Are school's budgets for theatre in education really this small?

[BumpyGrindy]

I've been approached to facilitate a workshop within a school in an admittedly deprived area and when I priced it up taking into account actor's fees, writing, research and travel, I felt the price was fair. But the guy in charge has come back to me to say that while he loves my proposal, the budget won't run to what I ask and can I cut it.

He admitted that they only have a budget of £500 for the workshop which to be fair isn't bad but when I have to write a very specific piece plus pay two actors and provide resources...seems very little!

I was asking £700....the workshop would be created solely for this school as they want to achieve a very specific goal in teaching their students more about the history of the local area...so it's not like I can just fish an old script out of my bag!

I want to do it but I'm torn as it's quite a lot of work...in my proposal I said that once the piece is up and we've done one workshop, we would be happy to offer it to further classes within the school for a much reduced price of £200...this barely pays the actors!

Good luck with it :)

My experience has been that you have to demonstrate that what you're doing will have an impact proportionate to its cost. So at about £23 a head atm your numbers are struggling to stack up...I'd really emphasise how you can subsequently roll it out to other classes for less than £10 each given the initial investment.

Also, link your pitch to how this will help kids in receipt of Pupil Premium - that's where the school's money will come from. You need to make a really solid case for this being a genuinely enriching experience that these students will benefit from & are unlikely to experience otherwise.

Talk to the secondary into which your primary feeds, too - the History Dept may well be able to help (it'll quite likely count towards someone's Performance Management!).

DD2 only got to do a brilliant Y6 play because the PTA paid and their class teacher was really keen and badgered them into giving a big chunk of money to only one class.

Raven thank you very much for that advive....the guy is really keen on the idea and has been babying me through how it works for him too....he wants us to do it quite a lot and Ive also realised that I might just have to go with a low price and suck it up because it's my first time doing it from scratch and it will be a really good start....I can tweak it and tout it round other schools once it has been performed once. He gave me a fair bit of useful info and is taking my proposal to the meeting on Monday. I decided I can do it with one actor too.

Oh...and can you please explain pupil premium and what it is?

Pupil premium is funding attached to students who are/have ever been in receipt of free school meals (plus children of people in the forces & a few other qualifiers).

The school gets a wodge of money - currently £900 I think - for each PP student. It's not ringfenced to individual kids; in theory the HT could just buy a Picasso for his office - but the school is expected to use the pot to improve outcomes for these students. There'll be someone in charge of the budget to whom you'd need to apply.

we use ours for stuff like one-to-one tuition (not necessarily just for PP students) or to subsidise school trips & yes visiting theatre companies!

I have to write a pitch every time I request funding explaining which PP student(s) will be involved & how they'll benefit. The teacher booking you should be able to sort that out, especially if you're able to bring the price down a bit.

Ah thank you raven that's great