Welcome back!

Hello everyone,

We hope your children enjoyed the first few days back at school. Have you spotted FROGS’ latest work? Over the summer we have installed a traverse climbing wall in the main playground:

A big thank you to our volunteer who made this project happen. It took over two years from start (getting rid of the unused cricket nets) to finish (finding a contractor after the first one bailed out). We paid £4,500 for the wall and mural and we really hope you and your kids like it!

COFFEE MORNING

This Friday 15 September we will be holding a FROGS coffee morning. Please come along if you are a new parent at school and would like to know more about our charity. And if you know all about FROGS and would like to support our work, please come and buy a T-shirt if you can! We will also be selling FROGS stamp cards, which can be used at all our events, including cake sales.

2022/2023 IN REVIEW

Thank you to all our volunteers who helped last year. Whether you manned a stall at an event, baked or took part in the matched giving scheme, it was worth it! We raised over £18,000 for the school. See below FROGS’ 2022/2023 year in numbers:

AUTUMN TERM EVENTS

On Friday 22 September we will be having our AGM, during which we will discuss our plans for the year. Everyone is welcome! Please lookout for the agenda which will be shared next week.

Cake sales this year will be raising money for something very special for all Grasmere children, watch this space! Please let your class reps know if you can help with either selling or baking cakes, it is always very popular with the children.

Our main events take a lot of effort to organise and as we are such as small school we need as much help as possible to make them happen. Please look out for our volunteer sign up sheets which will be shared by class reps very soon.

We’re looking for an organiser to help coordinate the stall and set up the Winter fair on the 8 December, please get in touch if you can help. We always need new parents to get involved as of course every year we loose a whole cohort of year 6 parent volunteers.

Thank you and take care,

FROGS

Happy holidays!

Hello,

Here’s our last newsletter for this school year. See below for a summary of our latest fundraising, our various plans for next year, as well as an update on the new library, and Mr Bubbles’ visit.

Please note that our AGM will be on Friday 22 September at 9am. We’re always looking for new Committee members and class reps (and we’re also looking for a Nursery Class rep if you know any families starting next year) Our class reps for next year are: Reception: Rob Y1: Magnus & Émilie Y2: Aifric Y3: Caroline & Léa Y4: Gill & Nicola Y5: Chog & Megan Y6: Tom & Lizzie

In the past few weeks we raised over £350 with the Year 6 ice lolly sales; and around £50 with the Book sale. We also raised over £3,000 for the end-of-year staff gift – thank you all.

A big thank you also to all staff leaving Grasmere this year – we really wish you could stay and are so sorry to see you leave! And best of luck to the Year 6 children and their families (especially the FROGS who helped so much over the last few years – thank you again).

Mr Bubbles

We spent £300 on fun workshops with Mr Bubbles for the whole school as an end-of-year treat from FROGS – we hope your children enjoyed it.

GRASMERE’s NEW library

This year we spent around £1,000 setting up the library in a new space at the heart of the school. There was a lot of books to sort out, not to mention a delay in the delivery of the shelves, but everything is now ready and the children will be able to enjoy it and borrow books to take home from September. Huge thanks to all the volunteers who helped move the books, and sort them and label them!

next year

Next year we will be working on the Reading Room, which is situated on the first floor just above the library. It will be a cosy space with armchairs, books and audiobooks – a place to have a chat, read or listen to music.

We’ve also lots of exciting plans for next year, including getting Grasmere cooking, and plenty of events in the calendar – thank you to everyone who has volunteered to organise something already. The more events we do, the more money for the school, the more fun for the kids!

Friday 8 September, 9am: Coffee morning for new parents (FROGS & school)

Friday 22 September, 9am: FROGS AGM (Committee)

Friday 29 September, evening: Garden party for parents only (Nicola)

Saturday 7 October 10.30-12.30: Jumble sale (Lea & Jay)

TBC Monday 30 October: Twilight Halloween trail and/or autumn raffle
> We need a volunteer to help organise a trail around the area with some clues, or organise a autumn raffle, or both! Please get in touch if you can help, thank you!

Friday 3 November, from 3.30pm: Disco & Bonfire night/Diwali (Jenny, Sally)
> We need a volunteer to organise the campfire and outdoor side of the event. Please get in touch if you can help, thank you!

TBC Friday 8 December, 3.30-5pm: Winter Fair
> We need 2 volunteers to organise this event (stalls including kitchen are ran by various year groups so it would be mostly organising layout & Santa’s grotto). Please get in touch if you can help, thank you!

Friday 26 January, from 3.30pm: Cinema night (Caroline, Nicola)

Tuesday 27 February, 7.30pm: Pub quiz (Nicky, Andrew & Karen)

February, school time: Yoga/mental health workshop for Children’s Mental Health Week (Nat)

Saturday 16 March, 10.30-12.30: Jumble sale (Lea & Jay)

March, school time: World Book Day & Science Week Workshops, TBC

Wednesday 27 March, school time: Easter Egg hunt (Jay & Nicola, Gill)

TBC April: International Evening, TBC. A day where kids bring bread from their country to class, and we have a spring feast after school (would be after Ramadan too)
> We need 1 or 2 volunteers to organise this event

May, school time: Beatbox workshops after the exams (Nicola)

TBC Friday 14 June, from 3.30: Enterprise fair
> We need 1 or 2 volunteers to organise this event

Saturday 13th July: Summer fair (Megan & Sally)

July, school time: Mr Bubbles (Nicola)

Our big fundraising events couldn’t happen with lots and lots of volunteers. We are a very small school, and we need all the help we can get (around 60 volunteers per event) to run the fairs and jumble sales.

Please save the dates, and look out for our volunteer sign up sheets nearer the time, to help us raise money for the school.

If you’d like to know more about what is involved in running an event, please email us any questions and queries (frogs.grasmere@gmail.com).

Thank you and have a lovely summer!

FROGS

July Newsletter

Hello,

Here are the minutes and financial statement of our last meeting. The final FROGS events of the school year will be:

Thursday 13 July, 3.30: Y6’s Ice Lolly sale

Friday 14 July, 9-11am: Library volunteers needed to add new books to the system.

Friday 14 July, 3.30: Book sale. Kids can pick up second-hand books (50p each) for the summer

Thursday 20 July, schooltime: Mr Bubbles is coming back to Grasmere!
A FROGS end-of-year treat for all the children.

SUMMER FAIR

Thank you to all who braved the rain to make our Summer Fair a lovely event! We hope everyone had a great time and enjoyed the stalls, delicious food, great playlist and the Year 6 band. Despite the weather we raised a whopping £1,664 with this event – well done to all organisers and volunteers! Taking out about £500 for expenses including bouncy castle hire, and supply caretaker to open the school and help set up/tidy up, we’ve made a profit of £1,164.

One of our parent volunteers is able to match fund this through his employer, which mean an extra £1,000 for the charity. So a total of £2,164 for our last event of the year! (If you work for a big company you might be able to match fund too! Get it touch if you need help finding out how it works: grasmere.frogs@gmail.com).

Here’s a picture of the one second the sun came out (right at the end!):

And here’s the rest of the fun:

With special thanks to…
– the managers at Tesco Matthias Road, Waitrose Holloway and M&S Dalston who all gave us lots of goodies for the fair, including biscuits, ice lollies, chocolates and burger buns.
– all the volunteers who manned their stalls in the rain, and all those who did the planning/donating/buying beforehand, it wouldn’t have happened without you!
– the parents who built and painted our first Splat the Rat stall ever, and William, the school’s caretaker, who built new stands for the wonderful coconut shy stall.
– the Year 2 parents who manned a total of four stalls!
– the handful of volunteers who did double shifts and barely had time to eat, helping the stalls stay open and making sure the kids had the best time.

END-OF-YEAR STAFF GIFT

We are collecting for the end-of-year staff gift. This gift is from every child to every staff member at Grasmere and it is the only collection you will be asked to contribute to this year (except Year 6 who are doing something different on top of this for their teacher and TA). All of the classes are coming together to collect one pot of money which will be equally divided into vouchers for all of the staff at Grasmere, whether they work in the classroom, kitchen, office etc…

You can add to the pot here before Wednesday 19 July, and include a note for the staff on the 'wall' of the pot (if your budget is tight, don’t worry, you can still add your child's name and write on the wall of the pot).

