Are any of your DC's schools 'poverty proofing'

[TellerTuesday]

If so what changes have been made and what are your thoughts as a parent of those changes?

DC's school (& the wider academy trust) have been working with a children's charity and have put a new poverty prepping strategy in place.

Most notable changes are:
• no snacks to be brought in to school
• no non uniform days
• no gifts for teachers (Xmas, end of year etc)
• no cakes / sweets to be brought in to celebrate a child's birthday

How utterly joyless

My dc school has had this for several years. So we have no non uniform days, no teacher gifts, don't bring in birthday sweets, school bags and water bottles are school ones and we were given the bottles free of charge.
For book day each class creates a display and children can bring in their favourite book. School has a minibus which brings down the costs of trips, school will pay if any parent can't afford the trip. We also donate old uniform and it's free to take what you need.
I'm totally behind it, I hate to think of kids feeling inadequate or left out.

You'd be surprised at how many kids don't show up to school on non-uniform days.

The no snacks thing sounds batshit, but as a teacher I’d absolutely be up for the no teacher gifts. It just gets too much.

Instead of banning non uniform days, the academy would be better having a good look at their own uniform policy. Unless it’s simply a designated colour of polo shirt and jumper/cardi and that’s it, then they’d make more of a difference to family budgets by simplifying their dress requirements.

that seems so miserable. Im
sure the people moaning about no uniform day donations will also moan when there is no funds for discos/new playground equipment etc.

forcing my child to have fruit - which I assume is bog standard apple/banana/orange - is unfair. They should eat what they want (obv within reason - allergies/healthy etc) plus I’m not sure that prevents any judgement on who has and who has not.

as a kid who grew up dirt poor, this is more patronising than anything. It is clear who is poor and who has not - that doesn’t come down to school snacks. You soon learn when kids chat (as they should) about where they went on holiday/did at the weekend/what Santa brought them etc.

Just came on to say the same.The irony of Christmas jumper day being in aid of Save The Children is not lost on me.

The free fruit initiative is not new. When I was teaching over 20 years ago each child was offered a free piece of fruit daily, oranges, apples, pears, carrots, bananas, strawberries, you name it, we had it.
I was sceptical of this as a person that doesn’t enjoy fruit but I was amazed how much the children enjoyed their fruit and looked forward eagerly to see what would be the offering of the day.

Free fruit in my daughters school is only available up to and including year 2. She's in year 3 now and the school charges 25p for a potion of fruit - I could buy more than one portion for what they charge

I agree with non uniform and no teacher presents though

Free fruit is only in EYFS and KS1.

Also world book day should be banned permanently!

I would imagine the non uniform day being banned is less to do with the pound the child has to bring in, and more to do with less wealthy children feeling like shit seeing other children is fancy clothes, brands they can't afford, etc!

Primary school isn't. Secondary school has introduced a free breakfast club which has been brilliant for the days when ds1 needs to be in college for 9am. We can drop Dc2 and dc3 off at 8am, take dc1 to college a bit early and then drop dc4 and dc5 off at primary school.

My dcs' primary school has just said we can't send sweets in on birthdays. Tbh, I'm totally in favour of that! It gets silly. They seem to come home with sweets all the time. Dd came home with a sharing size bag of random cheap sweets the other day 🙄. I also once overheard a child saying "it was Harry's birthday today but he didn't bring in any sweets" all outraged. I don't like the tradition so am glad it's gone

DD is in primary 3 and already been told to bring in a piece of fruit everyday for "fruit and a book" at the end of the day. I haven't sent any as I've been off work sick since end of July so money is very very tight.

It's £1 every non uniform day, then £1 for Xmas jumper day.

Last week we got told with 2 days notice she needed £12 for a show they are putting on. I had to borrow money to get tickets.

