Ideas to raise funds for CHG

[OldTrout]

Dear all

Apparently Mrs Johnson has 'made every savings possible' and has had no choice but to ask parents at Camp Hill Girls to contribute £30 each to the school fund. (I paraphrase her letter to parents regarding trebling of school fund fee).

We've had a discussion about this at KE Foundation grammars and outside the region here: http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/forum/ ... 2&start=20

I thought I would appeal for ideas for Mrs Johnson's (HT at CHG) suggestion box on raising school funds. I would like other parents on the forum who have daughters at CHG or parents at other KE Foundation grammars to contribute suggestions.

I'm happy for parents outside Birmingham area to make suggestions but please bear in mind our median income is about 1/2 of Buckinghamshire's or Stratford (for example). I really am looking for people who know the school and are aware of things that aren't strictly essential to our children's education which could be cut.

Thanks. OT

[OldTrout]

My suggestions:

Drop giving most of y7 free Anglesey Trip sweatshirts. Consider selling to children as a fund raiser. ca 125 sweatshirts at say £20 a piece cost CHG £2500. Now I accept maybe they didn't cost that much, but why not sell them to children slightly marked up and direct the profit toward school fund.

Drop printed invitations to fundraisers. Go paperless with automated rsvp. No cost (paper, envelope or postage) and you can incorporate more information (plans, photos, kids art work, etc...). You've got our e-mails

Consider purchasing in bulk - presents a storage problem for bulky items, but could constitute real savings on things like workbooks, badges, etc....

Consider fund raising schemes like artwork projects - cards or selling framed art (and high quality copies) to parents/ doting grandparents.

Consider not giving everyone their house badge day 1 - maybe they have to earn it after so many house points. Consider house fundraising to cover expenses like badges - again maybe selling things in house colours like a sweatshirt with the house logo.

Old fashioned things like photocopying 2A4 sheets onto one A4 and using both sides

KS3 is odd because kids are used to giving teachers gifts and like to. I know my elder daughter found it strange not to give presents when she moved up to secondary. Could we contribute low cost essentials - whiteboard pens, post its, blue tac?

Could parents contribute to tea/ coffee, etc...at events?

Could y7, for example, donate a £1 each for film night?

[solimum]

Not trying to be nit-picky but remember some of those ideas have additional admin costs (especially any item where parents have to be chased for payment....). There may be good psychological bonding reasons why the school prefers all Yr7 to have the same hoodie, not just those whose parents can afford to pay. But at a later stage leavers hoodies etc are an area where the pupils themselves can do much of the organisation!

For what it's worth a school fund contribution was pretty standard for all my three DC's time at school (Infants, Juniors, Comp, CHB sixth form -not sure actually) and £30 a year (or a term) even 20 years ago would not have been exceptional. Mind you, Solihull MBC did and presumably still does get far less per pupil from the government on average than its much larger neighbour due to the deprivation factors in the old funding formula - (once my specialist subject!) - so parents are used to having to pick up the slack. Look at the difference in services such as the Music Service - there was always an additional charge to participate in Solihull's ensembles (as far as I can recall) whereas the Birmingham groups were free.

I guess (from our CHB experience 8-10 years ago where DS had friends at CHG) the parents are an odd mixture of middle-class affluence who are used to paying for extras and might very well have ended up paying massive school fees without the grammar place, with others for whom any additional unbudgeted cost is prohibitive, and plenty in the middle. Plus the disadvantage over local comps that many of the more well-off families live at a distance meaning perhaps less involvement in potentially lucrative afterschool/weekend fundraising events.

The only substantial ways of cutting costs really are in reducing staff (which will often be the unnoticed support staff) - or constantly replacing experienced staff with newbies (a tactic seemingly adopted rather too much by an infant school I once knew). Parents who have spent oodles of their time and money dedicated to achieving a place at a prestigious grammar should perhaps not begrudge this additional small charge.

Edited: looking at the other thread I see CHG is now an academy, and obviously there are other gripes and potential savings to be made. I must agree to being equally annoyed when my DC's school started producing much glossier brochures etc (although my DD's picture ended up in full colour on one of them). However they also paid for some/much of this using corporate sponsorship from local businesses who wanted the chance to improve their image with local parents.

