Hello Parents & Carers,
We wanted to take this opportunity to welcome you and your children to Poringland primary with a little information about who the PTA are and what we do.
At the moment, social distancing means that we’re not able to hold film clubs, discos or any of our summer events like the fete, but we hope that September will bring us closer to “Business as Usual” and if not, we’d welcome any and all help to figure out how we can hold fun events for the children and families of Poringland in a safe and socially responsible way.
Introduction:
The Poringland Primary PTA is a registered charity dedicated to raising money for the school.
We raise these funds by holding a selection of events for the children, their families and the local community throughout the year. The school then uses this money to pay for “Educational Enhancements” for the children.
Spending the money
Anyone at the school can apply for funding from the PTA and requests are considered at the main PTA meeting each half term. To meet the criteria for funding, we need to answer a few simple questions:
1. Does it provide educational value for the children?
2. Will all the children at the school benefit?
3. Is it FUN?
4. Can we afford it?
If the answer to any of those questions is “no”, it doesn’t mean funding won’t be given. It just means a little more investigation is required or some targeted fundraising needed.
In the past the PTA have funded Maths Puzzle Workshops; Visiting theatre productions; Educational games, puzzles & role play equipment, Oakley (the schools GoGo Leveret) and supplementing school trips.
In 2017 the PTA embarked on one of the biggest projects in recent history, an outdoor classroom and play area built by the award winning team behind local attraction “Bewilderwood”
2018 continued that project with further play equipment to continue our “Woodland Wonderland”.
We continued throughout the 2019/20 school year and have recently paid for a third phase to enhance the outside space on the infant playground. We’re always open to suggestions for other projects. Talk to your child’s class teacher or one of the PTA team if you have any ideas!
The round up of last years fundraising can be seen here:
As a parent, carer or staff member of the school, you’re automatically considered to be a valuable member of the PTA family here at Poringland Primary. Your level of involvement is entirely up to you.
We need:
1/ Ideas – The ethos behind all our events is fun. We believe that getting local families and the community together should be our number one goal, any money raised from our shenanigans is a bonus.
2/ Organisation and planning – Each event requires a great deal of work behind the scenes to put everything together, you might not be able to help on the day but there’s plenty to do in the lead up. For example: putting up posters, shopping for supplies, selling raffle tickets and many other little jobs.
3/ Volunteering at Events – There are always lots of small jobs during events and we always need plenty of assistance. Help doesn’t need to be just from parents, we welcome grandparents, aunts & uncles and anyone willing to lend a hand.
4/ Attending the Events - We work hard putting together each event but they’re no fun if people don’t come along and join in. You’ll be notified of each upcoming event via Parentmail as well as information in our newsletters but keep an eye on Facebook and our website for up to the minute information.
5/ PTA meetings - We always love to have new faces and new perspectives at our meetings and we feel it’s important for parents across the school to be represented when we gather to make decisions.
The committee formally meets at the school once every half term. Everyone is welcome, although we do realise that not everyone is able to attend evening meetings, so there is always continuous discussion via our closed Facebook group, as well as our Meet & Mingle morning on the first Friday morning of each half term. Suggestions and comments made via these forums are placed on the agenda for discussion or taken into consideration when decisions are made within the main PTA meeting.
Usually the dates are:
Meet & Mingle (1st Friday of each half term - 9am in the bungalow)
PTA Meetings: (2nd Monday of each half term, starting at 7.30pm in the Bungalow)
Our AGM is usually held at the November PTA meeting.
Donations are a really important part of our fundraising and it doesn’t necessarily involve parents paying out cold hard cash - here are a few ways you can help:
Matched funding: An increasing number of large companies operate a match funding scheme whereby they “match” charity fundraising undertaken by their employees.
While we'd love to be able to provide a list of companies offering match funding, some companies have certain criteria in their small print (i.e. where it's only offered to full-time staff after two years service), or the schemes change too often for anyone to be able to keep a definitive list up to date. Generally speaking, banks and building societies, insurance companies, supermarkets, utilities providers, phone companies and car manufacturers are known historically to offer match funding schemes. Parents working for Aviva, Marsh and Vodafone have successfully match funded for us in the past, so please check it out with your employer and contact us if you’re able to help.
We’ve found that the easiest way to get raffle prizes is to simply ask, if you’ve got any ideas for local shops and businesses that we can contact, do not hesitate to get in touch.