NEXT SCHOOL YEAR

Here are some dates for your diary for next year!

Friday 8 September 9am: Coffee morning for new parents & tour of the school

Friday 22 September 9am: FROGS AGM – we will be voting in our new treasurer Magnus and new co-chair Jay. Everyone is welcome, and we are always looking for new committee members. Please join us if you are free that day, and if not, you can always email frogs.grasmere@gmail.com with any queries or suggestions. We would love more dads, and parents and carers of all backgrounds, to be involved, as FROGS should represent the school community in all its diversity.

Please see below the events and projects that we are hoping to organise next year. We are so lucky to have lots of volunteer organisers already (huge thank you all – it’s the most organised we’ve ever been!), but we will need everybody’s help to make these happen. As ever our motto is ‘Many hands make light work.’

September: Evening Garden Party for parents (Nicola)

September-October: Tea towel project (volunteer needed to manage this project with the school’s help)

October: Jumble sale (Léa & Jay)

October: Halloween trail (volunteer needed to help organise a trail around the neighbourhood)

November: Disco and Bonfire Night (Jenny, volunteer needed to organise the bonfire/outdoor)

December: Winter Fair (2 volunteers organisers needed)

January: Cinema Night (Caroline, Nicola)

February: Pub quiz (Nicky, Andrew & Karen)

March: Jumble sale (Léa & Jay)

March: Easter Egg Hunt (Jay, Nicola & Gill)

April: Spring feast/International day/bring a bread from your country day, after Ramadan (school and volunteers needed for this)

June: Enterprise fair (volunteer organiser needed)

July: Summer fair (Megan)

To run an event you will have the support of the FROGS committee who will take care of the sign-up sheets, shop tickets, posters etc as well as give you all the tips and advice you might need. By donating your time to organise the Winter Fair for example, you will help raise between £1,000-£2,000 for the school in one afternoon – and make lots of kids very happy!

As you can see from the list above, most of the events are run by mums, and we would love dads to step up too! (There’s bonfires involved so no excuse). And we are also looking for Class Reps for next year, let us know if you would like to help – it involves mainly passing on messages & questions and recruiting volunteers for our Summer and Winter fairs.

If you can’t donate your time, you might be able to help in other ways – we are also looking for some local businesses to sponsor our events in exchange for some publicity in our newsletter and posters. Please get in touch if you have a local business to promote, or know someone who is interested.

Thank you and take care,

FROGS

June Newsletter

Hello,

In this Newsletter you will find an update about our fan fundraiser, the Enterprise Fair, and how to help at our upcoming Summer Fair, as well as lots of other dates for your diary, the agenda of our next meeting (the last one for this school year), and our end-of-year gift collection.

FROGS’ 24H Fan Fundraiser

A fan-tastic result for our 24H Fan fundraiser: we raised £1,850 to help Grasmere stay cool, which FROGS matching £1,000. With this money we have bought 25 tower fans for the school, enough for 2 per classroom (as requested by the school), plus a few extras for the common rooms such as the library and creative room. We’re looking to buy some blinds with the leftover money, and in the longer term, installing some kind of shades or awning on the building’s south façade.

Special thanks to The Clarence Tavern for their generous donation, and to Filiz and her colleagues at John Lewis who helped us bulk buy 15 fans and offered us a free delivery!

Enterprise Fair

Thank you to everyone who took part in our first ever Enterprise Fair! The sun was shining and the stalls were packed with homemade treats. We raised around £150 for FROGS just from the stalls booking and delicious curry. This new event will be back next year for sure!

Dates for your diary

Saturday 8th July, 12-3pm Our next big event is the Summer Fair. Please sign up here to volunteer for a slot; the more help, the more fun at the fair! We particularly need help to run the kitchen stall, and we’d love to have a jumble stall too (with children’s clothes and toys only).

Friday 30 June, 9am: Our next and final FROGS meeting of the year. Please join us in the school’s new library. You’ll find our agenda here.

Friday 30 June, 3.30: Year 6 ice lolly sale

Friday 15 July, 3.30: Book sale – stock up on good reads for the summer

Thursday 20 July, schooltime: Mr Bubbles is coming to Grasmere

END OF YEAR GIFT

We are collecting for the end-of-year staff gift. This gift is from every child to every staff member at Grasmere and it is the only collection you will be asked to contribute to this year (except Year 6 who are doing something different on top of this for their teacher and TA). All of the classes are coming together to collect one pot of money which will be equally divided into vouchers for all of the staff at Grasmere, whether they work in the classroom, kitchen, office etc…

You can add to the pot here and include a note for the staff on the 'wall' of the pot (if your budget is tight, don’t worry, you can still add your child's name and write on the wall of the pot).

Thank you and take care,

FROGS

Happy Half-term!

Hello,

Here are the latest FROGS news, including the new Enterprise Fair, our wonderful Wall in the Hall project, and the sign up sheet for the school’s summer fair on 8 July. Please read on and volunteer if you can!

CAKE SALE

Well done to the Reception/Nursery team who raised an amazing £270 with their cake sale! Very impressive result for their first turn.

Next up it the Year 6 ice lolly sale on Friday 30 June.

PROJECTS UPDATE

• The new library is nearly ready for the kids to enjoy, but we will keep organising volunteer sessions on Friday mornings to finish sorting and scanning the books in order to make it fully operational (so that kids can borrow books and take them home) for the next school year. We’re also going to help the school create a new reading area on the first floor, with armchairs and audiobooks.

• Unfortunately the traverse climbing wall installation is delayed due to the specialists not having any available slots at the moment. But we will install the wall as soon as possible!

• We are also hoping to transform the hall, including a mural reflecting the school’s values. Please read below for more information on the Wall in the Hall project. Ideally we would also like to install acoustic panels in the hall so that it is a less noisy, more relaxing place. Please get in touch if you can help with this, thank you!

• Next year’s big project will be to transform the garden into a woodland play area for the kids to enjoy. We’re hoping to hire Made from Scratch (who did the KS1 climbing frame) to install a series of platforms or small treehouses, and equipment for loose part play and den building.

WALL IN THE HALL

We would like to create a mural for the Wall in the Hall that adds colour and character, and inspires your kids whenever they enter the space. We are excited to be working with artist Toby Marsh of Toby Marsh Creative and he wants to know what your kids would like to see on your school wall.

Please check your Schoolping for Barley’s message with more information on this or see the PDF here. We look forward to seeing all the kids' ideas!

ENTERPRISE FAIR

We are also organising a new event this year, Grasmere’s Enterprise Fair. Everyone welcome!

It’s a really exciting opportunity to give your little people a taste of business. They can buy a space to sell some of their preloved things (books, toys, clothes etc), homemade items, or food and drink… Anything they want! There are limited spaces and they are selling out fast. Book a stall (£3) here.

This will be a cash only event since the kids will be selling their own things and raising money for themselves – although if they could give a percentage of their profits to FROGS that would be wonderful too of course!

Please note that FROGS will lend tables, crates and rails as needed, but adults will need to supervise and help set up their children’s stalls (including preparing some small change), and help tidy up and take home leftover items. Thank you!

Our volunteers are also preparing a delicious curry (vegetarian or chicken) that you can preorder on the shop – so you won’t have to cook dinner that night!

It’s an alternative to the Jumble Sale that helps give the kids a new experience. We hope it is very successful and becomes an annual FROGS event.

SUMMER FAIR

And of course our Summer Fair is coming up on Saturday 8 July 12-3pm. Everyone welcome!

As ever we need as many parents and carers as possible to help, so that everyone gets a chance to both help and enjoy the fair with their children. We will be using our stamp card system as usual (and some will be available at reception for those who need them) – and if you volunteer to help set up the fair your kids can use the bouncy castle for free!

