affording this. Like I said - I’m glad for the children they get to do this stuff but I don’t like the assumption that everybody will just happily keep paying for whatever the school decide to arrange.

if you’re entitled to school meals I think you get it all paid for but we don’t qualify even though we aren’t high earners.

we haven’t done anything really over the Easter hols because I literally have had £100 left to last me 2 weeks. Could have done with that £300 I’ve just had to pay really 😂

Is this normal now for primary schools or is our school unusual for this?

we got a specific list for forest school. It was in January and February so they needed thermal base layers, waterproof trousers and coats hats, waterproof gloves and snow boots. I got it all on Vinted. It would have cost loads more new!
the costumes they needed camouflage army gear and soldier helmets - again- Vinted but still adds up!

That is such a lovely thing to do.

Crazy that you would put that stuff on your children.

I've just totted up the four trips ds went on in yrs 10-11 and it came to about £1,800. Three of those were for GCSEs. Plus ski clothes (thankfully by then he could use mine).

Even state education is expensive

Music lessons for £65 per child is an absolute steal and must be highly subsidised. Fees where I work are £275 per term for one pupil.

The residential trips are very cheap, too.

Surely these are just suggestions?

The school would have still let your children take part if you had sent them in a coat and wellies. It's wet in January / February, but there's no need to wear thermal base layers and snow boots.

I agree. Really thoughtful.

The only outrageously expensive trip my son's secondary school does is skiing, but that's in the holidays and of course only a small number of the more affluent pupils do that.

Otherwise the only trips were a weekend in Paris for French, a couple of day trips for geography and a reward trip to a theme park - total £500ish.

The things that stand out there are forest school and ice skating.

Rest is either within the normal range of things like day trips and a residential, or optional. I would've expected to pay for the instrument lessons, albeit mine does choir free.

Never paid anything like what you’re paying but probably because:

Ice skating is a treat at Xmas.
My kids are not musical.
Wouldn’t pay for Forest school as my kids are at school all day, after school sports clubs are free at school and we are outside tons (walks etc) at the weekend. Is forest school really needed?

We pay for the school trips (usually the most expensive in Primary is £20 but that’s very occasional) and end of year residentials.

£65 is outrageous for a class music lesson that should be free.
If it was a 1:1 instrument lesson that would be different.

You dont have to pay for everything. A lot is optional. I agree though, theres always something going on! I do the school trips, discos and mufti days and ignore everything else tbh.

I do recall when DS started in reception, in 1999, that when I added up the incidentals: milk money, £1 a week for class supplies, red nose day, daffodils, bits and bobs, school photos, cake sales, etc, (excluding trips, etc) that it worked out at a fiver a week or a bit more. I wondered at the time how people on tight budgets did it.

But children can't be excluded if the parents can't pay.

Those talking about the costs of secondary school – I accept that you don’t want your DC to miss out, but that being so, you cannot really complain about the costs.

Many if not most secondary school activities are very much optional. We used to run (when I taught in school) a trip to France and to Germany; we took about 70 DC in a 220 year intake, so clearly the majority did not go. It was not in any way an issue. We kept the costs low as well.

My DC all were able to go on an MFL trip at their school and I was grateful to the staff for organising it and taking them and glad that we could afford it. But again, most DC did not go.

With things like theatre trips for drama and English lit, well those are surely hugely beneficial. A good school will keep the cost down – a theatre local to me is staging Macbeth right now and tickets started at about £15. Well worth it for anyone studying the play, could really bring it alive and improve their grade.

Similarly for revision guides – these cost about a tenner and you can often find them secondhand or get a friend to pass on their child's (I have handed on numerous of these over the years).

Yes for sure if you choose to send your DC on the skiing trip and the Paris trip and the London theatre trip and the Iceland trip it will mount up. But most families pick and choose, maybe just doing one or two of those.

When you say music lesson…what do you mean? Music lesson as in a generic lesson where the class teacher is teaching them and they’re all banging about on xylophones and tambourines? Or music lesson as in learning an instrument with a qualified specialist music teacher?

You chose to pay for ice skating and it certainly would have been optional. Paying for forest school seems odd. Buying weather appropriate clothing not so much. The list of clothing giving by the school would have been a suggestion to keep your children warm and dry- it wasn’t a compulsory list and your children wouldn’t have been excluded for not having every item. Most would be items you already owned.

I have had children go through many different schools and I also worked in a number of schools and none of them charged or expected parents to pay that amount each term. If anything they all tried to keep costs low. So either you’re unlucky with your school or you’re taking them too literally and thinking the school expects you to do everything and pay excessively for all these things.

I agree. God forbid I should use old wellies again.

Old wellies that have passed safety standards to be sold here are absolutely fine.

Plastic jackets padded with god knows what, no idea what toxic chemicals were used to manufacture them and no safety testing at all, but willing to risk them on your kids because it was only a fiver. Bonkers.

Do you have a parent Whatsapp group? Are these things discussed among parents? Or is everyone happily paying hundreds on Vinted for used stuff just for a couple of months? It does seem extortionate.

If the whole class goes ice skating in school time, it's not really optional.

Charging for music lessons for a class of 15 is outrageous. Schools here (Scotland) only charge for lessons held in small groups (up to 3). Whole class lessons are free.

I would be hopping mad if that was offered at my school! So many other things to use that money on. SEN resources and support staff come to mind.

Sounds like it's not all compulsory.. and I would have thought your kids should have weather appropriate clothing whether they do forest school or not so not really a school expense? 🤔

Music lessons are optional, residential is optional (and that’s cheap), ice skating optional and you can buy cheaper forest school clothes.

music lessons are never free unless very low income or the school has some sort of benefactor.

No not compulsory but I don’t want my kids to be stuck in the classroom every Weds for 6 weeks while everyone else is ice skating. Forest school they offer it to 1/4 of the class each half term. They didn’t have thermals, snow boots and waterproof trousers. We’re not really an outdoorsy family so you assume wrong