Event Sponsorship: We already have good relationships with a few local businesses that donate money in return for advertising at our events, however there’s always room for more. If you have contacts with any company that would be interested in advertising with us or sponsoring one of our events, then please let us know.
Baking: We wouldn’t be a PTA of any credibility if we didn’t hold monthly cake sales and offer baked goods alongside tea & coffee at each of our events! Each month a cake sale is held to raise funds for a particular year group and all money raised is given directly to the teachers of that year to buy something for their classrooms. The dates for each year’s cake sale are further down this newsletter but you’ll be sent a reminder via Parentmail a week before your child’s class’ sale with instructions and a request to help.
6/ Cash-back schemes and non-event related fundraising
Easy Fundraising - if you shop online, please consider navigating to your usual shopping site via Easy fundraising, this site gives the PTA cash-back on your purchases. We’ll remind you all of the link via Parentmail closer to Christmas.
Link: www.easyfundraising.org.uk – sign up for Poringland Primary School Norwich.
Stamptastic - this is a great online company who sell personalised name stamps for you to use to put your child’s name in uniform and their school supplies. The PTA gets cash-back from every order our parents place when they use the code at checkout.
Link: https://stamptastic.co.uk- Our School Code is: NR147RF
Micro scooters - if you buy your child a micro scooter directly from their website, enter the schools code at checkout and the PTA gets a percentage.
Link: https://www.micro-scooters.co.uk/ - Our School code is: 120841
My child’s art - Each Autumn term the school staff work with the children and give them the opportunity to create their own Christmas card. These are uploaded to the mychildsart.co.uk website and parents can choose to buy Christmas cards and gifts with their child’s drawing on.
Spree - Every year, we give parents the opportunity to purchase Spree Voucher books. The more we sell, the more cash-back the school gets. Books will be sent home with children as soon as they arrive and the payment or the books can be returned within a couple of weeks.
Bag2School - if you’re having a clear out of old clothes, please consider, bagging them up and bringing them along to our next Bag2School collection. You don’t need to wait for a formal collection date, the PTA can store any bags if you contact us and let us know.
Butlins holidays - If you use this link and accompanying code to book a break at a Butlins resort, you will earn us cashback for the school.
School Code: NR147
Second hand uniform – The PTA take donations of second hand school jumpers and cardigans with the PS logo. These can be brought via the school office or drop a note to the PTA mailbox to make a request.
Our Events:
Here are some examples of the kinds of events we hold throughout the year:
Children’s Events
We hold film club and bake sales on the same afternoon, with the designated year group parents selling cakes to families after school in the junior playground and also after film club.
Film club is open to all years from reception upwards. We will send a parentmail at the start of the week with details of what the film will be along with instructions on how to purchase tickets. We need to know who will be attending before start of the day so the teachers can be made aware of who will be staying and sent to the hall instead of being picked up at 3pm.
Nursery children unfortunately cannot be included in Film Club or Disco. However if you are a parent helper for any of our events, your nursery aged children are more than welcome to join you.
Tickets for Film Club and Discos will be sold via the following website: https://www.pta-events.co.uk/poringlandprimarypta. You will need to register if you're a new family to the school and we will endeavour to send an email to registered parents to let them know that film club and disco tickets are on sale.
All children staying for film club are taken to the hall by their teacher and their names checked off the attendee register. The admission charge includes a Snack Pack for each child containing a packet of crisps, a small chocolate bar and a bottle of water or fruit shoot. If your child has any allergies we need to be aware of, please make sure these are noted when you return the permission slip so that individual requirements can be accommodated for.
Usually the film ends around 4.45pm and parents / carers can collect their children from the front entrance. Each child will be called individually in the same way as the KS1 children are released at the end of each day.
If the film is longer and a later pickup time is needed, this will be noted on the parentmail when that is sent.
As of September Film club will be £3.
School Discos — At the end of every term, we usually hold discos for the children.
Family Events
Over the past couple of years we've held many family events including Summer Fete, Christmas Fayre, Quiz & Fizz, Escape Room and Colour Runs
A big thank you to everyone that came along to join the fun!
There are lots of ways to communicate with the PTA and we love to hear your feedback and suggestions.
Main PTA Team
Toria Kirk – PTA Chair (email: poringlandptachair@gmail.com)
Chery Gallen - PTA Treasurer
James Goodson - PTA Secretary
Facebook:
Closed PTA Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1261268303935373/
PTA Events page: https://www.facebook.com/poringlandprimaryPTAevents/
Website:
www.poringlandprimarypta.co.uk