The stalls this year will be:

Kitchen stall (cold drinks, fruit, cakes, ice lollies)
Grasmere's Got Talent stage (everyone welcome!)
Jumble stall (books, kids summer clothes & toys, plants)
Coconut shy stall
Reception/Nursery – Gemstones in the sand
Year 1 – Lucky Dip + Hook a duck
Year 2 – Splat the Rat + BBQ & salads
Year 3 – Braids, nails and tattoos
Year 4 – Bouncy castle + minigolf + Veggie stall
Year 5 – Teddy tombola + Guess the weight of the watermelon
Year 6 – Floor is Lava

Please sign up here for a shift – many hands make light work.

And also please let us know if your child would like to take part in Grasmere’s Got Talent, headlined by the wonderful Year 6 Band!

Thank you and take care,

FROGS

May Newsletter

Hello,

Here are the latest news from FROGS. Our next big event is the Summer Fair, please read on to see how you can help. Also, please support the school’s sport challenge and Olympic athlete visit, you can donate on Crowdfunder here.

You will find the minutes of our last meeting here.

Circus Workshop

FROGS funded a juggling workshop as a treat for the whole school (£450). Arthur from Jojofun showed kids how to balance scarfs and feathers, and also spin plates. We hope your kids enjoyed it, and if so, let us know – we’ll be sure to book him in for next year too!

Summer fair

Our next big event is the Summer Fair on Saturday 8 July.

Like the Winter Fair, the Summer Fair usually features at least one stall per year group, so please can everyone have a think of what they would like to help with?

It’s one of the kids’ favourite events. The more stalls, the more fun, the more money raised for the school!

Please chat to Nicky (Y2 & Y4) or Gill (Y3) if you have any ideas or can help with organising.

Here’s what we’re hoping to have on the day:
- Bouncy castle (in the hall)
- Stage for Grasmere’s Got Talent, including the wonderful Y6 Band
- Jumble stall (with outdoor/summer items, kid’s clothes and plants only)
- BBQ stall (veggie hot dogs/burgers, kebabs, gozleme?)
- Kitchen stall: mocktails, cold drinks, ice lollies, fruit and cakes

Here’s a list of possible fun stall ideas:
- Floor is Lava (we have everything we need for this one, to be installed in KS1 playground)
- Hook a duck (we have ducks and paddling pool)
- Nails/tattoos/braids/henna/face paints
- Guess the weight of the Watermelon (we can borrow kitchen scales for display)
- Target game (wet sponge darts; frisbee bullseye game, paper airplane/water balloon toss)
- Coconut shy (Billy is helping build a new stand for this, we have background and balls)
- Gemstones in sand
- Lucky Dip/lucky straws/lucky lollies (we have box and shredded paper)
- Chess station
- Craft (we have lots of paper bags and material left, as well as pebble that can be painted)
- Penalty shoot-out/goals
- Splat the rat
- Party rings (or mini donuts) on strings (no hands)
- Guess the Teacher (baby pics/teachers in disguises)
- Lucky Squares / Treasure Hunt
- Wheel of fortune

Please let us know what your year can help organise as soon as possible, thank you!

Cake sale

Y6 cake sale – Well done to Year 6 who raised £287 over 2 cake sales. This money will go towards the leaver’s yearbook, hoodies etc.

We can organise a few more whole-school cakes sale for the last weeks of term, and there should be a couple of ice lolly sales too!

Volunteer days

This term we are organising a series of volunteering sessions to complete the library, touch up the murals and plant new shrubs and herbs in the garden. Please keep an eye out for announcements on class Whatsapps groups for the next volunteering sessions. Thank you!

A big thank you to everyone who has helped with the library so far. It’s still a work in progress, but it’s already looking great, and we will have space for new books too:

We will be holding volunteer sessions on Friday mornings throughout the term, so anyone who is keen to help with labelling, sorting, and scanning in the books onto the system please join us at drop off in front of the reception. Even if you have just an hour that would be very helpful! Thank you.

If you can’t volunteer, you can always give donations for our FROGS shelves in the covered walkway.

The bottom shelves are used for a small Food Bank and are pretty bare at the moment. The top shelves are used as a Book Swap, and everyone is welcome to leave or take some books on the shelves (but if you have a large donation please get in touch with us directly).

We’ve also installed a noticeboard on Albion Road, and another will appear on Church Walk very soon. Please have a look as we will be updating them regularly with events and volunteering information. Thank you!

And finally the Stoke Newington Literary Festival is coming back to Grasmere School and the Mildmay Club, there are some great events planned so book your tickets now!

Thank you and take care,

FROGS

Happy Easter break!

Hello,

In this newsletter you will find information about our last three events, the Year 2 Cake sale, Jumble sale and the annual Easter Egg Hunt; as well as our plans for the Summer Term, including the details of our next FROGS meeting and upcoming volunteer days.

Year 2 cake Sale

Thank you to all Year 2 bakers and sellers; we raised over £268.60 with our cake sale which took place both on Friday (under the rain) and on Monday (after the KS2 recital). Amazing result!

The next cake sale is the Year 1 Cake Sale on Friday 28 April.

JUMBLE SALE

Thank you to all who donated, sorted and helped at the Jumble sale, we raised £1,444.74 for the school and helped the community recycle and reuse – well done everyone!

Kitchen: £221.40
Adult Clothes: £213.33
Children Clothes: £200.10
Books: £209.62
Toys: £278.25
Bric à brac: £174.69
Books sold online: £102.35
Leftover clothes collection: £45

The next jumble sale will be in October 2023, but we are hoping to have a small stall at the Summer Fair for books, children’s summer clothes/accessories and outdoor/summer toys etc.

EASTER EGG HUNT

Thank you so much for all your donations – and a big thank you to Waitrose Holloway who kindly donated over 600 small Lindt eggs! – we collected almost 4,000 eggs in total. This was enough for the whole school, including some eggs for teachers and staff; as well as lots of chocolate goodie bags for all our pupil premium families. And a big thank you of course to our team of Easter bunnies who volunteered to organise this lovely event.

SUMMER TERM AND NEXT FROGS’ MEETING

We’ve lots of great things planned for this term, including paying for a visiting farm and circus workshops for the whole school, organising a party after Sports day, as well as cake sales, ice lolly sales and the Summer Fair on 8 July. Each year group also usually also organises end-of-year picnics in the last couple of weeks (we often all end up in Butterfield Green on the same day!).

Our three big projects due to be completed this year are:
• the new library (we are waiting for some shelves to be delivered to do this)
• paint the KS2 walls and install a traverse climbing wall (just confirming the design of the mural)
• tidying up the garden including planting, new sheds and bin, and a revamped mud kitchen

For all these we will need your help, so please look out for our messages about volunteering days after the break. As ever, many hands make light work.

We’ve not received enough tea towel self-portraits to be able to do this project yet, but we will check with the school if they can get the children to do this at some point during schooltime.

Our next meeting is at 8pm on Wednesday 19 April via Zoom, details to follow via class reps.

Thank you and take care,

FROGS

Disco & upcoming events

Hello,

We hope your children enjoyed FROGS’ World Book Day Disco! Please see some pictures below, and scroll down for info on our next events. We’ll need lots of help for our Jumble sale this Saturday, it’s a big fundraiser for us and also lots of fun for the children, who can pick up nearly new books and toys for as little as 50p.

WORLD BOOK DAY Disco

DJ Dancemasters managed to keep the kids busy on the dancefloor for 2 hours with lots of fun and games – and all the right tunes. The disco was designed as a fun event rather than a fundraiser, as we decided to splash out on a professional DJ, but we managed to cover our costs and even made £145 profit thanks to the generosity our parent organisers. Thank you to all our volunteers and to everyone who helped by making awesome sandwiches and cakes, and tidying up at the end. As usual, many hands make light work!

We also raised £90 for the school’s reading areas with our one-off Bookmark workshop, we hope the kids had fun. If you would like to run a one-off workshop to share your skills or hobbies with the children please let us know and we can help organise it.

Strike days

You can leave a message of support to our teachers here (anonymous google form), and can join the picket line on Wednesday and Thursday morning (at the usual drop off time).

