The winter fair is coming!

Hello,

Thank you everyone who attended our online meeting last week, please find the minutes here. At the school’s request, we are using just over £11,000 from our existing funds to buy a new AV system for the hall. It should be installed in time for next term, when we will launch it with our annual cinema night. We are also planning a parents’ pub quiz, yoga workshops for the children, and the traditional Easter Egg hunt for next term. Watch this space!

Congratulations to Year 4 who raised £241.90 with their cake sale. We’re looking forward to see what the different classes decide to buy with their class treat money.

We’re also organising a Christmas Present collection pot for all the staff at Grasmere, which will be shared equally between them, including teachers, teaching assistants, office staff and kitchen team. You can donate here.

Christmas Trees Deadline

A little reminder to please order your Christmas tree before tomorrow evening (Saturday 30 November). You can also pre-order the Grasmere Cookbook, tea towels or cards from the online shop. All these will be ready to pick up on the 6 December.

WINTER FAIR

A message from the Winter Fair organisers:

It’s not long now until the Winter Fair, which is happening after school on Friday 6 December. We still need lots of volunteers to make this a really fun event for the kids, so please sign up here to volunteer if you can. If we don’t have enough volunteers we’ll have to cancel some stalls, which would be a real shame!  

There’s also lots of other ways to help. You could donate:

• teddies and bottles for the tombola (bottles can be anything from alcohol to bubble bath!)

• second-hand Christmas books, decorations and jumpers to sell in the shop

• homemade treats and crafts (such as chutney, jam or knitted gifts) to sell in the shop

• unwanted Pokemon cards and small toys for the lucky dip stall

• bottles of mulled wine for the bar

• homemade cakes for the kitchen stall

We will have a Santa’s Grotto where children will be able to meet Santa and his wonderful elves and receive a little gift – you can buy your ticket here, or on the day. We will be selling stamp cards & grotto tickets on the 8th in the morning if you want to skip the queue, and reception will hand out stamp cards and tickets to those who need them as usual. 

We are also holding a winter raffle and have lots of amazing prizes lined up! More information on prizes will follow next week via reps, and tickets will be on sale in the Christmas shop at the fair.  

Thank you in advance – it should be a great event and will hopefully get everyone in the festive spirit! 

Kathy and Elspeth

FOOTBALL GAME

The Grasmere Dads' football team will be playing against Betty Layward on Saturday, 7th December, at 3.30 pm on the Stoke Newington School pitch, to raise money for both primary schools. Please come and support them, and donate on this JustGiving page!

EASYFUNDRAISING & ASDA Cashpot

FROGS is now set up on Easyfundraising, which means over 8,000 retailers will donate to us for free every time you use easyfundraising to shop with them. If you are shopping online for Christmas presents, please sign up here to support us – it’s free and doesn’t take long.

We’re also signed up for the Asda Cashpot for Schools, so if you shop there, select Friends of Grasmere School on the Rewards app and the supermarket will donate a percentage of your shop to us each time you shop and scan.

WINTER TOY APPEAL

For the 11th year running the Winter Toy Appeal is collecting new toys for children experiencing extreme hardship in North and East London. Without this appeal, many wouldn't receive a gift at Christmas. They’ll be distributed via schools (including Grasmere!), children’s centres, councils and more to children in most need. (We will be donating any leftover Santa’s grotto gift to the appeal).

Thank you all for your support in helping raising money for our school!

FROGS

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DONATE TO FROGS

Donations to FROGS are always welcome. Please take a look at our latest projects to see how your money might be used. You can also set up a monthly direct debit donation on Kindlink.

MAKE A PAYPAL DONATION

MAKE A KINDLINK DONATION

Find out more on how to help here, including more info about the matched funding and workplace giving schemes, which are available for employees of some large companies.

November News

Hello,

The next FROGS meeting will be on Wednesday 20 November, 8pm, online (meeting agenda & details to follow via the class WhatsApp groups); and the last cake sale this term will be the Year 4 Cake sale on Friday 22 November.

In this newsletter you will learn all about the Autumn Disco, the FROGS Christmas Shop, where you can order trees and gifts such as the Grasmere Cookbook and tea towels, as well as our last event of the term: the Winter Fair on Friday 6 December after school.

Autumn Disco

We hope you all enjoyed the disco last Friday! Big thanks to organiser Jenny and her dream team of volunteers who made it such a fun event for the kids, whether they liked doing the Macarena or not!

Here are some images of the disco; thank you to Grasmere parent and photographer Henny of iCapturedThattt for taking some of the lovely portraits!

And there was lots happening outside the hall too:

This was planned as a fun social event rather than a fundraiser, but we even managed to raise £263 for the school after paying the DJ!

FROGS’ CHRISTMAS SHOP

Our Christmas shop is now open, you can now pre-order your Christmas Trees, the Grasmere Cookbook or a Grasmere Tea towel.

Thank you to everyone who has helped with the cookbook – it is currently at the printers, and should be delivered in time for the Winter Fair. It features 70 recipes from Grasmere families and friends, including 8 recipes by local businesses The Clarence Tavern, Lily’s Greengrocers, The Dusty Knuckle, Tranga, The Good Egg, Esters and Romeo y Giulietta.

Here’s a sneak peek to whet your appetite!

WINTER FAIR

Here’s a message from the fair organisers:

Our Winter Fair is just around the corner and we have a great line-up planned! Santa and his elves will be headlining, supported by Grasmere’s very own carol singers.  We’re also bringing back the raffle, which was such a success in the summer. Hopefully there will be some exciting prizes to be won! Other entertainment on the day includes the following stalls, each run by a different year group:

Reception and nursery: Find the snowman’s nose
Year 1: Snowman ball toss
Year 2: Knock the elf off the shelf
Year 3: Gingerbread decorating
Year 4: Bonfire and marshmallows + Christmas carols
Year 5: Winter crafts
Year 6: Bar + veggie food
TBC: Christmas shop, cake and hot drinks, teddy and bottle tombolas, lucky dip, raffle 

This is one of FROGS’ big fundraisers and a great opportunity to get into the festive spirit, so we really do need your help to make it a success. Please sign up here to volunteer if you can. You can volunteer with your children (apart from the kitchen) and it’s very easy! As we have a really short window to set up for after school events, each year group will need to be in charge of setting up their own stalls.  

