What is Friends of St. Peter’s?
Friends of St Peter’s Association (Friends) is a registered charity set up for the purpose of fundraising for St Peter’s C of E Primary School. For example in the run up to Christmas, Friends organised the gift afternoon in school, the Winter Social, a raffle, wreath workshop, xmas4schools Christmas cards and took part in the Lower Heswall Round Table Santa Wagon.
As always thanks goes to everyone involved…
who volunteered time to plan, organise and run these events, including all the shoppers and wrappers,
to the teachers and children, and
to all the families, and local businesses who supported the events
…collectively over £2,500 was raised for school in just a few short weeks!
Recently, with the funds raised by the above activity, and bigger events such as the summer fair, a new projector has been bought for the school hall, a replacement smartboard for one of the classrooms, science supplies and a contribution to new reading books. All things that benefit our children and advance their learning on a daily basis, and thanks to the recent events and bigger events such as the Summer Fair, were able to be purchased.
Why is Friends a charity?
Setting up the fundraising activities with charity status means grants can be applied for and gift aid can be claimed, this adds a lot of extra money over the year. Another bonus is that Friends set the criteria for decisions about what funds can be used for, it’s a collaborative decision making process.
Without the fundraising led by Friends there is a growing budget hole for the things that help make the learning meaningful for children and for items that break or are needed and have not been budgeted for.
A note on schools budget allocations: A National Funding Formula (NFF) is used to make sure that a school’s per-pupil funding reflects a number of factors including the characteristics of their pupils (like how many pupils have fallen behind), how many pupils receive free school meals, the geographic location of the school (to reflect different salary costs) and much more. (educationhub.blog.gov.uk)
How does Friends work?
As a parent / guardian / family member of a pupil you are automatically a member of Friends and we would love you to participate however you would like to. You can also become a committee member. Friends plan and organise a range of events throughout the year to raise funds for the school and also support the school to raise money.
How is Friends set up?
Friends is run by a committee with representatives from school staff, parents, St. Peter’s Church and governors. The role of the committee is to:
develop relationships between families and school,
engage in activities to support the school and the advancement of education,
make sure everyone is working together and that activities are run safely and timely,
ensure funds are used to benefit the children of St. Peter’s and support their learning.
In addition, there is a wider ‘fundraising’ group of people who get involved with organising, delivering and running events and activities to raise funds.
How can I support Friends or get involved?
Every time you, your child, your family and friends support an event or activity, such as the Pancake Flip sponsorship, you are helping to raise funds that will be spend to benefit the children of St. Peter’s and support their learning.
New ideas and suggestions are always welcomed! There are lots of ways to be involved; from shopping, sourcing a raffle prize or collecting craft supplies, to running a stall, planning or coordinating your own event with parents you know or becoming a committee member to help plan and guide events.
You don’t have to commit to committee meetings to share ideas or to help with events either in advance or on the day.
We would love to build on our list of helpers, as we can’t run events if we don’t have enough people involved. There’s a WhatsApp group you can join that is used to ask for ah-hoc involvement, this is where all the tasks and jobs are shared. So it’s a great way to be involved as much or as little as you want and when suits you and your availability.
How do we know what’s planned?
Regular updates go out via school emails, and we create messages that can be shared on WhatsApp groups. Also see our Facebook page www.facebook.com/friendsofstpetersheswall/ and all events are also on the school calendar on the school website www.stpeters-heswall.wirral.sch.uk and don’t forget to follow @hewsallstpeters on Twitter and @heswallstpeters on Instagram. If you would like to help out ad-hoc you can also be added to the ‘fundraising’ WhatsApp group.