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'Scrooge' school charges parents £1 to watch kids’ nativity

Parents are being charged to watch their kids in a nativity play (Getty)
Parents are being charged to watch their kids in a nativity play (Getty)

Parents have slammed a primary school after it slapped an entrance fee on this year’s nativity play.

St Joseph’s Catholic in Warndon, Worcestershire, is charging mums and dads £1 to watch their children perform in the festive event on a first-come-first served basis.

The school’s headteacher Louise Bury has been forced to defend the decision after parents, who already have to fork out for costumes, reacted angrily.

She said: “From my understanding it’s not something that’s uncommon but it’s the first time we’ve done it.

“We are becoming a bigger school and there are cost implications on that. The money raised is being put back into the school to buy story sacks to help us work primarily with our English as an additional language (EAL) parents.

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“We want to set up a group of parents to help the children with their reading. It was seen as a wonderful opportunity for us to raise some money. We are a very poorly funded authority.”

Some parents are annoyed by the fact that the money will be used to fund lessons for non-English speaking children.

One parent, who did not want to be named, said: “It’s an utter outrage that the parents of English-speaking pupils are being forced to pay for English lessons for foreign kids.

“If your kid doesn’t speak English then surely you should pay for these books and teach your child the language which is used in the school.

“If I lived in Spain or France I wouldn’t dream of begging the other parents to pay for my kids to learn their language.”

However, Bury said: “Everything we do is for our children. We are wanting to invest in reading. We have taken the decision to do it and we hope parents will see the benefit in what we purchase and we will share that with them.

“I know that for some of you, paying to see your child perform doesn’t feel right. [But] with ever-tightening budgets and growing numbers, we saw this as an opportunity to be able to invest in some valuable reading and learning resources for Key Stage 1 and Early Years.”

She added that health and safety reasons were also behind introducing a ticketing system for the play at the school, as the hall could not fit all the parents in the hall at the same time.