PTA After School Events for Children - ticket policy

Dear Parents, We want to clarify the arrangements for any after school events that the PTA runs for the children of Claremont, including cinema club and the discos. In particular, we'd like to explain why tickets, once purchased, cannot be transferred to another child (without exception) and to ask for your support with this rule. These events are not run by the school and are not an extension to the school day. Responsibility for your child is transferred to the PTA (remember we are a standalone charity) at the end of the school day and we take this responsibility very seriously. This is why we say the tickets cannot be transferred to another child, it’s because this is the safest way to ensure children’s safety and wellbeing during the event. We have clear processes in place to ensure that wellbeing and safety – including limiting numbers at the events and ensuring we know exactly who is going to attend and key information about each child (including emergency contacts and allergy info). Only the original child associated with a ticket can be admitted to the PTA event. If you transfer the ticket to another child we will not have the necessary information about that child and our event would not be meeting the high standards of safeguarding we set ourselves. We’re afraid we can’t process the transfers either as it is a huge administrative task and this increases the risks around misinformation on the day. So please don’t ask us – there can be no exceptions. If your child is absent from school on the day in question, you do not need to tell us either. We work with the school office to correlate any school absences to the attendance list for the event. We are sure this is the basis on which you would like to entrust your children to our care and so we appreciate your support with adhering to this rule. If you buy a ticket and your child can no longer attend then your ticket will be considered a donation to the PTA and for this we are very grateful to support all the hard work the volunteers put into organising these events. We’re sorry if this means some children may miss out but we hope you understand that this rule is in place for all the right reasons and we thank you very much for your support enacting it. The PTA

CLAREFEST - ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW!

WHAT’S ALL THE FUSS ABOUT?

- CLAREFEST is a fun family day of music and entertainment for all the families of the school. There will be awesome bands playing TUUUUNES, bouncy castles, “Last Man Standing”, face painting, a dance workshop, circus skills, photobooth, festival merchandise, sweets and even ice cream!

HOW’S IT GOING TO WORK?

- On the day you will enter from Claremont Road and show your ticket at the gate. Once you’ve entered you’ll be given a CLAREFEST 2022 wristband which you will need to wear all day and use to re-enter.

- Within the festival, you’ll have the opportunity to buy food, drink and partake in the entertainment on offer.

- We will have toilets and rubbish facilities available (although we welcome you taking your rubbish home with you – bags will be available on the day).

- Entertainment stalls will be operated using a TOKEN SYSTEM (they will not accept cash or card payments). 1 token can be purchased for £1. Each stall will be marked with how many tokens you will need to use e.g. 1 token for a 5 minute jump on a bouncy castle. See the image at the bottom of this blog for full list

- Tokens can be purchased in advance (from the school playground during pick up the week before the event) or on the day (from the token stall near the entrance gate).

- We will be accepting – for the first time ever (hello 21st century) – CARD PAYMENTS at the Bar, BBQ and Token Stalls. The use of cash is being discouraged so please support us making this a cashless event.

WHAT YOU NEED TO DO NOW:

- Buy ENTRANCE TICKETS for all those wishing to attend before the day. Tickets sales will end at 12pm on Friday 20TH May . We have already sold nearly 700 tickets and only have 900 available so grab yours up from here before they’re gone!

- PLEASE VOLUNTEER your time to help set up on Friday afternoon / for part of the event on the Saturday / clear up on Sunday if you can. The more volunteers we have the more fun everyone can have! Please email Emma Butterworth if you can offer any time. Even 30 minutes on the day itself will make a difference.

BEFORE THE BIG DAY:

- CHECK THE WEATHER: We have put in a special request for sunshine and are keeping our fingers crossed but you may want to have wellies and waterproofs at the ready, as well as sun hats and sun cream!

- STOCK UP ON TOKENS which will be for sale from the school playground w/c 16th May during pick up. See image in this blog for the list of what stalls you will need tokens for on Saturday. These stalls will only accept tokens so buy yours in advance to save queuing on the day.

- You can also pre-purchase slots (£5 each) for the DANCE WORKSHOPS from the team in the playground at the same time.

