How much does a 'voluntary aided' education cost ?

[shivanjali]

I have only just found out that 'voluntary aided' schools are partly funded by parents. How does this work ? What if you cannot afford to contribute and conversely do donations 'buy' you privileges ? Thanks.

I wish I had found these forums ages ago !

I think most schools ask for contributions to 'school fund'- mine did 30 years ago... it wasn't VA or VC, just ordinary state school Comp.

I think I was the only one in my class who brought something in though

My kids schools both VA and community, all ask annually for a voluntary contribution each year. No-one except the bursar knows if you pay. It used to pay for nice extras, eg. tissues in Infants. But now it might be used to keep the school running as we expect. But this is a wealthy area, and most parents are happy to pay.
At the VA school we did have to raise a lot of money to pay for 10% of the cost of an extension, and that did lead to a lot of extra fund raising for a while. The school also tried to fund some more funding by selling off some land for development.

Kendrick school is an academy I believe; as well as a trust.

Just heard that our local grammar 'encourages' parents to contribute apprx £30 a month. It is now an academy and they are concerned about public sector funding over the next few years and parents contributions will be extremely important to keep staff and building projects in line with expectations.

Their expectations should be based on the funding they get, not what they can screw out of their parents. Just think about how much they are getting in, £30 a month is £360 a year, so for a 1000 place grammar school that is an extra £360,000 a year on what will be about £5M of funding.
They are simply trying it on, using their name as a means of extracting the extra funding. Maybe the school should be looking to trim back as every other school will have to do to make ends meet.