If you could use these days to ask you child to make a small self-portrait for our teatowel project that would be amazing – we have only received a handful so far! Please leave in box in hallway. Thank you!

Jumble sale

Our next Jumble Sale will be held on Saturday 18th March. Start sorting your jumble now! Please bring your clothes, toys, books and bric-à-brac etc to the school on Friday 17 March.

Nothing broken or dirty please. Try to tie sets together, or wrap toys with little pieces securely as it can get jumbled up very quickly. We now have lots of rails, so we need lots more hangers!

If dropping off your donations at 9am, leave them by the blue container. If dropping off your donations at 3.30pm, leave them by the main hall.

We need lots and lots of volunteers for this big fundraiser, please sign up here if you can. And we’ll also need soup and cakes on the day, please let us know if you can help with this!

Egg hunt

Unbelievably it’s almost Easter already, and it’s soon time for FROGS annual egg hunt, which will be held on Thursday 30 March. We’ll need help with:

• chocolate egg donations – please bring to school office from Monday 20 March – please start looking now as there might be some early bargains! Last year we collected over 3,000 chocolate eggs. Remember no nuts please! (Parents of kids with allergies can supply specific eggs for the children to swap at the end of the egg hunt, just leave clearly labelled with allergy, child’s name and year group.)

• hiding the eggs in the garden. You can sign up here if you are free on the morning of the 30th to come help hide the eggs in the garden.

Thank you and take care,

FROGS

March News

Hello,

You will find below an update on our first Grasmere pub quiz, and information on all our upcoming events – March is going to be a busy month for FROGS: we have the World Book Day Disco, Jumble Sale, Year 2 Cake sale (24 March) and annual chocolate egg hunt all coming up in the next few weeks.

Please also remember to fill in the school’s communication survey here if you haven’t done so already.

Pub Quiz at The Shakespeare

Thank you so much to everyone who took part and helped organise our first Grasmere pub quiz. We were so lucky to have the help of expert quizmasters Andrew and Karen, our excellent chilli chefs and of course Richard and Jana at The Shakespeare. We raised £760 for the school (including a £150 donation by The Shakespeare) with this event. And congratulations to the winning teams, we hope you enjoy your drink vouchers very soon!

We hope you all had a lovely time, and would love to hear any feedback here.

World Book Day events

FROGS is supporting the school’s World book week by:

• helping set up the new library. We’ll need a handful of volunteers this Wednesday 9-11am to sort out the reference books and picture books.

• organising a World Book Day Disco (with laser show & fun games by DJ Dancemasters) on Thursday 9 March after school. You can book your tickets here (and as usual there are also free tickets with Patsy for those who need them) or buy on the day. We’ll also need lots of cakes (book-themed even better!) and sandwiches donations on the day. Please volunteer here if you can, we need one more person to help tidy up and a team to man the firepit/chill out area in the garden.

• paying around £400 for author Karin Littlewood to come for an assembly and workshops for each year on Friday 10, and a book voucher prize for the school competition.

• organising a bookmark-making workshop on Friday 10 to raise money for the school’s reading areas, please see more information here. This will be held in the creative room after school and will have activities for all age groups. Parents will pick up their kids at 4.30 from the playground (like enrichment clubs).

Jumble sale

Our next Jumble Sale will be held on Saturday 18th March. Start sorting your jumble now! Please bring your clothes, toys, books and bric-à-brac etc to the school on Friday 17 March.

Nothing broken or dirty please. Try to tie sets together, or wrap toys with little pieces securely as it can get jumbled up very quickly. We now have lots of rails, so we need lots more hangers!

If dropping off your donations at 9am, leave them by the blue container. If dropping off your donations at 3.30pm, leave them by the main hall.

We need lots and lots of volunteers for this big fundraiser, please sign up here if you can. And we’ll also need soup and cakes on the day, please let us know if you can help with this!

THE GRASMERE EGG HUNT

Our annual chocolate egg hunt will be held on Thursday 30 March. We already have volunteers to count and sort the eggs, and to oversee volunteers on the day, but we need help with:

• chocolate egg donations – please bring to school office from Monday 20 March – please start looking now as there might be some early bargains! Last year we collected over 3,000 chocolate eggs. Remember no nuts please! (Parents of kids with allergies can supply specific eggs for the children to swap at the end of the egg hunt, just leave clearly labelled with allergy, child’s name and year group.)

• hiding the eggs in the garden. You can sign up here if you are free on the morning of the 30th to come help hide the eggs in the garden.

Thank you and take care,

FROGS

News & events

Hello

Thank you for your help for our Turkey and Syria Earthquake cake sale – we raised a total of £650 (£550 cake sale plus £100 matched donation) for the White Helmets and the Turkish Red Crescent.

Our next cake sale is the Year 3 cake sale, today at 3.30!

Please remember to collect your cake tins and dishes from the covered walkway, thank you!

OUR NEXT EVENTS

Last chance to buy your ticket (from £5) for the Grasmere Pub Quiz for parents, carers and staff, on Tuesday 28 February at The Shakespeare Pub. You can also pre-order your food here. Andrew and Karen (school parents) will be the quizmasters on the night. Please do come along and support. Prizes from The Shakespeare up for grabs; the more the merrier!

Our World Book Day Disco (with laser show!) is on Thursday 9 March after school. You can book your tickets here – paper tickets (£2 cash or card) will be on sale in the playground on Friday 3rd March 9am (and with Patsy for those who need them). Please volunteer here if you can; we’ll also need lots of book-themed cakes, sandwiches etc donations on the day.

Our next Jumble Sale will be held on Saturday 18th March. Start sorting your jumble now! Please bring your clothes, toys, books and bric-à-brac etc to the school on Friday 17 October. Nothing broken or dirty please. If dropping off your donations at 9am, leave them by the blue container. If dropping off your donations at 3.30pm, leave them by the main hall. We need lots and lots of volunteers for this big fundraiser, please sign up here if you can.

OUR CURRENT PROJECTS

Teatowel project: Children need to draw their portrait in a square with their name close to it. Children need to use paint or felt tip pens or thick black pens (no biros or pencils).
The end pictures will be 3x3cm so if so the drawings should not be too big – they don't have to be exactly 3cmx3cm, as long as they are square it will work. For smaller children they can do a fingerprint/handprint with a smiley face or similar.

Book cover artworks for the library: Children to draw the cover of their favourite book, or create a cover for a book of their own creation. We need the artworks to be as bold or colourful as possible, and fill a full A4 piece of paper (portrait).

There are boxes for both of these projects in the covered walkway.

AFTER SCHOOL CLUB

Fit for Sport is now called Junior Adventure Group but Darnell is still in charge of the after-school club offering. Kids play various ball games, play in the garden or on the climbing frame; there are also Lego, arts & crafts, and table football plus lots of other fun games such as the current favourite, bench football. Snacks include fruit and healthy wraps. Please talk to Darnell if you have any questions (3.30-6pm everyday).

February News

Hello,

Please find below some information on our latest news and fundraisers, as well as links to sign up to volunteer to our next events.

Turkey & Syria fundraiser

The school is holding a fundraiser this Friday for Choose Love; children can dress in pink/purple/red and you can donate via Scopay.

We’re holding a special cake sale this Friday at 3.30 to raise funds for the White Helmets and the Turkish Red Crescent. Please help/bake/give generously if you can.

If you would like to donate items, please contact your local mosque, including Aziziye mosque on Stoke Newington High Street, as they are organising deliveries to the affected areas.

If you have been affected by the earthquakes, please know that you have the support of all Grasmere staff and families.

CHILDREN’S Mental Health Week

This week is Children’s Mental Health Week and we’ve distributed some little notebooks to each Grasmere child in the hope that it can spark conversations about feelings and how to deal with emotions. Just writing down a few sentences, or simply doodling or colouring, can be really beneficial to our mental help. You can find free activities for families on the Children’s Mental Health Week website. If you need help on this subject, please talk to Debbie, who is in charge of wellbeing and family coaching at school, or email the school to book an appointment.

