to think you should pay the "voluntary contribution" for school trips..if you can afford to.

[daftpunk]

i'm right here.

yes?

If you can afford something you should always pay it and not rely on other people to pay it for you. Whatever it is.

Well obviously if you can afford to, but I have known people wo could pay but did not as a protest for the too expensive cost.

I have a different strategy, I either do not send DCs when I cant afford it or scrape the barrel to pay it and make them happy. I do not anymore complain about elevated cost (that I had paid for) as I was, for very very long full year, taken asside by my DCs teachers so they could explain to me once again why it was so expensive before every trip the were going to. Quite a humiliating process.

you know, i found out today a friend at school has never paid...they have plenty of money! so wrong imo.

yes.

letters fro our school now have it stated that although it is a voluntary contribution, if there are not eneough parents willing to pay then the trip will have to be cancelled.

the whole point of it being made voluntary was so that children who'se parents really were struggling cold still attend. not so that those who could, can save a fiver

Mamazon, it's the law that schools can't force parents to pay - the line about 'voluntary contributions' is a legal requirement. It's not a sign of any goodwill on the part of the school.

I sympathise with the OP but I do get fed up with the constant requests for money from school - if it's not trips it's charity that and fundraising this. At some times we are getting demands every damn week.

We've been really struggling for the past year as dh has been on sick pay for nine months and it has been tricky. But I would never say anything to school unless we were really desperate, really would NOT want to discuss my finances with them.

Of course everyone should pay unless in vv dire straits, ie on benefits.

But that's fair enough, isn't it? The trips are extra, not funded by the govt or school budget, so if we want our children to have these extras they cost. So we pay for it, or not, as is our choice.
I wouldn't see it as ds's "right" to go on a trip therefore someone else should pay for it because it "should" be included in his schooling. It isn't, so I have to choose whether I want to pay to take part or not.

totally agree with you edam, our school seem to ask for money almost every week.

ds is going to hampton court this week, has cost me £14...we struggle sometimes, but i always pay.

I agree but I feel like DD's school asks for a lot.

In the last month we have had SO many requests.
They do loads with the children, which is great but we must pay out about £20 a month for odd things here and there which is all well and good, but I know when I was a single parent there is no way I'd have been able to afford to pay £5 for some activity or other with a few days notice.

Luckily ds is an only so we can manage - if I had two or three children I'd be really hard put to field all these requests. I think the school works on the basis that we live in a place where most people are relatively well off and forget that not everyone has a dh who works in the City.

Alternatively, when ds's school took them last year to see a play the cost was huge. We chose not to send him, so had to keep him home that day. We took him to the play that weekend instead, all 3 of us for less money (they were including coach plus lunch). Not always the answer but instead of missing out there's sometimes other ways around it.

All these complaints about the money schools ask for astounds me. My Dc's go to a very average school in a below average area (improvement results good, league table poor) I have just bought £5 worth of raffle tickets and will make cakes for the cake stall at Christmas, but that's the only money I have been asked for all year.

They have had trips to the 14c church they can walk to, to the library and to the nature reserve, but nothing that needed any money.

Their school polo shirts with emblem are £4.75. My friend who has Dc's at a "better" school nearby buys the same shirts with a different logo for £9.95! The schools can keep the cost down if they try.

i do pay at the moment as we can afford to just!! but my friend said she has 4 children and gets very expensive. i suggested she pay half and she said that is reasonable

we get the voluntary contribution letters then get told if dont pay cant go.
but yes you are right.

Crikey! I wish that was all we paid for.
Last week they took part in a workshop day at school with some acting company. It cost £5.
A week or so before was a trip to a roman villa(£5). Before that a trip to a victorian place(£5). Before that the residential trip (£300!)
DS (in nursery at the same school) went to the woods (£3.50) and has to give a 'school fund' of £1 every week.
They have also had the school disco, have mufti day on friday, will be bringing home plates for us to fill with cakes or biscuits, and have had to take in old wellies to plant flowers in, old clothes to do gardening in, and Dd needs a long white shirt to be a mad professor this week.

Our school has changed this system slightly and you now have to apply for a hardship fund if you can't afford to pay for a school trip. I've got mixed feelings about this....

Oh and DD had to have a bright sheet for the thing with the actors.
This is all since September.

Of course it is a way of keeping the riffraff out of the "good" schools.......(should I run now?)

This bugs the hell out of me too.
Whilst Ds was in year 5, he had a school trip that had a voluntary contribution of £10. Now I've always paid in the past, but I just did not have £10 this time, so had a word with the teacher(I was prepared to not let him go btw), she said not to worry about the £10, that they should be ok etc...Ds did go, but I felt terribly guilty.

Well sameagain, people do complain because most school do ask for a lot. The complain comes when the cost really does not reflect the day out.

DS2 went to visit the local air aid shelters, about 3 miles from the school. Entrance fee for a child £2.90, I do not know what amount was charged for the bus or the many insurances the schoool needs but the trip was charged £9.70 and that was for half a day trip to which you have to add the cost of a packed lunch.That is a problem that needs to be adressed by schools. I am planning to ask at a up comming PTA meeting if part of the school trips at least could be financed by our fundraising. Does any PTA do that?

On the same week DD1 had two outings 1 costed £7. and the other £12. + the school asked for early payment for a school trip to the theatre before the Christmas break. 3DCs going £12.50 a head. school individual photos (3 kids on same picture £13.--) Total cost that week £79.20

It is not like that every weejk fortunately, but it can be very stressfull as a parent, because you do not want to deprive your children of trips but you still have to feed them somehow.

I'm struggling like hell to pay for Ds's school journey next year. Bless him, he's been saving almost every penny he gets to help to pay for it. I'm determined he will go, because I think every child should be able to go. 'Tis a worry though.

Yes, onethewarpath I completely understand why people complain, I would too, but if the schools had to (because no-one could/would pay, like at our school) they can use some imagination to keep cost down.

e.g. (esp for little children) is there more benefit in an expensive theatre trip, than a walk to see the local Secondary school's dress rehersal?

Is a trip to the city cathedral better than a walk to the local church?

Were the air raid shelters more interesting than a walk to the Old People's home to talk to people who could remember using them ?(which DS1 did)

'voluntary'????? Pah, we get demands for cash with menaces!

Ha! and what about the 'visiting poets' that sell you their books. Skipping workshops that sell skipping ropes(that promptly get stolen by the other kids), the yoyo workshops that sell yoyo's, the magic workshops that sell bloody everything grrrrrrr! My Ds, bless his heart has stopped asking me for stuff now. It's very sad though for children that have to go without, then get the urine extracted by the other kids...

I overheard a teacher saying, it's always the same parents who pay. I know of one parent who struggles but does pay. I think it would be good if the letters suggested pay what you can that way some people might actually pay a small amount rather than none.