schools constantly asking parents for money

[saslou]

AIBU to resent being constantly asked for money by my childrens school. This week we have World book day, so I am just off out to get costumes as I am not very good at making things. They also have the book fair this week and an author coming into school who will also be giving children the "opportunity" to purchase her books while she is there. I am very happy to buy books but don't think that school is the right place to sell children things.
In addition my childrens school wants parents to pay the insurance and travel costs of compulsory school activities (they don't even ask nicely, just tell you that these are the costs). Recently I got billed for a lost library book that my child hadn't even brought home.
I feel mean because I know they have financial pressures but also feel I am being treated like their own personal cashpiont. It doesn't occur to them that not all parents have lomitless amounts of money.
Anyway, sorry for long rant...

I buy lots of books for both my children and I resent being emotionally blackmailed into parting with cash for books that are actually quite trashy, usually from a fairly limited selection. I definitely agree that school isn't the place to sell things to children, though I also understand that there are parents who never buy books normally and don;t have them around the home.

Money for trips is a voluntary contribution and sadly even although there are times when I have been quite literally down to the small change in the coffee jar, I have never had the guts not to "volunteer" my "contribution".

My school is the same. i don't mind the charity donations, think that is brilliant but some of the other stuff is silly. i got billed for a book once and I knew we didn't have it and told them to check the library. Older DD looked and found it!! So we had never had it as I thought...

"the head told us in the letter that it costed £6.00 for entry to the park and £6.55 for transport, and that if 'support is not forthcoming', they'll not be able to do trips like this in future / have to cancel this one, because they 'cannot make subsidies for school trips.'"

So who do you think should pay?

Schools have limited budgets but do their utmost to ensure school is enjoyable as well as educational.

Do you really begrudge £12.55 so that your child can have a nice day out that ties in with their education?

I also cant believe people begrudge the £1 dress down days, the children love wearing their own clothes and learn about charity. It isnt probably even the cost of two chocolate bars.

OP, its your choice to buy costumes and not make / assemble them yourself. Nobody is forcing you to buy the authors book and if your child has lost a book, regardless of where, it should be replaced.

BalloonSlayer - Children on free meals do get uniform subsidy.

My Cousin gets enough for shoes/ trousers Blazers and shirts new every year for her DS

getorfmoland.....but they link these extra's to gcse classes!! thats what gets me! its like they are saying 'your child will learn more if they come with us on this trip and if they dont then the gcses results will reflect this!!!)

£25 for a poetry class in same town
(english gcse)
£300 trip to somme/flanders
(history gcse)
£28 trip to theatre
(english gcse)
£32 dance workshop
(dance gcse)

and on it goes...and this is since sept with more included can't think.....oh yes,revision guides £4.50 each subject,on and on

jellybeans - just because the book was found in the library doesn't mean your child never had it - just that it didn't get checked back in. Could have been an error on the part of whoever runs the library, but it could also mean your child put it back without checking it in because it was overdue, or that they lost it, someone found it and 'helpfully' decided to put it back on the shelf.

If schools sell stuff to children they normally get a commission - we had a book fair recently and got 100% commission, which meant £400 worth of books for our new library - books we would otherwise have had to raise money for in other ways...

I don't begrudge paying for my children's days out at all and I don't expect anyone else to pay for them. But I do begrudge the assumption that all parents can afford them. For some parents to find £12.55 for a school trip is a bloody lot of money- especially if they have more than one child. And that's without finding the funds for all the other things that have been mentioned. For some families on a tight budget it is extremely difficult to meet these constant requests, and the guilt they have for their child not being able to join in is huge.

Yes TDWP but only if uniform is compulsory. If your cousin's DCs school has Blazers then their uniform probably is compulsory.

our council o longer gives help with school uniform costs no matter what the school uniform is/whether it's compulsory or not, regardless of it you're on free school meals

Rustybear, my child did never have it, the teacher admitted that afterwards, it was a mix up with someone else. Agree it could happen that way though.

Threeblone - dd is only Year 9 so the full horror of GCSE stuff has yet to hit me. Will probably start a complaing thread of my own in the future

Re unfiforms - school uniform can be complusory for secondary aged children, and that is where the unfiform allowance comes in.

It is voluntary at primary age, therefore you do not get an allowance if one income support.

but children cost money.

If they didn't go to school you'd still pay to take them on trips/buy them books etc.

School budgets are not unlimited, generally PTA's fundraise to subsidize school trips et - if you can't afford to pay for a school trip then why not approach the class teacher/the head who will likely approach the PTA and ask for help.

I certainly don't begrudge paying for school trips.

GetOrf - no not round here - doesn't matter what age your child is there is NO help with school uniforms.

Oh it must be a discretionary LEA thing then.

Just remember that when I worked in a school office (it was years ago actually, what I think is probablt well out of date tbh) that those were the rules.

yes think a lot of LEA's no longer do it

ours does...for primary and secondary. its not alot,and you get it in vouchers,but helps.

we're bedfordshire...and have just lost out 3 tier system of lower,mifddle and upper....so huge shake up of our local schools coming over next few years,so might lose the uniform grant to compensate

when i moved here 5 years ago after escaping dv,i was given over £600 from royal british legion to fit out 4 dc in new uniforms...it only just covered it too!

