Woman's Hour - Parenting: What's the role of a PTA?

Episode Date: August 29, 2019

Listener Ellie Kemp wants to raise the subject of school Parent Teacher Associations and the difficulties they face in finding parents who have the time or the confidence to volunteer, particularly in rural areas, as well as the increasing reliance schools have on the money they raise. Ellie is Chair of her son’s school PTA. What is the role of PTAs, what part do they play in children’s learning and what are the benefits for the volunteers and pupils? Jenni Murray speaks to Ellie, Gill Sims, illustrator, blogger and author of the Why Mummy series and Tracey Handley, from the charity Parentkind.

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcast. Hello, Jenny Murray welcoming you to this week's podcast for parents. Now it's not news that schools are often struggling to find enough money in the budget to do all the things expected of them. And we've heard endless stories about parents being asked to chip in from time to time. It was this subject that prompted an email from Ellie Kemp, who chairs the Parent Teacher Association in her son's school, which is in a rural area and struggles to find enough parents to help,

particularly with fundraising. What part should a PTA play in the running of a school? Well, Tracey Handley is Programmes Manager for Wales for the charity ParentKind. Jill Sims is an illustrator and author of the Why Mummies series. And Ellie Kemp joins us from Guildford. Ellie, why did you contact us about this? So I've been on the PTA for a while and I've been chair for three years.

This is my fourth year now. And I just thought that it's something that pretty much everybody who's got a child of school age ends up having to help with doing something. And with the school budget cuts and everything, it's been beginning to be something that's more and more important to schools to fill that gap in their budgets now. What does chairing the PTA involve? It's almost like another part-time job. There's quite a lot of behind-the-scenes organising.

We do lots of events throughout the year and we have two big events, like a summer fair and a christmas fair um but yeah we just generally put nice things on for the children like cake sales and bingo and things like that and try and get the community involved as well jill you chaired your children's primary pta i think for two years how do you look back on that time? Well, I mean, on one hand, I got a clipboard, which was a great bonus. I liked my clipboard very much. On the other hand, I think it went quite a long way to destroying my faith in humanity

with just trying to get people to volunteer and sign up and help. You know, when you go across the playground to try and talk to somebody and they run in fear that you're going to try and sell them raffle tickets. It's fairly soul destroying. But it is, I think, becoming more and more important. I think once upon a time, the PTA's fundraising was to provide nice little extras like school trips and other treats for the children. And now it's a vital part of the school budget to provide sort of daily essentials for teachers of just you know basic classroom supplies but unfortunately certainly in my experience it was it was still just as difficult to get people to help out and come along and sign up. What sort of excuses did you get from parents about not getting involved? My favourite excuse

ever was a parent who told me that they couldn't possibly get involved because as they had two children, they didn't have time. To which I wanted to respond, well, I'm not just standing here in the school hall with my clipboard because I love clipboards and the smell of school dinners. Lack of time was usually the excuses made. But then you would get other parents who were maybe working long shifts or multiple jobs and things who could find the time.

So the parents who made the excuses that they didn't have time were generally the ones I think who probably could have more easily found it than some of the parents who did volunteer. Ali, how much do you find it's the busy ones who manage to make it and the not so busy ones who don't? We we do find that a bit um I mean I'm pretty busy myself and everything but I I know what it's like I understand how people do have a lot on and it is difficult to try and juggle everything and you know a lot of our parents are working and both both parents are working so again it's like doing something like that but also maybe having to get the child care to come to meetings things like that is is difficult and I do understand it. What do you reckon Ellie that the parents who do get involved get out of it

themselves? What it really shows is it gives sets a really good example to their children to show that you know mum and dad are involved in in school life and that school is important and that we can have fun at school as well and you know when I do a summer fair my children love it because I literally give them some money and then I don't see them. And they have a great time and they help me set up and help me clear up. And it just, I think it reinforces the fact that, you know, sometimes people have to volunteer. You have to just put in the extra work and not for many money, you know, and just for no, you know, you can't always just get paid for everything. You have to volunteer sometimes to make things run smoothly.

Tracey, how important generally would you say PTAs are? They're an incredibly important journey. Our parent kind membership often tell us some really good case studies, some good news stories. Exactly as Elliot has said, it's not just about fundraising. In our most recent member survey, when they asked what they consider to be the two main roles of their PTA, 96% said raising funds or other resources for the school, but a huge 83% told us it was holding events to build the school community. So it is that just actively being involved, getting to know the teachers, the school. And exactly as Elias said, it's about the children seeing the valuable contribution that their parents and extended family make to the school.

