Address:
William Patten Primary School
Stoke Newington Church Street
London N16 0NX
Office Manager: Rita Quigley
SENDCo: Caitlin Shaw
William Patten Primary School
Stoke Newington Church Street
London N16 0NX
Office Manager: Rita Quigley
SENDCo: Caitlin Shaw
As we start a new academic year it’s fantastic to see all the new faces joining the William Patten community. As a Parents Teacher & Friends Association (PTFA) we’d like to welcome everyone to the school.
Our role as a PTFA is twofold, firstly to support our amazing school with funds to facilitate a number of hugely important activities including fit for sport staff at breaks and large projects which have recently included the school Jubilee celebrations. Secondly our role is to help bring the parent community together and provide ways for us all to meet, socialise and help foster the school community.
As a PTFA team we are excited to share the upcoming events we have planned. Dates for 2023-24 will be in the next Patten Pages, mark the dates in your diary and look out for further details to follow.
The PTFA is a group of parents, carers, friends and school staff that volunteer their time to make our school a better environment for our children. Our goal is to create a school community for the whole family through a wide range of fun and creative initiatives, events, and fairs. These events bring the school and community closer together with a primary focus to raise funds for our children’s benefit. We all know that schools have had a tough time financially for some years now, so the funds raised by the PTFA will go towards ensuring that our children can continue to enjoy music lessons, educational school trips and themed events throughout the year, such as arts, international and science days, a Christmas tree and decorations. We are also in discussions about having a longer-term fundraising initiative to update the Early Years playground, details on this are being drafted as we speak. We will provide more specific details around funds allocation in time.
A bit of history about the PTFA at WP, it used to be very active until covid hit. Since then, it has lost most of its volunteers and the momentum, and has been operating at a much more limited capacity. Last year, three parents took it over and sought to ensure that we had a series of great events, and they have now roped in a few more volunteers. We are still a very small group so we are hoping to grow.
In order to achieve our goals we are asking for as much support as possible; from helping with donations for events, giving time to support the running of events, but most importantly by attending and supporting our events to make them worthwhile for the school and the community. See the dates for your diary section which lists our upcoming events.
We are 100% volunteer-led, and all our current volunteers have full-time jobs too. So we are looking for some additional help by gathering extra volunteers. All help is welcome; from taking an active ongoing role to donating a few hours of your time occasionally.
We are currently looking for:
| Role | What’s involved | Time commitment |
| Social Media Coordinator | We need someone to maintain the PTFA’s social media (Instagram) and keep our presence on the school website up to date. | <1 hour per month. It requires minimal time as we simply need someone to help publicise events periodically. |
| Fundraising Coordinator | We need one or more people who are willing to seek donations and gifts in kind from local businesses as well as explore opportunities for corporate sponsorship for bigger projects (e.g. playground refresh). | 1-2 hours per month (can be shared) |
| Happy-to Helpers | We are looking for a list of people who are happy to help at PTA events, by
• setting up for events • running the bar and serving refreshments at events • selling raffle tickets etc • clearing up after events And to go on, a list of helpers who we can reach out to with requests for other help as needed |
On-going but event specific |
And of course, we are always looking for parents who have a specialist skill/job that may be useful to the school for learning or fundraising purposes – you could be an art expert or a professional comedian for example or be able to give a raffle prize or attend as special guests at our fund raising events.
Please get in touch! Our email address will be on the patten pages and updates will be made via Arbor.
The PTFA is currently organising a series of events for the school year. You will see these dates appear in the Patten Pages and we will start to utilise the Arbor app to post PTFA information. Please bear with us while we get this up and running.
9th October 2023 – Coffee Morning catch up.
The PTFA will host an informal coffee morning at the school immediately after drop-off at 9:00am. Please join us to talk about upcoming activities and ideas and enjoy the free croissants!
7th November 2023 – PTFA Annual General Meeting at 8:00pm (probably on Zoom – TBC).
9th November 2023 – PTFA Social gathering at the Red Lion from 7:30pm. An informal catch up for anyone interested in meeting newly appointed PTFA members and discuss upcoming activities and ideas.
16th November 2023 – Quiz Night Doors open at 6:30pm and quiz starts at 7:00pm. A fun evening of trivia with food and drinks available for purchase. Individual and whole table tickets will be available for purchase on Arbor.
Arbor: login.arbor.sc
Facebook: Please search for the William Patten PTFA page and request to join. You will be asked the name of your child’s class as security.
Instagram: William_Patten_School_ptfa
PTFA email: williampattenptfa@gmail.com
School Lottery:
The lottery works by parents signing up to a monthly direct debit. The minimum requirement is £1 per month, although people typically contribute between £5 – £10 a month – and some people do more than that. There is a monthly draw for which the cash prizes are £40, £30 and £20, which equates to about 30% of the total takings. We currently receive approximately £267 a month after prize money, so that’s an annual income of £3,200 for the PTFA.
Please sign up by emailing the PTFA at: williampattenptfa@gmail.com
Easyfundraising.org.uk:
Please note William Patten School – London is registered with easyfundraising. Easyfundraising is a simple and hugely effective way to raise funds for the school. Once registered, any purchases you make through a partner retailer (there are thousands of partner retailers) will generate a donation to the school at no extra cost to you.
In the coming weeks, if you’re shopping online, please remember to shop via the easyfundraising website or app. There are thousands of retailers on easyfundraising, including M&S, booking.com, Argos, Sky, Sainsburys Groceries, John Lewis, Clarks, WHSmith etc. who all give free donations to William Patten School, based on a percentage of what you spend at no cost to you (the percentage varies per shop, but some are up to 6%).
If you’re not already signed up, it only takes a few minutes, then you can begin using the easyfundraising website or app straightaway – simply visit easyfundraising first and then shop online as normal. This will be an enormous help to us, at no extra cost to yourself.
Please visit the easyfundraising page to get started:
https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/williampattensch/
