Governors funds

[snoopy72]

I have just become a governor at a VA (voluntary aided) school. This means the governors need to fund 10% of big capital projects eg new heating systems, buidling work etc.

Does anyone else have a child attending a VA school and, if so, how do they raise these funds? At the moment my school does nothing, but the funds are just dwindling away.

Any info or ideas would be great. The governors are really busy at the moment (post ofsted), so general fundraising is not likely to get much support.

Thanks

Is it a church school? You could always ask the local diocese

At DC's church school they ask for a voluntary contribution of around £90 a year. I think most parents pay it and some may give more. I would think that the majority of parents at the school can afford this so may be harder to do at other schools where they not be able to.

Unfortunately the local diocese no longer automatically fund the 10% for building projects. However, it may be possible to ask the diocese to loan the money to the school to be paid back in instalments if it is for urgent work that cannot wait for funds to be accumulated. I assume that if the diocese is willing to do this there would be an amount added on for interest.

At my DS school they don't ask for lump sums but do ask for a weekly voluntary contribution of £1 or 2 - not everybody pays. The school is in a not very affluent area of a small town. There have been 1 or 2 fundraising events where the proceeds have gone straight into the 10% pot, but the school is aware that they are in competition with the PTA.

Here each family with a child in a VA school pay £10 a year and that goes towards the building fund. Also, the Archdiocese get a pot of money from the government and each school 'bid' for the money. It is given out in order of priority.
The 10% comes out of the school budget share and unless it is a MASSIVE project then it should be quite do-able.
Schools can save a portion of their budget each year if they're building up to a big project (all this about 8% and 'clawback' is untrue if you've got a savvy Business Manager).

The school I'm a Governor of have loans from the Diocese which they have used to fund the 10%. They don't pay a lot of interest on them and pay them off when there is a surplus in the school budget.

Thanks so much. Really helpful. Our school is also in a small town with very mixed income, but good to know other schools do charge but at quite a low level. I had also spoken to the head if the PTA about overlap and she had suggested we carve out something at PTA events for governors funds eg we might do the raffle. A few things to think about. Thank you.

I would ask another question and that is how does raising school funds fit with the requirement that governors and governing bodies are supposed to be strategic and not get involved in operational matters. Raising funds is clearly operational.

I agree about strategic/operational split. This is just an unusual quirk of the VA school system. What is frustrating is that many of our governors are working really hard and I don't think it is fair or reasonable to ask them to run fundraising events. That should not be part of the governor role they signed up for. Thanks for all comments though.

Snoopy, I completely agree with you, it is not fair or reasonable for governors to be used in this way. Calling the governor fund is just plain wrong. The VA school system has been around for many many years and they have always had to contribute 10% towards capital projects. The point is that the school has ways and means of raising such funds, such as paying into a diocese fund, which then allows loans to be made.
However the bottom line is that as a governing body you need to decide how the funding will be raised and I would start off by suggesting you need to be looking to start with at the base funding that you receive and how that is being spent. Should some of that not be being put towards capital projects on an annual basis?

We're asked to send in a suggested donation of £10 for the year, to cover this (I think it's £15 for a family if more than one child).
As you'd expect, a lot don't, but then again (it's a fairly big school) there are also a lot that do, and quite a lot is raised very, very easily. When you point out it's only 25p a week, I don't think it's a huge amount to ask. It helps of course if you can point to a specific project that's been done (like our school recently had part of the roof replaced), or that you are hoping to do in the next few months, where families can see it benefits the children.