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?

Eugh yes we had this last year for swimming lessons.

Although, as said above they had to make it seem voluntary. So they said all parents needed to pick kid from school and take them to the pool and collect and drop them back to school after the swimming lesson. Obviously, most parents are unable to just leave work at 11:15am to facilitate this, so for those parents there was a voluntary contribution offer from the school whereby we pay £50 for use of the school minibus.

We can afford it. Schools are so cash-strapped its unreal. But... I did think WTAF for a while there!!!

We also have the same issue for any sports fixtures that are offsite too. Due to funding, the school make the parents do drop offs/pick ups which are always in the middle of the working day. I have a busy job with lots of meetings so my child has had to miss out on some of these unfortunately.

illegally charging parents 😂

I am a parent, I don't believe it's wrong to pay for your own kids, it's only a small contribution. They should call it "voluntary", they forgot a word but who cares. It's not for other parents to pay for yours, and it's a shame if your kid has to stay in what is basically a detention when the rest of his class goes swimming.

In an ideal world, schools would have decent funding, no one is denying that. But are we supposed to put kids life on hold until a change happens (if it ever does, which it won't)

Don't know why you consider illegally charging parents to be funny. And failing to call it voluntary is not simply forgetting a word. It is breaking the law. But in your world the law clearly doesn't matter.

Research has shown that there is no link between school funding and performance. Some of the best performing schools in the country are among the worst funded. There is obviously a minimum level of funding below which performance would fall, but we are nowhere near that. Schools do have decent funding. As I've already pointed out, funding per pupil has gone up 12% in real terms in the last 15 years. The schools that continually cry poverty are often the best funded ones.

Is it legal for a primary school to leave a child behind if the parents don't pay?

When my DC were in primary school we were asked to pay for transport to the pool. It's tricky for the school because they have to provide this and coaches are expensive. But it's tricky for the parents too. There's no easy solution to this one. Tbh I think schools should no longer be required to provide it.

I am a parent, I don't believe it's wrong to pay for your own kids, it's only a small contribution

Why are you ignoring all the posters who are reminding you (I can't believe you are so ignorant about other people's circumstances that you don't already know this), that £81 is NOT "a small contribution" when you are balancing your income and outgoings to the penny each month ?

I've taught in different Primary and schools over the decades, and this isn't my experience at all.

exactly the same teachers teach both school and stages

far less children in the pool for school swimming

far smaller ratios of children to teacher for school swimming

Each of the schools I have taught in take a whole class, ie 30 dc. Either the Pool swimming teacher takes 1/2 and the teacher takes 1/2 so there are 15 in each group, which is more than I have ever seen in a group in a lesson you pay for as a parent.
So directly opposite of what you are suggesting.

Then the (school) teacher has never had any training in how to teach swimming. They quite feasibly are not even a swimmer themselves.
So at least half the class are unlikely to be making any progress.
This is not to knock any Primary school teacher - it is as ridiculous expecting them to teach swimming without knowing what they are doing as teach French when they don't speak French, but we are where we are.

So how can it be the same as when children are taught in lessons outside of school ?

Sorry mr school, can’t afford it. What they gonna do?

£81 is ridiculous. That's more than a term of private lessons cost us for our DC. I'd refuse to pay and would be happy for DC to miss out on lessons with school, they were completely pointless in my experience.

I pay for my dc to get the coach to swimming lessons. I bloody hate them, my dc are very good swimmers, learn bog all in the lessons, come home with bags of washing and then don't want to go to their actual swim club, it's always in the same day.
Maybe they should just take the dc who can't swim and put on a different sport in school for the ones who can, would likely be lower fees for pool hire etc.

The kids walked to the pool. But we were asked to cover the cost of lessons as a ‘voluntary donation’ but basically the school can’t afford them otherwise. School budgets are so stretched. I paid for two kids as I know some can’t afford it and I wanted to ensure the school didn’t have to cancel. We aren’t wealthy but I am a governor and know that requesting money is a last resort and not the school being money grabbing. I’ve had the headteacher in tears over the budget. It really is that bad.

