to detest my kids' primary school's latest money making venture - selling us christmas cards made by our kids?

[jasper]

Fundraising ( for school funds - don't start me on that one) thing going on at our school just now.

Each child draws a Christmas card design.
School gets them printed up professionally , in packs of 8 cards with envelope.

Your child brings two of these packs home (with their own design) to sell at £5.50 per pack.

AIBU to think this scheme stinks?

I like the idea. It's 10 cards for £6.50 with £1.50 of this going directly to school funds. I'll buy two packs (2 children) and spend £10 more on cards than otherwise and a few charities will get a few pence less from me now. Vanity, but there you go.

A smartboard is a device promoted by multi million pound company Promethean as being absolutely invaluable in the modern classroom as a white/blackboard substitute and educational aid. This company has close relationships with the little cabal that runs our country, including the current ruling party, according to Institute of Education academic Stephen Ball.

They are used for many of the same things that whiteboards are, but impress governors more while they are signing cheques. The rest of Europe hardly uses them but prefers to buy the children books and so on instead. These countries also get better marks in OECD education tests. Could there be some sort of correlation here, perhaps?

Either the school is being conned or the school is conning the parents at that price. And what a total waster of resources.

Misse... there's no pester power in our school either, and I doubt anyone collates the info to blacklist parents who haven't put an order in. Also for PTA ideas - I love the teatowels (even if not v absorbant) and the cotton bags with school name on.

oo, I am very interested in your take on smartboards, boffin. Where do you get your info from?

I liked my smartboard a lot and found it to be a great resource in teh classroom. However, I'm willing to hear more about your conspiracy theory

I wouldn't have thought it's a con. It's a very small print run of each card, full colour. And a reasonable profit has to be made for the printer and the school

ooh we love our smartboards...........we do film night on them and make a bomb for the pta........

what do you do at your film night, maj, apart from show a film?

Well smartboards have been very useful for ds1's class. And especially for ds1. He can try and write his name on it (he won't try on paper), and access the computer via it (important when you're severely dyspraxic) etc etc. We don't have to be cynical about everything!

3.30-5.30pm after school

2 films - infants & juniors

popcorn/juice

£2.50 each

kids get film and parents get 2 hours childcare very cheap!!

pointydog, I am referring to Stephen Ball's book "Education PLC".

I think most teachers aren't really able to exploit the tech in their classrooms to best effect, but it seems as the ones posting on here do a bit better than that!

There's a lot of stuff in my kids' schools that has just sat there for months after purchase and not even been plugged in.

thanks

It's a bit strange that they are printing them without getting orders in first - as you pointed out, at least teatowels and things are not disposable and are made in response to demand. Seems rather wasteful.

well in my neck of the woods, if the school has spent thousands installing a few smartboards they make damn sure the teachers use them.

They are so easy to use. I have seen techno-phobes pick up the basics and use them pretty competently within days.

but I'll check out the book.

Mmm, it would annoy me. I would tend to feel that they don't own the copyright of your child's design so they are technically selling you your child's intellectual property. That probably makes me an evil pedant!. But I really wouldn't like it, especially as many people now send ecards and speaking personally, we wouldn't be able to afford that; we bought our charity cards in the January sales.

"There's a lot of stuff in my kids' schools that has just sat there for months after purchase and not even been plugged in.

That is crazy. FWIW smart boards are really used well at ds1's special school, to the point where I bought a clip on touch screen for our computer to try and recreate it at home!!

I'm not fussed that ds2 and ds3 don't have one (they're NT so don't need lots of extra help to learn) but I can see it would be useful in their classroom too if they were there.

There's no need to pay a commercial printer, for one thing. Any no-brainer with a home PC and a colour printer could do a perfectly adequate job for a lot less. Or simply print out a batch of outline-shape cards and get the DC to colour the things in and sell them. (Which more people would probably like more than an expensively-printed scribble afterall).

I like the idea but think they should be a bit cheaper. Also they shouldn't be printed until they know you want to buy them - what a waste! (although proves they can't cost very much to make)

They are very good quality. Someone could buy a load of colour cartridges and print them off on thinner paper, yes. The cost covers that hassle. No one has to buy them. If people don't buy, they are not prodiced again

My brothers school did that in the 80s. Actually there were two winners (my brother was one ) that were made up. I've heard of loads of schools doing it.

Out of interest, and kind of off topic, do these smartboards and whiteboards give off any white noise? I know that in meetings having a powerpoint presentation through a projector or an overhead projector give many people headaches when left on too long. Is this the case with smartboards and whiteboards?

In my day at school we just had blackboards, and DS is too young for school.

Our school is doing the same (maybe the same school ohhh ) They also asked for £10 a term donation to be given at the beginning of term as well as money for a shed with toys in your child cant use the toys unless they have a token (think that is sooo wrong) but how can you not buy the things looking at your kids little face the school bloody play on that!

a little bit of white noise, I think - there is a fan. But I never noticed it and neither did the childrne

Back on topic, DH runs a print company and thinks you've been given a good price for the cards.