Loading ...My letter to the Louth Leader about spending priorities at King Edwards, elicited the following statement from the Headteacher, James Lascelles.
“The Admissions Consultation had no cost attached to it. This will be the third year we have used the professional facilities offered by Grimsby Athletic Track and each year parents have generously supported the school.
At no point have we received a complaint about this, and their support in terms of donations to fund the event have been overwhelming. Schools financing is a complex area. Each year the school successfully applies to a range of charities and government funds to improve the facilities around the site. When received this money is ring fenced and audited by the charities or government fund concerned and must be spent upon the agreed terms and items in the bid: the information screens around the site came through this route.”
Setting aside the rather quaint and disconcerting notion that a public consultation process can be carried out at zero cost (a neat trick even on a marginally costed basis), the inference seems to be that it doesn’t matter how you spend money, as long as it is someone else’s.
Mr Lascelles refers to the “complicated area” of school financing. (Financing is a rather less complicated issue for schools than it is for many other organisations who also often have multiple revenue streams and cost centres, not to mention the tax, investment, dividend issues and so on, with which private sector managers have to contend.) In any case, school financing is not the issue here, and completely misses the point: my letter questioned the spending priorities of the school and Mr Lascelles’ reply does little to convince me that the school is focussed upon ensuring that every penny benefits the children it serves. Although generous parents may have contributed to the Sports Day, apparently they fell a long way short of bearing the total cost - in previous years at least - so there remains the question of how public money is being spent at King Edwards. Of course it is great to hold a sports event in the best possible surroundings, but is it the most effective way of spending limited funds?
There are some basic management questions which should be asked:-
What long-term advantage for pupils accrues from a Sports Day in Grimsby as opposed to one in Louth? If one is identified, is that advantage more important, for example, than finding money for the classroom insulation/heating problem where, on several days last year, some classroom temperatures never rose over 14 degrees?
Could the school bid for more useful things than signs and TVs (one of which has been switched off for most of the year before reportedly being stolen recently)? If not, is it worth the management and administration time and cost of bidding at all? Couldn’t the money be better used by others?
Mr Lascelles omitted to comment on the issue of the recently halved music subsidy. If there is a straight competition for funds between a sports awayday, warm classrooms and learning to play an instrument, I know which of the three would be first to be eliminated in my own priority assessment. But, of course, these are value judgements.
What do YOU think?
On the narrow point of travelling to Grimsby for athletics rather than using Louth facilities, irrespective of the relative merits of these facilities, we must become more aware of our carbon emissions.
We claim to be an ‘Eco-School’ but the idea needs to pervade all policy, not just those where it is convenient.
School transport is, after buildings, the County Council’s biggest source of CO2.
I actually think there is a benefit in holding sports day in this way. At the end of the year it gives the school a place to come together and celebrate their hard work make use of the much better facilities in Grimsby.
My issue is with asking parents to support it – we are not all rich enough to be able to put our hands in our pockets every other week. If the school cant fund it, then it shouldn’t happen. Otherwise you end up with the school only doing the things the rich want and those of us who cant afford it will get left out in the cold. If the school wnats to ask parents for money it should go into a single pot and ALL parents should be able to decide how it’s spent.
I also agree about the music lessons. They’ve got to be more important than the sports day.
First we would like to ask where are the nearest professional facilities? As athletes at the school, we know how much of a luxury it is to be able to compete on a proper running track with a stand and proper facilities. Where closer to home are these available ?
Next we would like to make the point that sports fields near our school are not ignored, we play our home football games at the specialist football pitches at London Road, and often use the the astroturf and cricket nets in our P.E lessons through out the school year.
This is written in defence of our school and headmaster. We think sports day is a very enjoyable day and makes our school come together as a community . It also shows the house system, re-installed by the headmaster, working as it should and encourages healthy competition. We also believe that money is only saved and spent in order to make the school a better place and experience for the students and is not wasted.
