SCHOOL’S OUT
‘We threw a birthday
PTAs tell us about their recent community success stories…
party for every child’ Birthdays mean a lot to the little people at our nursery and infant school. But during the pandemic, every child has experienced a lockdown birthday with no friends, no party and just a few family members to sing to them. To give them the experience they
‘We launched our crowdfunding
page with a sponsored litter pick’ On a wet Sunday last term, 21 parents and children braved the weather to help make our town a cleaner place to live. The school had asked us to raise
money for 40 iPads and 40 Chromebooks to replace the old technology in the ICT suite. We knew we’d need to do a lot of fundraising, so we decided to set up a crowdfunding page using Rocket Fund (
rocketfund.org) to bring our individual fundraisers together on one platform. To launch the page, we held a sponsored litter pick. Some of us had seen people litter
picking in the High Street during lockdown, and thought a sponsored litter pick would be an excellent way to get the children to help the environment and the community. Local volunteer group Spelthorne Litter Pickers lent us equipment and provided guidelines about what to pick and what to leave. We contacted the High Street shops to let them know what we
58 AUTUMN 2021
pta.co.uk
were planning and to ask for ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ even if they couldn’t donate. Everyone was very supportive, and one shop even asked us to suggest ways we might form an ongoing relationship. Seeing what people had dropped
was a real eye-opener, and it was rewarding to be able to make the street more attractive. I wasn’t sure the children would enjoy it, but they surprised me with their enthusiasm. They even competed to see who could pick up the most. We had to stay in our family groups because of Covid, but we bumped into other families on the way round. When the litter pick was over, we
sanitised everything and returned the loaned items to Spelthorne Litter Pickers, who gave the children certifi cates to say thank you. So far, we have raised over £600 with more still to come. Katrina Powell, PTA member, Clarendon Primary School PTA, Ashford, Middlesesx (260 pupils)
deserved, the PTA decided to hold a giant party where each bubble could celebrate together, marking everyone’s birthday at the same time. The school allowed us to hold the parties in classrooms during school hours with the teachers and TAs supervising. We asked for £1 per child but made it voluntary so no child would miss out because of their family’s fi nancial circumstances. Several local fi rms gave us donations: Sainsbury’s provided a chocolate egg for each child, a local business gave us party bags, and the community centre donated toy cars. Kitchen staff at the school made every child a cupcake, and the PTA paid for sweets, candles and balloons. Once we got started, everyone
forgot the past year’s diffi culties as the children played party games, made hats, sang and danced. The smiles on their faces said it all as they blew out their candles and made birthday wishes. One little boy told his mum it was his ‘best day ever’. Samantha Thompson, PTA member, Friends of Queensway, Thetford (175 pupils)
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