We will also be looking for your help with:

• Raffle prizes: if you’re a business owner and are able to donate a voucher or other prize, we would be so grateful!

• Tombola prizes: this year, we’ll be running a bottle tombola (for adults) and a teddy tombola (for the kids), so please look out for those bottles and soft toys!  

• Homemade treats and crafts: we’re looking for things to sell in our Christmas shop, so we would love contributions of homemade crafts or treats (fudge, chutney etc).

• Small prizes: unwanted party bag toys or small gifts (to be used as prizes) would be gratefully received.

• Baking and snacks to sell in the kitchen.

We’ll send more details via class reps soon. Thank you all so much in advance! 

Kathy and Elspeth

AND FINaLLY… NITS ALERT!

There seems to quite a problem with nits at the moment… According to the NHS and our local GPs, you don’t need to buy any special lotions to get rid of them: the only thing that works is using lots of conditioner on wet hair and leaving it for at least 10 minutes, and then using a good quality nit comb, on section by section of hair, before rinsing. You’ll also need lots of patience…

Good luck and take care,

FROGS

Happy half-term!

Hello,

The first six weeks of school have gone at lightning speed! To celebrate, don’t miss Year 5 cake sale this Friday. Please see below for our latest FROGS news, including jumble sale results, and what’s coming up after half-term, including the Autumn Disco!

LATEST EVENTS

In case you missed it, we raised £440 with the lovely garden party, and £2,327 with the October Jumble sale! A great result in only a few weeks of school.

A massive *thank you* to the more-than-50 amazing volunteers who worked together to bring the jumble sale to life over the weekend. We’d also like to thank those who brought along their jumble, and of course every individual who came and shopped and supported. None of this would’ve been possible without each and every one of you, we appreciate you all!
Firuze & Jay

AUTUMN DISCO

The amazing DJ Dancemasters are back with their great set that is guaranteed to make you dance – and perhaps even do the limbo! As ever we need lots of volunteers to make this event happen, so please sign up here if you can spare a bit of time.

To help pay for the DJ, please buy a £2 ticket on our online shop (tickets will also be available on the day, but you’ll have to queue). As usual, there will be free tickets/stamp cards at the office for those who need them.

There will be a short session for Reception and Nursery during school time as they might find dancing with the bigger kids a bit overwhelming. If not they can go back onto the dance floor of course! Everyone else is welcome on the dance floor from 3.30. Provided we have enough volunteers, the fire pit will also be on for those who prefer marshmallows to dancing.

If you are sharing the childcare with other families and taking their kids to the disco along with your own, please note there is a maximum 4 children per adult at the event.

Coming up

Thank you to everyone who has submitted a recipe for the cookbook, we are working on it and it’s looking great, with lots and lots of wonderful recipes. We will send more information on the cookbook, as well as our tea towel project, after half term. They will all be available to order from our online shop, along with the usual Christmas Tree fundraiser.

And finally, save the date for Friday 6 December, our Winter Fair. It’s going to be amazing – Santa is coming, and there will be carol singing and delicious mulled wine!

Happy half-term!

FROGS

October news

Hello,

Thank you to all the FROGS who helped organise and who attended the Garden Party on Friday, we hope everyone had a great time!

Please read this newsletter for some photos of the party, information on our Cookbook project, and on our next event, the Jumble sale.

THE GRASMERE COOKBOOK

The Grasmere Cookbook, 2024 edition, is hoping to bring together the recipes that mean the most to our community. Please find out more and send us your recipes using this link or, if you don’t have a gmail account, by emailing frogs.grasmere@gmail.com.

Thank you to those families who’ve already sent their recipes: we’ve a Palestinian dip, Austrian strudel, Swiss cheese tartlets and a delicious pancake recipe. Recipes just have to be family favourites, and the quicker you send us yours the more time we’ll have to take some nice photos to go with it. We’re also looking for some nice illustrations from your children, such as cute little ingredients and illustrated dishes – you can see the full book here for inspiration.

Here are three recipes from the first edition to whet your appetite:

We need your help to get the recipes in as soon as possible as we have a tight deadline to meet if we’d like to produce and sell the cookbook in time for Christmas – it will make such a great present! Ideally we’d love to collect at least 30 recipes from Grasmere families and staff members.

JUMBLE SALE

The Jumble Sale has been a hit at Grasmere for over 20 years! Help us reuse and recycle by donating your unwanted items and shopping for second-hand items. From brand new cookbooks to designer coats, there are always some real gems, and most items are 50p. It’s also a lot of fun for the children, who run around with their friends and play with the new toys bought with their pocket money.

We still need some help on manning the stalls, and preparing some soup and cakes to sell. Please sign up here if you can help!

Any leftovers will be donated to charity.

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DONATE TO FROGS

Donations to FROGS are always welcome. Please take a look at our latest projects to see how your money might be used. You can also set up a monthly direct debit donation on Kindlink.

MAKE A PAYPAL DONATION

MAKE A KINDLINK DONATION

Find out more on how to help here, including more info about the matched funding and workplace giving schemes, which are available for employees of some large companies.

Upcoming events and fundraisers

Hello!

In this newsletter you’ll find information on our October events, including the Garden Party and the Jumble Sale, as well as on our main fundraisers this year: the Grasmere Cookbook and teatowel.

But first, huge congratulations to the Summer fair team again – they raised way more than initially thought, due to late transfer of Square card takings. The fair raised over £3,000 for the school, congratulations Megan and Sally and co!

Don’t forget the first cake sale of the year, the Year 6 cake sale today at 3.30. Cash, cards and FROGS stamp cards accepted, most cakes £1.

Here is a copy of the FROGS AGM minutes, and below what we were up to last year:

We’ll update you as soon as possible on all our current projects, but in the meantime, please take a look at our main fundraisers for this year…

GRASMERE COOKBOOK AND TEATOWEL

As voted at our AGM our two main fundraising projects this year will hopefully be a community cookbook and portrait tea towels. Please help if you can!

