School year a big outlay for two growing boys
“Luckily our boys don’t do a lot of sports,” Glen Innes mum-of-two Tsana Plessius jokes as she ticks off the costs of the new school year.
With two growing boys, 11 and 13, uniform costs are top of the list — with eldest son Karl starting secondary school at Selwyn College, a new uniform had to be bought.
“And all the stationery requirements, and these days both of our boys have their own devices, so that adds significant costs to it all.”
Robin, 11, who attends Tamaki College, will do most of his schooling this year on his netbook. However, Karl’s stationery pack cost $90, “plus there’s extra bits that aren’t in that pack depending on what classes he’s doing, plus there’s a netbook”.
School and PE uniforms were expensive, church administrator Plessius said, with one pair of shorts costing upwards of $50, and each son requiring two pairs.
She had yet to add up what they had spent for the start of term but it was likely to be in the hundreds of dollars, she said.
And there are always extras on top of the essentials — like school trips, donations and extra tuition for the boys. School donations, while supposedly voluntary, often felt mandatory, she said.
“There are constant reminders, you know, ‘ thank you to those who have paid the donation, and just a reminder please pay’; and that’s on top of everything else.
“And if you don’t pay it, you get the reminders and you do feel ... people are going to know.”
The decile 1 primary school the boys attended stopped asking for donations, she said, because so few people were able to afford to pay.
“They talk about free education, but when you have costs like that [$3146 per year for a state education] it does make you query the ‘free’.
“There’s a lot of people in our area with large families, and a lot of families just wouldn’t be able to afford that for their children.”
Plessius said she was lucky that she and husband, design engineer Eric, could meet the costs, and be able to afford extra tuition for the boys. Robin is an advanced maths pupil and has skipped ahead to Year 11 this year. He needs a specialist maths tutor, and Karl has also received outside help with his maths.
“That’s added costs, and it’s something we don’t need to do, but we feel it’s important for the boys to have those opportunities.”