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 agree with devoutsceptic, silently ignore it all. It is the constant whinging that gets people down.

pisce, think about all the effort all those women are making up and down the country with all their organising and ideas for fund raising. Surely if that were directed towards the government/counciil it might get somewhere.

To put this in perspective, can you imagine blokes doing all this? no way. Ig a school is truly underfunded in the basics then its disgraceful and parents shouldn't let the government off the hook, surely?

There would be an outcry, lil, from all the people who don't have children-they would say that parents should be providing it.
I don't think it would get anywhere so I would rather use my energies in providing it myself. You could spend all that time lobbying and meanwhile your own DCs won't have a library or musical instruments.

Look, you do all the vital lobbying eh, with the aim of improving funding for school in 2025 or something (while the government gets into ever greater debt to pay for the credit crunch) and we'll get on with actually providing the money for the sensory room, books, shade, musical instruments, trees etc right NOW. OK? And all you have to do is stop farking whinging about it.

None of us should let the government off the hook.

I wonder how many of the "oh FFS now they want 1.50 to provide a party" brigade are raising their voices to the government. At least those organising and giving time are doing something...

The bitter carping on about extra stuff provided for their OWN kids and their OWN community is deeply yucky.

Our school has a lot of fund raising, but it is all optional.
Mufti days are also "bring a bottle" days, but there is a table in the playground which you drop your contribution on, unless you waited by it with a camera you wouldn't know who had not contributed, I prefer anonymous donating.
The school fair was excellent and a lot of fun, all optional, no pressure to buy anything (or even turn up) but the kids thoroughly enjoyed it, lucky dip, catch a duck on a pole, treasure hunt type stuff.
I remember this type of fund raising from my village church days with fetes and things.

Our PTA is very active, but there is no pressure to contribute.

One year the fair raised money for books for the school library. This year it was to buy more playground stuff.

I love the tea towels personally, they are granny fodder and just right for Christmas.

I am happy to join in fund raisers and specify the outcome of what is to be bought with the money (it is done by consensus here), rather than have some politician or local council person decide on my behalf. Most of them haven't the slightest idea what children need or want and certainly have never visited my school.
I like fund raisers because it lets the school buy things for the pupils that suit the pupils.

People who cannot contribute should not be pressurised to, or feel they have to turn up. A school is a community and not a press gang.

The government isn't going to pay £1.50 per DC for a Christmas party! And why should they?!
Just say 'no' to the things you don't like. Personally I love the tea towels, calendars, Christmas etc.and am very thankful that someone bothers to organise it!

I see people even moaning about school photos here, which have NOTHING to do with the PTA, and have been done since the advent of photography. Don't like it, don't buy it.

TBH pisces the government thing was to do with people saying that the PTA provided not just extras like parties at their school but also necessities; someone said people should lobby the government rather than do PTA stuff.

Clearly we need to do BOTH!!!

I'm not against fundraising per se but it's just the fact that they seem to up the tempo come the end of November beginning of December and suddenly your being asked left right and centre for money. Times are hard at the moment and the odd £1 here and there doesn't sound a lot of money but it you have more than one child then it soon mounts up.

For those of you picked up on the £1.50 for the school party I'd like to point out that it was for my dd who is in primary 7 so doesn't include a gift from Santa, it just covers the food that they are given. For the children in primary 1-4 they have to pay £2.30 for their party which does include a gift from Santa. I know one mum who has 3 children throughout the school and will have to pay £5.30 for the school parties alone. Add to that the Christmas cards at £5 a pack and the donation to the Class Christmas hamper, school photos etc it adds up to a lot of money right before Christmas.

Devoutsceptic, our PTA did organise the school photo's. They sent home the letter saying that they had provisionally booked December 1st and did we agree. I disagreed but the majority agreed so the photo's were taken again even though they had been taken only 8 months previously.

Do people go into Toys'r'us and complain about toys they can't afford being on sale?
If you don't want to spend it, don't. I have never bought my kids' christmas cards, for example, and they don't care. They aren't going to the disco either. But I don't think other children should be deprived.

Well, Linnet, then don't buy them. I'd never buy more than one set of photos a year, and I don't buy the pictures if I don't like them (which is quite often). The kids don't care.

But it's a new school year since the last lot of photos, there will be a lot of new children - it looks like all they are doing is moving the time the photos are taken from April to December, so it's more convenient for Christmas.

I cannot afford constant demands to buy tat, pay for my son to wear clothes I have already paid for once, by buying them, attend interminable 'wine evenings' held by the PTA.