Have a look at the 2020 edition of the school’s cookbook here to have an idea of what we’re planning. We’ll need help collating the recipes, quotes and portraits, contacting local restaurants to ask for their recipes, and taking high-resolution images of the dishes, so if you want to help with any of this, please look out for a link on your Whatsapp Group to join Team Cookbook. The team will then be sending out some information on how to submit your recipes.

We’re also looking for helpers to coordinate the Tea Towel project, which will be a teatowel printed with self-portraits of all the children at Grasmere this year. The goal is to get each child to draw a self-portrait (or thumbprint for nursery!) with a black pen on a bit of square paper. If you have time to help with this, please lookout for the WhatsApp Group invite to join Team Teatowel.

The aim is to have these done in time to sell before Christmas, so expect more info about these very soon. As ever these projects cannot happen without your help, so please volunteer if you can!

The Garden Party

Please join us on Friday 4 October after school for FROGS’ Garden Party! There will be drinks and snacks as well as free pizza, squash and kids activities. It’s a great opportunity to meet other Grasmere parents and carers. If you can help with this event (we need volunteers for the firepit and setting-up/tidying up), please sign up here.

Members of the FROGS committee will also be there to answer your questions about our charity, and listen to your suggestions.

The Jumble Sale

Please note that the Jumble Sale now has a new date: it will now be held on Saturday 12 October. We need enough jumble to fill the blue container, and lots and lots of volunteers.

Please sign up here if you can help.

Thank you and take care,

FROGS

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DONATE TO FROGS

Donations to FROGS are always welcome. Please take a look at latest projects to see how your money might be used. You can also set up a monthly direct debit donation on Kindlink.

MAKE A PAYPAL DONATION

MAKE A KINDLINK DONATION

Find out more on how to help here, including more info about the matched funding and workplace giving schemes, which are available for employees of some large companies.

September news

Hello,

Here’s our first newsletter of the year! Welcome to new parents and welcome back to all the other FROGS. We hope your kids liked our new banner on the first days of school:

Our first event of the year was the Kapla workshop (delayed from last year) which involved each year building giant Kapla constructions in the school hall. We hope your children enjoyed it! A big thanks to Jennifer from Kapla Clubs UK who ran the workshops with such great skill.

And of course the tidying up was lots of fun too!

Please save the dates! We’ve lots of exciting events planned for this year:

As usual we’re starting the year with our AGM, this Friday at 9am in the school hall. As you might know we are a registered charity and as a parent, carer or staff member at Grasmere you are automatically a member of FROGS. We’re looking for more committee members, new volunteers, and new organisers (and perhaps a Santa too) for our Winter Fair.

Please find here our annual report; our latest financials; and the agenda for the meeting. Everyone is welcome and the more volunteers the better, so please join us if you can.

We’re looking forward to meeting all the new parents and children at our Garden Party on Friday 4 October. On that day we will need you to bring your jumble to school in the morning, and also lots of volunteers to sort it. We’ll be sharing the Volunteer sign up sheet for the Jumble sale very soon. In the meantime, please start sorting your clothes, toys, books, and homeware!

Thank you and take care,

FROGS

Have a great summer!

Hello,

Thanks everyone for your contributions to the various leaving gifts, we raised £435 for Neela’s leaving gift (flowers, chocolates and a donation to Great Ormond Street Hospital) and £470 for Debbie’s gift (flowers, Oneforall gift vouchers and a Yield voucher).

Thank you also to everyone who contributed to the staff’s end-of-year gift, we raised £2,410 which will be split between all staff members (that’s almost £100 each).

We hope your children enjoyed our last event of the year, Mr Bubbles’ workshops, and a big thank you to all the parents volunteers who helped on the day!

Big thanks also to the Year 6 parents leaving this year, who have helped so much over their years at Grasmere, you will be missed!

And of course thank you to all of this year’s volunteers, organisers and class reps, for your support, hard work and enthusiasm in making Grasmere such a lovely community and school.

The FROGS calendar is already full of fun events for the autumn term, and we look forward to continuing our projects in the garden and elsewhere next year!

Thank you and have a great summer,

FROGS

What a Summer fair!

Hello,

Many thanks to our wonderful organisers and all our many, many volunteers who helped make the Grasmere Summer Fair such as special event. We have raised £1,415 for the school (we made £1,920 before expenses). An excellent result and so much fun for the children. It is really magical what we can achieve when everyone helps out! What a great way to end the year for our little community.

We had so many excellent stalls, beautiful decorations and delicious food including freshly made salad, burgers and veggie dishes. Special thanks to the volunteers who made the Human Fruit Machine come to life, what a team!

And well done to Kareem in Year 6 who holds the Floor Is Lava record: under 17 seconds to rescue the Pink Panther from its lava inferno.

Huge, huge thanks to The Clarence Tavern on Stoke Newington Church Street for sponsoring our free donkey rides by Kelly’s Donkeys.

And of course, well done to our lucky raffle winners! Thank you so much to everyone who donated such excellent prizes for the raffle, including the following local businesses: Jolene, Push Cycles, Shine on the Green, Creative Mash, Sparks Arts Islington, Spence Bakery, Stokey’s Delicatessen, Gaia Eros Florals, Nook, Yield, Early Bird, Stokey Toy Shop, Whole Foods, Stoke Newington Bookshop and Romeo & Giulietta.

Please support them if you can, they are what make our neighbourhood so special.

LEAVING GIFTS

Last call to donate for Neela’s leaving gift and the staff’s end-of-year gift, please contribute if you can – this will be split equally and gifted to all remaining staff from teachers and TAs to kitchen and office staff.

There’s one last FROGS event this school year – the Mr Bubbles workshop on Tuesday (unfortunately for the kids only!). We hope your children enjoy it.

Thank you and take care,

FROGS

July news

Hello,

Our last event this year is the school’s Summer Fair on Saturday 13 July, please read below for more information, as well as some pictures of Billy’s leaving do and links to the various gift collections we’re organising. Please find the minutes of the latest FROG meeting here.

