“PNPS is very different to the schools I worked at before: we didn’t have parents supporting other parents”, says Crystal, her eyes moist, as she explained what she, as PNPS bursar, has witnessed.
She
goes on: “Here we even have ex-PNPS pupils giving donations for current
children’s school fees. I never heard of that in previous schools.”
We
were sitting in the library, myself with Crystal and Tania (PNPS Business
Manager), as I was seeking to understand what financial inclusion looks like at
PNPS. Certainly, reading the dry budget figures hasn’t allowed me to grasp the
culture of sharing that seems to permeate the PNPS parent and staff community.
It turns out that there are multiple layers of sharing happening at our school.
About
10 years ago all Early Act fundraising went to charities. However, staff
realised that there was significant need amongst the school families, and decided
to allocate 20% of the Early Act income towards caring for the PNPS children.
This is now known as the “Inhouse Early Act Fund” which helps to buy shoes, school
bags and stationery for families going through a rough time. One year it helped
purchase a birthday gift for a child where the family was under real financial
strain. The fund also supports staff members in need: from providing
refreshments for one staff member’s husband’s funeral to accessing emergency
medical treatment for a staff member who arrived at work just having been
stabbed.
Crystal explains that this ethos of being mindful of one another’s needs is also reflected in the sharing between parents and families. Prior to the Solidarity Fund, Tania reports that there were children whose school fees were being paid for by other people. Each of these situations was different: sometimes there was an agreement between two families, other times it was through anonymous giving. Tania helps facilitate these sharing relationships and care is taken to ensure that the child or the family are not made to feel like recipients of charity, but that their dignity is honoured.
