WACSSO thanks all P&C members who provided data in the recent contributions survey. We understand that this survey comes at a very busy time of the year, with many end-of-term events running and volunteers exhausted from a full schedule. 

In 2022, we received responses from 140 affiliates, which gave us a fantastic summary of the impact made by P&Cs across WA. Below, you can access a snapshot of where the efforts of P&Cs were focused in 2022 in terms of services and resources.  

When analyzing the data this year, we decided to pool together the responses from 2020-2022. We did this for two reasons: 

• To put a bracket around the ‘COVID’ years 
• To achieve better data integrity 

Over the 2020-2022 period, on average P&Cs donated an estimated total of nearly $12 million each year to school communities, based on extrapolated results. Averaged out across affiliated P&Cs, this amounts to approximately $18,400 donated to their school by P&Cs in WA each year. Alongside fundraising initiatives, P&Cs volunteered a huge amount of time each year, across 2020-2022. Data from the survey shows an estimated collective total of 498,059 hours per year when averaged across the three years. The individual average hours volunteered per P&C is approximately 766 hours a year, or nearly 20 hours a week each Term. 

These results point to a phenomenal effort! We applaud you, loudly!!, for achieving these results in very difficult circumstances. 

As well as an investigation of the figures, we also looked at where P&C efforts were being placed (services and resources) across the three years to determine trends. Over the last three years, P&Cs have consistently invested in books as your number one resource, and camps and excursions featuring in the top 4 year on year. New in 2022 was the reporting of a third of P&Cs investing in sports equipment, a resource not previously in the top 4.  

In terms of services, canteens and uniform shops continue to feature highly, with consistently over 50% of P&Cs reporting that they offer these services. That said, the number of P&Cs reporting that they offer canteens dropped below 60% for the first time in 2022. The Containers for Change program has been steadily increasing over the time period investigated, with a jump from around 45% offering this to 52%. Unsurprisingly, there was a big jump in the number of events and social activities offered in 2022 and we know how much P&Cs have enjoyed being able to run events again now that COVID restrictions have eased. 

Finally, we also looked at the issues in public education that P&Cs are facing and there were definitely some common themes coming through each year. These themes are: 

• Volunteer participation / P&C membership 
• Lack of schools funding (especially for infrastructure) 
• Teacher shortages 

• Vaping (emerging trend) 
• Mental Health 
• Bullying and behaviour management  
• Cyber security 
• Learning difficulties and education support 

• P&C/school admin relationship 

Having knowledge of these themes is a huge benefit to WACSSO Councillors and staff as it enables us to focus our advocacy and training efforts, while also providing an emphasis for workshops and presentations at Conference. 

The 2023 survey will run a bit differently. It will be re-badged as a contributions report and there will be an expectation that all P&Cs submit data to WACSSO. We are looking at processes on our side that might make this easier, for example by pre-populating some of the fields with data from Annual Financial Statements that you only need to check, and not source and fill in yourself. 

Once again, thank you to everyone who took the time to complete this survey and provide us with the information necessary to continue our advocacy work on behalf of P&Cs and school communities. 

You can find a summary of the 2022 report online here. 

You can find a download summary of our findings here.