That’s really interesting, I didn’t know that was allowed. Is yours recent? None of the companies I work for allow the school teacher to be involved. They have to pay the pool company for one swim teacher for every ten children. Whereas with the Stages, from stage 4 there can be a ratio of 12:1

Yes we had to pay for transport, but it was £3 a week for a half term. £81 all at once is a bit much!

You're right OP, maybe you should suggest the school either cancels or charges full price for the school residential. Most schools massively subsidise this non curriculum opportunity to a lot more than £81. In fact you could go further, any activities that eat away the budget that aren't curriculum should be cut. After school clubs aren't cost effective, trips out aren't. God, the list could go on and on.

I wouldn’t be paying that.

Class sizes are down but fixed costs have only grown. Primary schools don’t all receive £7k a year. My borough it averages to £5.5k per pupil.

Saying most schools balance their budgets simply isn’t true. Lots are spending what reserves they still have to fund this year’s expenditure, cutting teachers ans using TAs to cover PPA etc.

Teacher salaries, maintenance costs have all grown and energy costs have increased hugely. Schools don’t get price caps as domestic users do.

SEN funding is a mess with many schools having to use their existing budgets to support children’s needs because it takes a very long time to get an EHCP.

I agree that the school can’t say it’s compulsory to pay but unless parents pay a voluntary contribution for these things they aren’t going to happen.

£81 until February, assuming term time only, is about £20 a month. If parents really can’t pay it they should speak to the school but if they can, they should.

They’ll be sent to sit with the closest year group still in school.

in some places pools aren’t as accessible as they once were. The main pool in our town was in the town centre, now closed. When we had lessons in secondary we all had to meet there first thing. One of the schools had a pool that lots of other schools used, now closed.

If you said voluntary payment in DDs primary the vast majority wouldn’t pay anyway.

Every year group in my previous school in Key stage two would previously go swimming for six weeks each year, parents were asked to contribute £3 a week towards the cost of the coach and the school subsidised the rest. Unfortunately, so few parents would pay the voluntary contribution that the school subsidy increased year on year. it has now got to the point where we can no longer afford the cost of the subsidy and therefore currently only year four swim for six weeks of the year with another six weeks catch up in year six for those children who are still unable to swim a length- pretty much all of them!

Like most discussions, obviously we all talk about things from our own experience and our own circumstances.

As a parent who paid for all of their dc to have swimming lessons from when they were 4, school swimming lessons were a complete waste of time. I never objected or anything, but my dc were able to walk up to the baths from their school, and my dc were more than happy to have a swim for 30mins and that was just how it was. I would have baulked at a demand / request to pay £81 for them to do that though, as I was already paying for lessons for them.

However I have taught in schools where, when we took them for a school swimming lesson, that was the first time that some of the dc had ever been inside a swimming pool. I was shocked the first year, but it was quite common (to the extent I devised some pre-learning about the sounds and smells and getting changed and storing your clothes whilst you were in the pool, and we used to get bowls of water and get the children to practise putting their faces in the water, blowing bubbles, etc before we even got to lessons, as it meant they were a bit more prepared when they started.
For those children, going swimming with school is important, however much this is a shock to many MNers who don't seem to be able to perceive that there are families who have never taken their dc swimming, and who have never taken them on holiday.
Unfortunately, of course, there is likely to be a correlation between schools attended by pupils where the majority haven't had swimming lessons, and the schools where parents don't have "only £81" spare in their budgets.

I don't know what the answer is, as no Government in my lifetime is likely to fund all schools to the level they need, or the level that would resolve issues in schools. Even if there were a massive boost to schools' budgets, if anyone put me in charge I would start by funding SEND support properly, not subsidising a coach to take all children swimming.