battlezone123

Don't forget paying for school dinners since September. If your income is over 16,000 it costs €4.50 per day per child. And no you cannot send your child to school with a packed lunch because of the risk of cross-contamination.

lynnxa

mine are in Secondary school - so no school lunches at all, despite the fact that they are at school from 8am until 2 or 3 every day

& the canteen where they could buy hot drinks & snacks closed down 2 weeks ago

they are allowed to take food in though

battlezone123

My 3 kids are in ESO but before if you were classified as rural you had free dinners. Up until recently (only on Monday the long school day finishing at 5.35pm) parents set up trestle tables on the pavement outside the school gates so that their kids could eat a lunch. Now the colder weather has set in they use a church near the school. The school has said that until a separate eating area and fridge is made available no food can be taken into the school.

lynnxa

wow - how it varies from place to place!

snikpoh

Wow, free dinners. Here they cost 7 euros per day with no beca. Packed lunches are totally banned in ALL schools in this area in infantil, primaria, ESO and Bachi.

Seven years ago we were told that as we were in the campo and as the bus came nowhere near us, we could apply for help towards the cost of getting children to school and also, therefore, help towards school meals. We applied, were granted some beca, and are still waiting for it!

lynnxa

when mine were at primary school, if you lived more than 3km from the school & used the school bus you got free meals - my younger one left 3 years ago, & I think that has changed now

agoreira

Is that per child per day? Someone saying they have 3 kids at school here, can't be per child per day, that would be €100 a week! Can it?

snikpoh

Yep.

Per child per day.

agoreira

Gordon Bennett!!!! And books, materials, trips etc on top of that?

snikpoh

Yep.

Books last year were circa 400 euros each (we have 3 children so 1200). Then pens, writing books/pads. We also pay for items to make things in class - magnets, motors, paint etc. Last year we decided to allow our eldest to go on a school trip to Italy (he met the new pope and shook his hand!) but this cost 800 for just one week. This year the other two want to go on their school trips (arghhhh!) What can you do ????

cricketman

And dont forget that one in three Spanish children actually go to fee paying schools. So 33% of children compared to only 7% of British children who go to fee paying schools

We are sending our little boy to a private montesorri school. We didnt like the thought that 3 years have to sit as a desk all day like they do in state schools

lynnxa

they aren't all the same though

my daughter when in state infantil here certainly didn't sit at a desk all day

battlezone123

We have just had a letter from the school saying that if anyone had lied on the application form concerning the dinners they would be caught out because the forms where being sent to the tax office for confirmation of earnings. Any discrepancies will be chased for back payments owed. We are lucky here because we still receive vouchers for school books €180 per child. But what I cannot understand is why you cannot use ebooks. The savings surely would be huge even taking into account the purchase of an e-reader.

snikpoh

The problem with ebooks is that it's not so easy to highlight or annotate important pieces.

I still think the best solution is to look after your books (laminate them, no doodling etc.) and then buy/sell second-hand copies (something else you can't do with ebooks).


Are ebooks really that much cheaper? Are school books available that way?

lynnxa

one of the maths teachers at my daughters' school has decided that books are too expensive, so has produced powerpoints & worksheets for the students to keep on a memory stick & access on their computer

not all the kids have easy access to a computer though

the powerpoints & worksheets are, in themselves, actually very good - but the main problem is that you can't just flick back to the page with the examples/instructions if you aren't sure about something - you have to go through frame after frame & it can take ages!