DD (P4) has come home today with 'journal' for SMART targets for Maths ..... and we have to pay for it!

[BirdyBedtime]

WTF. Today was 4th day of P4 (=YR3) and she has come home with a journal (which we have to pay for at the cost of £2.50) in which she has to record SMART targets for maths. Is this seriously what we should be teaching our 8 year olds?

I very nearly posted this in AIBU but I've never started a thread there as I'm scared .

Also, £2.50 for a journal when I could buy an A4 jotter in the local stationery shop for 80p, or use one of the huge pile of notebooks that people keep on buying her for presents! It just all seems a bit mad to me when they can barely add/subtract. Does anyone else have experience of this type of thing.

On the other hand, DS learned 1 and m today!

Agree with pp. They should pay for it if they want children using it. If it was bought by the school and then lost, some schools would ask for money to replace it.

Tell them you aren't paying for it.

If it is a state school I don't think you can be made to pay for any piece of school equipment, in the same way as you do not legally have to buy uniform for Scottish state schools. Just send her in with a jotter. I am sure lots of other parents will do too.

The thing is we can't really send it back as it has already been written in (cunning plan from the school I suspect). Also DD was incredibly excited as I'm sure it's been hyped up in class.

On further inspection it is more general than just maths (I originally got a garbled message from DH to be fair), but requires them to set a SMART objective each week and then write down how they have achieved it. It also has spaces for the teacher to write notes and us to write to the teacher. Plus spaces for '2 stars and a wish' every week.

It has to be signed by parent and teacher every week!

I've sent in the money today, but will defintely raise the issue of cost/option with the school. I do also think that it's going to end up with us sitting scratching our heads every week to help DD set an objective - just for the sake of doing it rather than with any real purpose/benefit.

we dont have these either and my 2 are in P6 and P3

Try the PA approach:

"We did not order this item of stationery, nor can we recall any correspondence about it before being billed for it. As we have plenty of similar notebooks at home, we would have happily supplied one. You may like to review your procedures for next year, so that no further parents are billed for unsolicited goods"

Or try the PTA approach - see how many people were pissed off by it, and have strength of feeling demonstrated to the school.

I do feel quite strongly that if particular books/stationery are required, then this should come off the school's budget, not the parents'.

Sounds like our home school link book. (Used as a record for reading/ notes form parents/ kids learning from week and objectives and any stars they have gained that week).

Difference is our school make their own and certainly don't charge £2.50 for the privilige

We have to pay for the DC's Mental Maths homework books every year (and if they finish it we have to pay for the next one!) I've always thought this was a bit

I link your suggestion meditrina but as we're going to have a relationship with the school for 7 years I don't want to get a rep as a difficult parent. I am friendly with one of the Parent Council members though so am going to ask her to raise it on my (and the other 2 parents I have discussed it with in passing today) behalf. I totally agree that parents shouldn't be asked to pay things like this.

The only good thing is that the swimming lessons that start this week are free - hurray!

Is this like a homework diary style book? Except obviously not for writing homework in!

Sounds awful you have to pay, the school should budget it or find an affordable alternative that they can afford. Sounds like they could just use a normal little exercise book for it, or is it all fancy inside with space for all these different things printed? Write to the head.

It's a glossy A4 properly bound booklet with a double page spread for every week of the school year. It looks very professional, but there is absolutely no reason that a plain A5 jotter could not have been used with the obviously lower cost - I susepct that after a few weeks very little will actually be written in it. It has been given to all children P4-7 which is around 400 kids in total. The school obviously puts a huge amount of stead on glossy stuff as the school handbook is very similarly printed.