Dear parents,

Last year, we sought support for our school budget and extra-curricular activities, in light of national and local financial pressures in education.

Our community has been instrumental in helping to ensure our core offer of an enrichment curriculum provides a wide range of events, opportunities and experiences for our children. Some parents have asked for an update on this and more information about what donations would be used for.

The school would like to continue to offer those vital resources and services.

This is a significant undertaking, which we hope to raise through donations and PTFA events such as the Summer and Winter Fairs, Quiz Nights and auctions.

Parents can help by:

– making regular donations via direct debit or a larger, one-off donation via the PTFA Donor Box Appeal 2024

– Joining the WP PTFA lottery or subscribing to Easyfundraising

Any monetary donations should be made directly via the PTFA, as they are a registered as a charity (the PTFA is registered as charity number 1103834). Therefore the donation will benefit from Gift Aid. You are encouraged to claim Gift Aid on all donations which will give an additional 25p for every pound donated. If you currently donate via the school bank account, you can either continue with that or cancel the payment and set up a new one with the PTFA.

If you know any businesses or funding organisations who would be interested in helping us, please put them in touch with us. Your employer may have charity programmes or match the donations you make. Please enquire if they run such a programme and if so, feel free to give them our bank details, or put them in touch with us directly.

There are many other (non-monetary) ways in which you can help currently support the school and its community. Please refer to the Patten Pages every fortnight for updates and new initiatives and projects or look on the PTFA Instagram page. We know that many of you help and contribute at PTFA school events and we are very grateful for this fundraising too.

Of course, we fully understand if you cannot contribute at this time. We know times are challenging. We are asking only for contributions from those in our community who would like to help and are in a position to do so.

The PTFA are hosting a coffee and croissant morning meeting at 9.30am on Friday 10^th May, if you have any further questions on any aspect of this letter or have ideas for fundraising.

Many thanks for your continued support.

Best wishes

Karen