School trips and non- uniform days demands

Plunger

Not only do donations on non uniform days cause financial problems but also the problem of not having the latest ' in' designer gear for parents who can't afford it and or have more than one child. Trainers costing £100 or more. Children who don't have them are humiliated and bullied. My son was one who was desperate to have the ' correct' trainers. We were fortunate to get a pair from a shop closing down for half price. He hugged his Daddy and cried. No child should be in that position. He was 12 at the time.

You are absolutely right that no child (or parent, for that matter) should be in that position. Your post has made me well up.

I don't know how (as a society) we can stop children being judged on clothes and possessions. It's bad enough when adults do it to one another, but children are unable to do anything about it until they have money of their own. It's not a new thing either - it started back in the 70s if not before. I remember being mocked because my mother insisted I wear full (and old-fashioned) uniform as per the list that was sent out in the last year of primary school. The reality was that most people adapted the rules, and some children were quite fashionable whilst wearing school colours. The teachers didn't apply the rules consistently - maybe because they knew that not everyone could afford a separate set of clothes for school, so let them wear a black mini skirt instead of the dark grey knee-length regulation one I had. My mum had bought a grey duffle coat with 'growing room' too, and I had to wear it for years, along with Clarks school shoes whilst other girls had fashionable coats and shoes from Sacha. I can still remember how horrible it was. Left to me I would have happily left the uniform at home and worn the things that made me fit in, but my mum wouldn't hear of it. As an adult I can understand that having paid for the uniform she wouldn't want it to go to waste, but I do think that there should have been consistency from the school, as it looked as though I was choosing to be a 'dork', and the mocking was relentless.

On school premises I think that whether there is a uniform policy or not, the rules should be applied to everyone, with sensitivity to all concerned (a tall order, I know!). Out of school it's more difficult. When my children were young the fashion was for 'skater' clothes which were very expensive. I can't remember the brands now (Quicksilver?), but because of my experiences I made sure that they always had the clothes that they needed to fit in. Obviously that was contributing to the problems of others, and I don't feel good about that. I did make sure that they knew better than to look down on kids who didn't have them though, for what that's worth.

I worked as a school administrator until I retired just over 10 years ago. Unless things have changed since then one of the Education Acts states that no child can be excluded from a school trip that takes part mainly in the school day because they have not paid any money. Schools are meant to ask for voluntary contributions to cover the cost of the trip which is x amount for each child and to say that if not enough money is collected to cover the cost of the trip it will not take place. It also stated that children who were entitled to a free school meal should be provided with a free packed lunch. This information should be in the school handbook or prospectus. it must be assumed then that schools either have to cancel trips in school time if not enough money is collected or rely on the school’s “private’ funds ( money raised by school fairs, donations from PTA etc) to cover the shortfall. Please correct me if things have changed but to my knowledge they havrn’t.

4allweknow

Earlier my DS told me about tge Halloween celebrations being held at GDs primary school. Party, fancy dress contribution to snacks. I did comment I thought with the COL crisis there would be no fancy dress expectation as a lit of people had limited budgets. Now its the Christmas collections for charity, concerts and party afternoon. Yes, children shoukd be given a special time to celebrate events but the dressing up doesn't need to be part of it. Surely children can party at school in their normal clothes. Do teachers actually know about a lot of their pupils' circumstances or are the rumours about teachers being underpaid and struggling just not true that they don't realise.

I think teachers are among the most aware of the needs of their pupils and their families. I suspect that you have never been a teacher or worked in a school. Otherwise you would know about the many teachers and classroom assistants who clothe and feed children from their own pockets. It is a teacher who started the funding of beds and mattresses for families without. Charity days are expected by OFSTED as part of citizenship and we always try to handle these sensitively. Carefully chosen presents and cards for the class at Christmas, Easter and in the summer do not come from some magic money tree. Staff fund these as well as extra equipment. State schools are not allowed to be run with a deficit budget, yet OFSTED and the DFE make ever more ridiculous demands. Do not blame the teachers blame 12 years of Tory misrule.

Not only do donations on non uniform days cause financial problems but also the problem of not having the latest ' in' designer gear for parents who can't afford it and or have more than one child. Trainers costing £100 or more. Children who don't have them are humiliated and bullied. My son was one who was desperate to have the ' correct' trainers. We were fortunate to get a pair from a shop closing down for half price. He hugged his Daddy and cried. No child should be in that position. He was 12 at the time.

The only time there was ever an official uniform relaxation at my school was during the 1972 miners' strike. There was no charge, just permission to wrap up warm as the school had no heating. This was in my penultimate term of my final year at school. Of course, as with school uniforms since forever, it was a matter of honour to subvert it.

