Supporting your school
How does your fundraising support the school?
We usually raise between £ 15,000 and £ 20,000 per year for school. We agree our funding objectives at the start of the year. Last year, most of our funding went on interactive whiteboards for all the classrooms, which have improved the children’ s learning experience greatly. This year, we’ re focusing on improving the outdoor areas. So far, we’ ve paid for an outdoor classroom, an extension to the trim trail, a gardening and bedding area, bike racks, and we’ ve had our storage containers decorated using pictures the children designed. Oh, and we invited a real-life fossil hunter into the school...
How did you fund the session?
We used PTA funding, so the session was free to parents and children. It was very easy to organise. The main thing to decide was whether to do a more detailed curriculum lesson with the older children, or a more‘ broad-brushed approach’ where he tries to cover more children across the school, but with less detail.
What were the sessions like?
The sessions were great! He covered the whole school( approximately 190 children) over a three-hour period. We brought the classes into the hall, two year groups at a time. He’ d brought lots of fossils and props with him. Then he gave a brief
overview of how fossils are formed and handed some of them around to the children – the dinosaur poo was a big hit! The children then asked lots of questions, which he answered. The school were really pleased with the session and it linked into some of the curriculum for the older children. The children loved it and were buzzing about it for days after!
Do you plan to organise more education-focused sessions for the children in the future?
Yes! During their yearly planning sessions, the school are going to request workshop themes for us to look into.
Tell us more about that! How did you find a fossil hunter?
My son has always been obsessed with dinosaurs and fossils, so last year for his birthday I was looking into present ideas. Something that kept getting recommended was a private tour with Mark Kemp,‘ The Yorkshire Fossil Hunter’. I looked into it further and realised how popular he was, as he only had one date left for the whole year! It was in November, which sounded a bit chilly to me, but I went ahead and booked it. We went on the tour on a beach near Whitby – it was four hours long, but absolutely flew by! While we were chatting on the tour, Mark mentioned he’ d been doing some work with schools. As I’ d recently taken over as Chair, I asked him to send me further details after the tour.
Images: Friends of Diggle School, Freepik, Shutterstock. com / Mikhail Nesytykh, Daniel Sztork, iStock. com / tacojim
PARENTKIND. ORG AUTUMN / WINTER 2026 31