Also, well done to Year 6 who have raised £127 with their ice lolly sale to help pay for their leaver’s hoodies, party and year book.

BILLY’S LEAVING PARTY

Thank you to everyone who helped organise and attended Billy’s leaving party last Tuesday. It was great to see old friends and have Billy leave in style after 19 years at the school.

THANK YOU BILLY!

A million thank yous on behalf of FROGS for all his help: not only did Billy carry countless tables up from the cellar for us, but he was also instrumental in helping transform the school, from building the decking in front of the container to creating the medical room and creative room, and installing shelves in the new library. What a star!

We raised just over £1,000 for Billy’s leaving gift – thank you so much for your generosity, he is chuffed!

OTHER STAFF GIFTS

Thank you also to everyone who donated towards Carmen’s gift, we raised over £800. The school has been given a card with your messages & gift and will give it to Carmen as soon as possible.

We’re also saying goodbye to Debbie and Neela, please donate for their leaving gifts if you can!

And finally we’re also raising money for the staff’s end-of-year gift, please contribute if you can – this will be split equally and gifted to all remaining staff from teachers and TAs to kitchen and office staff. Thank you!

SUMMER FAIR

Coming up is our final event of the year, the Summer Fair on Saturday 13 July! This year we are very lucky to have The Clarence Tavern sponsor some free donkey rides and cuddles by Kelly’s Donkeys.

As ever we need lots of volunteers, please sign up here if you can. The more stalls the more fun. We’ll also need your donations – cakes, sandwiches, cookies, ice lollies, drinks etc – for the kitchen. Please let Megan, Sally or your class reps know if you can donate anything for the kitchen, or any small prizes.

NEXT YEAR

Please note that the FROGS AGM, which we hold annually since we are a registered charity, will be on Friday 20 September at 9am at the school. Everyone is welcome! As a parent, carer, staff member at Grasmere you are automatically a member of FROGS.

We are still looking for volunteers for next year, whether it’s helping on the committee or organising events. If you are not sure what it involves, please get in touch with one of the committee members (Jay, Magnus, Léa & Caroline) and we’ll answer your questions as best as we can!

Our small community is a big part of what makes Grasmere so special and having regular events is a key way to help the community spirit thrive. But as a single-form entry school, there’s not that many of us parents and carers, so we really need to have all hands on deck if we want to continue having such an amazing program of events throughout the year.

Thank you and take care,

FROGS

All the fun of the fairs

Hello,

In our latest newsletter you’ll find updates about the Enterprise Fair, information on the various leaving gifts we’re organising, and how to help at our next and final event of the year, the Summer Fair on Saturday 13 July.

Enterprise Fair

Thank you so much to everyone who took part in FROGS’ second Enterprise Fair. Thankfully there was not a drop of rain and we had some very creative stalls on board selling everything from handmade T-shirts and freshly squeezed orange juice to homemade bath bombs and mystery boxes.

Well done to all the children (and their parents and carers!!!) for all the hard work, we hope you raised lots of money and have lots of great ideas for next year.

And of course a HUGE THANK YOU to the generous children who decided to donate the money they raised to FROGS – with their donations and the ticket sales we made just under £200!

SUMMER FAIR

Coming up is our final event of the year, the Summer Fair on Saturday 13 July! This year we are very lucky to have The Clarence Tavern sponsor some free donkey rides and cuddles by Kelly’s Donkeys.

As ever we need lots of volunteers, please sign up here if you can! The more stalls the more fun, but we’re a very small school and every little help counts.

LEAVING GIFTS

Unfortunately we’ve had to organise quite a few leaving gifts lately:

• Billy’s leaving gift – last call to donate for Billy’s gift. He’s been working as the school’s caretaker for 19 years.

• Carmen’s leaving gift – Carmen has been a dinner lady at the school for 24 years.

• Debbie’s leaving gift – our current assistant headteacher and SENCO lead, Debbie has been at Grasmere for 26 years.

• Neela’s leaving gift – our headteacher is also leaving, after 3 years at the helm.

As usual we’re also getting a whole school end-of-year collection ready for the rest of the staff, which will be divided equally between every member of staff, from the kitchen to the classrooms.

Hall MURAL

FROGS is working with artist Toby Marsh to help us design a new mural for the kitchen wall in the hall. You can the various ideas in full colour and detail in this presentation, and you and your kids can vote for your favourite option or leave your feedback using this form.

Thank you and take care,

FROGS

Frogs News

Hello,

Thank you so much to everyone who attended our meeting last week, you will find the minutes here. We will have one last meeting this school year on Wednesday 3 July in the evening, so you have some time to think about perhaps joining our committee, becoming a class rep next year, or volunteering to organise one of our future events!

Talking of which, coming up this Friday is our Enterprise fair. The kids and their grown-up assistants will be manning the stalls, and they have big plans!

On offer: popcorn, candy floss, muffins, cupcakes, freshly squeezed orange juice and lemonade, fruit kebabs and pancakes. But it’s not just food: there are also homemade gifts including bracelets, bath bombs and dreamcatchers, as well as second-hand clothes, books and toys.

Please bring some cash – lots of change! We will also be selling FROGS tote bags and T-shirts.

Chess Tournament

A huge thank you too to everyone who attended our first ever chess event – we hope you enjoyed it! We raised £504 with this event which will go towards buying a couple of picnic tables with chessboards tabletops for the KS2 playground.

It wouldn’t have happened without Ruth, our international chess champion, and the team of volunteers. Big thanks to them and to the parent who generously donated the bespoke tote bags, as well as to Chess in School for donating lots of great gifts.

HALL MURAL

We’re very lucky to have a FROGS working with artist Toby Marsh to help us design a new mural for the kitchen wall in the hall. Here are the three initial sketches; you can see the various ideas in full colour and detail in this presentation.

You and your kids can vote for your favourite one or leave your feedback using this form. We could also use the other mural ideas throughout the school, but let us know what you think!