I don't mind schools having charity fundraising schemes, but I'm queasy about the idea of pupils being asked to bring in cash. What happened to sponsored activities? My secondary school had an annual sponsored walk, which even the non-sporty could take part in, and the pupils chose the charity by ballot each year.

Of course, my school still had the annual ritual humiliation of poor kids called the Ski Trip, which they weren't able to go on.

I hated fund raising because I was from a single parent family and my mum had very little spare cash.
We were supposed to collect for the 'Black Babies', which I thought was wrong to try to bring these children to 'The Faith' so I never went home and asked for money for that.
One time the school was having a fair and asked for something for the Bottle stall. I brought in a bottle of shampoo, which was more than my mum could really afford.
It was put to the side while lavish praise was given to a girl (from a wealthy family) who had brought in a bottle of champagne.
I wanted to remind my teachers of the Widow's Mite but didn't have the courage

The only charitable contribution I remember being asked for at primary school (late 50's) was a donation to Dr Barnardo's at Christmas. My Mum never gave a donation.

What I also recall was being invited to school friends birthday parties and my Mum telling me to refuse. She probably couldn't afford it, but it was also about her not wanting to reciprocate by doing a party for me. She hated parties. I got a lot of criticism from other kids (and a few parents) because of it. So I've never had a birthday party.

At secondary school there were demands for cookery ingredients, materials & patterns for Sewing & Needlework, school trips, Harvest Festival, and Christmas food parcels for the elderly. Mum nearly always refused to give anything. I never went on any school trips, and although our cookery teacher grudgingly supplied me with ingredients for lessons she complained about it every week. Mum's attitude was 'education is supposed to be free, if they want to teach these things they should provide whatever's required'.

My Mum never attended any open days, parents evenings, school plays, Prize Giving or sports days. All things that she considered unnecessary. I soon learned not to bother taking the letters home. I remember one teacher handing out letters about a school event, when he got to me he said loudly 'Utter waste of time giving you this isn't it' and walked on. I knew he was right but it was still embarrassing.

Our grandchildren seem to be inundated with requests for donations, subscriptions and sponsorship for things. And of course Non-uniform days, World Book Days etc. Though if it involves dressing up they usually make their own costumes rather than buy them. But I was a bit miffed when I paid for my GD to go on an overseas trip as part of her coursework. The trip was cancelled because of the pandemic but the money was not returned to the parents, it was just 'absorbed' into school funds. A lot of parents would have struggled to pay for that trip and they should have been reimbursed.

I don’t remember anything like that in my private schools in the 1930s

Earlier my DS told me about tge Halloween celebrations being held at GDs primary school. Party, fancy dress contribution to snacks. I did comment I thought with the COL crisis there would be no fancy dress expectation as a lit of people had limited budgets. Now its the Christmas collections for charity, concerts and party afternoon. Yes, children shoukd be given a special time to celebrate events but the dressing up doesn't need to be part of it. Surely children can party at school in their normal clothes. Do teachers actually know about a lot of their pupils' circumstances or are the rumours about teachers being underpaid and struggling just not true that they don't realise.

The state run schools in Denmark are not allowed to ask children or their parents to give to charity.

Formerly, private schools often did support one or more charities and encouraged children to donate, but most no longer do so, as it became increasingly difficult to ascertain whether it was actually legal to ask children to give money to causes.

Parents generally demanded (quite rightly) a say in which charities they were prepared to support, and the schools themselves became increasingly aware that many parents who chose to send their child to a private school are actually far from wealthy and may be struggling to find the money for the fees, so "hidden" charges like these are now frowned upon.

From my own school-days in Scotland, I remember the agony of being the only child in the class not allowed to donate to a certain charity, because my father was bitterly opposed to the way it was run.

As a teacher I have told older children about charitable organisations and the work they do, but impressed upon them that whether they give to charity or not is their parents' affair until they reach their majority.

I feel strongly that schools neither can nor should judge what extra expenditure their pupils' parents can afford or want to have.

Welshwife

When I was at school - immediately after the war- the nit nurse was a regular visitor. Some poor souls had to attend the clinic soon after and came back with shaven heads and gentian violet also on any scratches etc. Gentian violet seemed to be an everyday cure for all sorts of skin ailments.

Nitty Nora the Head explorer. Some children hated it. She was dreaded especially when she sent the staff home with ointment that made your hair all greasy.
DH and friends once put their feet in a wasps nest and were chased all the way home. He says they were dabbed on every sting with gentian violet,

I remember Sunny Smiles and getting told off in SUNDAY SCHOOL for not selling them all
I've never forgotten it or that awful woman who shouted at me- called herself a Christian too!

