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.

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.

That is (from the way you describe it) illegal. The last 5-7 in education have been horrid and it's getting worse.

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

If only! When You’re on PAYE you pay the full rate of tax same as everyone else

@Bluedoglead A letter detailing the top 10% then 10-20 then 50 and if you’re the lowest of the low we’d let you off is just horrible.

Why do you think that is worse than a blanket 'per child' request? I was thinking it would be a way to get more from the most affluent parents (without them thinking they are showing off by giving more than requested) and would also enable 50% of parents to not donate at all without feeling guilty? People would 'self-identify' with whatever group they wished.

But you obviously have a different take on it that I would be interested to hear.

@Admission I think you have a good point about donations hiding schools from not managing their budgets. Our PTA tries to be quite strict on only funding things that are clear 'extras' and does not fund things we feel should rightly come from school budgets. Though I do agree there are grey areas.

Because when you are the lowest of the low, you know it, your kids know it, every other kid at the school knows it and your child is already singled out and different for lack of cool add one, the wrong bag, free school meals.

To put out a letter like that would have reduced me to tears.

You might as well send out a letter that says fuck off we don’t want you you aren’t rich enough for us. Oh and your child is a freeloader getting all these activities off the back of the good decent upstanding parents who pay for them.

You have no idea of what if feels like to be the poorest family at the school and how hard you work to make sure that your child isn’t made to feel any more different than they have to be.

It’ll be the poorer families that stump up the most if you send a letter like that.

Type of School - 13 plus State Comp (the only secondary school in the area)
Single Academy
Small town - catchment serves ex mining council estate & more affluent rural suburb in the North West
No PTA
Contribution asked for £12 per year D & T contribution

I broke the system when i( & the company I work for) offered to make a substantial donation towards the cost of the school production - the school has no drama department, no sound or lighting equipment just a bare hall. They didn’t know how to handle it.

Bluedoglead
Thank you. Very interesting insight. It seems similar to people not wanting to use second hand uniform / clothes as it will mark them out as not being able to afford new, where as more affluent people who are confident they can afford new, know they won't be judged so do buy second hand.

Education funding is all a bit of a mess really.

In the nicest possible way. Don’t talk at me like you’re observing a sociology experiment. Talk TO me. Please.

Filling in tne donation form was in the Induction booklet that Dc worked through with a teacher as part of the Induction Interview.

I would have felt IMMENSE pressure to contribute, or intense anxiety at the idea of Dc going into that interview with the ‘no donation’ box ticked.

Though I would perhaps have ticked the ‘donation made online ‘ box as a lie if we couldn’t have afforded it.

Informal means testing or making donations look in any way ‘opt out’ rather than ‘opt in’ is shocking.

The very purpose of our state education system is to ensure an educated society, regardless of individual circumstances.

Sorry Blue I really really don't mean to.

I'm just trying to understand why you think asking for people to self-grade their donations is worse than asking people for donations they can't afford. And your answer made sense when I thought about what I have read about why some people avoid second hand uniform.

On the face of it, it doesn't seem obvious that people should feel more offended by being told they aren't being asked for a donation than being asked for one when they can't afford it. But obviously it does make sense to you so there is clearly something I'm missing.

I might not be asking is a good touchy-feely way as I'm not very good at that, but I am aware I live in my own 'bubble' and I'm genuinely trying to understand others' points of view.

Think about it.

Your budget is done to the PENNY. a request for £1 for a non-uniform day has you panicking. Needing a specific gcse calculator at £12 means you have to figure out what’s being cut elsewhere.

But you want a different life for your kids. And one has been lucky enough to get to the grammar. And you desperately want him to fit in and make the most of his opportunity so you want him to be the same as everyone else.

But some of his friends won’t come round because council house. And he gets bullied for the wrong bag. And Lidl lunch box stuff.

And then you get a letter asking for £££ a month. And here’s what all we do with it - like it or not you will put pressure on people like me.

Slack I agree that the method you had would be shocking. The teachers shouldn't know who has donated, and the child should not need to be involved in the process at all. If donations are going to happen it should stay between the school and the admin/finance team.

On the whole with this thread I think I've been swayed most by Admission's argument that asking for donations 'stops' schools from managing their budgets effectively and 'hides' the issues of under funding. Plus the arguments from Blue and many others regarding feeling pressured to pay when asked, even if people can ill afford it.

So I think I've gone from being 'pro' asking for parental donations to against.

Though unless parental donations were banned I don't see how schools in more affluent areas are going to stop 'unfairly' benefitting from them.

Fuel in the car. Every ten miles costs me roughly £1. Maybe £1.10. Can you imagine how that feels? Before you decide if you’re going somewhere you factor in the fuel cost and if you can afford the extra £2.20 on top of your weekly budget.

This is a good month. I get paid tomorrow and I have £32.33 left in my bank account, about £25 in my purse and I don’t need any groceries.