LEAVING GIFTS

You can donate here for Billy’s leaving gift. He’s been at the school for 19 years and we’re planning a little something for him on 2 July.

You can also donate here for Neela’s leaving gift. Thank you!

As usual we’re also getting a whole school end-of-year collection ready, which will be divided equally between every member of staff, from the kitchen to the classrooms.

SUMMER FAIR

Thank you so much to everyone who has offer to help with the summer fair on Saturday 13 July, we will be sending more info as well as a volunteer sign up very soon.

Thank you and take care,

FROGS

June News

Hello,

We hope you all had a great half term! Well done to Reception & Nursery and Year 1 who respectively raised £184 and £207 with their cake sales just before the break, and a big thank you to all bakers, sellers and buyers.

Our next meeting will be this Friday 7 June at 9am at school. You will find the agenda here, please join us if you can. We are looking for committee members and volunteer organisers for next year’s events, so please come along if you have any questions or suggestions. Alternatively you can email frogs.grasmere@gmail.com with your queries and ideas.

We will be discussing the ideas for a new mural in the hall; the garden project; the purchase of basketball hoops and chess picnic tables for the playground. Many thanks to all the FROGS who have been working on these various projects!

LEAVING GIFTS & PARTY

Thank you to everyone who helped us give Patsy an amazing leaving gift of over £1,200. She says:

“Wow I am speechless! Thank so much I am overwhelmed with all that support. Please thank everyone for me.”

Sadly Grasmere’s caretaker Billy is also leaving us this year and he is hoping for a little party on Tuesday 2 July – and perhaps Patsy will be able to join too. Please get in touch if you can help organise something after school on 2 July.

Of course we’re also collecting for his leaving gift, you can donate here.

And we are also collecting for Neela’s leaving gift, you can donate here.

GRASMERE CHESS TOURNAMENT

We’re very lucky to count among our talented FROGS the International Chess Champion Ruth Sheldon, who was a World Girls’ Chess Champion and played for the England Women's Olympic Team. She says:

“I started playing chess at primary school and fell in love with the game. I soon started travelling to play children from all around the world, including in India, Brazil, and Poland. More recently, I taught chess in local primary schools and am very excited to be part of Grasmere's first ever tournament!”

You can still buy your tournament ticket here. This is a friendly competition and everyone is welcome to join, children, parents, friends and neighbours… You don’t need to be a champion, just to enjoy the game! Thank you to Chess In School who are providing some great prizes. Of course non-chess players are welcome too, and there will also be lots of free, fun activities for the kids.

As ever we are very grateful for any cake donations for this event, so if you can bake something for this Friday, please let us know!

ENTERPRISE FAIR

Also coming up very soon is our Enterprise Fair – we have a few stalls left, please book here. Your kids can raise money for themselves or their favourite charities. Please invite friends, neighbours and family to see what the budding entrepreneurs have come up with.

Please also save the date for our Summer fair on Saturday 13 July!

Thank you and take care,

FROGS

Upcoming FROGS events

Hello,

Our next meeting will be on Friday 7 June at 9am at school. You will find the agenda here, please join us if you can! We are looking for committee members and volunteer organisers for next year’s events, so please come along if you have any questions or suggestions. Alternatively you can email frogs.grasmere@gmail.com with your queries and ideas.

A reminder that you can still donate money for Patsy’s leaving gift here.

And another reminder that the school governors, who play a key role in the long-term strategic direction of the school and the selection of a new headteacher, are looking for a new parent governor to join them. Please see this letter for more information.

Please read on for information on FROGS’ upcoming events, including the Chess Tournament, Enterprise Fair and Summer Fair.

Chess Tournament

We’re looking for chess players to compete in our tournament, please buy your ticket here as places are limited. This is a friendly competition and everyone is welcome to join, children, parents, friends and neighbours… You don’t need to be a champion, just to enjoy the game! Thank you to Chess In School who are providing some great prizes.

Of course non-chess players are welcome too, and there will also be lots of free, fun activities for the kids. Please help us make it a success!

SUMMER FAIR

Here’s a message from Sally and Megan, who have volunteered to organise the Summer Fair. Please put Saturday July 13th in your diaries for the Grasmere Summer Fair, everyone welcome!

Planning is now in full swing for our annual Grasmere Summer Fair! We’ve got loads of fun things in the works and are determined to drum up as much commitment and engagement as possible, so that it really is an event to remember. For the Kids, for the Teachers, but for us Parents too – we deserve it! 

For now, we need each Year Group to choose from the following list of stalls and let us know, via your reps, by Wednesday May 22nd what your class has chosen. We’ll go ahead and allocate them if that’s easiest, but please let us know if there’s one you’d particularly like, or if you have a suggestion for something different. We will make your lives as easy as possible by providing you with a full kit list and instructions. Prizes will be collected, sorted and allocated to each stall nearer the time. 

Once we know who’s doing what, the usual volunteer form will follow. 

It would be AMAZING if some Year Groups could volunteer for more than one stall!!

AVAILABLE STALLS:

- Hair, Nails and Tattoos (2x people per shift)
- Floor is Lava (1x person per shift)
- Hook a Duck (1x person per shift)
- Bouncy Castle (1x person per shift)
- Guess the Teacher’s Baby photos (1x person per shift)
- Craft Stall: Paint a plant pot or up-cycle a t-shirt with fabric pens etc (2x people per shift)
- Drinks and baked goods bar (4x people per shift)
- Bottle flip challenge (1x person per shift)
- Lucky Socks (washing line with odd socks pegged to it. Choose a sock blindfolded and look inside to find a treat/prize) (1x person per shift)
- Pin the Tail on the Donkey (1x person per shift)
- Pimms stall (2x people per shift)
- Gem stall (1x person per shift)
- Pokemon Lucky Dip (1x person per shift)

ALLOCATED STALLS (TAKEN)

- Splat the Rat (reception)
- Veggie food stall (Megan and Bobby Year 5)
- Burgers and salads stall (Year 3)
- Coconut Shy (Sally Year 3)
- Human Fruit Machine (Year 3)
- Ice cream float stand (Bart)
- Sticker making stall (Sammy Year 5)
- Donkey Rides (YES, DONKEY RIDES!!) - external

Please consider helping out with this event. It’s incredibly rewarding, brings Grasmere together, welcomes new families and all it really requires is a donation of your time. We’re also very excited to let you know that we’ve secured two little Donkeys to provide free rides and/or Donkey petting for the kids courtesy of The Clarence Tavern and a wonderful donkey sanctuary called Kelly’s Donkeys!

