What are the hidden costs of a state education?

[belledechocolatefluffybunny]

Ds's first school:
Trips times 2
chairs
fundraising-plants, books, charity (red nose/book day/children in need)
school uniform
lunch
reading books for ds as the school did not have any that were appropriate for him.

I think belledechoc that (from here and other threads) you must have been very unfortunate in your ds' school. I'm sure that dd doesn't get the degree of 'push' that she might at an academically focused private school, but tbh I can't fault the education provided (and extra help where she has struggled).

Yup.

must admit, your school sounds too good to be trye, mrz. I don't see how free school meals for all is ever going to be an affordable state option. And the majority of primaries provide a pretty poor two years of mfl, never mind good quality mfl for 7 years.

Is it normal for children to be given photocopied hand outs that have previously been used by other children? I can understand thrift and recycling but was this a bit extreme??

I can't half pick them hey

pointydog the free school meals is part of a pilot project (all primary schools in my LA have free meals) but I can imagine given the financial state of the country it won't continue once the project is completed.

I teach and we reuse our worksheets - unless they are ones that the children write on and stick in their books.

I do get cross when we get letters about trips etc and there's a 'voluntary' contribution. It always adds 'if you cannot pay this all at once please see mrs hitler the school secretary for ways to pay in installments. Eh? What's 'voluntary' about that?

I was just going to post the same
Voluntary contributions my arse

He said he was told he could only use pencil, they were the sort where they have to write on them and fill in the answers, he could see another child's name and answers as they had written on the page and it had been rubbed out.

Good god, funding is dire!

Belle that is different, we don't reuse that kind.

Talk to your PTA about paying for transport for school trips. I know it's still parents paying, but it brings down the cost considerably when you only have to pay entrance fees/insurance rather than astronomical coach fees as well. I think of it as paying in installments I suppose. I support PTA events throughout the year, and don;t get a whopping bill for trips in the summer. Best thing our PTA does I think.

I'd have thought it would have taken more effort to rub the child's name and answers out then to photocopy new ones.

I agree if I was asked to do this I would pay for the photocopying myself!

I'm just really happy he's not there any more, the bullying/boredom was just a little too much.

mrz- the free FSM programme has definitely been shelved.

How can we possibly live in a country that says a child's needs cannot be assessed because too many children have been assessed this year already? Abominable.

Funding must be terrible. I don't get why some schools can offer so much and others teach on the bare minimum. I thought funding was the same per child?

All those of you complaining about low funding levels, have you complained to your MP about the 25% cuts in education?

I was given a (mainly fabricated) letter and told by the school to take ds to the GP to get an assessment as the school no longer did them

Where do you suggest cuts come from pointy? We have to curb our spending- the cuts are across the board, it just saddens me that this is the case.

montmartre as we are one of the pilot areas already providing free school meals our children will continue to receive free lunches.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/10273613.stm

Education Secretary Michael Gove has said the existing pilot schemes would continue, "so as to assess better the case for increasing eligibility in the future".

I would suggest that a lot more thought is given into what specific cuts can be made rather than blanket cuts to our education system, montmartre. It is shameful that so many people seem to shake their heads and say 'oh well, cuts need to be made no matter where' rather than fight for the current level of class sizes and high quality instruction.

Cuts never have to be 'across the board'. The government should be far more intelligent than that.

I don't see how it's possible to make cuts to schools that are teaching on the bare minimum already. If there's a school that offers no trips, no extra curricular activities and has to rub out names and answers on the maths hand outs so they can be used again how can they possible make more cuts?

I can't see the government doing this in all honest, I can see them merging schools though so they can pool the resources, surly it's not cost effective to have schools that are half empty?