Costs for DGDs School Books

[Glammanana]

My DD went to school last night to see the progress DGD2 was making in her chosen subjects for her exams next year,she has achieved level 5 in all her subjects and they are saying she can easily get to level 6 before Easter with the help of revision/work books that can be bought via the school now we all want the best help for our DGCs don't we and after speaking to the year head DD was convinced she would do well with the help from these books,then the bombshell they are £6 each and she will need 15 books in total so DD would be billed £190.00 approx she is a single mum and copes very well but this is just another bill for her to find,during the conversation another Year Head informed DD that he would make an appointment to see the Burser as there was ample funds in the school funds to pay for them a thing the first Year Head never mentioned when first speaking to my DD,it also turned out that we could have applied for bursery to wards her French trip last year but we paid for her to go,you would think the school would inform parents of this wouldn't you as there must have been many other parents not aware of this when they where at school last night.

[Gemini]

That's an awful lot of money for parents to find for books Glamma.
I agree, parents should be made aware of the help available in the form of bursarys etc.

[Shemadee]

Shocking that less affluent families are being cheated like this. I can remember holidays being organised but knew it was pointless to ask if I could go. Even worse after the trip when the conversations were all about what had happened in France - mainly who had "pulled" etc.

[Oma]

There is a school near us that the parents set up a book exchange , each start of term everyone hands in books the no longer need and parents go along and pay 50p a book and all the money they collect goes to charity
Another lady has set up a school uniform exchange , she was sick of throwing good uniforms away and the cost so in the holidays she takes donations from people makes sure they are all cleaned and pressed and them parents can go along and choose what they need , she does all this unpaid and again money is donated , the letters of praise in the local paper from parents who struggled to get what they needed for their children is immense ,
School should tell parents about these Bursary's and other help its hard enough without the cost of books ,

[Nana]

Good grief, that is a lot of money for books. My DD1's school has the uniform exchange thing too. Such a brilliant thing to offer. Everything is so expensive now.

[Nanto2girls]

Glamma, i was going to suggest something like a book exchange.

There are several schools in our area,where uniforms are donated, and parents just pay a nominal charge to buy them.
I can't understand why parents weren't told about the bursary.

[Daisy]

I wonder if the bursaries are mentioned in the school's Prospectus (it will be online)? It always pays to read through these documents, no matter how boring they may seem. The first Year Head your DD spoke to should have known about them, but perhaps s/he didn't.

I don't know if your GD is entitled to free school meals, but that's an indicator to a Year Head that help might be needed in other ways. And I think the school gets a pupil premium for those eligible for free meals.

The difficulty with bursaries or 'welfare-type' funds is that you need to make sure they go to those who really need it. Some greedy, grabbing people are very adept at making out a case for things they could afford to pay for themselves, and they spoil it for the really deserving pupils like Glamm's GD.

I think the uniform exchange idea is brilliant! I would go further and say that for any school in the State sector there should be a price cap on any uniform item. The comp my DSs still has an unusual colour jumper which can only be obtained from the designated shop - at whatever price they chose to charge for it!

[Glammanana]

Daisy you have solved a problem in your second paragraph when you mention a premium pupil as Head of Year did say that my DGD was a premium pupil and so was her brother who is in the year below I am not too sure if they have free school meals but I would expect with DDs income they would be entitled,the thing is maybe DGCs are embaressed to use the token system that they have in operation at the school (I can imagine what peer pressure is like at that age).I will speak to DD to-morrow about it.We also have a really good uniform exchange operating here in most of the schools the parents are so grateful for it and all the work that the ladies put into the programme.