We look forward to hearing back from everyone and putting together a mega team effort! 

Best Wishes,

Sally and Megan 

We’d also like to remind you of our other event this term, the Enterprise Fair, for which you can book a stall here. Your kids can raise money for themselves or their favourite charities. They can sell handmade things (including food, drink and art); preloved toys, books and clothes; collectables; father's day gifts; services such as car washing... Anything they want!

Thank you and take care,

FROGS

May Newsletter

Hello,

We hope you had a nice Easter break and are ready for this term’s FROGS events. Please see below on how to book your Chess tournament ticket or your Enterprise fair stall!

We’re sorry that we have had to cancel our meeting on Friday; we will share a new date very soon.

In the meantime we are looking for organisers for next year’s events (including Jumble sales, Winter fair, etc), as well as new committee members. Being a committee member would mostly involve voting on FROGS spends and checking communications such as newsletters. It could also involve planning, admin, looking for grants – or anything that makes the most of your skills.

If you are interested, please let us know if you have time of a quick chat on Friday morning or any other time, by emailing frogs.grasmere@gmail.com or letting Jay, Caroline or Léa know. Thank you!

Our next cake sale is the Reception/Nursery sale on Friday 10 May.

Patsy’s leaving gift

We are collecting donations for Patsy’s leaving gift. Please donate here if you can. Deadline: 24th May. She’s been nominated for a Hackney School Star award – thank you so much to everyone who took the time to vote for her. The event is being held on Monday 13 May at Hackney Town Hall.

GOVERNORS MEETINGS

The governors, who play a key role in the long-term strategic direction of the school and the selection of a new headteacher, are organising a series of meetings to explain their work. There is currently a vacancy for a parent governor.

If you’d like to learn more about this, please join them on Monday 13 May at 9am in the school hall, or Tuesday 14 May 3pm in the school hall and at 6.45pm online.

SUMMER TERM

We’ve got a great programme for this Summer Term, including giant construction workshops, a visit from Mr Bubbles, and even donkey rides at the Summer Fair. Please make sure to save the dates!

Our next big event is the Chess Tournament, now on Friday 7 June:

Everyone from our community, adults or children, friends and neighbours, is welcome to join the tournament and try to beat our champion Ruth Sheldon, who can play 12 teams at the same time.

You can buy your £5 ticket here (all proceeds will go to buying outdoor chess tables for the school). There will be also be free children’s activities, great prizes from Chess in Schools, cakes and drinks etc. So please join us on Friday 7 June after school!

Please also save the date for the Enterprise Fair on Friday 14 June after school. Your kids have just over a month to make or sort things to sell, to raise money for themselves or their favourite charities. They can sell handmade things (including food, drink and art); preloved toys, books and clothes; collectables; father's day gifts; services such as car washing... Anything they want! Book a £3 stall at our Enterprise fair now.

HALL CURTAINS

We’ve spent over £4,000 on new curtains for the hall. This helps with acoustics during assembly and allows the hall to be used for two different activities at the same time. We’ve also installed some smaller curtains to hide the storage area. We’re also planning a mural for the kitchen wall, as well as a new AV system or interactive screen for the hall.

We really hope to see you all at our next events! Thank you and take care,

FROGS

Happy Easter Holidays

Hello,

We hope you are all well and ready for the Easter holidays. Please find the meeting minutes here, and see below for more information on our latest events, and plans for the Summer Term.

STAR OF THE WEEK

This week we had to say goodbye to Patsy, who has been at Grasmere for 30 years! She is the heart of the school and will be missed by everyone. We will be organising a gift pot and video messages soon. Please save the date: the school is organising a special assembly on Monday 29 April at 2.30.

Thank you to our volunteers who organised a last minute celebration and everyone who turned up – what a great community we have.

We’re also saying goodbye to our very own FROG Nicola – thank you for everything you’ve done for the school in the last few years, on behalf of all the parents and children.

Easter Egg Hunt

Thank you to everyone who donated eggs, including the lovely people at Waitrose Holloway who donated over 500 little chocolate eggs! We distributed over 2,000 eggs and the kids had lots of fun. And if they managed to find Gilbert the Rabbit, their teachers got a big Easter egg too. Plus there were eggs for the staff room, and for pupil premium children to take home.

This couldn’t have happened without our volunteer bunnies who spent the entire morning hiding eggs in the garden, so thank you so much Easter Hunt team!

Jumble Sale

Thank you to all our volunteers and shoppers, we raised over £1,400 with the spring jumble sale. It’s a big event to organise and we had over 50 volunteers – not bad for such a small school! The next Jumble sale will be in October and we are looking for a volunteer organiser.

RECENT SPENDS

In the past few weeks we’ve supported the school by funding some Science Week workshops run by Happy Squares. And thank you to the parents who also came in to support World Book Week!

We’ve also spent time and money on revamping the garden beds, with planting and new arches:

NEXT TERM

Please save the dates! We’ve lots of great events coming up this Summer Term:

As ever volunteers will be needed. We’re also looking for another volunteer to help organise the Enterprise Fair. Kids will be able to run their own stall at this fair, so perhaps they would like to start making/planting things now so they are ready to sell in June!

Thank you and take care,

FROGS

March news

Hello,

Ever wondered what we do with all the money we raise? Well, in the last few weeks we have spent:
- over £3,500 on ordering new curtains for the hall
- around £400 on buying two new mud kitchens
- around £350 on yoga workshops before half-term
- £400 on author Jeanne Willis’ visit for World Book Day
- £600 on science week workshops next week
- and around £900 for a whole school treat in April which will involve each year group building a giant city out of Kapla.