We believe our school is improving and things are only being done to improve. We believe most of the schools activities and policies are correct and if we have questions they are always answered and explained, so we also know in which direction the school is heading.
From Year 10 Students
Josh
Although the purpose of the site is to engage parents rather than students, your comments are well made and deserve to be included – thank you. I don’t disagree with your point of view; remember though that the issue is one of priorities.
To be honest, if all your going to do is complain about the school, then why send your children to it?
There getting top class education for free, of course the only costs being uniform and school trips but that is different. There are schools that are a lot worse than King Edwards.
There would be little point in setting up a website to congratulate the schools on everything they do. The point is that things could be a great deal better. Even on the system’s own measures, Louth does not have an “excellent” school, so there is clearly room for improvement.
No education anywhere is free. You and I are paying for every sheet of paper, every teacher and every decision. I want those resources used to produce the very best education for our children. I believe parents have a responsibility too in that debate.
Thank you for your contribution.
We might help our schools’ efforts to uphold standards of English in cyber-space.
The facilities at King George stadium in Grimsby are far better than those that Louth have to offer. The school field is unsuitable as it is uneven. The 400m track provides the students of the school the oppertunity to compete on the correct surfaces. Also, they have the large stands, which house the students brilliantly, providing sheltered space, and seats.
The environment at the sports day is excellent, having attended the previous event, i discovered that the day isnt just about sport, its about team work, and the children coming together and supporting their teams.
-Many Thanks.
Thanks for your comment. As only a small proportion of pupils are likely to be athletes, I would venture to suggest that it is MORE about teamwork and shared experience than it is about sport. There must be dozens of ways that opportunities for building relationships could be created: in fact, why wait for an annual sporting event?
Perhaps ways need to be explored to give athletes better facilities all year round.
Athletes are given better facilities all year round by travelling to london road for their P.E lessons and yes, maybe only a few are “proper” athletes but this encourages people who do not think they are good at sport to get an opportunity to find out they are or to experience this sort of event . Earlier in this discussion it was mentioned that music is more important, but how can this be as only a small proportion will be musicians the same as athletes . Also teamwork and shared experiences are found through-out the year, with house competitions, quizzes and with sports teams which train every week. The letter commented saying its all about priorities yet shouldn’t it be a main priority
to encourage excellence and participation as i remind you that every child has to do an event, so you produce friendship groups by pupils supporting people who they do not usually talk to because they are in a certain house. I also remind you the letter sent out to parents only asked for donations, so if you could not afford in, you didn’t have to pay. My last point is that the cost of giving a running track to pupils all year round would be thousands of pounds which the school will never be able to afford, so going to King George is the only sensible option .
Thanks for your comment.
My point about “sport v music” is that money is being spent on people who do not want to be athletes at the same time as reducing spending on people who do want to be musicians. That seems inequitable.
I have absolutely no doubt that the event has value; the question is whether that value can be obtained at lower cost making do with the school’s own facilities. I think there is value too in showing pupils that sometimes in life you can’t necessarily have the best of everything – although I noted that Josh (above) recognised it was a luxury.
Isn’t it interesting though just to have the debate! Thanks again.
All this argument is news to me, seriously I left KE6 in 1952, a dreadful failure at anything to do with running, and with an Aug 17th birthday had little desire. But I thought KE6 was above all supposed to be highly academic, I’ll just bet it has turned out more professional musicans since WW2 that professional athletes!
To be fair, in my case, my academic contribution was not ‘ethereal’ but I did manage a JtHons degree from
Nottingham as a mature student,[the late Hedley Warr
expressed amazement, as he did when I won the school general knowledge prize aged 15]. On the other hand, his doubts would have been far greater had I ever won anything on the athletic track, either at Grimsby or even Wembley! But then as a 10 year old farm lad I could take apart and reassemble a 4 stroke motorcycle engine, this turned out to be much more use.Ah ‘Happy days’ now so long ago.