Back to School: The Truth About PTA Parents

As the new school year approaches, many parents dread three letters more than any others…

PTA (duh duh duuuuuh).

The PTA are the people that hang bunting round the school gates in the summer and sell you cakes when you don’t want them, aren’t they? Aren’t they? Well, apparently, they’re not.

The second your child starts school you are flung into the pleading world of PTA requests. Can you do this? Could you do that? We need help with this; We want people to do that. Don’t they know you’re busy enough already?

You habitually click delete every time a ‘come to our meeting’ email lands in your inbox.

It was only when I chatted to a fellow mum at the school gates that the whole world of PTA became clear.

Let me explain: She was normal.

She didn’t have a beard or one of those screechy voices that wannabe-but-never-quite-made-it-as-a-teacher people often adopt. She wasn’t pushy or weird. She just said: “Thing is, for every little bit I do, I’m making the school a better place for my kids. By helping I’m giving them a better education. Why wouldn’t I?”

Why wouldn’t I?

The words rang through my ears as I began to wonder whether joining the PTA – helping to organise fundraising events for the school, becoming part of the school community, taking part in activities with my child – might actually be something I could enjoy…

“You should see his face when I walk past his classroom, it’s pure joy,” not-weird-and-actually-very-normal-other-mum had told me. “It won’t be long until he’s embarrassed to be seen with me – I love that it makes him so happy to see me at school events, it makes his day.”

Food for thought indeed.

I went along to an ‘open meeting’ and was saddened to see just a handful of other parents had turned up. Out of more than 400 kids at my son’s school it seemed only three had a Mum or Dad willing to take a few minutes to hear what they could do to help the school. There and then I decided I would ditch my ostrich impression and become a fully-fledged PTAer.

“But I work!” I used to cry. Well yes, and so do most parents. But are we really that busy that we can’t spend an hour or so a month doing something to genuinely enhance our child’s experience of school, and give them the absolute best start in life?

Autumn term started and I went along to the PTA Annual General Meeting. A committee of totally normal people was created, each with their own responsibility (buyer, treasurer, volunteer co-ordinator) as well as a mini task-team of helpers to man stalls at events, round up donations, spend half an hour wrapping presents twice a year, that sort of thing. Nobody was asked to sign their life away or commit to a lifetime of unpaid work. We were simply asked if we might help at events and use our own individual skills to help put on events for the kids at the school, to raise money for the kids at the school.

Now, a year later, thanks to hard work and a great team, our PTA has raised in excess of £17,000 – money that will go directly to the school to pay for vital resources for the classrooms as well as a new, safer, play area for the children. Last year a minibus was donated. We’re talking serious money and serious results here. Without the PTA my son’s school simply could not provide learning essentials like maths tools and books for the library, let alone a minibus to transport them to outside events like trips to the theatre and visits to local businesses.

So yes, it can take up some of your spare time, and yes, it sometimes takes a bit of work. But the rewards you reap, both financially for your child’s school and emotionally for yourself and your children, are well worth the time.

I’m a proper PTA mum now, something I never thought I would say, and you know what? I’m proud.