Also there ARE "superheads" raking in huge salaries elsewhere in the state sector, often for a couple of shiny years before being discovered to have been working some sort of nepotistic racket. But actually it is a nightmare job balancing the needs of all the various "stakeholders". Some interesting research was recently published about the personality/management types of head - see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-37717211" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Anyway that's enough from me! I guess all schools have frustrations

[OldTrout]

Solimum

All KE Foundation grammars opted out of Birmingham music services in 1994 when
Birmingham Music Services was split from the city council. Some kids remain in central ensembles which are technically open to all Birmingham children by audition.

B'ham Music services is now a privately funded initiative and does provide instruments free of charge and all sorts of ensemble opportunities (again free of charge) to Birmingham pupils. My understanding is schools can opt in for as much or as little instrumental tuition as they wish and each school resolves what parents can contribute toward £44 an hour instrumental tuition fee currently charged. Most lessons are 10 minutes and most beginners are taught in small groups. Not sure if KE grammars are not allowed to opt for Birmingham music services or not - that bit isn't clear.

At CHG they have some instruments (they were allowed to keep what instruments they had in 1994) but my experience is that y7 are encouraged to supply their own instruments and there are wait lists for lessons in school. We've had to purchase small fry's instrument (not as expensive as others) and go private - now this is a personal decision because small fry is jolly good at her instrument and it is 'her thing' but I'm now spending an unplanned £2000 this year. The alternative was quitting entirely - which we know 4 of small fry's classmates have done. Now we've bought small fry's instrument that expense won't fall to us again but lessons and grade exams will progressively become more expensive.

So as far as I can work out instrumental music at CHG is largely for those who are taught privately and own their own instruments. As far as I'm aware they aren't raising funds for musical instruments and aren't prioritising access to what instruments they have in any transparent way (e.g. Nothing sent to parents/ nothing on website). Although the website assures parents Music is "generously funded" at CHG.

I do take your point that there are administrative costs to some of this. But if sweatshirts are entirely optional - it can just be included in the reams of paper we parents filled in for the trip (which we also paid for so that can be consolidated costs administratively) - and parents can either opt in (instead of £160 for the trip charge £180 or whatever) or not. Sure it's setting up two sets of fees on parent-pay instead of one - but I suspect it's worth the extra 30 minutes (I'm being generous as I strongly suspect it's more like 10 minutes) admin time.

Not rocket science - just focusing on what is essential.

If you have actual suggestions on how to raise funds though - please please post them here.

[OldTrout]

Oh just had another thought

CHG have already made a slick video of the Anglesey trip - why not sell DVDs of the trip to parents (in the same way our primary sold DVDs of Christmas production, Y6 play, etc.... at £5 a pop).

[OldTrout]

Solimum

Just to add - we didn't tutor small fry and it is well documented here for her and her elder sister. Elder sister (little fish) didn't do quite enough so it was the local non-selective for her. Personally, our budget for DIY was £50. We had many hand-me-down bond books, etc... I spent hours erasing answers out of and went to open evenings by bus. I bought two Cloze books and some CEM style practise tests because we knew our hand me downs were out of date.

Not every child at CHG is from a well off family who spent thousands on tutors nor pupil premium. Some of us are just over that FSM threshold and genuinely struggling. At £90,000+ a year I don't just hope a head teacher is looking for savings - I EXPECT it and would appreciate it being made visible in governor's accounts or school newsletter.

Yes, I personally don't want anyone to loose their job but as an academy they don't have to give increments and can freeze pay (maybe for senior management) to make ends meet. That's what has happened outside of the education sector. Some of us collectively agreed to work less hours/ earn less to keep our jobs.

As DH put it if every member of staff were being asked for £30 would they be more interested in questioning some of the extravagant spending we've already witnessed on 7 weeks at the school in just y7.

[kenyancowgirl]

Unless your school gets their sweatshirts from Superdry or somewhere equivalent, they are unlikely to cost more than £5 each, all logo'd up. We got some done for a fundraising event - but only small numbers,(around 20 sweatshirts) so bear in mind that the logoing costs for us would be much higher per unit than for CHG at 125 units per year, and once you have paid for the logo design etc, there is hardly any ongoing cost for printing.

