King Edwards £20 grammar contribution

[Petitpois]

I am deciding whether to pay the £20 request when I top up DD lunch card on parent pay. I am presuming this is common to all the schools.

I have a few questions to more experienced hands than me.

1) In your experience how effective is the £20 at enhancing the life of the school.
2) Is any one able to provide a real example or two, where the money has been used to do something amazing
3) Do the others ie CHB, CHG, KEA place a similar request on their parents.

£20 is still twenty quid and I don't think it is at all compulsory, but I must admit that It seems a bit vague in terms of the way the request is communicated. I get it is meant to help out in general terms. That said my DD is going to the King Edward's foundation service thing in November, so they could probably charge for that and I understand if is being put on completely free e.g. Green bus there and back, so I have kind of answered my own question, but would welcome any other insight.

Just want to maximise the warm philanthropic thoughts regarding what my £20 will actually used for
PP

[kenyancowgirl]

If it's a one off voluntary payment of £20, it sounds fairly reasonable, if they can do something useful with it. Whilst our school's scheme is also voluntary, it is not via ParentPay but through the active setting up of a direct debit monthly, with the suggested amount of £30. Of course you can pay more, less, or not at all and I am sure they would still accept one off donations willingly!

I suppose, ask yourself if you can afford to be philanthropic and make the gesture, knowing that the budgets are tighter and tighter each year.

[SKJ76]

We were asked for a £30 contribution at KEFW, which we have paid. TBH no details were provided regarding its purpose...and being a secondary school newbie DP didn't question it

[helen0209]

We were asked for a £30 contribution at KEFW, which we have paid. TBH no details were provided regarding its purpose...and being a secondary school newbie DP didn't question it

Likewise, HGS was £30, and we just paid it. It was the first week of term, and kind of felt obliged, although there was no pressure. DS travels on the minibus for free each time they have games or a football match, so guess some of it can go towards fuel and maintenance?

[yoyo123]

All schools have suffered funding cuts and money is very tight. We are scrabbling around for whiteboard pens already!

[OldTrout]

Hi Petitpois

Yep CHG have zinged us for £30 - we've been assured it's for supporting our child's education at CHG but no specifics. We will be paying it of course, but we were also a bit surprised.

I do take your point yoyo123 that funding is getting tighter and the review of school funding in England nationally (currently deferred) may mean it gets tighter in Birmingham

However the penny pincher in me is thinking if things are that tight why buy virtually all of year 7 a sweatshirt. Lovely though it was to give one to small fry for free and she loves it...but you probably wouldn't have had to raise y7s contribution if you just offered sweatshirts for the Anglesey trip to parents to purchase.

You could also raise funds with house sweatshirts - why not have a design competition too!

No idea if similar extravagances occur in other years but just an idea for the suggestion box - maybe the y7 sweatshirts aren't essential.

I will say that Papa Trout raises an interesting point - he says it is worth it if we don't have to go to another Christmas or Summer fete.

[Guest2014]

£30 is still a good deal cheaper than sending your child to one of the independent schools.

[OldTrout]

£30 is still a good deal cheaper than sending your child to one of the independent schools.

Indeed and we are paying it.

But..

£30 - ?20 sweatshirt does look to me like £10 (the usual parental contribution)

And if the government does equalise student funding across all of England, Birmingham schools are likely to be losers in the new funding scheme getting less per pupil by several hundred pounds. So yes still cheaper than independent school Guest 2014 but are parents going to be asked to make up a shortfall of £300 - £500 pounds? or more? And logically if state schools can ask for that much what's to stop them asking for more?

So yes Guest2014 I do take your point but by unthinkingly paying this now are we all saying we're o.k. with KE grammars asking for £300 a year contribution or maybe even £3000? I have to say I am more worried about what is next and also concerned that schools seriously think through what they are paying for now (thus my quip about purple sweatshirts to all year 7 for a field trip for example being paid for out of the school budget. Is that the best use of limited school funds? Of taxpayers money? Maybe it's time to review those little extras.)

Of course parents will try and help out and maybe to you £30 - £300 -£3000 is nothing - but at some point along that spectrum it will be a problem for me and other parents I think.

[hermanmunster]

The KE Grammars have always had some funding from the foundation http://www.schoolsofkingedwardvi.co.uk/ ... 013.14.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; maybe the foundation can't give as much as it used to?

[OldTrout]

The KE Grammars have always had some funding from the foundation http://www.schoolsofkingedwardvi.co.uk/ ... 013.14.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; maybe the foundation can't give as much as it used to?

Herman I take your point and maybe I've got this wrong but becoming a MAT was supposed to have meant big savings for the 5 KE grammars freeing up the independent boys and girls schools to fund widening access projects.

So this is a shortfall made by the foundation and possibly by frozen grant to schools by DfE. Going forward I hope the MAT will result in savings through consolidation of resources but I also hope the individual grammar schools will seriously look at non-essential spending (like my y7 sweatshirt example but I'm sure there's more).

It's very old fashioned but when my budget is tight and we've been living with frozen pay for a long spell - we just tighten our belts, make due and mend, skip extravagances and stretch what we do have to make ends meet. I would be reassured if CHGs would indicate what savings have been made (as I'm sure parents at the other KE state grammars would). It would be reassuring to understand they're not just continuing as normal and turning to parents to resolve the financial shortfall.

Perhaps the governors statements at both foundation and individual school level should clearly identify evidence of value for money and/or savings rather than just encourage the schools to be looking for this.