Our next events

Our Grasmere Pub Quiz for parents, carers and staff is on Tuesday 28 FeBruary at The Shakespeare Pub

• Book you ticket
• Pre-order your food

Please join us if you can – you can either join as a team or buy a single ticket (we will find a team for you on the day). Everyone welcome!

(If singing is your thing, the school is organising a parents’ choir to perform at the music recital in March – please see Schoolping message for more information)

Our World Book Day Disco (with laser show!) is on Thursday 9 March after school.

• Book your tickets here

• Please volunteer here

We’ll need lots of cake, sandwiches etc donations on the day. Thank you!

Our next jumble sale will be held on Saturday 18th March

• Start sorting your jumble now! Please bring your clothes, toys, books and bric-à-brac etc to the school on Friday 17 October. Nothing broken or dirty please. If dropping off your donations at 9am, leave them by the blue container. If dropping off your donations at 3.30pm, leave them by the main hall

• There is lots of ways you can help, from sorting out the clothes to manning a stall, preparing a soup or baking a cake!

We need lots and lots of volunteers for this big fundraiser, please sign up here if you can.

Our current projects

If you’re looking for something for the kids to do during half-term, we would love to create a Grasmere teatowel with portraits of all the children, and some artwork for the new library.

TEATOWEL

We’d love to produce a teatowel with portraits of all the children at Grasmere this year. For this we will need every single child to hand in a portrait of themselves. Please see below for the guidelines:

• Children need to draw their portrait in a square with their name close to it. The end pictures will be 3x3cm so if so the drawings should not be too big – they don't have to be exactly 3cmx3cm, as long as they are square it will work. For smaller children they can do a fingerprint/handprint with a smiley face or similar.

• Children need to use paint or felt tip pens or thick black pens (no biros or pencils) – see examples above

• Each portrait should be labelled with year in light pencil, just outside the square frame of the portrait.

LIBRARY ARTWORK

We are hoping to decorate the new library with lots of book covers created by the children. Can they draw the cover of their favourite book? Or create a cover for a book of their own creation? We’d need the artworks to be as bold or colourful as possible, and fill a full A4 piece of paper (portrait).

There are boxes for both of these projects in the covered walkway, please leave the artwork in the correct box, making sure it is flat and not creased.

Thank you and take care,

FROGS

News & events

Hello,

Thank you to all who attended and volunteered at our last meeting. We’ve lots of lovely events and plans for the school, please watch out for some volunteer sign up sheets coming up very soon!

You will find the minutes of the meeting here. We’re going to add a climbing wall to the KS2 playground, painted walls, signage and noticeboards to the school’s entrances.

Well done to the Year 4 team who raised £202.80 with Friday’s cake sale! Tip for next sales: the marshmallows dipped in chocolate and sprinkles require no baking and flew off the shelf.

Our latest spends include a little gift to each child for Children’s Mental Health Week (£250) as well as paying for a local author to come in to do workshops for the World Book Day celebrations (£355).

There are lots of tins and cake boxes left in the hallway (just behind the door on the right) please collect yours as soon as possible or it will go into our next jumble sale, thank you!

SAVE THE DATES

Our next cake sale will be the Year 3 Cake Sale on Friday 24 February. To avoid a crush and allow the little ones to actually reach the tables, we will ask you to queue for this one please!

Our next big event is the Grasmere Pub Quiz, we’ll be sending more information soon on how to buy tickets, prizes etc. In the meantime, please save the date: Tuesday 28 February at the Shakespeare.

Our next events will be the World Book Day Disco on Thursday 9 March and the Jumble Sale on 18 March.

STRIKE DAY & HALF-TERM ACTIVITIES

If you’re looking for something for the kids to do on Wednesday, or during half-term, we would love to create a Grasmere teatowel with portraits of all the children, and some artwork for the new library.

TEATOWEL

We’d love to produce a teatowel with portraits of all the children at Grasmere this year. For this we will need every single child to hand in a portrait of themselves. Please see below for the guidelines:

• Children need to draw their portrait in a square with their name close to it. The end pictures will be 3x3cm so if so the drawings should not be too big – they don't have to be exactly 3cmx3cm, as long as they are square it will work. For smaller children they can do a fingerprint/handprint with a smiley face or similar.

• Children need to use paint or felt tip pens or thick black pens (no biros or pencils) – see examples above

• Each portrait should be labelled with year in light pencil, just outside the square frame of the portrait.

LIBRARY ARTWORK

We are hoping to decorate the new library with lots of book covers created by the children. Can they draw the cover of their favourite book? Or create a cover for a book of their own creation? We’d need the artworks to be as bold or colourful as possible, and fill a full A4 piece of paper (portrait).

COLLECTION: We will leave boxes for both of these projects in the covered walkway, please leave the artwork in the correct box, making sure it is flat and not creased.

HELPING EACH OTHER

RECEIVING HELP: The school has a Hardship fund, please get in touch with Mel, or email the office if you need help – they can provide you with online supermarket vouchers for example. You can also sign up for free Breakfast club spaces for your children, and ask for support for lunches too.

Please feel free to take anything you need from FROGS Sharing shelves.

DONATING: Please help us keep the Sharing shelves fully stocked – at the moment we could do with pasta, rice, pasta sauce, tea, coffee, kids’ toothpaste/toothbrushes etc. Thank you!

We would also like to share this appeal by the Hackney Food Bank: “In 2017, Hackney Foodbank spent just £2,000 per year on food, in 2018 the figure was £7,000. In 2022 we spent around £125,000 and this year, as conditions worsen for poorer families, that figure is expected to reach £250,000. £39 could help towards feeding a family of 4 for three days with a parcel of food and household items.”

Thank you and take care,

FROGS

January news

Hello,

In this newsletter you will find some information on our next meeting, our next events – including a pub quiz for parents and carers – and some pictures of our latest Cinema night.

SAVE THE DATES!

Friday 27 January, 9am, staff room – FROGS Meeting
Please join us to discuss everything from future events to a new climbing wall – see the full agenda here. Everyone welcome! Can’t attend but have some ideas, comments, suggestions, queries? Please email frogs.grasmere@gmail.com. Thank you!

Friday 27 January, 3.30 – Year 4 Cake sale

6-10th February – Children’s Mental Health Week
Please look out for a little treat from FROGS to all Grasmere children!

Friday 24 February, 3.30 – Year 3 Cake sale

Tuesday 28 Feburary – Pub quiz at The Shakespeare
More information to follow shortly

Thursday 9 March – World Book Day Disco
Date change due to teachers’ strike

Saturday 18 March – Jumble Sale
Please start sorting your jumble now! We need your old toys, books, clothes & bric-à-brac (nothing broken or dirty please) on Friday 17 March, 9am or 3.30pm.
Any unopened presents/brand new books that would make great prizes at our fairs or could be added to the school’s library, please donate any time by emailing frogs.grasmere@gmail.com

Friday 24 March, 3.30 – Year 2 Cake sale

Thursday 30 March, school time – Easter egg hunt
As ever we’ll need plenty of chocolate eggs and Easter bunnies for this, more info to follow.

MOVIE NIGHT

Thank you so much to all who attended our Movie Night, The Bad Guys (+ The Boy…). We hope you all had a great time.

A big thank you to all our volunteers who made this fun event possible, produced tons of popcorn – in no less than three different flavours! – and donated delicious homemade cakes and sandwiches.

We have raised over £400 with this free event.

Thank you and take care,

FROGS

Happy holidays!

Hello,

A big thank you to all our volunteers who worked so hard to make the Winter Fair happen!

From baking cakes and carrying the tables up and down the stairs, to decorating the grotto, preparing a delicious veggie chili, unloading trees, knitting teddies, donating prizes, manning the stalls and selling the tickets – all your work was well worth the effort: we raised over £2,000 for the school. This will matched-funded by a parent, so we can expect another £1,000 in the new year.

Not only did we raise a great amount, but it was also a lovely event that brought the community together – we really hope your kids enjoyed it as much as we did! And of course a special thank you to Santa and his elves who really did an amazing job in their magical grotto.

