Parent School Association

PSA – Parent and School Association

Next Meeting
Wednesday 23rd May, 7.30pm at school. On the agenda is Careers Week and the Summer Fair.

Careers Week for year 6
Last year we organised a careers week for year 6, we arranged for parents (or friends of parents) to come in to give a short talk and answer questions about their careers. The jobs we had last year included; Garden Historian, Builder, Reporter, Doctor, Teacher, Polar Oceanographer, Graphic Designer, Producer, Book Shop Owner, Film Maker and Solicitor. It was great for the children to be given ideas and inspiration but also for them to understand about what adults actually do at work and how they came to work in their chosen industries. Each person spoke for about 5 or 10 minutes and then answered questions. This year careers week will be w/b 18th June in the mornings. If anyone would like to talk, or has a friend who would like to please contact us by leaving a message and contact details in the PSA comments box in the main office or email us psa@chestnutsprimary.com

Summer Fair 2012
We are beginning to plan the Summer Fair which will be held on Saturday 7th July 12noon until 4pm.
Paul Simon are supported our fair again this year and the school ran a competition to design the boards, this was won by Mabel in Elm class and looks fantastic. We are now looking for people to display a board outside thier home, this will be for about 4 weeks before the fair. They will advertise our Summer Fair and Paul Simon will donate generously towards the cost of the fair.
Please let us know if you would like to display a board, have any ideas for the fair, would like to help or would like to have a stall. Come along to a PSA meeting, leave a message in our PSA comments box in the main office or email us psa@chestnutsprimary.com.

Background Information
The current committee of 7 parents was elected to run Chestnuts PSA in Feb 2012. So far we have organised the following; Jumble Sale, Careers Week for Year 6, engaging parents through coffee mornings (limited success), Painting the Junior playground wall, Summer Fair, Cake stall at the Haringey Food Festival, coffee mornings for new Reception parents, Christmas Fair, Chestnuts Friendship Book, Parent’s Evenings refreshments.

Our aims as a PSA are:

to raise funds to give our children at the school some ‘extras'
to help encourage a sense of community amongst Chestnuts children, staff and parents/carers
to become a registered charity

In the past year we have worked hard to achieve these aims. All our events have been very well attended and have helped to encourage a sense of community. We'd like to thank everyone that has dontated to or come to an event.

Our charity application is almost ready for submission and it shouldn’t take very long for a decision to made by the charities commission.

With the fantastic support from parents, staff, children at the school and company donations so far this year we have raised over £5,000 and we have made the following donations to the school:

£250 - play equipment for all years
£150 - gardening equipment and seeds
£100 - School discos, Dec 2010
£270 - books for all years
£200 - Year 6 theatre trip, June 2011
£200 - school trips contribution, Dec 2011
£250 - guitars for music lessons
£2,500 - Contribution towards Infant playground fake grass to cover the problem muddy area.

We are an informal bunch and would love more people to be involved. The current committee will be in office until Feburary 2013, but you don't have to be on the committee to become involved. Any help - however big or small - is of great value.

Julie Bartley (Blue and Elm class mum) and Esther Douglass (Year 1 mum) are the Chairs of the PSA and are happy to answer any questions or give more information. We can be contacted by email psa@chestnutsprimary.com, by leaving a message at the school office or come along to one of our meetings which are advertised in the school newsletter.

Jumble Sale
Thank you to everyone who helped with or came to the Jumble Sale. It was a lovely afternoon and we raised around £400 for the school.

Chestnuts Cook Book

We would like to collect recipes from children, parents and staff to make a cook book for Chestnuts. We have a wide range of cultures at the school so it would be great to have some favourite family recipes with an explaination or history to tell us why the recipe is so special to you. To send your recipes please email them to chestnutscookbook@gmail.com or leave them at the school office.

Gardening Day

Another great way to get involved and help the school is to come along and help in the gardens. The pictures below are from the gardening day in spring which cleared the beds for the children to plant their wonderful flowers and vegetables.