PTA Lite?

[smogsville]

Is such a thing possible?

Received wisdom seems to be that PTAs at secondary are hard/ impossible to run.

Ours is on the brink of needing to shut up shop/ become dormant as we can't get enough parents to sign up and take anything on.

No one wants to take on the Chair's role when she steps down at end of this academic year after a number of years, or the Treasurer's.

I fully understand the reluctance. I have a role that I share with a friend which makes it manageable but neither of us have the appetite for more responsibility ie the step up to Chair.

This may be a ridiculous question, but do we need a Chair and a Treasurer in order to operate as a PTA? Our current Chair is big on rules and regs and while I respect that if it’s necessary I also think it’s not been an effective recruiting strategy.

The money raised is buying much-needed tech and other essentials for our school that teachers are saying is making a tangible difference so it just seems such a shame not to be able to reshape the PTA to make joining seem less onerous.

But can this be done - or do we need people in those leadership roles in order to be compliant with charity commission rules? This is the sort of thing our current Chair says and if she’s right fair enough but it doesn’t encourage participation.

Would appreciate any views of experience anyone’s had of increasing parent participation at secondary level.

Thanks in advance.

I wonder if the Parentkind org might help? I know they publish a magazine for PTAs.

Looks like they have some useful resources too: www.parentkind.org.uk/for-ptas

I think you really should have a separate chair and treasurer. Or Co chairs and co treasurers to share the load.
You can do things quite light though.

Thank you both!

The secondary pta I was a part of had one meeting per term, and only ran 1 quiz a year plus refreshments at concerts, parents evenings etc, so didn't take much effort.

To make things easier you can have a Friends of … school name.
You don’t need a Chair etc

The main difference is you don’t have your own money so the cash from events etc just goes to the school but applies in the same way when buying things. So with our school, when we need to order stuff for a Xmas fair, we do it in the school business managers office and she orders it for us.

It’s much easier and no need to register as a committee and people can dip in and out.

Actually now that I think about it, that's the way our school does it too. We have a chair, and if you're a class rep you're automatically on the committee which means we have a spread of all year groups represented. Any money we raise goes into the school bank account so we don't have a treasurer or handle any money ourselves.

Sounds very much like our pta. Co chairs to spread the load. Meetings done once or twice a term and the rest by what's app etc We take on limited events and only what we can cope with. As much passive income as we can earn. Check your constitution on committee membership.

Whether you can operate without a chair or treasurer depends on what your constitution says. Your constitution should also say whether there are a minimum number of committee members or not and the minimum number of people required for the AGM (typically 2 or 3 times the number of committee members).
If you are a registered charity and cannot find your constitution, you should be able to get a copy from the Charity Commission.

Thanks everyone for these comments. Yes I think we are the kind that has to have three trustees at all times. Our current chair has put a lot into the PTA so I don’t want to be critical but it’s v much her way or the high way which seems not to be helping to generate interest among a broader group of parents which ultimately is what’s needed. I’ll have a think about these different approaches and see what might be possible. Thank you again, much appreciated.

Yup it’s much easier having a Friends Of! And means no one is lumped with a job they don’t want or feels bad leaving. It’s definitely more simple than a PTA.