Where am I magicking extra money from? The demands are DESIGNED to tug the heart strings. To make people donate. That’s the point of them.

The school I'm hoping for on 1 March asks for £50 pa
2000 kids = £100K extra a year

Admission. Thank you for your post., I completely agree with you. In my opinion our school had poor financial management over a long period and refused to consider making changes to the extremely high, over 90%, costs of staffing. Parents' donations do hide the real problems beneath the surface in some cases. However many schools are well run and are desperate for extra funds, although I notice locally that these are the schools asking for lower amounts.

Bluedoglead. Thank you for your input and for adding balance to this discussion. I wholeheartedly agree with you that the letters should not be sent.

Secondary comprehensive in rural market town - mostly students from "naice" areas

Last two ofsted reports were Good

Over 80% 5 A* - C including English and maths GCSE results

Extremely underfunded until very recently - a concerted fairer funding campaign from the parents, SLT, local MP, being featured on local and national TV has resulted in more funds being allocated to the school

The school has never asked for donations from any parent (while DD has been there anyway)

No PTA and no other fundraising for the school by parents has taken place while DD has been there

Obviously school trips have to be paid for by the parents, but that is normal

If only! When You’re on PAYE you pay the full rate of tax same as everyone else

Yes, I know. My point was:

1. Most rich people do not pay 45% of their whole income .
2. For very rich people who have such a big income (millions) that their rate should effectively be 45% a very large proportion make sure they are not on PAYE for the whole amount e.g. setting self up as company. Obviously some people pay almost 45% on their whole income.

Faith primary

Asks for contribution of £15 per child per year

iwantawhippet

Our primary gets about £2.7 K per child. Every year we've managed to balance our budget or get a small surplus. We've manage to fund improvements to the fabric of the school through applying for grants (which take a long time rather than asking parents). We've always struggled financially and always cut our cloth accordingly. It's ridiculous in our area that many schools cannot afford their own headteacher but have to share with a partner school. It does not make for a better more efficient primary. It makes for worse results.

My DS attends a London junior non faith school in a very nice area which asks for a voluntary donation of approx £80 a year. This goes towards helping those that cant afford the various trips and music lessons etc which I think is money well spent and very happy to contribute. Would happily pay more if it helped those that cant afford it.

Some asked if you can find out how schools spend it's income, think it used to be on Ofsted, especially PP premiums.
Interesting how schools in London with much higher income/pupil ask for highest donations.
Like I said above on first page, we don't get asked, too many parents fall into BlueDogLead's position.
But we do have to give £2 for bus travel to sports fixtures, buy revision guides and even pay for travel to GCSE/A level field day trip (even though the government says you shouldn't)
Many parents/students return revision guides back after exams, so the poor families can have them for free.
Like I said the school and it's students raise funds for two girls to attend secondary school in Africa, we get yearly updates, first two we met in 2012, DS1 yr8, are now training to be a doctor for her town and other is already teaching back at her school. They have also raised £10000 in a decade for Teenage Cancer trust, much happy to contribute to those funds.
At the end of the day it's the governments job to fund schools, if not they soon find people will vote them out

At the end of the day it's the governments job to fund schools, if not they soon find people will vote them out Not if they don't use those schools in the first place. And I wonder who many voters (with children beyond school education age) consider it when they're deciding who to vote for, even the socially aware ones?

Academy
Affluent area of London
Monthly donations by direct debit encouraged. Lowest suggested sum £5 and highest £75.
Not sure how many pay, I expect half. I don’t.

Type of school: secondary academy
Is school part of an academy: part of a small MAT
Type of area: prosperous London suburb
Contribution: They suggest £15pcm. We pay £30 pcm via DH's workplace giving scheme - but it comes out of his pre-tax income so it only actually costs us £18 pcm. Plus, his employer doubles any charitable contributions so the school end up getting £60 pcm! We'll double that when DS2 starts there.

They make it very clear what they spend the money on - extra-curricular stuff rather than core teaching. They have a good range of after-school activities and they're all free, whereas at other local schools most of the activities cost money if they're run by external providers.

Some other local schools ask for £30pcm, which they use to prop up the general budget, and one (super selective grammar) in the next borough asks for £45pcm.

When the parents don't pay the child gets handed an envelope with their name on to give to their parents. In that envelope is a reminder to pay the voluntary contribution. This happens each term.

The letter's are written to tug at our heart strings and the method of personal reminders is nigh on bullying to my mind. I'm sure some of them have been on different coloured paper, so "colour coded" which the admissions policy doesn't allow.

It's such a waste of admin time as of course these parents haven't forgotten, they are not paying for whatever reason. Everyone knows what these letters contain and most of them end up torn to pieces in the school bin.

It's really not a way to form a positive home-school partnership.

Sort your finances out, be less friendly with the (I consider to be ) money-grabbing church and show me you can understand the financial implications of various decisions and I would be more inclined to pay.