AIBU to be baffled a mum had no idea the school fayre was happening?

[xAwaywiththefairiesx]

Today my daughter's primary school had a spring fayre after school on the school field. Ice cream van, face-painting, various stalls with games, the usual. All arranged by the PTA to raise money for the school.
There was a mufti day today, and the children were asked to bring a donation to the school as an exchange for the mufti, something like cakes to sell or a teddy for the tombola or a bottle of wine as a prize or something.
One mum wanders onto the field after school, with both of her kids in mufti, looking around bewildered saying "What's this? Is this a new thing they're doing? Will it be every week?"

And this is so weird to me because the spring fayre has been organised for months. We have lots of emails asking for donations, several more asking for volunteers, we've had at least three leaflets home about it, and she obviously got the memo about mufti, the whole point in which was for the school fayre!

My phone own child has been banging on about it for three weeks.

How can she get so unaware? I'm not judging, honestly, I'm just baffled how it got past her.

Is it just me? Could you miss something like this after all that communication?

“feedback to the school, as others have suggested several times

I have fed back to the school, their answer is always “it’s not mandatory for your child to take part” which doesn’t alleviate the pressure parents feel to not have their kids left out!

“move your kids to a different school more to your liking”
And that will solve what? All primary schools hold these events multiple times a year.

“take your kids out of school and educate them yourself.”
So now I have to educate them myself because I’m sick and tired of the thousands of events at school! What an amazing idea! Not!

Well it must have taken you equal the amount of time to read all my posts. Oh yeah I could have really done something productive about it on a bank holiday weekend! Give your head a wobble!

And I also suggested you could contact the school and PTA with your thoughts about the dress up days. Suggest some other ideas for fundraising that are less pressured. There are so many things that can raise funds from the wider public, not just parents. If you haven’t the time to get really involved, surely you could spare a couple of hours to man a stall or put some raffle prizes together one evening in front of the tv. All these things help but don’t cost you money.
And if you really begrudge any of the fundraising efforts others are going to, to help YOUR children, refuse to engage in anything organised by the PTA. You could even go the next step and make sure your children don’t take any benefits from the fundraising, so you can pay £180 for the trip, not use the tablets or books that are likely funded by the PTA, ban your children from enjoying the Christmas crackers at the school Christmas dinner, any entertainment/workshops/visits paid for by the PTA… the list goes on.
Why not stop making excuses, be grateful to those that organise it all, and get on with it. As I said, no one is forcing you to do any of it.

OMFG have I not already said this!! Ffs. Many people have raised the issue over the years. Their answers is the kids enjoy them! The events will NOT stop just because of one parent refusing to engage!

We are just going around in circles. I will leave you to argue it out with yourself because you are repeating the same shit over and over again!

So are you.

You can send an email at any time.

Multiple people have sent messages/ emails to schools/ PTAs about this. I’ve had many conversations with other parents. These events still keep happening!

Yep… answering the same points you keep stating over and over again!

And the money still keep being raised for your children.

Btw, not all primary schools do it. Not all primary schools have a PTA. Mine didn't until our current chair started one. There were barely any events. Our head was delighted when someone finally came forward

Maybe look for a school that doesn't have one if they offend you so much?

I will refer you back to my earlier post that yes the money is being raised for the children, mostly to fund school trips and events so that the parents don’t have to pay the full price, but the money has come from the parents anyways so they’re still funding them regardless!

”Maybe look for a school that doesn’t offend you so much”
What a stupid comment! All schools adopt these “fundraiser” days. And maybe you should have a different outlook rather than starting a thread about a parent who simply didn’t know about an event that you spent time organising, most likely because not everyone shares your enthusiasm about it!

It's not mostly to fund trips. We fund all sorts. New books for the libraries. Resources for the classrooms. Provision for SEND children. New toys for the playground. Free school uniforms for low income families, and a whole host of other things.

And as I said, not all primary schools do it because not all primary schools are lucky enough to have a PTA. Someone has to take the initiative and start one and then people have to keep that going after the original founders have moved on. Thy don't just magically spawn when a school is built.

I have also pointed out that local businesses donated a significant portion of our income and local residents also spend money at events. It's NOT all on the parents.

And as I said, I get that! But like I said in a previous post, parents were also expected to participate in “dress up days” to fund school’s share of paying for an overnight residential trip!

If it’s not school trips it’s some other event that we are having to fund. Some events are to raise money for charities we otherwise wouldn’t donate to otherwise! We don’t need all these events. We certainly don’t need to fork out to help school fund school trips that the parents can just pay for themselves with the money they’re spending in contributions and special costumes.

