How much money do you spend?

[DiscoNapper]

Just wondering how much of your own money do you spend on resources for your class? And do you begrudge it?

I am moving to a new stage this year - Primary 1 (reception equivalent) and have little appropriate resources. I love making games and spending money on new fun teaching resources (sad I know). I think I must spend around £500ish a year? More at the start of term usually.

Things I begrudge spending money on though are ink cartridges (no colour printing at work), whiteboard pens and other pupil stationery!

$0.

Education is far from perfect here in Victoria, but students bring their own books and equipment. Such a relief not having to think about it, or having to teach a play on a rota because there are only so many books in the stock cupboard.

I probably send similar amount to you £50-£100 per month but I’m in reception and my SLT like lots of themed provision for every topic/interest/whim (but don’t actually provide the budget to fund this!)

Nothing.

Not a ton on resources as such, but I spend a fortune on books.

50p for my pen refills. Why would you pay to do your job?

Probably over £200 a year easily. Up until March I'd bought a box of glue sticks, pencil cases (we don't have our own rooms, so need to carry a full class set of everything with us), colours, highlighters etc. I also buy my own board pens as we are only supplied with black, and an A level chemistry diagram needs some colour!

Since lockdown... I needed a new laptop so another £500. My school one nor my own laptop would run Teams and powerpoint at the same time; just crashed. I also bought my own molymod set (not allowed into school to get any), some playdoh and a whiteboard. I was going to buy a visualiser until I figured out how to use my phone.

I pay for a lot of my resources to reduce time making them /make my life easier and give me more of a work/life balance. So to me...it's worth it ...most of the time.  @MaryBerrysBomberJacket I'm the same, need a bit of colour in my life. I bought a pack of 52 from amazon with different colours just before lockdown!

£0. I don’t earn enough to spend my own money on school supplies and have learned to make do with what we have, however little that may be.

Are all your pretty, expensive things making a difference to the actual learning? And if SLT like certain stuff they should cough up for the appropriate resources. Madness!

No more than £50 a year (and sometimes a lot less) and I begrudge that - I read on a mn thread once that no one would expect a nurse to buy paracetamol for their patients so why do teachers pay for things out of their own pocket? They had a point. If you're happy to spend that amount it's fine, but I think there is a culture of not submitting expenses in schools and actually if you have the brass neck to do it it's hard for them to question. My colleagues all pay out for treats that children get after so many class points, the points and treats being part of the behaviour policy. I just told the office manager I would be submitting my receipt, and it was no issue at all. My colleagues were shocked but why would I pay for something that is school policy?

Probably about £20. I usually buy a big box of pens and pencils from tesco or similar. Plus maybe something like highlighters (got some great, bargain ones in aldi last year).

School do provide some stationary for us to lend to pupils/use in class but it's very limited and our lead technician does not like parting with it!

I know kids should bring their own but sometimes, I'd rather just lend them a pen and get on with the lesson than debate whether or not I should be lending them one.

As little as possible. Might pay for a subscription to a resources website e.g✨ but only if the school don't already subscribe, and will often share it within my KS so split the cost 2 or 3 ways, and always print my resources at school. We also don't use cour printing and tbh I don't care, the kids live to colour them in anyway (Y1) and take ownership over their environment much more too. I don't earn enough to be supplementing the school budget for printing ink, paper, glue sticks and pens or pencils. If we run out during the year - I send the kids to ask the office for replacements as they're more likely to given replenished stationery stock than teachers or support staff!

*colour printint

*colour printing!! Stoopid typos 😂