My dcs go to a very small school where there is no extra money at all,

I joined the PTA or actually Friends of....

and we are encouraged to think up a cheap fundraiser for every month
so non uniform day is a pure profit fundraiser and not much effort required,
I don't mind so much anymore because at least now I get to have a say on how the money raised is spent

3blonde that was good of British Legion.

Yes the cost of uniform is a whole other thread. My dd's state school has a blazer which costs £70 - you can only buy it in one shop in Cheltenham which makes Grace Bros in Are you being served look like the acme of modern retailing.

Pisses me off because she grows like a weed and has had to have a new blazer every year for 3 years.

This is becoming a bit of a bugbear of mine. dd1 is in P2 and we seem to be sked for a ming-boggling amount of contributions. It is a catholic school, so most of it is for charity, but I already give to the charities I wish to support. I appreciate that I don't have to give money, but dd1 comes home saying "Mum, I need money for..."

Last Friday was odd sock day

On Monday she came home with a sponsor form for a sponsored walk. I don't feel comfortable hassling all our friends/ neighbours etc for money for sponsorship, so I will feel obliged to donate a bigger amount.

Have just bought 4 Easter eggs for the easter egg tombola, as requested in last week's newsletter.

Friday is back-to-front uniform day- another 50p

Then she will need money to participate in the easter egg tombola, to try to win one of the eggs I have donated!

I knowit is lenten charities etc, and the school is VERY big on fundraising, but I feel they have us over a barrell. Unless you want your kid to stand out/ be left out you have to pay up. And my biggest gripe is that these 6 yo's don't really learn anything from this about giving to charity etc- they just learn to come home and ask mum and dad for cash!! For example dd came home wanting money for Haiti (to which I said no, as I have already given a substantial donation online) but when questioned had absolutely no idea what had happened and what the money was for!

Add into that the fact that at least once a week dd's lunch money "goes missing" from her desk (to which her teacher says "it's ok- you can pay it tomorrow!") and you can see why I am reluctant to send her to school with lots of cash!!

I don't object to School Fetes and Non-uniform day, as DD loves non-uniform day, and we both love the School Fetes as DD can spend very little money on lots of tat, whilst I have a good gossip and 'play shop' on the cake stall.

However, I do object to all the blatant money-making PTA things which have nothing to do with school at all (over-priced books, Xmas products, voucher-books). Smacks of the school being persuaded into promoting private businesses IMO.

And I echo Riven's comments about school trips. I would imagine we would be able to afford (just) for the DCs to go on school trips, but I have still not forgotten the shame and embarrassment of not being able to go on them as a child. My parents couldn't afford for us to go on holiday as a family IN THE UK, so there was no chance of them affording to send me on a school trip to France for the week. Instead I stayed in school with one other child and a pissed-off teacher who probably would have gone to France herself if it wasn't for us spoilsports! There is no excuse for children being singled out like this. Very very bad!

OP YANBU.

I certainly don't mind paying for school trips etc but it seem that at DC's school we are always dipping our hands in our pocket in a continuous flow.

We live in a wealthy area yet we are one of the very few in the minority that can't afford to keep forking out all the time.

Christmas was horrendous for us, it was bad enough wondering if we'd even be able to afford to buy DC's a present each but then their school started making demands....each class was entering a different hamper into the Christmas raffle so DD had to take 'smellies' and DS had to take a bottle of alcohol. Then they wanted other raffle prizes etc to which I drew the line. Then they send home the raffle tickets at a pound per ticket, 5 for each child and expect the money for them. We don't have anyone who we can sell them to so I returned them to school (felt very guilty for doing so though). Then the school plays and they need costumes so that is more expense to buy materials etc to make them.
Even the wealthier parents were moaning about the continual things the school were asking for.

School trips have never been voluntary contributions at DC's school. If you don't pay the child doesn't go, simple as that.

Luckily DC's school have their own swimming pool so that's one less cost I suppose.

They recently had a 'themed week' at school and all the kids had to send in a voluntary contribution but it's not really voluntary when they send you home a reminder that you haven't paid .
One of the other mum's once told me that she had sent her DD's dinner money in one week and was expecting the change. When she didn't get it she went to the office to ask for it and they said they had put the change towards the voluntary contribution

It's ok if you can afford these things but for some of us it's a real struggle to keep up. There's an incredible pressure as if we don't stump up for everything then our DC's would end up being the odd ones out.

Like Fayrazzled I don't begrudge having to pay for trips etc but it's the assumption that all parents can afford it.

wannaBe- can you imagine how embarrassing it might be to have to approach the head-teacher/class teacher every time you can't afford a requested contribution? And our PTA doesn't raise funds for individuals who can't pay contributions for things- it raises money for one-off school projects- e.g. draining a playground; buying new library books; building outside equipment sheds.

It's clear from this thread that lots of people don't mind contributing to the extras that make school more interesting/beneficial for their children and neither do I. The gripes are in relation to constant requests and an assumption all requests can be afforded from family budgets. And I agree that many of the money making rackets: book vouchers/book clubs; photos; personalised cards etc don't raise as much for the school as one might believe.

I sometimes think they should just charge parents £2 a month and be done with all the faff of everything else.

Most people could afford that and then there wouldn't be all this....'can we have this that and the other' and 'please buy this overpriced tat' and the school PTA would have some funds.

I did put my foot down about book club- after dd came home with a couple of colouring books and an ITNG book for her little brother! We have a perfectly good public library, and if I am going to be forking out money for books for my 6yo, I would like some say in which books she gets, thanks!