Woodside PTA

The PTA is an essential part of our school community - a group who volunteer to organise and run social and fundraising events for the parents and children, in order to raise money for the school and ultimately, enrich the learning environment of the children. They bring the community together; are fun and rewarding; and the children love getting involved. There’s an extraordinary variety of events on offer; from discos, film nights, seasonal fairs and quiz nights; to raffles, Break the Rule days and so much more.

Through these events, the PTA support a wealth of different projects. Recently, funds have helped buy laptops; gardening tools for the children; microscopes with digital cameras; benches & gazebos; geography equipment; outdoor play & sports equipment; keyboards and additional classroom equipment. They’ve helped complete a Sensory Garden; part funded walk ways to be paved; and paid for the Bloodhound SSC Engineering Project to deliver STEM workshops!

There are so many ways parents and carers can help the PTA, but to make any event successful, we need you and your children to join in the fun! So, please come along, join in and enjoy!

Ways To Get Involved

Join a meeting: The PTA would love to see you at one of our meetings, held at least once per half term. There’s no pressure to commit to anything, but it’s good to have different opinions to make sure they are catering for everyone.

Get involved: The PTA always need people! From volunteering at events; running stalls; setting up/clearing down; face painting, etc; to designing leaflets; wrapping presents; selling tickets; gathering raffle prizes, and so on. Any amount of time you can give, is always welcomed.

Be a Class Rep: They always need at least one person per class, to make sure that all parents and carers within that class are aware of events coming up, and to help find volunteers.

There are several other easy ways parents/carers can all help increase their donations to the school, from the comfort of their own homes and often, without costing them a penny:

Ways To Raise Funds For The PTA

Make a donation: You could bake cakes, support our raffle or tombola with a prize, attend events or simply make a cash donation on our JustGiving page: www.justgiving.com/woodsideassociation

Match Funding: If you’re a working parent, you could ask your employer if they will ‘match fund’ money raised by the PTA, allowing us to double the money we raise for the school!

The Woodside Voucher Scheme: This doesn’t cost you anything! Simply buy vouchers to use when shopping, from Tesco and Sainsbury’s (online only) Waitrose/John Lewis (online and instore), through the scheme, and they’ll donate 4% back to the school. You can make one-off orders or set up a monthly standing order. Email: woodside.voucher@gmail.com or message Woodside Voucher Scheme on Classlist, stating which card you require, e.g. Tesco, Sainsbury’s or Waitrose/John Lewis and the amount you want to add. For details on 'how to use the voucher scheme' please click here. Further information and FAQs can be found here.

School Lottery: Join from just £1 per week. Guaranteed winners every week, as well as the chance to win £25,000 & additional prizes and vouchers every month. The school receives 40% of all sales. Visit: www.yourschoollottery.co.uk and search for: Woodside Junior School

Amazon Smile: Who hasn’t bought something from Amazon? Every time you shop through www.smile.amazon.co.uk, they will donate 0.5% of the net purchase price (excl. VAT) of eligible goods, to the school. Register The Woodside Association as your chosen charity and start shopping!

Easyfundraising: Raise money through your online shopping, by visiting the retailers (over 5,000) through www.easyfundraising.org.uk. Once you’ve purchased, the school receives between 0.5% to 10% of the purchase price! Register Woodside Junior School Fund, Amersham, as your chosen cause.

Classlist.com

The PTA and parents use this as our main communication tool. It is a free, safe, secure online community for the school. Parents can post questions and message other parents in their child’s class or year group. It’s great for tracking down lost jumpers, checking homework and organising play dates or activities. The PTA also load up all of our news and events on it and it’s used for purchasing tickets online to events, such as discos and film nights. So, it’s an essential tool for anyone in the school community.

Please contact the PTA on woodsideschool08@googlemail.com if you would like to sign up for Classlist.

Any contribution - in time, money, services or products - will make a difference to the children and the school, so THANK YOU!

If you think you’d like to help; have ideas about fundraising or social events; have a skill that may be useful; or just have a question, then why not drop the PTA an email: woodsideschool08@googlemail.com or contact them through Classlist?

You can also join Woodside Parents on Facebook to keep up with what’s going on.