To be really farking annoyed at DD's school marketing ploys?

[NoPresentsInVictorianSqualor]

I have talked before about the huge amount of money that the school asks from us but when it's for trips and experiences it doesn't bother me too much.

But every couple of weeks the PTA has some sort of fund-raising thingy going on (again I realise my DD&DS will benefit from this). The christmas term is the worst. We've had the xmas cards they made, the different carol concerts (which though much nicer with mulled wine and minced pies, is just another money-making event) we had mufti day last week, they have had three different costumes to find in the last month etc.

Today is the xmas fayre. If I want to I can purchase a calendar (which is basically a picture my DC's drew with one of those calendar thingys on) for £1.
I don't want to!
I've told them we will make our own calendars by creating month specific pictures and photographing them and doing it online much better IMO, but anyway I digress.

I turn up at the school with a very poorly 7 month old, who tbh, I didn't want to wake, nor take outside but I had no choice.
There is absolutely no way I am planning on going to this poxy fayre but that's ok, because it's in the Quad, so I can go round to get to DD's class, pick her up and come straight home.

I get to the school only to find parents waiting outside DD's classroom, which is empty.

A TA overhears us all talking about where our DCs are and says that they have gone to the fayre with their teacher. I mill about looking for DD for twenty fricking minutes, DS2 is crying and I am really fed up.

Then I see that there are children from her class coming out of the main hall. So I go in and she is stood right at the back with her teacher who is selling the calendars.

HOW DARE THEY GUILT ME INTO BUYING SOMETHING THAT WILL OTHERWISE GO IN THE BIN?????

Not only am I pissed off that I had to go right into the middle of the fayre (so the DC's can beg me for things) but they didn't tell us where they would be and they put my daughter in front of her work to try and make me buy it. I didn't buy it because it's crap and I don't want it but what about those who can;t afford it? How on earth would that make them feel? (I know it's only a pound, but there are a lot of people who have 3 children at that school, that's £3 for the calendars and £3 for the mufti in less than a week!)

I so agree with the annoyance felt by OP about this. I have 3dc and it gets veeeery expensive a times, although to be fair our schools haven't pulled something that pushy out of the bag.

That is an awful postition to be put into and I would be mighty p'd off about that too.

I am also quite concerned about how we will manage to afford the residential trips when dt's get to junior school. Those that don't go just stay behind and carry on with their lessons? I think that is horrible and divisive

I think sometimes its a matter of timing.
PTA are there for a reason - the schools don't get funded adequately, so really, people should be angry with the government, not the PTA.

BUT
Things like photos, school trips etc always seem to land just before christmas. Surely a bit of planning...?

YANBU, We also have quite alot going on here but nowhere near as pushy as that.

School trips at secondary level are a nightmare. My DH has children from his first marriage and the trips are so expensive. The cheapest one was £600, the most expensive £1500.

The problem for me is that I can say no quite easily to an 8 and 5 year old. Saying to a teenager who is aware that his friends are doing something significant that they aren't is harder.

I think needmorecoffee and tsarchasm are right it is divisive, and whilst some may say these are valuable lessons to learn, I don't think that having to stay behind in lessons whilst your friends are off having the time of their lives is the right way to learn it.

our school did try and sell us a calender drawn by dd for £2. But given dd is quadraplegic I just laughed.
slightlycrumpled - when the school is on a trip I just keep my lads at home. This year I took ds2 to a home education camp ( we were home edders till september for ds2, ds1 returned to school 2 years ago) I organised and he had a blast and it cost me 50 quid
I'm sure they'd like to go ski-ing (well, ds2 would) or whatvere expensive thing the school is doing but they know we don't have any money and thats life.
I think its unfair of the school to arrange this stuff knowing there's 2 or 3 families who can't go (its ex-private so 99% are loaded). Even a trip to Cornwall they did was 900 quid. 900!!!! Diamond encrusted tents maybe?

ds1 goes to a private school. other than school fees, they havent asked us for a single thing. other than a tenner each to see an amazing concert by the school choir type people. it was so good, i would happilky have paid more, very professional.
younger dc go to the local state, and it is a fiver a month each, paid by dd which they hound out of you in receptionj. with a bit in there to pay for seven years, or longer wtf? and probly already paid a hundred quid this term, and that is before the christmas fair on saturday.
whilst i am pleased my dc have interactive whiteboards, i dont think they are all that essential. iyswim

when ds1's school was private they would send letters saying your son is doing X or a visitng author is coming and we'll add 9 million pounds onto your end of term bill!
I would always phone and say oh no you don't. It wasn't me paying the fees but MIL would pay the fees and no extra and we just couldn't afford the 'extras'.

