Parents at St Helen's work in partnership with staff to create a strong sense of community.
The role of the Parents’ Association (PA) is to help build this sense of community which we do in different ways:
At the start of the Michaelmas Term the School organises a series of New Parents Evenings for Years 5, 6, 7, 9 and US1. These provide an opportunity to get to know other parents in your daughter’s class and meet members of the Parents’ Association Committee. We are always keen to recruit potential Committee Members as well as informal ‘Willing Helpers’ to assist with some of the social events that we run.
Also in the Michaelmas Term Years 5, 6, 7 & 9 are invited to take part in an ‘At Home’ evening. These evenings are sponsored by the Parents’ Association and offer you the chance to meet together, informally, in the home of a host parent in your daughter’s form. We look for a volunteer parent in each class to offer to host an evening, usually a ‘bring a dish & bottle’ supper, to which all the parents in the form are invited. These evenings are very successful and great fun. They have helped many parents feel part of the School community.
As you would expect of any PA, we provide refreshments on Open Day and at the Christmas Carol and Confirmation Services. We also organise and run the bar at the Upper School Summer Ball.
For several years Felicity Topping has organised a superb Christmas Fair, which together with our Spring Social have been our main fund-raisers of the year. On alternate years the social event has been a very popular Comic Relief Quiz Night, which raised £2000 pounds last year.
During the year we aim to run two or three talks by professionals on different parenting issues such as: Keeping Your Child Safe on the Internet; Drugs and Alcohol Awareness; Eating Disorders and Teenage Brain Patterns. These proved particularly popular with parents and we intend to run another series this year.
The PA also gives small grants to students undertaking voluntary work, if they take a Gap Year before going onto University.
For just £4 per term, you can be entered into our 200 Club monthly prize draw. Each year up to £1200 is paid out in prize money.
We do hope you will agree that your £10 annual subscription to the PA represents excellent value!
From our recent fund-raising activities we have been able to donate £4,000 to charities and £10,000 to the school for extra equipment such as: tables and chairs for the Coffee Shop; play equipment for the Junior Department; and printers and sewing machines for the Young Enterprise Scheme.
Details of upcoming events can be found in the weekly newsletter. We also circulate invitations and ‘flyers’ where appropriate.
Of course, none of this would happen without the dedication of the PA Committee Members and our team of ‘Willing Helpers’. Being involved with the PA is fun and a great way to become part of the school community.
Jayne Robinson (Chair of the Parents’ Association)
Diary Dates for Michaelmas Term 2011
7th September US 1 Parents’ Reception
8th September Year 9 Parents’ Reception
13th September Years 5, 6 and 7 Parents’ Reception
26th September AGM – School Atrium, 7pm for 7.30pm
26th September First Committee Meeting 8pm
1st October Open Day 10am-2.30pm
19th November Christmas Fair 10am – 3.30pm
12th December Christingle 7pm
13th December Nine Lessons & Carols 7pm