The purpose of this guidance on charging for school activities is to highlight those parts of the detailed departmental advice that we think school leaders need to be aware of to fulfil their role effectively.

At present, when there is a great deal of pressure on school funding and budgets, we believe it is a good opportunity to review your arrangements for charging parents for school activities, which, in a number of circumstances, you are entitled to do. 

There are, however, an equal number of occasions when you can't, and therefore, you should not be charging parents for activities provided by the school.

This guidance helps schools to know what is chargeable and what is not, and you can use it as the basis for developing a school's policy in schools where this is absent.