BBC: schools and teachers have to do parenting.

[Charis1]

Head teachers are warning that schools are having to act like "mini-welfare states" in having to provide food, spare uniform and even to wash clothes and provide showers for some pupils.

Mr Hobby warned that the financial cost of this extra support was not recognised, with estimates that it cost schools an average of £2,000 to £3,000 per year.

Individual heads and teachers were also bringing in their own food for pupils, but without any this cost being recorded.

In my last year of teaching, I paid for food, travel, stationery, washing powder, phone calls and UCAS applications for pupils.

I paid for pens, pencils, rulers, rubbers, calculators, paper, glue, string, subscriptions to educational internet sites, and a blind for the class.

There is probably more, but I can't remember exactly what off the top of my head.

The food costs a LOT. You are not allowed to offer food to an individual pupil, you have to offer it to everyone in the class.

As to the oyster top ups, etc, I could have been sacked if found out. But according to the news today, over half of teachers are surreptitiously doing it.

To be honest, it seemed to me that the parents could have provided for their children, but chose not to.

I'm not at all convinced that there are all that many such hard up parents in the country.

You can see that when they also fail to provide something that would be absolutely free, like a trip to the GP, for example.

This is what Pupil Premium money is for?

I used to buy a lot of food and extras including uniform for pupils, but now it comes from their funding. The exceptions are where parents have not claimed FSM, but the numbers needing 'additional' teacher's pocket funding has drastically reduced.

It sounds good CharlesRyder, but round here i have never heard of pupil premium money being available to pay train fare to school or washing powder. Or paper and pens, come to that.

(Oh yes, you can add photocopying to my list of things I paid for as a teacher)

(Oh yes, and ringbinders, and calculators, and shoe laces, and sewing kits, - I'm on a role now!)

It can be spent on whatever the pupil needs to access and maximise on their education.

The school here has no money for any of that.

I bought a pair of shoes for a child once. Secondary.

I've bought gloves

So what does your school's Pupil Premium statement say the money has been spent on? It is a public document which must be on the school website.

Looked on the school website, it is isn't there. I have no idea, "pupil premium" is not a phrase I have ever actually heard in or around any school, it is just something bandied about by the media, as far as I am concerned. I don't even know which schools it applies to.

Certainly, there is no money, from any budget, to parent children. And nor should there be. That should come out of the parent's budget!

charis it applies to all schools where pupils receive FSM - it is an amount of money not a 'phrase bandied about by the media'.

please do not tell me you are a teacher

Well, I don't know anything about it, it certainly hasn't ever impinged on my life as a teacher.

you must know about it if you are a teacher. Seems like a big IF

Well, as I've said, I've only ever heard the phrase being bandied about in the media, never in real life. It isn't relevant anyway. Whatever money a school gets is supposed to be for educating children, not parenting them. And teachers should definitely not be put in the position of needing to fund the food, clothing and transport of their students. But it is happening every day.

If you are a teacher in the state sector you must have heard of pupil premium.

I do agree however that teachers do spend a fair chunk of their own money on their classrooms or pupils.

Pupil premium money at my school is used for things like extra-curricular clubs, a family support worker, breakfast club, intervention teachers.

It isn't a physical pot of money a teacher can dip into if a child needs something, but at my school a hungry child would be fed from school food, spare uniform or shoes would be provided by the school etc.

You can't be a teacher in the state sector and not heard of pupil premium.

I buy stuff all the time, PP money is used for intervention to narrow the gap. Sadly the lack of equipment is missed by SLT.

No Pupil Premium in Scotland. I assumed it was just an English thing. Where does the OP teach?

If you were a teacher you would know exactly which children in your class received pupil premium as you would need to keep evidence of how it was being spent, and the impact and results on each child's education.

This is collated by the school ready to provide evidence to OFSTED.

In many primaries, chidren entitled to PP appear on the planning as targeted children who are specifically tracked. Like the SEN and EAL and other groups.
I've been teaching for decades, and to a greater or lesser extent (depending on the catchment and the needs of my class) I spent a significant amount every year.
Food, clothing, waterproofs, equipment in class, books and too many other things over the years to remember.

PP came in in 2011.
When was your last year in teaching?

it has been around longer than that hag

I couldn't remember, so I googles it and got the date of April 2011.
I know that targeted funding has been around much longer.

Ours is spent on learning mentors and then anything else the individual needs in order to access education. It's all mapped out in documents for all teachers to see and we are regularly monitoring how the students are doing and what they need.

I am also a bit that a state school teacher would not know this in their own school. It's an OFSTED basic requirement.