School charging for transport cost for swimming as part of curriculum

[Julietta05]

Hi,

My child is in a primary school, this year they are meant to have swimming lessons as a part of curriculum. I agree with teaching children swimming but in the first week we received a letter from school informing us that parents need to pay for transport to and from swimming pool. This is £81 from September till 1st February. That caused a lot of upset as nothing has been said about patents covering the cost of the transport previously. I also don't think that previous years had to cover that cost either.

For those parents that had children attending swimming lessons as a part of curriculum, did you need to pay for transport?

State schools are not allowed to make any charge for things that are part of the curriculum. They can only charge for optional extracurricular things that you can opt out of, and they can ask for voluntary contributions but mustn't discriminate against children whose parents can't afford the voluntary amount.

When our school did swimming lessons the children walked there - the pool was a half hour walk from the school - so there was no cost. Getting the kids to get changed took forever, and then there were only allowed to be 4 kids in the pool at any one time because of staff ratio requirements so each child only got about 10 minutes in the water each week so didn't have the opportunity to actually learn or practice. It took an entire afternoon for the sake of that 10 minutes. It was a thoroughly pointless exercise and precicely no one benefited. Tbh I would advise you to save your money for private lessons even if you did have £81 to spare. If you can't manage private lessons then just using the money to go to a pool at the weekends and doing your best to teach what you can would be more beneficial than what the school will do.

School said that we cannot opt out from lessons and we need to pay for transport. This is a lot of money for some parents and my point is that as a part of curriculum we should not.

Yes we have done, had to pay for the coach for the last three years as sadly a rural primary with a 20 minute drive to closest pool.
Only a class of 13 or 14 too but had to hire a full coach. Coach hire is so expensive these days.

You are right, and it is perfectly ok to refuse to pay, they cannot force you. Write to the school saying:
"I will not be paying this charge. According to sections 449–462 of the Education Act 1996, any charge for essential curriculum activities during the school day is illegal."

They can’t charge, can only be voluntary. But if no-one pays this will be coming out of already stretched budgets. Primaries are also losing Sport Premium (although that couldn’t be used for NC swimming). So all sport/PE budgets are going to be even tighter going forward

They can ask for a voluntary contribution. They cannot charge parents for transport where the activity is part of the curriculum. If they are trying to insist on this charge, they are breaking the law.

The guidance for schools on charging can be found at Charging for school activities. This sets out the law as per the Education Act 1996 sections 449-462. If they are an academy and try to argue that this does not apply to them, point out that their funding agreement requires them to comply with the law on charging for school activities.

You can opt out of paying it it’s compulsory- I can see where the school is coming from , they are mostly broke, and I can see your side too - like ooch!

25 years ago I was asked to make a voluntary contribution of £50 a term to cover the transport to my 4 year old daughter’s swimming lessons. That was more than I was paying for her to have swimming lessons outside school.

I did pay, but so many parents refused that the school couldn’t afford to continue offering the lessons to all year groups. Instead they took all year 5s to the pool, checked to see if they could swim 25m, which almost all of them could by then, and then just worried about the very small number who couldn’t.

Yep, we’re asked to pay for the bus. It’s really expensive to hire a coach these days; fortunately we can afford it, but I believe those who can’t don’t have to pay. In that case presumably the cost comes out of the school budget.

I think this is normal

When the swimming pool is close enough, the school asks for volunteers and the children walk. (And then parents complain that the walk is too long and it's not fair on the children)

When the swimming pool is too far, yes, it's normal to pay for the coach. Why shouldn't parents be responsible for transport? Who else do you think should pay?

You want parents who refuse to pay escort their kids to the pool by foot? Even if it's a 2 hours walk away?

It's true, legally they have to write about "voluntary contribution" . But someone has to pay, surely it's up to the parents, where else would the money come from?

Are teachers expected to pay themselves, the way they already spend a fortune on school supplies?

For our school the children walk there (approx 1.5 miles) and then parents are asked to collect them if they can or they will have to walk back to school as well. Our school usually does lessons every afternoon for a week or two in the required years

If there is hardship then there is usually a fund to help

I mean ultimately they are our children and state education has limited funds

For those saying this is normal, no it is not. Most schools manage to comply with the law. A compulsory charge for transport to swimming lessons is illegal. A request for a voluntary contribution is fine. A compulsory charge is not.

"the law" should provide the right fundings for the school then?

If parents can't be bothered to pay, where exactly is the money coming from?

It's all very good to call it "voluntary contribution and if not everyone pays it's cancelled", but why should all the children be penalised?

DC's school did this, though it was somewhere in the region of £25 a term for the two terms they did it. They didn't write voluntary on the form as they didn't really have the money to pay it themselves, and a sizable minority of parents don't pay voluntary contributions even though they can likely afford to. they covered those on pupil premium, and in practice those whose parents didn't pay still got to go swimming, but this way the majority coughed up and they could use their meagre budget for other things.

There is zero suggestion that anyone thinks the teachers should pay.

This very unusual situation of only 4 in the pool is irrelevant to the vast majority for whom only having a 10 minute swim will not apply. 30 mins full swim is the norm where I am, and it’s decent.

Well, if there is a National requirement as part of the curriculum that all Primary age children should have swimming lessons, then the funding needs to be provided to schools who are too far from a swimming baths to be able to walk.

It is a pretty pointless activity for those dc who have swimming lessons, but is an extremely valuable activity for those who do not.

When mine were Primary school age, we were already paying for them to have swimming lessons, so no, I wouldn't be paying another £81 for the term for them to lose 1/2 a day's school for 20mins in the water being 'taught' by a non-specialist, which is the case for most teachers. I say this as a Primary school teacher myself at the time - overwhelmingly, teachers have never been taught how to teach swimming. IME, the swimming teacher at the pool only teaches one group and the class teacher is supposed to teach the others.

Certainly the government should be funding schools better, that's not in question. Unfortunately any political party that suggests raising taxes on the wealthy in order to adequately find public services will then lose the election because people would rather have lower taxes than adequately funded schools.

Ideally the funding model for schools should include an appropriate premium to cover transport for any school that isn't within a practical walking distance of a swimming pool.

Until that happens, the best tactic is probably to set the amount of the suggested voluntary contribution to be approx double what would be needed if the cost was split simply per-head, on the assumption that everyone with a below average income is going to struggle to find any extra money.

Given the number of mumsnetters who proudly repeat "well yes we could afford private school but we choose state education because of our ethics" on approx 5 threads per week, there should be plenty of families who can manage the voluntary contribution.

I was paying £1 per week 20 years ago for swimming, technical voluntary but it was so they could have 10 lessons every year rather than the 8 total funded ones, school had a pool covered the heating

My children have/had to walk to the pool, I know other schools that ask parents for £3 a week for transportation. £81 seems like a lot up front!

I am in Scotland and we had to pay £1 per week for the bus to swimming.

* but is an extremely valuable activity for those who do not.*

this is spot on. As a swim teacher, this for me is what my job is about, my purpose. It isn’t about the honing of the butterfly timing for the kid who has weekly lessons: but grasping that wonderful opportunity to teach the child who would never get the opportunity otherwise in ten weeks some life saving skills in that one term we have. I absolutely give it my best in school swimming for these kids.