Supporting your school |
What events were part of your three-year plan? |
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The village were planning a 10km run around the local area, and one of the mums involved in it put forward the idea of doing a colour run instead, so the PTA could organise it and use the money for the adventure playground. It became quite a big event. We only did it last year and it happened to be the day after we had all that snow! There was a bit of panic the night before, but it turned out to be a lovely day. I think that raised over £ 1,000.
That’ s amazing! What other events did you hold?
We have core fundraisers that we stick to every year, and we tried to build on those to raise a bit more money. We do a wreath-making Christmas event every year, which always raises loads of money, and we do something called a duck race with the village.
Our other events included a ladies night, where we sold second-hand clothes, a sponsored walk with another school, Christmas ceramic workshops, Christmas cards, an Easter egg hunt, quizzes, a book exchange and sports days – so yes, lots of events!
Did you have any nonevent fundraisers?
We did‘ grow a pound’. Each child was given a pound to come up with something they could sell at a market we held.
The kids absolutely loved it and did some amazing things with it. Some bought ingredients to bake cakes, others bought card to make fingerprint greetings cards, and somebody bought seedlings to grow plants to sell. It was really driven by the children. We gave
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them a month to make all of these products from that pound and the proceeds went back into the PTA for the adventure playground.
How long did it take to raise the money you needed?
From start to finish it took about two years in the end.
And how much did the adventure playground cost in total?
Around £ 40,000.
How did you organise the building work?
The PTA raised the money, and then the school ran the actual build because of health and safety reasons. Mrs Parker spent a lot of her own time outside of school on it, speaking to all of the different companies.
How did you choose which companies to go for?
We went to a couple of companies around the area to get quotes and see what was achievable. We were lucky with the companies we found as they were very good at liaising with each other and were willing to work within our timescale.
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What was the actual build like?
There were three phases. We started by clearing the site. There were a lot of trees! Then a company came in and did all the landscaping.
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The last bit, which was probably the easy bit, was when a company came in and built the actual adventure playground. They were fantastic, they did an assembly with the children and held a competition for them to come up with ideas. They used all those ideas, and that was how our adventure playground was built!
Do you have any future plans?
We ' d love to add a mud kitchen, maybe a couple of murals. We ' ve now started doing a forest school out there as well. It ' s wonderful to have that area to do that.
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Photography: St Julian ' s School PTA |