I can see how it would benefit my son for the school to buy X, Y and Z. This doesn't mean I can afford to do this.

For many people, this mounting up of change is too much. It's not a matter of paying for the school fair/buns from the cake stall/ book club books/ mufti days or paying for dinner at Franky and Benny's. It's a matter of paying for all that crap or paying for dinner. Full stop. Our PTA's latest was a readathon, with a prize to the person who raised the most money. They rewarded a child for having numerous rich relatives, basically.

It's relativity. All you eye rollers who exclaim "but it's only a little bit, you'd spend that on coffee and cake..." No. I wouldn't. You might, which is presumably why you think it is a small favour, but I wouldn't. I would spend it on tonight's protein.

I cough for mufti day, and fayres and raffle tickets and bring a bottle tables because I cannot bare my child's shame if I don't. I am being very effectively held to ransom by people who have no real concept of poverty and so who don't see the pressure they are putting on those around them. It's all very well to say no to your child when you are doing it to do them good, to show them they can't always have what they want. It's entirely different to say no to your child even when it would do them the world of good to have you say yes for once.

Thank you for the mufti thing, I thought it was an acronym of some sort and could not figure it out.

I am inside as none of the mufti days ( we just call them non uniform days) are down to our PTA.

We had our Christmas fair on Friday night and it was positively packed. I do think people come to socialise as well as raising school funds. Both reasons seem good enough for me.
Oh, and there were children performances as well which was the cherry on the cake really!

I'm sorry but I don't believe children really do feel shame if their parents don't buy raffle tickets or bring a bottle. And maybe you want a non-uniorm school so no mufti days!
At our school there is costant agonising over the cost of things. the vast majority of parents don't attend evening events and I owuld guess most don't even turn up for hte Xmas Fair yet the kids dont' shun their parents as a consequence, or indeed , shun each other.

yOU guys should try living in Ireland where the 'voluntary' contribution is ?500 (depends on the school, but that's my dc's school).

'Voluntary' means let's just hold a gun to your head while you write the cheque! There is endless fundraising on top of this.

'held to ransom'.....I am appalled by that. All it is is stuff being organised to benefit the school community your kids included.

You give what you can afford and not what you can't - simple as that. it's not about being held to ransom.

I grew up in the roughest and poorest of inner cities and have been a social worker for many years now. This experience has given me the knowledge that teachers and headteachers will always go the extra mile for children in poverty whose parents cannot afford stuff. Sometimes the parent may have to swallow pride and ask for help but IME that help is always there if it's a matter of children experiencing 'shame'.

You seem to think everyone involved with the PTA is well off, which is defintely not the case in our school.

I don't buy book club books either! I feel no shame, my kids feel no shame. NObody has ever crossed the road to avoid me. I think most people can afford 20p to 50p for their kids to have a bun on cake sale days. That's the only event my children really care about!
I have never once felt 'held to ransom' by anything at school. If I don't want or need it, then I don't get it. Our PTA hosts coffee mornings at school with free tea/coffee and buns for anyone who wants to come, but of course some people I'm sure will moan that working parents can't come. Nobody can do everything.

I do understand the grinding poverty with no light at the end of the tunnel that leaves you stressed and anxious about making ends meet; I know it can make people angry about being asked for stuff and that really they're angry about not being able to provide everything they want for their kids;

however there has been alot of ungracious and ungrateful attitudes on this thread. I know people who cannot make ends meet but they wouldn't dream of moaning on about being held to ransom or huffing about the school daring to organise children's parties or xmas fairs or taking photos of them. As I said they would do what they could, end of story.

I think i've repeated myself enough now. I agree with all you've said devoutsceptic.

I'm on the PTA and I'm certainly not well off, I'm on benefits, so I'm one of the poorest parents at my dc school.

I feel I can afford E15 for a ticket to the occassional fundraiser, or E2 for mufti day, or 50c for a cake. THese things aren't expensive compared to my REALLY frightening expenses. ONE meal out with a glass of wine would be about E20 min..

My opinion is that the school only asks for the money because they need to.

I am really fed up of being told that people are sure I meant this, or are sure I don't feel that, or are sure my children wouldn't feel shame about the other, and that surely I wouldn't want X or expect Y.

How do you know? Has it occurred to anyone to ask people what they think instead of telling them? Or is that a PTA trait, bulldozing over what people are trying to tell you instead of listening?

I do buy tons of books at 10p each at the school jumble sale though! practically all the books you can carry for £1-2