Hello everyone and welcome back to a new year at St Joseph’s! A special welcome to parents and carers who are new to the school, we hope your children are settling in well.
We thought it might be helpful for new and returning parents and carers if we let you know a little bit about the PTA at St Joseph’s and what we do. We are a group of parents and teachers who work together to organise a programme of events throughout the school year. These events provide social activities for children and parents, building community spirit both within and outside the school, and of course raise much needed funds for St Joseph’s. These events can take the form of school discos, quizzes, raffles, communion and confirmation teas, marathon relays and of course the annual community fun day event held each June.
Whilst these events are fun to take part in, the money raised really goes a long way to support the school. Our target for 2019/20 to raise £10,000 was knocked off course by the pandemic, but we still managed to raise a respectable £5,000 thanks to your generous support. Sometimes it can seem that all of this fundraising is a bit of a remote concept since we as parents never get to experience the newly purchased white board or laptop.
Ben & Thom host St Joe’s Got Talent Show News
However, as we work our way through these difficult times the school will be relying on funds raised by the PTA more than ever. Funds raised to help out the school also shows our active support and appreciation for the work the teachers are doing (as was evident by their fantastic support during lockdown and getting the school operating safely for our childrens’ return this term).
Fundraising for vital school resources
One key way that we can really help this year is to support innovation to lessen the pandemic burden on teachers, parents and pupils. Already the school is trialling the Bug Club reading resource via Seesaw that you may have seen. This means our children can access reading material online without carrying books home, thus minimising COVID related risks. The provision of online resources also means that should your child have to self isolate they can still easily access work and keep up with the rest of their class. As we progress through this year the school will continue to look at innovative ways like this to support our children during these difficult times.
Pupils from 2019/20’s P3A class, showing their appreciation for Mrs McAlister after the weirdest school year ever.
Innovation costs money though so as a PTA we would love to help as much as possible especially given how much it will benefit all of our children. Whilst our ability to host physical events will be limited this year we still have plenty of plans and would encourage everyone to participate and help out. We still hope to run discos (albeit via new formats), quizzes, raffles, racing competitions and talent shows.
For this 2020/21 year we would like to set a fundraising target of £7,500 and it would be great if you could support us. If you would like to make a donation now you can do via Paypal:
This link will remain open throughout the year should you wish to donate at a later time. Whilst we will be encouraging donations throughout the year please only do so if you can afford it. We will keep you updated as we progress towards our goal!
Please Get Involved
If you would like to join the PTA you can contact us at stjospta@gmail.com. If you can’t commit the time to join you can still drop into our meetings throughout the year. These will be taking place via Zoom for the forseeable future so if you have a great fundraising idea please dial in! All PTA meetings (with Zoom dial in details) and events will be publicised throughout the year via Class Connectors on Whatsapp, the PTA section on the St Josephs PS website/app or via Facebook. So please keep in touch or get involved.
Many thanks for all of your support, take care of yourselves and hopefully see you soon,
The PTA