As I always say on thread like this - if you don't want to buy then don't. If you don't want to bake cakes for the cake stall, then don't. If you don't want to bring in a bottle for the tombola then don't. If you don't want to send in a pound with yoru child on non-uniform day, then don't.

But can you also make sure your child doesn't read the books, ride the trikes, play in the paddling pools, use the white boards, accept the prizes, go on the trips, watch the plays, shade under the umbrellas, play on the climbing frames, go to the parties or discos or pull the crackers that the money raised goes to?

But seeker, I normally do, I do everything.

I always donate and buy the crappy things Dd & DS has made. I'll be going in after school next week to help out with a pyjama party they're having, as soon as I have DP's shift patterns I will be going in and offering my help on days that neither of us are working.
I do my best.

What I don't appreciate is being practically forced to participate.

I can almost guarantee DD's teacher will collar me tonight and say she's sorry I couldn't find DD, she hadn't thought about it and THEN ask me if I wanted to buy her calendar.

I'm not buying the bloody calendars because of the principle of the guilt trips, not because I don't want to support the school or can't afford £2.

The head at our primary has stood at the bottom of the path going into the playground before now waiting to catch parents and get them to buy something.

We have our school fare today, each year is allocated a different theme and then we all have to supply something for the tombola and the children bring home £5 worth of raffle tickets to sell (per child). I have done the yr and tombola thing, but not the raffle tickets this year as it is always us that ends up sending the money in. I have baked to cakes though for the cake stall as I always have plenty of ingredients in.

But then DS2 needs money for the said fare. Santa tickets were £2 a throw, it just goes on and on.

I have stopped buying the calenders and tea towels.

We have to pay for theatre productions that go into the school.

I do not buy school photos either.

The list is never ending and I get fed up.

I agree about guilt tripping parents. That is pushing the limit a tad too far.

Also what if you really just can't afford yet another pound seeker? And has been said it's not just the one pound either if you have a larger family.

I agree we should all help where and when we can and it's probably wrong that all these lovely things which enhance schools have to have money raised and paid for by donations but sometimes there just isn't any more money to give no matter how worthy the cause.

seeker, i am aarranging a lunch today, to wrap up th ebloody teddies for the tombola. obviously i am paying for the lunch, which i will no doubt enjoy sitting down to do with my friends, and we will no doubt have a good time chatting and wrapping up the presents.
but, i still hate being bullied into all the money i have to pay out.

Also, some of the things we are asked money for are not for fund raising purposes.

Dd1's class teacher is trying to organise a secret santa thing. It's just to buy presents for each other. They've been told though that if they don't all agree to do it it won't happen. So no pressure there then

Dt's do a Christmas fayre where they'll need a grand total of £8 between them to buy things as they'll want to buy 4 presents each.

It's fun I don't deny it. I want them to do it or they'll be horribly left out, but it's not just a bit of spare change I have to find.

You have my every sympathy OP and while we don't have all the extra expense from a school just now, we are having palpitations at the costs from the Scout group DD attends.

Subs -£20
Panto-£35
Small present for an OAP
Trip to Ireland - £195
Flight- £90 (wanted upfront)
Not to mention of spending money or passport

Needless to say she won't be going but I'm fuming that they think money for all this grows on trees.

Oh, yes, we have the collections arranged for the teachers/TA's too. More money that I can't/won't say no to.
GentleOtter, DD ahs just come back from a residential costing £300, expensive babysitting but it gave me a break!lol!

at £16 for a Christmas play costume and £28 for a donkey. I have conjured up three for a total cost of £1.38 by raiding the dressing up box and borrowing from a couple of pals. Agree with Alan Partidge re that.

Sorry but you don?t have to go to the Christmas fair you know. PTAs stage some of these events for the benefit of the children (eg chr fair which is a social event as much as a fund-raiser) but attendance is never obligatory. In November I was involved in organising three PTA events in 3 weeks (2 schools). We raised a total of more than £2k and gave some children a nice afternoon, and some mummies a lovely evening. I hope none of them are posting on here.

If you really don?t like it all, then yes, why not just send the school £50 at the start of the year and feel free to avoid all further fund-raisers? Plenty of people at our school don?t like to drag out to the fair on a Saturday afternoon. That?s why we do other things so that they can, say, buy a calendar for £7 or a Christmas pud for £4 and feel they have done their bit. Nobody should feel obliged to do all (or indeed any!) of these things.

