Many Victorian schools kept going on very little money. Some of it came directly from parents, who often had very little to spare. The money was known as the 'School Pence'.
The amount to be paid over many years was just one penny a week for each child at school, but even this small sum was hard for some families to find.
The entry shown below is from the Log Book of Llangyniew National School.

This was written in January 1885 -
"The children of Glanrafon and Pandy [have] gone to a deep debt in School pence here, therefore changed their School for Llanfair Board [School]".
So these parents took their children away and removed them to another local school because they couldn't pay the School Pence owed !
An earlier Llangyniew School entry,from 1882, said that certain children were told to stay away because their school pence had not been paid for a long time...

"Told John Evans [of] Penybont's children not to come to School till their mother come to speak to me on account of non-payment for the last eighteen months..."
There is more about money for local schools on the next page...

It's like dinner money, but it's for coal...