This year we’re also planning to spend thousands on a new AV system for the school hall (item requested by the school as part of their technology fundraiser); some fun climbing elements for the garden; and to create a welcoming Reading room on the first floor.

The various cake sales held on Fridays throughout the year are also helping raise money for class treats, and a whole school trip to the seaside at the end of the year. Well done to Year 2 who raised £200 with their cake sale on Friday!

All of this wouldn’t be possible without your help, so thank you to everyone who volunteers at our events. Talking of which, the next one is the Jumble sale on 16 March, and we need all hands on deck to raise money (we’re hoping to beat the £1,700 we raised in October). Please see below for more info on how you can help or volunteer.

If you would like to find out more about how we work, and how to get involved, you can join us at our next meeting on Wednesday 13 March at 8pm online. We’re all volunteers with full time jobs and we do as much or as little as we can – everyone is welcome. Here is the meeting agenda and meeting details will be shared on the class Whatsapp groups next week.

HACKNEY SCHOOL STARS

In other news, Hackney School Stars is a chance for members of the community to nominate any member of schools or early years staff for a special award.

Patsy is celebrating 30 years working at Grasmere this year so please take some time to nominate her for a Lifetime Achievement award! Other longstanding staff members include Billy (19 years), Julie (18 years) Debbie (17 years) and Carmen (15 years) as well as Sharon of course! You can just put the school’s phone number and general email when you nominate them.

PUB QUIZ

Thank you to everyone who took part and helped organise the pub quiz at The Shakespeare: we raised just over £850 with this event: £165 tickets + £120 food sale + £300 donation from The Shakespeare + £300 matched giving donation (please get in touch if you work for a big company who is part of this scheme, you could help us double our fundraising by helping out at an event!). Congratulations to the winning team – two years in a row… Can they ever be beaten?

Big thanks to our wonderful quiz masters (rounds included Cheese or Motorway Stations, celebrity names in emoji and pictures of local hotspots, all great fun!) and of course to the Shakespeare team – please support your local pub! (Fun fact: it’s the oldest pub building in Stokey.)

JUMBLE SALE

We will need lots of help on the Friday 15 to sort out the jumble, even if you can only help for an hour that would make a big difference. Please sign up here if you can - we also need help with the books and toys stalls! Dads/male carers are welcome to help: so far there’s only one (?!) dad out of 41 volunteers and we need at least ten more helpers.

And of course, please donate your jumble – nothing broken or dirty please. Books, toys, bric-à-brac, homeware, small furniture, clothes (adult and children), shoes and accessories. We need enough to fill the entire floor of the blue container! Any leftovers will be donated to the British Heart Foundation and the Hackney Baby Bank.

EASTER EGG HUNT

Also coming up is one of the children’s favourite events, FROGS’ Easter Egg Hunt, which has been held in the school garden for over 20 years! Please sign up here if you can volunteer to be one of our Easter Bunnies (ie hide the eggs in the garden for each year group). We’ll also need your chocolate egg donations so keep an eye out for any bargains (check that there are no nuts please).

You can leave your donations with Patsy and Burcu from Monday 18 March, thank you!

GARDEN PROJECT

We kickstarted our Garden project by getting two new mud kitchens, and some colourful trugs. Thank you so much for your donations of pots and pans, they have already been put to good use.

If you have any old metal camping cups or mugs that you would like donate please leave them in the garden on the kitchen shelves, thank you!

Thank you to all the children who have voted for their favourite climbing elements. We have two clear first choice winners, the Monkey Bars (21 votes) and the zig zag balance logs (14 votes):

Also top of the wish list are the Hercules Hoops, Traveller Ropes, and Scramble net:

And finally the Stepping logs with posts, and Hop up logs:

We will do our best to incorporate as many of these elements as we can into the garden to make it a fun play area for the kids, and we will be going back to the companies we have selected to get more precise quotes for this project.

We will soon need some volunteers to do a spot of gardening and lots of painting.

We’re also looking for a jet wash to clean the garden classroom’s canvas roof, so if you can help with this please let us know.

NEXT TERM

Please take a look at the meeting agenda to see what is coming up next term. We are looking for a volunteer to organise the Enterprise Fair in June, please get in touch if you can help!

Thank you and take care,

FROGS

February News

Hello,

Please see below for our latest news and upcoming events. Get your tickets now for the Grasmere Pub Quiz which takes place just after half-term! And make sure to scroll down to find out more about our plans for the garden – kids can vote here to help us choose some climbing elements.

Also, we’re looking for ideas for something fun for this year’s Leap Day (symbol: the frog), which will be the school’s first relax day (when kids can bring their slippers to school).

Cinema Night

Thank you to everyone who attended our Cinema night; we hope your kids enjoyed it! We raised just under £300 by selling snacks and drinks at our screening of Luca.

School Parent’s Dinner

Well done to the school for organising a lovely fundraiser. The dinner was amazing and so was the music!

Garden pROJECT

We’ve come up with a plan for the garden and we need your help! Our scheme involves a loop of activities starting from the sensory maze, going all around the garden with some new climbing elements, a refurbished mud kitchen, and building area full of exciting material. We are also working with forest school club to add some natural habitats and a woodland area.

We need your children to tell us which climbing element they would like us to install in the garden. Please get them to vote for their favourite trim trail elements using this google form (we will also share it with the school so that as many kids can vote!)

In the meantime, we’re starting with the mud kitchen. We’ve ordered two wooden kitchens (around £450) and some trugs (around £50) to add to this corner of the garden. They are arriving during half-term. And we’re asking you to donate any old kitchen utensils, pots, pans, cake tins etc. Please leave in the cardboard box by the FROGS shelves, thank you!

Then we will be installing some metal arches to create tunnels and planting the sensory maze; the Forest club will be helping us adding more plants and natural habitats to some corners of the garden.