Norah
Ours do school lessons in school and have time together, at meals and after, for family. As it should be, really.
We’re between a rock and a hard place.
X% of parents don’t want homework, Y% want more homework, Z% just accept it. X and Y both complained to OFSTED.
The expectation that children read with their parent/carer is the only one I really support. It makes such a difference to the progress of the majority of children, though whether that’s just the support for reading or also the chance to have 1-1 attention hasn’t been analysed.

Witzend

Chardy

nanna8

What about school fetes? They seem to raise a lot of money and people love the home baked things.Better than asking for donations all the time and the kids serve the goods and they seem to love it.

There are all kinds of rules now about selling things that have been made in a home-kitchen.

Last year I made (after requests) 4 dozen mince pies and 8 litres of tomato and roasted red pepper soup for Gdcs’ school Christmas fair. Nobody said anything about breaking rules.🤔

Gracious. I cook treats for the children's school Christmas fair frequently. I've never heard of any rules about home-kitchen foods.

Apart from family from advance eating the treats, no problems.

Many of my husband's suppliers donate, tax benefit to them. And lovely vouchers "Three Blackbirds" always positive! Would be a shame if Christmas fairs, which children enjoy, weren't at hand any longer.

I remember the sunny smiles when I was in school, going around the neighbours who would look for the prettiest in the book, thank goodness they stopped doing them.
I look after my two grandchildren quite a bit who are in the same school and they often come home with raffle tickets, sponsor forms etc and it comes pretty pricy when you have to buy them all as I wouldn’t dream of letting them knock on doors.

My mother was a cookery teacher in a school in a Northern town long before the fashion for 'non-uniform' days etc but was very aware of the difficulties parents faced providing ingredients for lessons. She knew of one family who were really struggling, made particularly difficult by cookery being timetabled on Thursday, the day before 'pay day'. As a result she used to buy the ingredients for the girls in the family. They always brought the money to her on the following Monday and none of their classmates were aware.
Years later when 'Friends reunited' was around I was contacted by their brother who had been friend with my brother at school. He wanted to know how my mum was as he remembered her kindness to his sisters! Teachers can make a huge difference to kids in families who are struggling and need to be more aware. As the cost of living crisis deepens there will be families struggling who once would have been considered comfortably off. As schools struggle to fund the everyday requirements of schools I sincerely hope they won't add to the pressures on such families by frivolous fundraising, however necessary it may seem.

That’s good to hear, Marydoll. I was wondering if things had changed since I retired. A Christmas Fair wouldn’t be the same without the mince pies and guess the weight of the cake (half a ton came close in some cases ).

From the foods Standards Agency.

You do not need a food hygiene certificate to make and sell food for charity events. However, you need to make sure that you handle food safely.

Yes, drove me nuts..I used to fake the names and give the money I could barely afford..

My daughter’s just left primary school and there were maybe one charity £1 in exchange for wearing own clothes days a term. Then own clothes and bring a bottle or chocolate for the school fair day. Nothing too excessive really. There was a bake day for Children in Need recently. There’s a Christmas raffle. Whereas in secondary, within a few weeks we had to buy a laptop, a pinny, then there was the school trip - it was quite overwhelming especially with putting money on the system for school lunch - thankfully she decided she preferred packed lunch! They’ve had a school fair but the stall holders paid for their stalls and now there are some raffle tickets. But my main bugbear is the cost of the school
Bus, which I know is nothing to do with school.

Chardy

nanna8

What about school fetes? They seem to raise a lot of money and people love the home baked things.Better than asking for donations all the time and the kids serve the goods and they seem to love it.

There are all kinds of rules now about selling things that have been made in a home-kitchen.

Last year I made (after requests) 4 dozen mince pies and 8 litres of tomato and roasted red pepper soup for Gdcs’ school Christmas fair. Nobody said anything about breaking rules.🤔

Schoolchildren should not be used to collect charitable donations and schools should not be a vehicle for such outrageous collecting. If schools need to fundraise because the Tories underfund them then they should do so directly to parents or the public, not via pupils.

My daughter and DIL complain about the dressing up days, such as world book day. Most of the children buy an outfit for the day, and they have to pay for the priviledge of not wearing uniform on this and various other days, including Mufti day when they wear their own clothes.
Such a waste of money, particularly the dressing up clothes.

I think that the Smile booklets were for Sunshine children's homes. We used to get them from Sunday school and I've always hated asking people for money so found it very hard to sell the individual pages which is what we were meant to do.

Saggi

Iam64….. my granddaughter is 10 and refuses to do homework . Nothing has ever happened to her ….and she is well I. Advance of her age in all subjects. Her dad is a teacher of special needs kids and her mum is a child psychologist …both agreed early on that homework is an ‘anachronism of which we should be rid’ so they personally rid it from their kids lives! Home is family time NOT for catching up on what teacher failed to get across in class time!

Ours do school lessons in school and have time together, at meals and after, for family. As it should be, really.