The leftover Santa grotto gifts will be distributed by the school, and the rest donated to the Winter Toy Appeal. Every year this local project collects new toys to make sure that every child in Hackney and surrounding boroughs gets at least one present at Christmas. There’s lots of ways to donate, and you can support local businesses at the same time. Deadline: 15 December.

FROGS DATES FOR YOUR DIARY:

Please join us for the following events this winter:

• Our Cinema night will be on Friday 20 January – just in time to celebrate Chinese New Year! Any ideas/suggestions, or to offer to volunteer on the day – please email frogs.grasmere@gmail.com

• The next Frogs meeting will be held at school on Friday 27 January at 9am. Everyone welcome!

• Our next Cake Sale will be organised by Year 4 on Friday 27 January – expect shortbread and chocolate tea cakes to celebrate Burns Night!

Help needed!

Next year we will need help with:

• Pub Quiz Night: We’re really hoping to organise a pub quiz for parents in February – could anyone help organise this, or know a publican/quiz master who could?

• Library: We will be helping the school install the new library in the new year, we will keep you posted on Whatsapp groups when we need volunteers to do so!

• Music system: We need old phones to be set up with music ready to use at our events. At the moment we have a pair of speakers but nothing to play the music on. If you have old phones you can donate, or have time to download playlists onto phones, please let us know!

• Save the date: Please see below for the other events we are hoping to organise this year – if you can help with any of these, let us know! Thank you.

We wish you all a lovely break and Happy New Year!

Thank you and take care,

FROGS

December news

Hello,

A big thank you to everyone who offered their help to make our next event happen – there are so many volunteers for such a small school, it’s amazing! (But we do need a few more, please see below).

The Winter Fair is on Friday 9th December straight after school – please come in using Albion Road entrance as the Church Walk gates will be closed. The stalls will be spread around the hall, the main playground and the garden.

Help wanted!

To make this event as lovely as possible, we still need:

• one elf (no need to dress up!) – all you need to do is check the grotto tickets; please sign up here if you can help for 1 hour, thank you!

• a team to supervise the new winter minigolf stall, please sign up here if you can!

• lots of cakes and treats to sell from the kitchen – sweet or savoury, home-baked or not, we’d love your donations (though we have plenty of mince pies already). Please bring your donations on Friday 9 in the morning (leave with Patsy) or from 1pm (leave with our volunteers in the hall).

• donations of handmade gifts to sell in our shop, or anything Christmassy/festive (any festival!), Christmas jumpers, etc. Please bring your donations on Friday 9 in the morning (leave with Patsy) or from 1pm (leave with our volunteers in the hall), thank you!

Tickets & stamp cards

If you would like to buy your Grotto ticket (£2) in advance, see our online shop. Santa will be handing out gifts to all his visitors. Tickets will also be available on the day, along with stamp cards (£5), from the shop at the Winter Fair. Stamp cards can be used to buy activities at stalls or food and drinks. You’ll be able to pay for the stamp cards using cash or card.

For those who need them, free stamp cards and grotto tickets will available from Patsy’s office from Monday 5th December.

Christmas trees

If you have ordered a tree, you will be able to pick it up on the 9th from the main playground during the fair. Each tree will be labelled with colour/size and name. You might be able to pick them up in the morning, but we will confirm this via Whatsapp as soon as we know the exact delivery time. Please contact frogs.grasmere@gmail.com if you have any questions.

WINTER Toy appeal

FROGS supports the Winter Toy Appeal. Every year this local project collects new toys to make sure that every child in Hackney and surrounding boroughs gets at least one present at Christmas. There’s lots of ways to donate, and you can support local businesses at the same time. Deadline: 15 December.

NEXT UP

We hope you have enjoyed the cake sales, jumble sale and international evening; our next events will be the Winter Fair, a movie night for the kids, and a pub quiz for the parents. Also in the works are a disco; spring jumble sale; our traditional Easter egg hunt and the Summer fair. We will also pay for a Circus workshop for all the children to attend (during schooltime) and we are hoping to organise a Sport Challenge in June. You can read the minutes of our last meeting here.

This year with the money raised we will be completing the garden transformation by adding sheds and tidying up the kitchen garden; refurbishing the reception/nursery classrooms; and installing a new traverse climbing wall in the main playground.

In other news, the Art Club, run by two FROGS, has raised £638 for the school. The bulk of it will pay for the school’s Design and Technology wishlist (including a sewing machine, glue guns etc), and the rest has been used to buy a cardboard construction kit for the creative room.

Please do get in touch with your reps or by emailing frogs.grasmere@gmail.com if you can help with any of the events above – especially with the movie night and pub quiz as these are coming up in the new year. Thank you and take care,

FROGS

November news

Hello,

Did you know you could help us raise money for the school by buying your Christmas Tree through our website or filling in a form from the office? Please see below for more info on this initiative.

You should also be receiving an information leaflet and your child’s artwork this week as part of our Holiday card scheme. You will then be able to order cards, wrapping paper etc through the Art Projects for Schools.

We’re always looking for great ideas for projects and fundraisers, and we will be meeting on Zoom this week to discuss our plans for the year, please join us if you can – see below for more details.

Well done to Year 5 who raised over £100 with their cake sale.

Order your Christmas tree now

Every year Christmas Trees for Schools allows us to buy top quality trees at discount prices, and we pass the discount on to you. The company we buy the trees from are members of the British Tree Growers Association who source all their trees from sustainable crops. The trees are available in a variety of sizes. We’re hoping to raise about £400 for the school with this scheme.

Please order your Christmas tree from our online shop before the 18th November. If you prefer to pay cash, please ask the office for a form. Trees will be available to collect from the 9 December from the playground. Please note that the measurement of the trees is taken from the butt of the tree to the top to the spike. All trees will be delivered in nets, for easy handling.

You will also find Santa’s Grotto tickets, T-shirts and craft kits on our online shop.

 
Planning the Winter Fair

Our Winter Fair will be held on 9th December after school. As ever we need plenty of parent power to make this event happen! Please sign up here to help at the Winter Fair.

Each year is in charge of one stall, and we usually work in 1 hour shifts so that everyone gets a chance to enjoy the fair with their children. Just like at the summer fair, we will sell stamp cards for the activities (and free stamp cards for those who need it will be available from the office).

Reception & Nursery: Winter crafts
Year 1: Lucky dip and Guess how many baubles (small prizes donations welcome!)
Year 2: Gingerbread decorating
Year 3: Winter nails and tattoos
Year 4: Hot drinks, veggie food and cakes (cake donations welcome!)
Year 5: Teddy tombola (teddy donations welcome!)
Year 6: Bonfire and marshmallows
We also always need help setting up and tidying up, so please sign up if you can!

The more stalls the better: If you would like to run a stall that is not on this list then please let us know. A physical/throwing/jumping activity would be great – we were thinking of a obstacle course with bells and tinsels, and we also have some elements for a coconut shy stalls.

Calling all crafters and artists: There will also be a boutique at the fair. We are looking to sell homemade gifts such as jams, soap, knitted teddies etc, so if you or your children would like to make things to sell that would be great. We can also sell second-hand festival decorations (Christmas/Diwali/Eid/Hannukah etc) at the fair so please get in touch if you have any to donate.

A magical Santa’s Grotto: We will also need help to decorate the Santa’s grotto. We are thinking of housing it in a gazebo in the garden or we are also exploring the idea of having the grotto in a campervan parked in the playground (which means we would have more time to decorate it). If you have either a gazebo with sides (the one we used last year is broken), or a campervan that you wouldn’t mind lending us for a day, then please get in touch! Thank you.

Christmas jumpers & Sharing shelves

We’re going to set up a clothes rail near the shelves in the hall (from Thursday morning) to start a Winter clothes & Christmas Jumper swap (kids and adults). Hat, gloves scarves and other warm clothes also welcome. Please leave your donations on the rail, and/or take what you need. If you can, a QR code on the rail will take you to our donation page, where you can leave a small donation.

