Well Done Everyone!

As this academic year draws to a close and we swap days of school work and packed lunches for days out and picnics, give yourselves a pat on the back for everything you have helped do this year for the children of Strandtown.

• Did you paint teeny tiny nails or sell sugar laden treats at the school discos? Did you drop your little darlings off to dance the afternoon away at the Junior and Senior discos? If so, you helped raise £2,166.
• Did you indulge in some mince pies and shopping or just come to listen to the man in the skirt playing Christmas tunes on his bagpipes at the Christmas Craft Fair? Guilty as charged? This added £834 to the coffers.
• Were you the person that was asked to donate the dreaded bread sauce for the Christmas hamper or were you lucky to win the whole hamper that required a removal truck to get it home from school? Your efforts brought in £2,242.
• Did we see you dancing your socks off at the ‘adult disco’ or were you the one hiding behind their basket of sausage and chips on the night? Either way, it resulted in a £1,142 windfall for the PTA fund.
• Were you at the Summer Fair or did you donate half your child’s playroom to the sale? You must have contributed something because we raised a staggering £5,945 through the many stalls, P7 Enterprises and the raffle.
• How many children did you lose down the back of the sofa while you were looking for the old £1 coins? It was worth it, because together we found 402 coins (plus a random 10p?).

Along with the non-uniform days, the pet photo competition, the Easter Egg puzzles, the teacher/baby photo competition and the Fun Run, we raised over £17k. External grant funding from Santander, the George Best Belfast City Airport, the Halifax and the Community Fund brought our total raised this year to £22k.

Now some of you may think that we are just going to use this money to buy more biscuits for the staff room or bring the teachers on a day trip. Well, would you be surprised to know that in actual fact this money raised has already paid for the following:

• Classroom resources - £300 was given to each class for the incoming academic year to buy essentials for your child’s class
• The ‘Love for Life’ programme
• Garden furniture and games for the Willow Garden
• The adult curriculum classes
• The school music licence
• The P7 leavers photos and the P7 Play Leader awards
• The P7 Enterprise money is being used to leave a legacy from the Class of 2018. 90 new copies (3 x class sets) of Under the Hawthorn Tree bought and protective book sleeves. These will replace current books which are tattered and showing signs of age. 

It wasn’t all about fundraising this year. The PTA have also started meeting with the feeder school PTAs and our School Council to enable us to share ideas and problems. Did you spare a minute to lobby any of your local politicians about the critical state of our school budget? If you did then our persistence resulted in a delegate of politicians sitting down with parent and teacher reps earlier this month to discuss the issues relevant to Strandtown. This is something that we will re-visit in September.

So, to all of you that contributed your time, skills, support and/or money to help all of the above happen, we are very grateful to you. If you are interested in joining the PTA Committee, our AGM will be in September and there will be biscuits at it!

We hope you have a happy, safe and sunny summer filled with fun.

Strandtown PTA