payments enabling outside companies to come in during school day etc.

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At least twice a year dc's school have a company coming in to run workshops. We are asked to pay an amount to cover this. Normally £7 - £8. On top of this we obviosly pay for school trips out. I don't mind this. Plus Snack which I understood should be free in KS1. Plus usual sponsor forms etc. I am feeling like a cash machine. How much does it cost you to send your dc to school?

border1 - you need to sell it to them then

plus I have bought numerous costumes for my children over the years ... never paid more than £8 though ... amazon, ebay etc etc ...

Our DSs Prep has had 'events' and 'trips' and 'fund raising' every single week since teh start of term.

I AM UTTERLY UTTERLY SICK OF IT! FGS YOU TEACHERS JUST TEACH MY CHILDREN SOME MATHS AND ENGLISH AND CUT OUT THE GARNISH. OH AND DON'T YOU DARE GO ON STRIKE. YOU HAVE BARELY TAUGHT THEM ANYTHING THIS TERM!

I, too, am "ungrateful" and don't send my DC to school for organised treats that I have to fund. Agree with MoreBeta.

Also, Cazzybabs, I don't think many DC would answer your question with ..... that day we did algebra in the morning and Spanish straight after

I suspect the real reason these events are organised is to give the teachers a break before their 6-week Summer holiday.

The 'treats' I was talking about are like a Roman history society coming in to show artefacts and do drama about Roman times. Not a disco. So the visitors would probably cost about £200, whilst a coach to a museum would cost much more.

I'd pull your children out of them indigo if they don't enjoy them and you don't want to pay.

More beta....are you complaining about your prep?
You don't seem happy

We have had several author visits, a drama workshop, a music workshop and a planetarium this year. I think they are maximum of £5 each, so considerably cheaper than a day out.

well silly me ... there i was thinking i was inspiring children and motivating them when i should have made them sit in silence and copy from the whiteboard

cazzybabs Is it either a workshop/outing or sitting in silence and copying from the whiteboard?

Why can't teachers just teach? Why do you have to pay people to come in and 'inspire'? Good teachers can inspire DC with their own passion for a subject. Teachers should be able to inspire their pupils without paying for workshops.

I come from a family of teachers - some are excellent and some are not excellent - but the one thing they all have in common is that they like the sound of their own voice, and tend to go on a bit.....

ummmm....let's think......

Because it makes a change? Because the visitors can bring in artefacts we don't have? Because they are specialists in the subject, and may be able to tell the children about it in a different and interesting way? Because different people can insprie different children?

Yummyhoney - open your mind.

along with my cheque-book. I'm afraid I'm old-school on this.... in my day it didn't cost anything to go to school; there was no such thing as a mufti day, or a school fayre.

We all had our own desk with lift-top lids and text-books were passed down from one year to the next - very cost-efficient.

....and it never did us any harm.....

Is £7 to £8 normal for these types of day? It seems alot.

At DD's school it's normally £10.00

YummyHoney - just because it didn't do any harm does that mean it is not OK to look to better things for the next generation .
Anyway I think we shall have to agree to disagree

I think it is a pity that people feel they have to call in experts and cannot do it themselves. I accept that it would require a lot of preparation, but given that we all have access to the internet that should certainly be possible. I am afraid to say, that I think that often it is just a cop out and nice and easy to call someone in rather than doing it ourselves.

Oh for goodness sake! How expert are teachers meant to be

Take for example, a topic on wild animals. I would call in an animal expert to show, and talk about, his lizards, skunks, snakes, etc, etc. These are things I do NOT have in the stock cupboard.

I don't see why you need to bring animals into the class room. You can download films, you can show pictures from books and you can tell all about them - there is plenty of great information available. Let's be honest, if the project was about lions you wouldn't consider bringing a lion in ...

Of course we use video clips, dvd, pictures from the internet in the classroom! That is part of our day-to-day teaching about the subject. But we are not experts teaching about the animals: we are most likely teaching about the animals to a boring educational objective, like non-fiction writing.