The sharing shelves need restocking, please donate non-perishable food and toiletries if you can. We also have books for all ages, please donate any that you don’t need anymore. If you have Christmas/Winter books that you would like to give away, please let us or the school know as they could have them for their reading corners, or we could use them as prizes at the fair.

Next FROGS meeting

The next Frogs meeting is this Wednesday 9 November at 8pm on Zoom. Log in details will be sent on Whatsapp groups as soon as possible; you can see the agenda here. Please join us if you can, to help us decide where to focus our efforts this year, and plan some fun events for the kids!

Thank you and take care,

FROGS

Happy half-term!

Hello,

Thank you to all who helped and donated food for the International evening & autumn fair. We’re very lucky to be such a multicultural school, all the dishes were so tasty and colourful. A big thank you to all the children who worked hard on creating some beautiful flags to decorate the hall, and also to the school staff and parents who helped set up and tidy up the hall.

If you’d like to try some Grasmere recipes, you can download our Cookbook as a PDF for free.

Our next meeting will be via Zoom at 8pm on Wednesday 2 November. Please join us to help us decide where we should focus our work/funds next, and plan our next social and fundraising events. You will find the agenda here.

If you’re looking for activities to do during half-term, why not try our Treasure Trail (£3)? It will take you around the neighbourhood and can be done over 2 afternoons, with the half-way point being Newington Green. Along the way you’ll learn lots of things about the area.

If you want to support our charitable work and help us raise money for the school, we also have lots of Grasmere T-shirts and bags available in our online shop – from which you will be able to order your Christmas tree very soon.

Our autumn fundraiser is the Art Projects for Schools scheme. The children are all creating artwork at school, but if families want to create artwork at home it needs to be brought in by 1 November. This year there will be option to buy cards, wrapping paper, gift tags, mugs and tote bags.

Families should receive the artwork their child created in school and a leaflet explaining how to order on or around the 8 November.

Our next cake sale is the Year 5 cake sale on Friday 4th November and our next big event is the Winter Fair on Friday 9th December. We’re looking for a coordinator to help on the day and volunteers to man the stalls. Please could each class start thinking about which stall they’d like to run. These are easy to set up and run as we have a lot of the material needed, each class should pick one (or come up with their own idea) and let us know:

– Teddy tombola (Year 5)
– Bonfire and marshmallows (Year 6)
– Winter bingo or Tinsel obstacle course
– Craft stall (Reception)
– Lucky dip & Guess how many baubles (Year 1)
– Gingerbread decorating (Year 2)
– Hot drinks and cakes & Veggie food (Year 4)

The Santa’s Grotto is usually a joint effort, we do need some volunteers to help plan and decorate it. We’re also planning a grotto gift wrapping session on Friday 4 November, 9am in the school library, so please let us know if you can help.

Finally we’d like to make sure we have enough small prizes and gifts – if you have any unopened toys & games (including small items such as party bag fillers) you’d like to donate, please let us know so we can plan ahead.

Events like the Winter Fair are great for our community and a lot of fun for the children – probably the one thing they will remember from their school days! We really depend on parent power to make these fun events happen – many hands make light work. So if you have an hour to spare, please volunteer so that all parents have time to enjoy the fair with their children.

Have a great half-term,

FROGS

October news

Hello,

In this newsletter you will find information about the latest jumble sale; our next event, the Autumn fair & International evening; our next meeting and our future events.

OCTOBER JUMBLE SALE

A big thank you to everyone who donated, sorted, baked, manned stalls and tidied up – and of course bought some items – it was all worth the effort as you help raised over £1,700 for the school, and created a lovely community event at the same time!

Totals:
Kitchen: £205
Bric-à-brac: £178
Toys: £243
Books: £168
Clothes & shoes: £510
Parent matched funding: £400 (if you work for a big company you might be eligible to help us raise money in this way, please email grasmere.frogs@gmail.com for more info)

We will get a bit more money by selling the leftover books and clothes (if you have any more clothes & shoes to donate please leave them by the blue container before Wednesday 9am, thank you!)

AUTUMN FAIR & INTERNATIONAL EVENING —
HOMEMADE DISHES & VOLUNTEERS NEEDED!

Our next event is the Autumn Fair and International Evening. This will be a free event with autumnal crafts and games, hot drinks and cakes, as well a small exhibition of the children’s artworks. We need about 20 volunteers to make it happen: please sign up here!

You will also be able to taste dishes from around the world – the school is organising this part of the event so if you can bring a dish from your country please let Burcu or Pembe know, thank you.

There will also be a rail of free or pay-what-you-want dressing up clothes, so if you have any to give away please let us/your class rep know.

FROGS MEETING & EVENT PLANNING

Our next meeting will be via Zoom at 8pm on Wednesday 2 November.
Please join us to help us decide where we should focus our work/funds next, and plan our next social and fundraising events.

Winter fair 9th December
We’re looking for a coordinator to help on the day and volunteers to help decorate the grotto! We’re also planning a grotto gift wrapping session on Friday 4 November, 9am in the school library, so please let us know if you can help.

It would be very helpful if each class could also start thinking of which stall they’d like to run: we usually have Teddy tombola, bonfire and marshmallows; winter bingo; craft stall; lucky dip and Gingerbread decorating, but new ideas welcome! We’ve kept a stash of baubles so we could also have a Guess how many Baubles stall. We’d like to make sure we buy small prizes and gifts in advance – if you have any unopened toys & games (including small items such as party bag fillers) you’d like to donate, please let us know!

Movie night (January)
Our volunteers Nicola (Y6) and Caroline (Y2 & Y4) are organising a movie night, please get in touch with them if you have any tips or if you can help.

Disco (March)
Our volunteer Jenny (Reception/Y2) is organising this, please get in touch with her if you have any tips, or if you can help.

Easter Egg Hunt (March)
We’re looking for one or two volunteers to help prepare this. There are two main jobs: 1. collecting the eggs from Patsy’s office, bringing them home to count them and sort them into equal batches in time for the egg hunt. 2. coordinating the egg hunts at school; you’d need to be free the morning of the event – probably Thursday 29 March.

We’re also hoping to organise a fun competition, a circus workshop and a sport challenge, please get in touch if you have any ideas for these.

Thank you and take care,

FROGS

September newsletter

Hello,

We hope the first few weeks at school went well. Please see below for details of last year’s achievements; the new Sharing Shelf; our next events; and how to volunteer with FROGS.

We had our AGM last week, the members of the committee and the class reps this year are:

Chair: Léa Vice Chair: Erla Treasurer: Nicola Secretary: Caroline
Committee members: Pembe, Ruth, Jenn, Veronika, Luke, Nicola and Gill

Class reps:
Reception Magnus & Harriet – Y1 Kati & Lisa – Y2 Rob & Caroline – Y3 Gill & Simone – Y4 Lisa & Lindsey – Y5 Kati – Y6 Nicola

You will find the minutes of our AGM here and our latest financial statement here.

If you’re joining Grasmere this year, here is a letter for new parents and carers to explain FROGS’ role.

The next meeting will be via Zoom on Wednesday 2 November at 8pm.

Last year’s achievements:

FROGS’ Sharing Shelf

Here’s how to use our new Sharing shelf. We only accept books and food bank items on these shelves. If the shelves are full, please wait before you donate. Our volunteers will tidy them up from time to time. (To donate/request larger/other items, please see our Jumble sale info below, or ask your Reps for a link to the Grasmere noticeboard on Whatsapp.)

BOOK SWAP

Novels, reference books, activity/craft books all welcome.
Please donate books that are in good condition.
Please make sure you put the books on the correct shelf (by age).
Please donate only a few books at a time.
If you have lots of books to donate, please email frogs.grasmere@gmail.com or get in touch with the school, and we will sort them out for the library, the classrooms or the next jumble sale.

FOOD BANK

Donating items
We accept cereal; soup; pasta; rice; tinned tomatoes/ pasta saucel; lentils, beans and pulses; tinned meat; tinned vegetables; tea/coffee; tinned fruit; biscuits; UHT milk; fruit juice; baby food. Also needed are toiletries, nappies etc

Collecting items
Anyone who needs these items can collect them from the shelf in the mornings. The school will leave the hallway doors open from about 9.10 after the drop off crowds have gone. You can wait in the courtyard or come back – just ring the main bell on Albion Road and say Sharing shelves or Food bank and the office will let you in, no questions asked.

