Does your STATE school ask for a regular donation?

[TeenTimesTwo]

Prompted by some of the feedback on the what are London state schools really like.

I am wondering how commonplace it is for schools to ask for regular donations, and how much this varies by school type, area, or whatever. Part of me thinks DD's school might be missing a trick, and part of me thinks it is nice that people aren't being pressured.

So, if anyone would care to answer the following I'd be interested. The bits in are my suggestions, feel free to add any categories I've forgotten:

Type of school:

Is school part of an academy:
Type of area:

Contribution:

Your views:

My DD's school is:

Comp, non faith
Single convertor academy
Prosperous small town
£0 contribution requested

I think they should consider asking for something like 'If you feel you can afford it we would like to ask for contributions from parents, perhaps £500 if you think you may be in the top 10% of wealth in our school, £200 if you are in the 10-20%, and £20 if you are in the 20-50%'

With 1000 parents that could nett (100x£500+100x£200+300x£20)=£76k. Wow that's a lot! Perhaps I'm pitching too high.

Yes but we're are in One of the poorest funded areas of the country.
Primary school didn't ask but do regular fundraisers, including the schools lottery.

Secondary do ask and we give irregularly when we can afford. Lots of parents just about managing. It's a successful school in a mixed area so of course it's funding has been reduced

Mindhunter - no, you are not a bad person.

Can everyone see what this type of donating does - it makes some parents feel bad, others angry, others pay up. I don't think it should be called donating - rather "being made to donate". I paid some to our school, but certainly not the whole amount requested.

I feel like a really bad person because I don’t give. I hate the letters and I hate feeling like I”m letting my kids down - and that’s what those carefully worded letters all abut what they can do if they get x amount do

I wish they weren’t allowed

DS2’s HT would never ask for donations. It’s a LA primary in a very mixed catchment. The HT is very aware that many of the families are struggling.

London grammar, no suggested donation but is option to but no pressure.

Local comp apparently asks parents for £150 a year per child.

Primary doesn't ask for donations but PTA raises around £5k a year and quite a few companies have donated goods to the school worth a few thousand this year. Lots of parents giving days of their time doing the gardens etc.

I'm primary £20 every term towards swimming ( never paid was skint). State comp now £50 per annum. £50 quid a month is steep imo. This never happened before, it's a sad sign of the times.

State school parents are the easy, soft target. School heads have no other option but to ask for money from parents as the Dept of Ed will not give them more. If Tory MPs' children all went to state school in the UK we would not have our state schools in such a mess financially. They would be well supported.

SE VA academy/comprehensive £10 a month.
Books (usually English texts), materials extra (but this was always the case even in the dark ages when I was at school).
With 2 DCs I would have paid 2x but the school never activated the additional mandate.
DS1 now at outstanding academy with higher suggested donation but he'll only be there 2 years and I don't feel so invested... A neighbour sends 3 children to same school and scoffed at paying a regular donation but I imagine are more active on PTA we are not/won't.
Thought that Queen Elizabeth Barnett in London ~ outstanding boys state school ask for £100 per month?

@OP. Our schools do not ask for a contribution.

But some people already pay 40% of what they earn, others 45%. That's almost half of every pound you earn going to government.

Very few people pay 45% tax. In theory people pay this on what they earn over £150K. In practice people earning this much have accountants and find a way to pay less. To be paying effectively 45% you'd need the first £150k to be a tiny proportion of your actual salary. Most people earning millions a year pay much less than 45%.

The tax cut from 50% to 45% for the very wealthy was paid for by cutting things like school budgets. Replacing that with voluntary contributions means that funding is lower in the poorest areas. It also means that the poor are paying for the wealthy's tax cut.

I don't criticise a headteacher for doing anything they can to keep afloat; but it's not right. It's also illegal to do more than ask for a donation and people should not feel pressured to pay.

As a governor at a number of schools I can confirm that none of my schools ask for voluntary donations other than for school trips.

All of my schools have set a balanced budget for the current year, which has not been easy given we are in LA that is poorly funded. There is no doubt in my mind that setting a budget that is balanced to the income is going to be much more difficult from April and we may well have to make the decision to reduce our staffing levels.

