What does it mean when your parent-teacher association collapses?

[Fiona2011231]

Could you pls advise?

In my child's school, there is a parent-teacher association. They say they arean active group which organise coffee mornings, quizzes, bingo and race nights. They also support outside charities. To be honest, my child has been at the school for two years, but I have never been to any meeting of this association.

Now suddenly I receive a leaflet saying the association is at a 'crisis point' and will finish without further support. It said one can contact the school office if one can help to save it.

Do you have a similar assocation at your child's school? If such a group faces collapse, does it indicate that the school itself is not good enough?

Thank you

That's lovely for your nice little middle class DC, Matron. Our local primary school has less privileged pupils, who would genuinely miss out on a lot of experiences if trips etc were not subsidised by an active but knackered PTA.
Yours is exactly the attitude that leads to valuable volunteers walking. Nobody wants to be thought of as that kind of tiresome martyr when they're only trying to help their child's school, but this label persists even where the money raised is desperately needed.

What Brecon said.

Our last school was much less middle class. The PTA was more T than P and there was one annual event (christmas fair) which was 20p entry - and then mainly 10p activities bric-a-brac etc. The highlight was £1 to see a teacher dressed up as Santa with some Y6 kids pretending to be elves.

This school - it feels like rivers of money. I appreciate that they lose out on pupil premium - but we are already invited to contribute £10 by direct debit to the school. School trips are frequent and in the £5-£10 range. (last school was in the £1-£2 range typically). I just can't squeeze out a tear about our DC missing out on the additional advantages bought by squeezing out £1 fairy cake tax from parents walking home, or the proceeds of a licensed bar at the summer fair.

I think some PTA is a good thing - but I find an uber-motivated PTA to be somewhat suspect. I'd be happier if a fraction of the money raised went to support DC in less privileged schools - but that would never fly - based on the rhetoric of the letter (think of our children missing out etc etc). I'd also be happier if the events were a bit more wonky, with stalls selling Y6 crafts for pennies etc. But that would slash revenues - so would also never fly. I wouldn't actually articulate my reservations IRL - so I hope I don't make anyone uncomfortable - but I do step back from both the selling and the buying.

Sometimes I agree people don't have the confidence to attend or get involved with the more dominant personalities! They want to help however

Sometimes PTAs collapse because a key person leaves (their child leaves the school or their circumstances change eg new job and they can't commit the time any more).

Sometimes they collapse because of a general lack of support eg no one comes to the events etc.

I personally think a PTA is a good thing - ours have always organised fun events for students and parents, eg Christmas fair, fashion show, quiz nights, plus film nights and discos for the children etc - and of course raised money to fund things like digital cameras, Ipads, reading books etc.

OP could you commit to helping - even going to a meeting once every half term and helping to organise a few events?

My eldest has just started in reception at our local primary & this almost happened with our PTA. I went along to the AGM where they were looking for a new Chair & Secretary. Frankly I was amazed by the lack of people at the meeting - about 12 for a school of roughly 450 pupils. Appeciate that not everyone has time to come along but I would have genuinely thought there would be more people.
The PTA raised about £10k for the school last year so events are obviously well supported, just nobody really willing to take on the responsibility. In the end there were so few volunteers I put my hand up to take over being the secretary despite the fact that my child has only just joined the school. Thankfully someone else did offer to be chair so it will continue. We just need to try & up the general support for it.