This half term we have had (at two schools) Christmas fair at infants, another one at juniors, pamper evening at infants, calendar (photos of kids) on sale, Christmas pud (label designed by pupil) on sale, Christmas shows for all children, grand raffle with tickets sent home, school pictures, book fair at parents? evening, Christmas discos. If you took part in all of that then it would cost you rather a lot. But you know, if you don?t have the cash, borrow a costume (someone will have one) and just buy yr child a £3 disco ticket. We really don?t have a 3-line whip and I?m shocked if any school does tbh.

Tho I do agree with the OP that her child should have been in class when she came to collect her.

How can a trip to belgium for 2 days cost £800?!!! Don't they stay in youth hostels or school halls any more?

DD in Y3 has come home this evening with note in diary saying that she needs to bring in bottle of wine or something else in bottle for a stall at their fayre. If she does she will get a voucher in their weekly lucky dip in class. She is devastated that I have said no ... but I've already made 24 mince pies and we'll go along and no doubt buy lots of tat (and it'll cost us a couple of quid to get in.) DH will help on a stall too, so feel like we are doing our bit... just feel bad that only the kids who bring in bottles will get the voucher.

DS's preschool sent home the request for his costume - including handy link to website where we could purchase it for US$40!!! I've managed to make it by buying a cheapo long sleeve t-shirt on the market for a couple of quid and decorating it with felt.

Bah humbug!

It amused me the other day when a parent was moaning about "having" to buy cakes off the PTA cake stall! Another mum turned round and retorted "I bet you didn?t make a single one yourself either! I spend all damn morning buying ingredients, making, icing them and I STILL have to queue up and pay to buy them back again!"

Agree it is a balance and it is wrong to expect or blackmail parents into buying items. However, I wish that more parents would make a little more effort supporting their schools. It is not fair on the very few (busy, equally cash strapped and frazzled) parents who do make an effort.

Someone mentioned PTA should be called PITA. Not fair. Most PTAs give so much to the school that if it vanished, then parents really would have something to complain about. This year alone our PTA have funded: Halloween party, Christmas Party, Books, microscope, Panto trip, trip for entire school to a wonderful woodland centre, paid for visiting poet and artisit to work with the whole school on incredible projects, organised fireworks night for the whole village, coordinated and organised the village fete etc etc etc.

LEmontart you said "This year alone our PTA have funded: Halloween party, Christmas Party, Books, microscope, Panto trip, trip for entire school to a wonderful woodland centre, paid for visiting poet and artisit to work with the whole school on incredible projects, organised fireworks night for the whole village, coordinated and organised the village fete etc etc etc."

All those things that our school have done have been funded by the parents, all of them. The PTA arrange them, but they make money at them, they certainly don't fund them.

Oh god, does this just go on and on then, the never ending fundraiser???

My 2.3 year old is doing a day a week at the local pre-school (me entering the third trimester and needing a bit of a break), and everytime I turn up I'm asked to put my name down to buy an item for a hamper, or I get palmed a "letter for you", which when I get out I discover actually conatins a book of raffle tickets I'm supposed to tramp around selling.

My husband explained that I just have to return the stubs I sell (raffle virgin) but this will mean out of guilt I'll probably buy most of them myself!! Plus in the registration paperwork there was one sheet that said if you would prefer not to be involved in fundraising just sign up here to donate x amount per week!

He does one day FFS, I feel quite put out.

We don't have this problem at dd's state school.

The only fundraising thing (which actually I don't think will raise more than the cost of implementing) is the christmas stamp scheme. For 2p each, dd can buy stamps from the stamp shop, designed by a child for a competition and which has been printed onto a sticker. These stamps are then used for the internal christmas card post.

So 60p for 30 stamps for her class. Which I think is actually pretty good value and a very good idea in teaching about money.

Apart from that, there is an own clothes day. And that has voluntary contribution of 50p.

And that's more or less it.

I meant

FWIW, her school is not in a flash area and I think there is a relatively high number of children entitled to free school meals (relative to the borough, that is).

The school seems very considerate of the need to keep fundraising at a sensible level. And that is cross-cutting, including uniform being generic rather than specifying logo'd items (which are in any case sold by the PTA at vastly lower cost than other schools nearby).

This is so difficult...it's been annoying me too and I'm chair of the PTA!
In the last couple of weeks we've had visiting authors, donations for Africa, buying your dc's framed art work, bingo, school disco, book fair, pamper eve, it goes on and on and only 2 of those are PTA
I think this year things just feel particularly bad financially and we're all so much more conscious of the odd £2 here and there.
From a PTA point of view, we're just trying our best to raise the money the school needs, but in future I'll be avoiding putting on events near xmas.
YANBU VS.

I LOVE that stamp idea Pooka! Can I pinch it please