But Tracey, there is one word that I suspect puts a lot of people off, and that's the word meetings. How unwilling are a lot of parents to think, oh Lord, I've got to sit for two hours while people drone on in a meeting? Well, what I'd say to that is, again, there's lots of really good stories from our members telling us about how they've been very innovative and holding different styles of meetings. They don't even call them meetings because it does put a lot of people off. For example, my local school, a school of Cribbeth in Powys, I know through the summer holidays have been meeting in the local park. It's a chance for the children to get together. You know, they'll take some coffee and sandwiches and have a bit of a picnic. So while the children are off

doing something, it's a bit of a social event for the families but they do get a bit of work done so they've already started planning what they're going to do from the new school term. Ellie how often do fathers get involved in the PTA? They don't tend to organise a huge amount, but they are there in the background, obviously, you know, with childcare, supporting things like that. And they do love a barbecue and a quiz. If there's any alcohol involved, they're usually there. But it's mostly led by women, I'd say, and the mums, yes.

Jill, what did you find? Fathers, were they very involved when you did it? Again, as Ellie said, they were a lot more in the background. You would get the odd sort of dad joining the committee and signing up. And I always found that the fathers who were willing to be a lot more visible got far more praise than the mothers who did. You know, everyone would say, oh, isn't that marvellous that, you know, John has joined the PTA and he's got a full-time job and everything else. And that's so great of him to step up. And you're thinking, yeah, but all the mums on the PTA's got a full-time job and everything else. And that's so great of him to step up. And you're thinking, yeah, but all the mums on the PTA also have a full-time job. So I'm not sure why it's more marvellous of him than it is of the mothers.

But I think that's still just society's perception that it's, you know, anything to do with school and children is more kind of a mother's job than a father's. But hopefully that's changing a bit more and more men will feel they can get involved. Because it's also a great way, you know, if you're new to an area or something else, to meet people and just get involved again in not just the school community, but the wider community. Tracey, it is a PTA, that's parents and teachers. What's the teacher's role in it? Our PTAs are parent-led but obviously the partnership between parents and schools is an essential role in developing the activities and events and the relationships. By building these relationships the schools can more easily understand the pressures perhaps sometimes that their local families feel and in return by together, the parents can understand sometimes the pressures and issues that are raised by their local schools.

And it is about just building good relationships together and the children benefiting from this in lots of different ways. In what ways? I mean, how does it help their education? OK, so the effect of parental engagement over a student's school career when it's done well, so it could be something as simple as doing some reading clubs together, having meetings with schools. The effect of this parental engagement

is equivalent to adding two or three years to that student's education. That's what the research tells us. It's just about general well-being really it's about the whole school community getting together it's about seeing their parents as an extension of learning and being part of the school community. Ellie what's been your most successful fundraiser? We always do summer and Christmas fairs but there's one fundraiser we did last year which was really lovely which was a

community cream tea so we asked people to get their grandparents and because those grandparents that do a lot of the child care and picking up and dropping off at school don't actually get to see inside the school and do anything with the children so we had a cream tea we invited them and they you know paid for a ticket to come and we had jam and cream donated and everything. And that was lovely with the children served, the parents, grandparents and everything. And it raised a bit of money, but it was just the atmosphere was lovely in there

and we had daffodils on the tables and we had other members of the community into the school as well. So they got to see it firsthand and enjoy a little bit of different time with their children. Jill as a final point what part would you say PTAs should play in deciding what the money raised is spent on within the school? Personally I think the the PTA's main role is to raise the money the school has a far better knowledge of what they need of of what they're lacking of you know maybe even what a specific class needs if they need, of what they're lacking, of, you know, maybe even what a specific class needs, if they need a trip to something for a topic they're doing

or if they just need, you know, marker board pens or something. So I was always quite happy to just hand that budget, you know, the money we'd raised over to the school and let them spend it as they saw fit because, you know, the things that the PTA might think would be lovely for the school probably would be lovely, but, you you know there's not much point in having some fabulous piece of kit that five kids are going to benefit from if there's something essential lacking that every kid in the school could could benefit from so I think it was much more up to the school.

Jill Sims thank you, Tracey Handley and Ellie Kemp thank you very much indeed. And we would like to hear from you about this as well. What's your experience of the PTA? Or how did you escape it if you did? I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake.

No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.