Possibly not every parent has access to computers/emails...as you say, CHG covers areas of high deprivation, so whilst you may have email/computers, perhaps they want to attract those who don't via their brochures etc. A saving would be if they, like Stratford, invest in glossy cardboard folders (ours are funded by one of the PTAs, I believe) and then all the information inside is just on normal photocopy paper. The folder stays the same but the inserts can be changed relatively cheaply to reflect any annual changes.

Your ideas for selling house sweatshirts etc, whilst having some merit, would probably end up costing individual parents more per child and would, as someone else pointed out, definitely exclude those children of poorer families. Our school does cards and calendars which have an initial outlay but then make some money back but, they do rely on the same families - albeit doting grandparents may buy as well - (who may be unwilling to pay the £30 voluntary fund) to pay for them...

One of the PTAs provides refreshments at "invitation" evenings (Standard's Evenings etc) so that is effectively out of the voluntary contributions, but wine etc are sold at Music evenings/drama productions to help raise funds. Usually there is a nominal charge to go and watch these, for adults, but U18s go free. Perhaps they could do something like that?

If they start freezing salaries, then staff will vote with their feet - there are a huge number of good schools in a relatively small geographical area, so good staff will happily upsticks and commute a bit further to increase money/responsibility. The school has to be competitive in the economic market to attract the teachers that get the results otherwise the school will start to go down/vicious circle the other way.

Do remember though, that any fund like this is completely voluntary, if you can't pay, don't pay.

[Guest55]

I'm happy for parents outside Birmingham area to make suggestions but please bear in mind our median income is about 1/2 of Buckinghamshire's

Do remember that south Bucks is commuter territory - this is just not true elsewhere in Bucks - there is a considerable amount of rural poverty.

Surely the cost of the Y7 sweatrshirts is factored in to the cost of the trip?

Look at other school websites for ideas - different areas will have different sets of parents. What works locally for churches and other charities etc?

Academies have found there are lots of hidden expenses that the LA used to cover. For example, in Bucks the Grammars now have to cover the cost of the Transfer Test ...

[OldTrout]

Thanks Kenyacowgirl

Really like the calendar idea - as they do a planner anyway with things like term dates and training days in there which our daughter has to carry with her, a calendar at home (perhaps with student artwork/ photos) would help out and most parents buy a wall calendar anyway each year.

I was suggesting pay freeze for senior management as I expect their salaries have recently experienced substantial increases (well exceeding state sector limits/ increase with inflation) when they converted to an academy. It's not ideal but grammars due carry significantly higher wage bills than non-selective schools precisely because many staff are long serving. And part of that is that teaching in a grammar context is a nice option - hard working, high achieving, well behaved kids are nice to teach.

Also just looking at CHG accounts big loss in profit between 2014 and 2015 (around 140,000). Hope governors are interrogating that. How much of that is staff wage increases? How much of that is optional extras? Did they go into 2016 financial year (ending Aug 31st- statutory accounts not yet on website for 2016) with big salary expenses not anticipating KE Foundation would substantially reduce grant?
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By the way no advertising on CHG prospectus so there is scope to consider doing that to defray costs for glossy prospectus.

[OldTrout]

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Surely the cost of the Y7 sweatrshirts is factored in to the cost of the trip ...

That would be against the law - legislation is quite clear that on school excursions only the precise charge for transport and accommodation (including food) can be passed on to parents.

Sweatshirt was given free of charge by school who made huge song and dance to girls about their generous gift.

Nope they didn't but could charge parents for sweatshirts and I do,take the point Kenya cowgirl that it may only cost £5 to CHG to make the sweatshirt (retail at t-shirts to go was £20 a pop from recent quote I had for work related request for 100 logo sweatshirts with us providing artwork - and this was the shop just at bottom of Carlisle Rd & Pershore near CHG).

So let's just say 100 parents buy £20 sweatshirts at £15 profit toward school fund - that's £1500 Pounds profit + (using your figures Kenyan) ca. 125 x £5 = £625 savings. Netting £2125 profit to CHG and reducing school fund target of £20,700 by a neat 10%.

Now if all 7 years at CHG found 10% saving on non-essential extras - that 70% of that 20,700 target. Sell calendars and a few bake sales and the gap is filled.