You have obviously never witnessed children when they can touch and see real animals. It is much different to them watching a video clip, and they will remember far more from such an exciting experience than from me rambling on in the classroom.

yeah, I have obviously never witnessed children touch and see real animals ... I can see why some teachers may not always inspire

Well, if you've witnessed children with real animals, I'm sure you'll realise that the children would remember a visit by a reptile expert with a 8metre live boa constrictor more that a BBC science clip on the whiteboard. Unfortunately we have to pay for a 8m long boa constrictor to visit.

I'll ignore the jibe.

There is something special about someone speaking about their passion. Everytime I have watched bird of prey displays it is the passion of the speakers that make it fascinating and being able to hold the bird and see it close up. You can't see that vultures have the most amazing eyelashes unless one is sitting next to you on a bench.
My DS is going on a trip to Normandy to visit the battlefields. We went ot a meeting for the trip and the tour guide was there to gave a talk. He is an ex para who obviously has a huge passion for the subject. My DS came away so enthusiastic for the trip and to learn more from him.

I can see several sides to this.
DC1 went to a rubbish school that did very little in the way of add-ons. It used to annoy me no end listening to MNers complaining about the wealth of opportunities available to their DC.

On the other hand, why does everything have to be an organised, expensive event. There must be loads of parents and other local people who have passion and knowledge about all sorts of subjects and who are a darned sight cheaper, who the school do not utilise. I know that teachers are going to start chirruping about the National Curriculum, Health&Safety and CRB but I'm sure that teachers would get more support if they started lobbying on behalf of children and getting rid of barriers to learning, instead of taking action over their early retirement and pensions.

I'm not sure if teachers are doing themselves any favours if they organise lots of 'fun' stuff. In my day, school was where you went to learn. They didn't feel the need to compete with TV and the like to be infotainment. The modern idea, where they feel that they have to make lessons appealing, is a bit bonkers. They would do better to make the children realise how lucky they are to live in a country where we have free, local education and they should make the most of it.

PS to YummyHoney: I hope you are not objecting to events like mufti which, in DC2's school, are to raise money for charity.

it is not good saying "in my day" .. because we do have to complete with TV .. children watch far more TV now and have all singing all dancing computer games and toys ... and just because it was OK in your day doesn't mean it should be better or improved for your children. I really take on board the cost angle (and actually we don't charge parents for those days and as I say I do do a lot of days myself) but the arguments about children not needing them is just wrong... my children could stay at home all summer holiday and never have holiday but that doesn't mean they won't really enjoy and benefit the holiday).. and what about all those children whose parents aren't MNsetters and therefore don't take them places/give them fantastic opportunities etc :)

Not quite with you, cazzy. We had TV 'in my day' (how old do you think I am for goodness' sake!) but teachers didn't think that they had to compete with it and have interactive bling to hold the chilren's attention. We worked during school hours & for homework and then played in down-time. We didn't have this notion that pupils were like a paying audience who wanted to be entertained. There seems to be a blurring between work-time and play-time. The children's heads are filled with irrelevant exotica and the basics get ignored - for example the science curriculum which is filled with nonsense about 'how do you feel about global warming' but a bit light on actual scientific knowledge.
I don't think that things are "better or improved" when you see school-leavers and graduates who cannot spell, construct a sentence properly or do simple mathematics.

As a teacher, I love the resources that are available to me. When I was first teaching, the highest tech gadget I had in my class was the OHP. But that was for my benefit, rather than the students. When I was at school, the only OHP was in Geography. If we were to see something on TV, we had to crowd into the teachers' dining room.

Having the Internet in the classroom has transformed my teaching, and I virtually worship YouTube. My students are most captivated when they hear personal stories, eg when we are doing Nuclear Power, they love when I tell them about my memories of Chernobyl, or how I felt growing up during the Cold War. Showing a BBC News clip about these events is the icing on the cake. It brings the subject alive to them.

I loved school back in the late 70s/early 80s, but on reflection, it was because the dry teaching styles suited my learning style. Nowadays, we recognise different learning styles and we cover these in how we teach. Hands-on activities are exactly what some children need. Visual for others. I am an auditory learner so was fine with 'chalk and talk', but this style meets the needs of relatively few learners.

I think nowadays that children have been trained to have short attention spans and require instant gratification, and teachers have to fit in with this reality.