I have a weird question/vent/just being petty.
My grade two child had 8 white board markers on his booklist. All good - purchased them. But now when I think about it, with 24 kids in his class and each bringing 8 whiteboard markers each = 192 markers!! Surely each child won’t go through that many markers? I also have a grade 5 child and I know at the end of the year, we don’t get this stuff back. I mean we get useless drabs out of their pencil case.
I feel we are over buying for the sake of it. Last year my child bought home 3 unused scrapbooks but can’t use them this year as they have asked for visual arts diaries. Anyway, rant over
26 Replies
They absolutely do. Whiteboard markers dry out fairly quickly. Especially with children using them for 30 minutes at a time. That's a lot of time without the lid on.
They do run out. Kids are hard on them and those markers don't last very long.
The extra scrap books etc. are because they don't know how many they'll need & getting more from parents during the year is a pain. I get more annoyed at the expensive maths & English workbooks that they barely use!
I do agree some supplies are OTT. My kids are being asked to supply three boxes of tissues each. 25 kids per class...
Possibly because my kids go to a state school with no fees it doesn't bother me as much.
I know I’ll probably cop a lot of c*ap over saying this but, the extra stuff goes to the kids whose parents didn’t get them school supplies. Last year, when my child was only in grade 2, on the list was 48 led pencils plus other ridiculous amounts of stationery that didn’t make sense. Found out later that it’s diviyed out to kids who don’t have anything/less. Basically we have to fork out for the useless parents. I said what I said!
So you are upset that children in need are supported in their education by resources being shared? Any extra that might be available is substantially inadequate at supporting disadvantaged children because there is minimal surplus in reality. That's why there are lots of donation boxes, collections etc occuring nationally at this time of year to help. If my kid isn't as pedantic with sharpening and goes through less pencils I hope it's shared.
Been happening for years but its mostly for the younger years. I never sent my kids with more stationary than what fits in their pencil case and they would have to ask me when they had run out of something.
No that’s not factored in. Children in need are supplied by parent contacts to ask them to provide, and the chaplain provides for a lot of low SE families, and then the teacher provides out of their own pocket.
Supplied for a lot of the unsavories might I add! You know the ones who are so “underprivileged” at school but are breaking into your house at night and stealing your car!
Well I would call children breaking into homes as underprivileged because kids from good homes aren't doing that. The first sign is no school stuff, their parents don't care about them and they act accordingly.
How sad. If no-one helps them, how can they possibly have a chance of breaking the cycle
We have meetings to decide what goes on the booklist, if there was heaps left over, it wouldn’t be on the list again this year. Trust me, we go through that. As well as the teacher /students on the boards constantly, in small groups, in games, in posters, students use whiteboard markers as a whole class individually, they destroy them and smash through them.
Teacher here
This is what school fees are meant to cover. Parents are not obligated to supply the school with these things, especially if you can't afford it.
Yes it's helpful, but you shouldn't have to go broke supplying things like this.
This is why I like the system we have in Tassie.
Our public schools charge a yearly levy fee, usually varying from somewhere between $200 to $800 depending on the child's grade ($200 being like kindy/prep. $800 being more like final years of high school).
The government subsidises this fee for low income families as well.
This fee covers literally everything - it covers each individual student's stationery, notebooks, excursions, learn to swim programs, classroom resources, miscellaneous expenses such as grade 6 leavers tops and end of year celebrations. The schools also provide all the necessary equipment on the first day, so I have never had to run around in the school holidays shopping for whiteboard markers and the correct type of exercise book.
That is brilliant, get it all out of the way in one hit and not have to worry about it all year!
I would LOVE this!!! I don't run around as I use the school supplier (who is almost as cheap). I do hate labelling it & my daughter wanting specific things her friends have.
Also hate the constant forms & payments for everything & making sure you don't miss them, or forget. Forms are still paper to be returned & payments manually made. The school lost one a couple of years ago & my son almost missed out on an excursion (thankfully teacher contacted me). It's so cumbersome.
We're sending our son private for high school next year & one big requirement is that the school has all inclusive fees. We have to send him with a few pens etc. but otherwise everything else is included (including laptop, camps, etc.). So. Much. Easier.
I'm in Qld and the most expensive booklist I've had was 120 and that's with the booklist including tissues and all of the stuff noted above.
Tassie sounds way more expensive. Nb... I just bought high school for the first time and spent 300 in total, but I chose more expensive books etc.
Yep I’m in Qld public schools and am happy to pay well under $200 for a booklist and SRS fee and hand it all over to the school to be sorted for the year. Not a high cost at all. High school, on the other hand, ooft!
My kids' booklists aren't expensive & we don't pay fees. Also QLD. Most expensive are the excursions - I just find the whole manual sorting books, form & payment cumbersome & it's easy to miss.
My son's year 6 costs without books are approximately $600 (with camp) and books cost about $80. My daughter about $400 all up, I think.
But you've not paid for excursions swimming, shirts, etc etc. I've put 4 kids through school and all of the costs through the year add up! Not to mention a pain having to remember who has what and when. Paying at the start of the year for everything is a great idea, no surprises.
Other than a $10 cost for swimming and $25 for the instrumental program I have no other fees during the year. Except for grade 6 camp. That was 235. Still way less though
I don’t have a lot of extras through the year, but I wouldn’t mind paying that all in one payment, sounds simplified.
Way less than $800 for final years of high school? Not really comparable to year 6...
Our public schools had all kinds of things through the year, swimming was more than $10, camps that were like holidays to Exmouth, Kalbarri, Perth and Canberra (we are in WA so that was a very expensive one) incursions and excursions. Then the leavers jackets, jumpers shirts. One of mine played saxophone and had to pay a pretty big bond on that. It all depends what they do and what the school provides.
Teacher here. We do revise booklists each year to make sure we are asking for the right amount of stationery. We are very well aware of the cost of living pressures (we have families too) and try to keep costs down. Small children will use 8 markers, we use mini whiteboards every day. Under no circumstances have I (or any other teacher I know) given another students booklist items to children from disadvantaged families - their supplies come from school chaplains and most often from the teachers' pocket. Teachers are also very much in favour of an upfront resource payment where we organise everything. Unfortunately in the Qld state system this is fairly unworkable as parents need to be given the option to purchase their own equipment, and there's always some who want the prettiest/coolest things for their child. Without the buy-in from all it gets too expensive because you lose the ability to order in bulk. No one is trying to rip you off, or send you broke - all we are doing is trying to give your child the best education we can which becomes increasingly harder without support from children's first teachers: parents.
Thanks for explaining. I'm in QLD & definitely support the payment to supply books, etc. but I understand why it doesn't happen.
At the book drop off on the Friday before school starts I see the piles of boxes and think... what a nightmare to sort! Um... Bye..... 😬
I don’t know.. clean up day my kid came home with a pack to twister crayons. Someone’s mum had gone to all the effort to label these crayons individually and my child was told he could bring it home 😑
I don’t know.. clean up day my kid came home with a pack to twister crayons. Someone’s mum had gone to all the effort to label these crayons individually and my child was told he could bring it home 😑
Come end of year I don't care if pencils etc. don't come home.
I've had to start labelling my daughter's because she gets upset when other kids in her class keeps claiming hers & she doesn't have the correct one. 😞
Otherwise it's just books.