Never mind uniform, £120 Y7 invoice before we even start!

[oneoffdeepcleanout]

£50 to hire a locker for 5 years, £10 photocopying card, £40 for a team building excursion in the first week, etc, etc, bill comes to £120 in total. Plus a begging letter for regular contributions to school funds because they have a big deficit.

Not sure what to make of it all really. We'll pay up, but with a heavy heart. So sad that state schools have been reduced to this.

Our PE lockers were £5 a year, paid yearly, at the DDs school (which was a boarding school as well!) and photocopying/printing were included. I think the team building trip should have some explanation, though.

Ive had to pay £1500 for "voluntary contributions" but it's not really as you have to explain yourself to the finance manager if you don't pay it. £50 for a bonding trip, £25 for a text book, £15 for locker, £20 for a specific calculator and £250 for uniform and still going....

DD's school give all pupils a £5 allowance for printing and copying, once they've spent it you can top it up £2 at a time. DD is just going into y10 and has never needed a top up.
Food on the other hand seems to be a bottomless pit.

In a previous discussion on these boards I think the final sort of consensus was that schools should cut their cloth according to their budgets rather than requesting such donations.

They do but there is only so much cutting you can do before you start to have to stop doing things completely. I know sometimes the trips seem a bit to much, but often there are good reasons behind some of them.

If we didn't go overspend every year then we would provid all the equipment needed for, required science practicals. How would you like it out your kids never did any practical science or food tech or D T, these subjects all require quite a lot of consumable items to run.

Grr that's wouldn't

I think this “voluntary contribution” has been a thing for a while, I have a job which involves working in a number of schools and it’s something I’m aware of Catholic schools asking for as early as 2011

That’s Catholic state schools, not private

£20 for a specific calculator

Is this for sixth form? Otherwise what is there about the standard Casio fx-83 / fx-85 gt plus that the school doesn't feel it can work with?

Lots of schools are now recommending the classwiz which is £20+ as it does so much more than a standard scientific calculator.

People voted for cuts, we got cuts. That's why schools are in dire financial straits and can barely afford basics.

I think the team building trip will be a great thing if your DC wants to go. I agree with other posters that pupils rarely need to photocopy anything, so you could ask for more details about that.

I'm fairly aghast at some of these voluntary contributions. How do people afford £1500?!

Maybe if the pay at the top was reduced then the schools wouldn't lack basic supplies

www.tes.com/news/exclusive-top-earning-academy-bosses-revealed
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/12/high-pay-education-university-bosses-leaders-academy-trusts

EvilTwins
Schools can be a bit free with parents' money, sometimes

Are you kidding?

No, I'm not kidding. Former teacher here. A lot of my colleagues were seriously out of touch with how little money can be available in some households. Many of them were middle class professionals, in dual income families, who had little real life experience of what it is like to not have spare money.
I am well aware that budgets have been cut, but schools cannot reasonably expect to retrieve the loss from parents, who are already paying tax and are being stretched in all directions.

My dc's comp has plenty of money to make reception and public areas of the school look good and to tart up the sports facilities, then says there is no money for photocopying. As a result, I print everything off at home, pay for text books and additional resources. I can't help thinking that the head should reassess their spending priorities and worry less about school areas that the public see but the kids barely use and spend that money on the areas where they actually work!

£10 refundable locker charge and £10 a term contribution if doing cooking or woodwork or metal work - depending on parental circumstances. No ‘voluntary’ contributions to school funds, high street uniforms, assistance available with trips. Our school seems to manage.

Yes one of the reasons why I don't really agree with academy's. But new schools have to be academy's and a falling school has to be taken over by an academy trust.

Although a head of an academy will often be a charge of 3-4 or even more schools in some cases, not just head of one school. The trust then needs all the admin that would have previously been done by the council to be done by them. I don't think it's more cost effective at all.