If you need more assistance, please get in touch with the school business manager Mel (Mon-Tue) to learn about how you can access the school’s Hardship fund.

Our next events:

Cake Sale, Friday 30 September 3.30pm

Year 6 is organising the first of our very popular Cake Sales on 30 September. They have years of practice, so it’s going to be delicious!

Pay by cash or card. Profits from the sale will go towards a class treat at the end of the year.

Everyone is included: Patsy at Reception keeps a small bag of change donated by FROGS for kids who might need it to buy a cake.

JUMBLE SALE, SATURDAY 08 OCTOBER, 10.30-12.30

We need your old stuff, and your help to sort it: please sign up via this link, that really helps us get everything organised in time. We’re also looking for cake and soup donations on the day.

People who help sort out the jumble on the Friday get first dibs on the good stuff; volunteers during the sale get free hot drinks, biscuits and soup.

AUTUMN FAIR & INTERNATIONAL EVENING,
THURSDAY 20 OCTOBER, 3.30-5.30

We’re joining forces with the school team and and organising an Autumn Fair and International evening after school on the last Thursday before half-term. Please save the date!

There will be a big table full of specialities from around the world (please talk to Pembe or Burçu if you can cook something), an exhibition of the children’s latest artworks, and a mix of free/paying/donate what you can stalls.

As ever this can only happen if we have enough volunteers, please sign up via this link if you can help, or email frogs.grasmere@gmail if you have any ideas for stalls or if you can help with decorations, or a world music playlist!

WINTER FAIR, FRIDAY 9 DECEMBER 3.30-5.30

We would love a volunteer or two to help organise this event, for which each class runs a stall such as gingerbread decorating, winter craft, teddy tombola, bingo… If you have any good stall ideas for the fair, would like to help decorate/run the Santa’s grotto, or anything else, please let us know!

Volunteer with FROGS:

Haven’t volunteered at an event yet? Please do! It’s very easy, and even just doing 1 hour shift this year would make a big difference – it would mean another parent volunteer has time to enjoy the fair with their children too. Most of the time (apart from the kitchen/bonfire stalls for example), you can take your kids with you – they love being little helpers! And the biggest reward as always is to see the kids’ smiling, happy faces.

If you’re not available on the day, you can do many other things, such as donate small prizes, drinks, paper cups, etc. We’ve started an Amazon wishlist here so you can see the type of things we need. To support our work, you can also set up a small monthly donation via our Kindlink page.

If you work for a big company, you might be able to help us double our takings. Many larger employers will match (up to a limit) any fundraising that you do for the FROGS. This means that the money raised from a jumble sale, cake sale, bar sales can be doubled without costing you anything except a bit of time. Another option is payroll giving: donations out of pre-tax salary that is matched by your employer. Please email grasmere.frogs@gmail.com for more information.

We’re also looking for volunteers to help with some of our projects, working in their own time:

• organise our annual Christmas card appeal (with help from the current organiser)

• look for grants that might help us improve the school, in particular transform the library cellar in a useable space such as a Makerspace where kids can learn about design, engineer and technology

• find and cost various options to replace the library stairs

• organise some tea towels with children’s drawings, or other products to sell on our online shop

• help plan cinema nights and a disco later in the year

If you’re not sure how to help please ask your class reps or email us on frogs.grasmere@gmail.com

Thank you and take care,

FROGS

Have a great summer!

Hello,

In this newsletter you will find an update on our Summer Fair, new Garden Classroom and Hardship fund initiative, as well as dates for your diary for next year!

Summer fair

The sun was shining, the stalls busy, and the food delicious – it was such a lovely event and we hope you all enjoyed it! It was so nice to have the fair back after the pandemic, and to see the kids running around, having fun. We ran out of ice lollies three times and we made about £1,000 profit.

Stalls included Coconut Shy, an all-time favourite, the new Floor is Lava (complete with Mission Impossible soundtrack!), a Bouncy Castle, the classic Hook a Duck, Guess the Weight of the Watermelon, Lucky Dip and Gem Stall, as well as the great Decorate your Flower Pot stall, and wonderful Braid, nails and tattoo bar. Plus a couple of sprinklers to cool down, some nice tunes and the veggie and beef burger stalls.

A big thank you to all who helped at the fair, and donated food, drinks, prizes etc – it wouldn’t have happened without you!

PS If you child has made a little flower pot, and not taken it home, have a look in the walkway (on the shelf on the right) where we’ve put the unclaimed pots.

Garden Classroom

Our new outdoor classroom is up! This will be used by the teachers throughout the year. To help them make the most of the space, FROGS will be funding some teacher training (Barley is the school’s new outdoor learning lead) with the local charity The Garden Classroom, as well as some workshops for each year group, next year.

This is a big investment for us, so please make sure your kids take great care of it – and that includes not using it as a climbing frame at drop off and pick up! If they break anything, you will have to volunteer at FROGS events until the end of times… More seriously it cost £8,200 to build and is a very important resource for the school so please get the message across to your children if you think they will be tempted to climb on it. We don’t want to spend money fixing a brand new thing when there is so much left to do in the school.

In September we will be organising volunteer days to finish up the garden; this includes installing water and music walls and new sheds, as well as painting the mud kitchen blackboard etc. We’re also looking into getting a pizza oven for the garden, if you know any company who could donate one or anyone who could build one, let us know!

Books and toys for the summer holidays

We had lots of leftovers from the Jumble sale so we thought we would distribute them for free in time for the summer holidays. The toys have now all gone but there are lots of books left, these are now in the blue container, please help yourself today.

Hardship fund

Thank you so much for being such a generous community – we raised £2,788 for the school’s new Hardship fund. We’ve handed the money to the school. Please get in touch with them directly (Neela, Siobhan, Emmy or Debbie) if you need help. The school will send out more information about this in September.

CLASS TREATS

Nursery and reception enjoyed a trip to the Little Angel Theatre; Year 1, Year 2 and Year 4 constructed towers and bridges out of legos with Mr Brick; Year 3’s treat had to be cancelled due to Covid and will be held in September instead; Year 5 went to Rainham Marshes.

Leaving presents

Thanks to all for your donations for staff’s leaving presents.

Our volunteers bought some vouchers for Lisa and Lorena, and some lovely treats for our retiring dinner ladies Margaret and Breda.

Next year’s EVENTS

Our big projects next year will be to finish up the garden; launch our FROGS’ Sharing Shelf for books and food bank donations; spend £3,000 helping the school refurbish the nursery/reception classroom; install a new climbing wall in KS2; and paint the KS2 playground. Also on our to do list are planning a new Makerspace, getting a mural on the Library wall, and fixing those library steps…

Our upcoming events for the autumn are below, please save the dates:

Friday 16 September, 9am
AGM, coffee morning & FROGS tour of the school to show parents where we have spent our money (mural, play equipment, creative room, library, garden classroom etc).

Friday 30 September, 3.30
Y6 Cake sale (this will be accompanied by a baking day for the kids during school time)

Saturday 8 October, 10.30-12.30
Jumble Sale (we always need lots of volunteers for that one!)

Thursday 20 October, 3.30-5.30
Harvest festival, food bank donations, second-hand Halloween costumes sale

Friday 4 November, 3.30
Y5 Cake sale (this will be accompanied by a baking day for the kids during school time)

Friday 2 December, 3.30
Second-hand Xmas jumpers, baubbles and ornaments sale

Friday 9 December, 3.30-5.30
Winter Fair (each class to organise a stall, just like at the summer fair)

If you can’t volunteer but would like to support FROGS and help us add fun and colour to the school, you can always donate (including monthly donations) on our Kindlink page or buy/donate items on our wishlist. The more funds we collect this way, the more free/cheap events we can organise to make sure the whole community can join in – and the more we can do for the school.

We hope you all have a lovely summer break,

Thank you and take care,

FROGS