Finances and Annual Donation

Supporting the cost of your child/(ren)’s education – School Donations Scheme at Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto

As you will appreciate, the cost of running a school and providing a rich and diverse programme for our children is a massive one.

In 2019, the Board of Trustees reviewed its approach to requesting donations from whānau. In the past, we had requested an annual donation of $80 per child, plus a contribution towards the cost of every activity across the year (including day trips, swimming lessons, visiting performers to the school, inter-school sports activities etc). From the start of 2020 we resolved to only request a single donation per child of $150 per annum which will cover everything except the take home component for the Christchurch South Technology for Year 7 & 8’s ($25.00) and any overnight camps (as there will be an additional donation request in the year they occur to help to cover their significant cost)

The reason we landed on $150 per child for the School Donation, is that this is the amount that the government determined it would give to schools from Decile 1-7 instead of the schools asking for donations from whānau, which we were not eligible for.

We compared what we were asking with other similar schools (both primary, intermediate and secondary) in our area, and our request for $150 per child is definitely at the lower end of the range. Most other schools in our area request an annual donation, plus the cost of every individual activity.

From an accounting perspective, not having to invoice for each activity also saves us admin hours.

If all of our families were able to make this contribution, or even a portion of it that they could afford, this would make a positive difference to our curriculum and activities budget.

As the costs of camps (Y5-8 students) are not known until closer to the time, budgeting for an additional $200-$250 in a year when camp is being held, is a good guide. More detailed cost information is sent out closer to the time of each camp.

Please note that uniform and optional activities such as mini ball, music lessons, etc have always been, and will still be, chargeable (goods and services) and need to be paid in full before the activity takes place.

Thank you all for continuing to support the education of our tamariki.

You can pay the donations in full, in instalments, or set up a regular automatic payment. To cover the annual donation, a regular payment would need to be:

Per Child				Annual total
Weekly		$3.00		$156.00		or $7 per Y5-8 child in a camp year to pay for most of camp across the year
Fortnightly		$5.75		$149.50		or $14 per Y5-8 child in a camp year to pay for most of camp across the year
Monthly		$12.50		$150.00		or $30 per Y5-8 child in a camp year to pay for most of camp across the year

To set up an automatic payment, please copy the school’s bank account number:
12-3148-0131641-00 into your internet banking and use your child’s name as the reference.

To see your current statement, log onto HERO and click on Finance

(Click here if you haven’t yet set up HERO on your phone, and download the app)

If you need more detailed information on how to log in, click here.

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Claiming back 33% of your School Donations and Contributions from the IRD