The workshops will be

For years 2 - 6; 2.45pm - 3.15pm and 4.15pm - 4.45pm

For pre-school - year 1; 3.30pm - 4pm (under 4's will need adult supervision)

With a performance @ 5pm - 5.15pm

WHAT TO BRING ON THE DAY:

- Appropriate clothing (once you’ve checked the weather),

- Something to sit on/under…a picnic blanket, camping chairs, umbrella, you may even want to bring your own gazebo if it’s looking like it’s going to rain all day.

- Something to drink out of it... e.g. a plastic cup, pint/wine/prosecco glass if you have one to help us minimise waste.

- Your contactless payment cards to help us run this as a cashless event for the first time ever!

Please do not bring your own food or drink (unless of course you have a specific dietary requirement) as a variety of food and drink offerings will be available to purchase and every penny raised from their sale, will go towards the PTA.

WHAT TO DO ON THE DAY:

- If you’ve done all the above then all that remains is to turn up and have fun!

- Please be your usual responsible and respectful selves. We are grateful to the school for lending us their grounds to host this event and intend to leave it as we find it.

- Help us by taking your own rubbish home with you. Rubbish bags will be available.

Thank you for supporting the PTA and we hope you have a wonderful time!

Summer Fete – how we will need you to help make it a success!

As many of you know, the Summer Fete is a family fun day for the whole Claremont community – pupils, parents, extended family, future pupils, past pupils, neighbours,.. There will be all your usual fete fun – bouncy castles, games, ice cream, face painting, food and refreshments. And the best bit? Every penny raised will go towards the PTA!

It will be on Saturday 2nd July, 12-3pm and tickets are now on sale through our website for £2.50 per adult (children are free) and on the gate for £3 per adult.

Whilst we have a dedicated team organising the event, they are small in number and we cannot make it happen without a large pool of volunteers, donations from the parent body and some specific skills and pieces of equipment. This blog is to explain the ways we will be asking the Claremont community to rally together to help make the Summer Fete a success!

DONATIONS:

We will be asking parents to donate items to help us populate the stalls and raffle. Shortly after the May half term, we will be holding some donation mornings where we will be collecting:

- Sweets in a jam jar (no chocolates or nuts) - see example photo below

- Teddies

- Books

- Fancy dress costumes.

- Unopened bottles of alcohol

- Raffle prizes – a specific colour depending on your child’s year group.

Teddies, books and fancy dress costumes can be second hand but good quality please.

The raffle will be a “Colour Raffle”. There will be 7 wonderful hampers up for grabs. We are asking each year group to donate raffle gifts of a specific colour:

- Reception – RED

- Year 1 – ORANGE

- Year 2 – YELLOW

- Year 3 – GREEN

- Year 4 – BLUE

- Year 5 – PURPLE/PINK

- Year 6 – WHITE

The Donation mornings are happening on Wednesday 8th, Thursday 9th and Friday 10th June during morning drop off. Find the PTA helpers either at the Banner Farm Road Gate or in the playground by the Reception pen from 8.40-9am.

VOLUNTEERING ON THE DAY:

As is Claremont tradition, we will be asking each class to provide volunteers to help set up, run and tidy away a stall. We will ask Class Reps to coordinate the rota for each class so that will come from them in due course. These are the stalls that each class will be responsible for:

Reception Sapllngs - BBQ

Reception Acorns – Hook a Duck and Lucky Dip

Year 1 Elm – Bouncy Castle 1

Year 1 Ash – Bouncy Castle 2

Year 2 Maple – Teddy Tombola

Year 2 Rowan – Book/DVD/Greeting Cards Stall

Year 3 Hazel – Fancy dress stall

Year 3 Cedar – Sweets Tombola

Year 4 - Bar and Craft Stall

Year 5 – Linden - Coconut Shy (/other game tbd) and Sponge a Teacher

Year 5 - Elder - Bottle Tombola

Year 6 – Sweet treats – e.g. Cupcakes, popcorn tbd

More information about the volunteering rota will come from Class Reps in coming weeks.

LENDING US YOUR SKILLS:

We are looking for:

- A chalk writer for the Bar signs

- A graphic designer to help make our map look pretty – hand drawn or computer drawn

Please email us now if you could lend us your skills in these areas.

LENDING US YOUR EQUIPMENT

We will need 2 art easels, also probably need some clothes rails and may need extra tables and gazebos. Please email us if you might have any of those we can borrow on the day.

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU.

The PTA