And whilst I acknowledge, the PTA doesn’t organise all these events, the constant events, dress up days, charity fund raisers, comic relief day, children in need day, school fundraisers, sponsored this, sponsored that, assemblies, Xmas plays, summer fair, spring fair, Xmas fair are constant and relentless.

And all the points I have mentioned above boil down to my point about you starting a thread about a parent who probably simply couldn’t “keep up” with the massive influx of events, special dress up days etc and parents are just sick and tired of not only having to remember these things but expected to donate to them too!

And as I said, I get that! But like I said in a previous post, parents were also expected to participate in “dress up days” to fund school’s share of paying for an overnight residential trip!

Several people, including me, agree this is bad fundraising and makes no sense and you should feed this back.

Like I said, we did! The answer was “it’s a voluntary dress up day, you don’t have to take part but less funds mean we may not be able to fund the trip” so again I will refer you back to previous comments that school always state “it’s completely voluntary and not mandatory to take part” but unfortunately the pressure put on parents so that their kid doesn’t feel left out and doesn’t cry or hate you for sending them in uniform or being left on their own while everyone else’s parents turn up to these events is just a guilt tripping exercise dressed up as “voluntary not mandatory”! Not only that, parents were also guilt tripped with the old line of “if we receive insufficient funds we may not be able to fund the trip”.

Which is pretty shite, I agree.

I would suggest replying with something like:

"Whilst I appreciate the need to raise funds for X trip and that participation is voluntary, can I please respectfully suggest that in future the funds are raised via other means such as mufti/non uniform days or other events such as cake sales.
Myself and other parents feel that the cost of purchasing outfits for dress up days negates the money we may have saved from just paying full price for the trip.
Furthermore, sourcing outfits can take up valuable time which I am sure you can appreciate is jn short supply for many of school families who are running busy households and managing work commitments.
I hope this feedback will prove useful going forward"

OP is giving Amanda vibes and she's seriously underestimating how many of us are Liz's.

OP is not giving anything close to Amanda vibes

And THIS folks, is why higher rate income tax should have been 2-3p more in the pound over the last 16 years!

Affluent areas with enough disposable income for the car dealer to pay 500 quid to sit a car in the car park for a fair, and parents donating spa days and timeshares.

When actually, if they'd just paid a few quid more in tax, ALL of the schools could have had enough money for glue sticks and playground equipment EVERYWHERE in the country.

Another parent here who never needed the mind palace exercise of remembering which events, what donations & numerous dates - would far rather have paid 40 quid at the start of term to make the whole bloody lot disappear & for school to provide everything that was needed for school.

Christ my ds starts school in September and this has put me right off joining the pta! I like to be involved in nursery events and extra circular stuff as much as I can BUT I work part time and have a good dh.

Some of my friends are too busy, tired, unsupported or simply not interested. That doenst make them terrible parents which seems to be the vibe from some posters here. Volunteering and being involved is great but that doenst mean that others have to care!

Waaaaahing because other parents aren't planning their lives around the activities of the PTA is very Amanda, IMO.

She's literally here scoffing about the organisational failings of other parents.

Local businesses donate these things
NOT parents.
We spend weeks approaching local businesses such as hotels (the spa days) local family attractions, shops, cafes, literally anywhere we can think of in a 20 miles radius asking for donations, either monetary or in the form of raffle prizes.
70-80% ignore us. Quite a few come back with a free ticket for the raffle, or a hamper. Some donate money in exchange for advertising. We can put this money directly in the PTA pot or advertise a cash prizes depending on how many tickets we sell.
The cafe next door donates cakes and biscuits for the cake stall and we put up a sign saying "Kindly donated by Sheila's cafe" or something in exchange.

ONCE years ago, before my time, a family donated a week at a timeshare. It might have been the grandparents. I don't remember. But it helped sell a tonne of tickets. It's a legendary story, not a regular occurance.

We work hard to get these donations in, we build relationships over many years.
We are absolutely not an affluent area. If you knew where we were you'd laugh at that suggestion yourself. We raised funds specifically because we are so in need here.

She's not even slightly Amandaesque.

I live in a very 'Spa Day' village and I totally agree.

The primary PTA throw nigh constant money grabbing events but the cash is spent on free whole school day trips and new laptop/ipad trolleys.

meanwhile in the city we live on the edge of.........

Don’t the most deprived areas get the most funding though?

Our school really struggles precisely because we are in an affluent area, the head teacher told us so.

And my point is that taxes should pay for the schools everywhere to cover equipment needed, regardless.

OP's talk of 'saving the shit wine for the tombola' does not scream inner-city deprivation to me though, tbh 🤷🏼‍♀️