However I am very aware of the many schools who have significant deficits and can only conclude that this comes down to previous poor financial management or deliberate decisions by the Senior Leadership Team and the Governing Board. Yes there is no doubt that most schools are in a potentially poor financial situation looking forward. However this is based on having the same staffing structure they have always had and it now probably time for all schools to accept a new reality from the past 10+ years of increasing funding. There is less funding in the system per pupil and schools need to adjust to this new reality.

Parents who are being asked for voluntary donations are not going to help by paying up because they are just putting off the day when the school management needs to sit down and balance the books financially. Parents need to accept that what might have been on offer from the school in the past is now no longer possible or viable.
Before you actually make a voluntary donation, ask the head teacher for the income to the school for the past 3 years and the end of year deficit / surplus for the last three years. The figures may cause you to think again about making a voluntary donation.

Teach at state comp, academy, outstanding school, we only ask parents for contributions for school trips and some pe activities. Yes the government continues to underfund us but it is state education and nudt/ should be free at source.
We explore alternative spurces of income eg let out the astro/ sports hall/ main hall to all sorts of groups.

Nudt 😳😳 must

£50 per month

I am also a governor. We ask for no donations apart from trips. The only way we are going to ve able to balance our budget in April is to reduce Staffing levels.

Do any schools release figures for how much it costs to educate each child? Would they tell you if you asked? This would be the minimum amount I would want to donate if my children ended up going to a state school (obviously unless I had some change in circumstances that would make that impossible but as it stands I would feel obliged to pay cost as a minimum). Does anyone have a rough idea how much is actually spent per student in the average state secondary out of curiosity? I would imagine that finding already varies so the scio's point is already moot surely?

@Tosieposy why must it be free at point of access when means tested charge wouldn't prevent access?

Blimey.

I don't think so. I have kids at school and I teach in a different one and as far as I am aware neither ask for a contribution at all. Obviously, yes for school trips or if you want music lessons (flute or whatever) but they don't expect parents to pay a regular contribution for anything. They are both an Academy (single).

Outy- our Primary gets £4.5k per child per year government funding. Each class gets £135k in funding if it has 35 kids. Teacher is ~£40k, assistant £12k. School says 90% of costs are staff. So lots of staff who are not classroom teachers.

We are asked for £30-50/ child per month. We pay but most parents don’t.

Typo: I meant 30 children in a class is £135k.

I have just had my DS start a state primary in Sydney (a very wealthy beach suburb)
I have so far been asked fo a voluntary donation of $120 for the year, $45 for a sports club and attended an fundraiser which was completely packed out.

They raise around $80k per year from fundraising which pays for things like smart boards and a TA part time salary.

I'm happy to contribute what I can, schools are always underfunded, I feel fortunate that the state schools in my area are so good I didn't need to send him to private school.

There are Dept of Ed rules as to how a UK school should act in asking for donations, such as "The governing body or head teacher must make it clear to parents that there is no obligation to make any contribution". Also, "When making requests for voluntary contributions, parents must not be made to feel pressurised into paying as it is voluntary and not compulsory. Schools should avoid sending colour coded letters to parents as a reminder to make payments and direct debit or standing order mandates should not be sent to parents when requesting contributions." I complained to the Dept of Ed and got the direct debit forms posted to parents stopped.

Our school took some lessons out of the timetable and made them after-school sessions where they could charge £200 per academic year for them. Most parents paid this, as did I, as I didn't want my DC to stop the language they had learnt for the previous two years and which they wanted to take to GCSE level.

I am, as I previously said, sympathetic to schools, but they must adhere to the rules.

DC1
Type of school: state SS grammar
Is school part of an academy: No
Type of area: town, affluent
Contribution: voluntary £20 per month (which we pay)

DC2
Type of school: state local grammar, academy
Type of area: town, affluent
Contribution: voluntary £20 per month (which we pay) plus around £60pa for different subjects to include some text books, art equipment etc

LA ‘community primary’: No request. (Active PTA fundraising)
Academy Converter: No
Academy Converter: Request for optional one-off £50 on joining.

@admission that is a very interesting post. Thanks for that.