We’re on the no sugar thing

But it’s more to do with healthy eating

No uniform anyway

Also, a local secondary near us is phasing out blazers and ties etc. They just wear a polo shirt and sweatshirt now (but are allowed to wear old blazers etc if they already have them). I think it's great but a lot of parents have been having a moan as they liked the blazers

No one does snacks afaik and teacher gifts only if you want to contribute, no names attached

Seems sensible to me. Otherwise some kids have nice snacks and poor kids might get nothing. I used to hate the dress up as a book character day and would have paid a lot of money to get out of it. The same with those stupid Easter bonnets. My kids used to fall apart they were rubbish. If parents want to contribute to charity they still can. It doesn't have to be done through school. I taught for 25 years and honestly some kids got so embarrassed because their parents couldn't afford the non uniform days. School used to tell teachers to chase up money too. I just used to put it in for kids who couldn't afford to pay. No way was I hounding them everyday when their parents just didn't have the money to pay.

We’re the opposite on snacks. Infants get the free fruit and juniors need to bring something in their bag. Lots of the kids are there in clubs until 6 so would be quite hard to not be allowed to bring in something especially for the fussy eaters. We’re already not allowed to bring in cake/sweets for birthdays for health reasons. The kids do really enjoy mufti so that would be a hard change. They all wear their own clothes on birthdays and have a children’s fundraising committee who select the charity for any mufti days. Teacher gifts are again tricky. I can see this does add to pressure but I also like that we tend to organise as a class and get vouchers/nice presents but I suspect people do feel under pressure.

I agree with others - sounds joyless and unhelpful.

Get rid of branded uniform.

Do pyjama day instead of WBD costumes / run Odd Socks day instead of anything requiring purchases / cut out Children in Need/Red Nose Day.

Keep trips affordable to all or fundraise specifically to allow them to happen.

Make sure the school really, really knows their families - I run a food bank in an inner London borough and you quickly see the difference between "Nope, nothing to see here" and "We need x food parcels this week please, and we'll be open through the hols to keep receiving them".

I’m the same, I remember the free fruit and how many children loved it. Schools really shouldn’t be taking away a parents choice to provide a snack though, I had many children over the years who had sensory issues and would only eat a few food items. If a child doesn’t like fruit they shouldn’t need to go without a snack of their (and the parents choice).

It was like the packed lunch rules that used to annoy me, I refused to police what parents put in packed lunches and if the child was still hungry after eating their lunch I was more than happy to provide extra food.

We will provide uniform, shoes, coats, bags if needed. We provide a free breakfast for every child in the school, if wanted. We work in partnership with a wonderful charity to provide beds, matresses, bedding and cookers, which many pupils start without. We hand out food including baby food for younger siblibgs and feed a fair few a lot more than the free breakfast and lunch... We don't fundraise from parents, or do charity days. We are allowed 1 coach trip a year, as the parent's can't afford to pay the cost of a trip with coaches (school pays for the one). Staff gifts are not a thing, but this is culture, not official - instead, the TA will get the teacher a gift from the class (generally a bunch of flowers and a class made card), and the teacher will do the same for the TA. This way, the children get to enjoy giving, but at no parental cost.

It's a bloody amazing place to work.

Sounds crap. As a child who grew up in poverty the days children brought cakes etc in for the class was the closest I ever got to anything resembling a party.

I quite like the class Christmas present collection. Chuck in a tenner and it covers a gift to teacher, music teacher Gaelic teacher, cover teacher, pe teacher, ta’s and school receptionist. Someone does calculations and Co-ordinates with other years. All the people who work with dc get something. Well worth a tenner imo It shouldn’t be mandatory though.

Interesting that people don’t seem to be appreciative of the snack one.
Our schools (Scotland) provide fresh fruit at break time and that’s that. The children never complain - sometimes they don’t eat it as don’t like that fruit, but it’s only a couple of hours till lunch!

We also have never been allowed to take in cakes anyways, that’s not new either.

Teacher presents are solely if individual families choose…I don’t on normal years until child’s last year then give a potted cutting of Rose Thank You that my kids grow for them from our rose.

I think all schools should be trying more to support children living with financial difficulties, I’ll bring it up at our next Parent Council meeting so thank you for this post.