IWanaSeeHowItEnds but you’ve missed the point somewhat- as a teacher you will know that each child brings in funding, so in order to attract those students, the school needs to do better than have a good OFSTED if a nearby school has similar. Also with the current demographic dip each pupil is really important so ‘tarting up’ facilities for some (not all as I’m aware some schools are over subscribed) is a vital attraction to get those students through the door.

In addition things like photocopy cards are vital for students who don’t have computers and printers at home (we don’t have a printer for example) so £10-20 in a year could be vital.
School budgets are shocking for the services that a school provides. The building maintenance etc, heating, water, electric, insurance, staffing costs, departmental budgets (which inevitably go over!)

I’m a governer for a successful school but even so, next year projected budgets are in the negative for the first time ever. We have no choice but to now ask for a contribution of £100 from each student in September.

By the way we built new buildings last year worth £700,000 but these came from grants so some of the ‘tarting up’ of schools come from grants and specialist funding applications and not directly from yearly budgets.

MigGril many schools are part of academy chains now because the government encourages this by paying more per pupil if the academy has 5 or more institutions and over 3000 students.

I do not like academy chains either. But financially they are more valuable than going alone.

The photocopy credit is probably the printing credit. Everything they print out in lessons they pay for. We give ours £5 a year and students top
up after that.

Migril

How would you like it out your kids never did any practical science or food tech or D T, these subjects all require quite a lot of consumable items to run.

My children were very academic, admittedly they loved science; but hated art, DT, woodwork, food tech, materials tech (or whatever they call sewing these days) etc - the bane of their school lives and our's. Both were much happier, when they got to Y10 and could drop all those subjects! DD must have shed her own personal lake of tears over these subjects, which she just could not do and felt a complete failure in them! (Such as when she mucked up the threads in the interlocker!)

ITA with PP that when parents' income is standing still, and they are already facing price rises on things like council tax, fares (on commuter trains in the SE anyway), etc, then its unfair of schools to pass their financial problems onto the hard pressed parents.

So far ive had to pay 30 for a team building trip and if we want it 20 pound for a locker and 10 for a bike locker. Undecided on those at moment.

Sounds fairly cheap compared to Every one else though.

Although said school have gone down the online supplier route so what we save in costs not covering overheads in a shop we loose in lack.of availability, delivery fees , long waits for refunds and a stupidly slow turn around time...

#schoolshavenoideahowstressfullthiscrapis

Schools are practically looking down the backs of sofas to try and make their budgets balance.

Buildings budgets are different from other budgets - you can’t just swap in and out of one another.

LadysFingers - that sounds just like my oldest DS. Would love to never have to do food tech / art / D&t and counting the days of year 9 until he gives them up. Other son about to start year 7 will probably be the opposite!

I don't quibble about the amounts - I suppose most families won't miss the tenner paid for the art sketchbook but that's a saving of £320 per class to the school which must add up for them.

Sad that it's necessary and I am painfully aware that if it squeezes us then it must be a real issue for other families. You don't have to be on free school meals to be not very well off and struggling.

The problem is that a tenner here and a tenner there can add up, especially if you have more than one child.
Maybe it wouldn't be as 'annoying' if they worded it differently. Such as minimum voluntary contribution. Don't say its vonultary if you're going to make parents feel like they are in the wrong by not paying for whatever reason. Maybe see about doing more fundraisers for school instead or asking everyone to cough up money that they may not be able to afford. When you are told education is free and then are made to pay what is essentially a monthly/term fee, it's easy to see why people get annoyed. Are parents told upfront about all these expenses? It could make a difference in what schools parents can afford to choose.

Yanbu Op. God knows what parents of twins do. I couldn't find that.

We don't have to pay for lockers they are free - we just have to provide a padlock which i got for a fiver on Amazon.

We did get sent a begging direct debit form though with the registration pack after we got her place and a bill for £40 for a bonding day out at an activity centre (which I really wouldn't mind but her primary school did the exact same trip as their leavers day out just 2 weeks ago)!