Primary school asking for 30p per meal for KS1 free meals and asking PTA for money for training teacherS

[Burpeea]

Our primary school is in desperate measures due to dramatically falling roll call due mostly to an unpopular head who puts parents in the village off sending their children there so they go to schools in neighbouring villages instead.
Parents have now been asked to give 30p per meal for KS1 free meals and PTA asked to help with teacher training, parents asked to give £10 cash donation for stationery but head refuses to do an Amazon wish list which the PTA preferred as option.
This makes me uncomfortable but perhaps it is the only way in face of dramatically reduced pupils and therefore budget? I dread to think how they will cover hearing costs this winter. For context this is a fairly affluent rural area.

Sounds as corrupt as anything!

They may be waiting for minutes to be ratified. Though that seems rather slow ...

Ah I see. INSET.

Or you could join the governing board, OP 😏

Still very wrong.

I'm sorry I read this and thought the head was trying to run the place down. They're doing a very good job of it

The fact they don't post minutes and are asking for money for things quite frankly the parents shouldn't cover is worrying.

I know you say your kids are happy but I would be high tailing out of there. The mixed year classes were used in a failing school near me before it shut...

That occurred to me too.

You should be able to go and ask the school to see a copy of minutes if they are not on the website

Was going to say the same. I've not been involved in the PTA for a few years but seem to remember our constitution didn't allow to spend funds on classroom essentials.

Thanks so much for all the opinions on here. The school building is only about 12 years old, built under the old head, and was such a wonderful thing for the village when it was built, but it makes me so sad that the current head might be running the school down for closure. What would you then do with a purpose built school? And the other schools locally are overflowing with children and struggling with old premises but with a really happy parent body.
I don't think I ever fully appreciated how much a head makes a difference. I suppose like any other type of leadership. The teachers are so brilliant and some of the best have been made redundant because they had been there the shortest time (apparently that went to tribunal which unsettled the school community.)

It's all very well saying that PTA money is for extras but there comes a point (and it seems that most schools have reached it) where budgets won't stretch to things like art supplies, science equip etc. At that point either the teachers start providing out of their own pockets (this happens in so many primary schools) or schools go back to teaching the 3 Rs and that's it.

If they have gone down to what is classed as a small school they might've had funding cut for meals. Small schools do not get full allocation of funding for the meals like regular sized schools do. That has to come out of other funding because the government will not fully fund FSM for small schools.

Why wouldn't small schools get full funding for free school meals? If it's based on head count & meal take-up on the day of census, it's based on the numbers submitted on that day?

As far as I know the government gives a set amount per child and if the meal costs more than that (most do) then the school has to make up the difference. I guess it might be harder for a small school to get as good a deal on lunch costs as a large school or academy chain due to economies of scale.

My dc's school asked for £20 donation every year, before covid. It's up to us to do it or not. Always asking for donation of art supplies, books, etc. as well. Not sure about school meals, but it wasn't free when my dc was in primary, so the school might be even more stretched and desperate.
They can ask, and parents have choice, right? If you can pay, pay. If you can't, don't. It goes to school, so ultimately to the education of your child.

The school has just given the PTA it’s request for the school year and they want £1000 for paper and over £3000 to pay for cover staff for when staff go on training.
it feels like this isn’t what PTA money should be for!
in better news the headteacher is leaving! They will leave post by December so hopefully things will look up.

It isn't what the PTA is for, no, and they might not be allowed to fund it anyway. But what is a struggling school supposed to do? If there's no money, there's no money.

In other news, there are currently indications that the promised school budgets for next April are about to be lowered. They'll be fractionally more than this year's budget but it represents yet another real-terms cut. If I were cynical, I might suggest that this might have something to do with the huge tax cuts for the wealthy.

I was on PTA committees for 12 years as chair / secretary / treasurer.
No way would I have agreed with £3000 to pay for cover staff or £1000 for paper!
If that is really wanted then I'd be insisting on an Extraordinary General Meeting to vote it through via the whole parent body.

I'd be saying no and waiting for the new HT and go from there.

That's your choice but you may find you loose your staff as well. A job which offers no training and where you have to supply the basic resources from your salary - not very tempting is it?

A school which is being badly run shouldn't be propped up by PTA money. All that does is delay action by the governors.

Actually they dont- the calculation is not based on actual meals taken or eligibility but a rather contrived calculation linked to meals eaten on census days (aka fish and chip days)

www.gov.uk/government/publications/universal-infant-free-school-meals-uifsm-2022-to-2023/universal-infant-free-school-meals-uifsm-conditions-of-grant-2022-to-2023

Agree with TeenDivided.

It seems clear that the outgoing head and the governors have failed to manage the school properly. The PTA shouldn't paper over the cracks. Indeed, as the PTA is likely to be a charity (even if it isn't a registered charity), it is unlikely that it can legally fund cover staff for teacher training, and funding paper may also be legally questionable.

This school needs proper management, not a bail out from the PTA. It may be that the PTA can help the school dig itself out of the hole the outgoing head and governors have dug for it, but they must act in line with their objectives, and they should be pushing for the new head and the governors to produce a proper recovery plan.

That probably means the vast majority of Governor minutes have been declared Confidential - as they were trying to sort out the mess and eventually got to the point of reaching agreed terms to get rid (which can be very, very expensive). Or part of the booting out the parents/support staff was getting rid of the Clerk because they were there with the previous management; clerks have no security of employment and can be removed at any time - or conversely, can tell the school to stuff it without notice because of the behaviour of the Head or other Governors towards them.

You can contact the Chair of Governors (and the Clerk, if there is one) and express your concerns about the situation. If you're unhappy with a response or lack of one, depending upon whether it's a maintained school or part of a MAT, you can contact either the local authority or the COO of the MAT. And if you're finding it difficult to track them down, it's a legal obligation to provide contact details for the Link Safeguarding Governor on the school website.

I moved my daughter out of our local middle school last year as we were being continuously asked for donations for one thing or another. The school was given a grant from a local charity and it was spent on a large scale collapsible canopy and a top of the range gas barbecue so that the teachers could enjoy barbecues to boost staff morale. The kids got nothing. At that point I had enough and pulled my daughter out.

Thanks everyone. The headteacher cancelled the meeting with the PTA which usually happens each year to discuss what they would like. And instead just emailed a list. Which sums up how they have treated parents all along - a necessary money tree, but one to be treated with disdain. She has had parents escorted out of her office when they asked about SEN help for children, had a villager who helped with the school flowerbeds banned from the grounds as they asked if the children would be doing some lessons in the gardens like they had under the old head, and she walked out of a recent governors meeting in a huff at being asked why numbers were so low. Needless to say she won’t be missed!