FLIPCHARTS

It’s always lovely to see how our fundraising helps the school directly. One of our latest spends was over £1,000 to buy flipcharts for each class. Here are a couple in action:

OUR NEXT EVENTS

Quiz Night – Tuesday 27 February

The annual Grasmere quiz night is back! Leave the kids at home and join us at The Shakespeare for a fun night. Come hungry: we will be selling chilli (including vegan option) and sides. There are only 90 seats available so get your ticket now from the FROGS shop.

You can also get a team together (6 people max) or just wait and we will sort it on the night. See you there!

Also coming up: the Jumble Sale and Easter Egg Hunt!

Our spring jumble sale is very popular and we need lots of donations and help to make it happen. Please start sorting your jumble now! We would love toys, books, clothes, bric-à-brac (nothing broken or dirty please!). We’d need them on the Friday 15 March but can’t take them before that sorry, we don’t have any space to keep the bags.

We will need cake and treats donations on the day, and we need parent power to make sure we have all the stall on and ready for our loyal customers.

Please sign up here if you can help put posters up, sort or sell. Thank you!

Easter Egg Hunt – Wednesday 27 March

We will need lots of chocolate for our annual egg hunt in the garden, so keep an eye out for any chocolate bargains (no nuts please!). If you would like to be one of our Easter bunnies (who hide all the eggs for each class in the garden) then please sign up here.

Our next meeting will be on Wednesday 13 March at 8pm on Zoom.

Thank you and have a lovely half-term,

FROGS

FROGS' first 2024 newsletter!

Hello,

We hope you are well and wish you all the best for 2024. Please find attached the minutes of our last meeting and the latest financials. Please read on to learn about our plans, our events this term, and how you can help. Please get in touch via your class reps or frogs.grasmere@gmail.com if you would like to offer help, ideas or suggestions, and use the volunteer sign up sheets below to make our fun events happen this Spring term.

As you know the school is organising a technology fundraiser and you can donate money here. The school has just raised £100 with their Fairy Tale Day and the photos with Princesses Anna and Elsa, thank you for supporting them! Please see below how FROGS will be contributing to this fundraiser.

And also, congratulations to Year 3 who raised £205 for their end-of-year trip to the beach!

Our latest plans

Hall transformation
Around £5,000
To be completed by the end of this school year
- We are buying floor-to-ceiling curtains for the hall. These will hide the storage area & divide the hall, and help make lunchtimes and afterschool/breakfast clubs more efficient. This was requested by the school and we are spending over £3,500 on this.
- We are installing a mural by Toby Marsh on the kitchen wall in the hall. We have sent him some inspiration in the form of drawings by the school kids, and are waiting to see what he comes up with! Watch this space.
- FROGS will buy a new AV system (including screen, projector etc) for the school hall, which is a big item on the technology fundraiser wish list and will benefit the entire school. This is our contribution to the school’s fundraiser and will be paid for using our existing funds. We are looking into costs at the moment and will share our budget for this soon.

Woodland Play Area Project
Around £10,000 in total
Phase 1 to be completed by the end of this school year
We are also planning to revamp the garden and install a play area and a nice mud kitchen as well as lots more plants. We have already raised over £2,000 for this on our fundraiser page (you can donate here). We have collected lots of different quotes and are meeting this Friday at 2.30 to discuss how to plan this and what the priorities are and how to best zone the space. We are hoping to use our existing funds and the ones we raised on Kindlink to pay for this.

Reading room project
Around £2,000
To be completed by the end of this school year
We are transforming the quiet space on first floor just above library with a new wallpaper and cushions and a storage system for the school’s large Read Write Inc collection of teaching resources.

We will keep you updated on any development on these projects, we think they are going to make a massive difference to the school as these are spaces used by all the children all the time.

Our Spring term events

Cinema Night – this Friday 26 January!

Please join us this Friday at the Grasmere Cinema for a screening of Luca. Please bring cushions, blankets, onesies – anything to get cosy. It’s free!

There will be lots of snacks for sale & you can use your leftover stamp cards. Kids who are not really into movies will of course be running around in the playground, and that is fine too!

We now have enough volunteers to make this event happen, thank you for you help!

Quiz Night – Tuesday 27 February

The annual Grasmere quiz night is back! Leave the kids at home and join us at The Shakespeare for a fun night. Come hungry: we will be selling chilli (including vegan option) and sides. There are only 90 seats available so get your ticket now from the FROGS shop.

You can also get a team together (6 people max) or just wait and we will sort it on the night. See you there!

Jumble Sale – Saturday 16 March

Our spring jumble sale is very popular and we need lots of donations and help to make it happen. Please start sorting your jumble now! We would love toys, books, clothes, bric-à-brac (nothing broken or dirty please!). We’d need them on the Friday 15 March but can’t take them before that sorry, we don’t have any space to keep the bags.

We will need cake and treats donations on the day, and we need parent power to make sure we have all the stall on and ready for our loyal customers.

Please sign up here if you can help put posters up, sort or sell. Thank you!

Easter Egg Hunt
Wednesday 27 March

We will need lots of chocolate for our annual egg hunt in the garden, so keep an eye out for any chocolate bargains (no nuts please!). If you would like to be one of our Easter bunnies (who hide all the eggs for each class in the garden) then please sign up here.

Thank you and take care,

FROGS

Happy Holidays!

Hello,

We hope you all had a great time at the Winter Fair, which raised over £1,700 for the school. Huge thanks to all the helpers, bakers and volunteers who helped make this wonderful event happen.

We had over 50 parents and carers helping, which is amazing for a school of only 200 pupils or so. And of course a big thank you to Santa and his elves who took time from their busy schedule to stop at Grasmere, and to Waitrose Holloway for supplying us with lots and lots of free treats!

All our big events such as the fairs and the jumble sales take a lot of work, but they are an essential part of our fundraising and help create the sense of community that Grasmere is well-known for.

If you would like to help with organising these events for the next school year, please get in touch through your Class reps or by email frogs.grasmere@gmail.com. We always need new parents to take over as older ones leave the school.

HOW WE’VE HELPED THE SCHOOL RECENTLY

In the past few weeks we have spent over £1,000 for new flip charts for each classroom, as requested by the school; over £400 on play bark to for the garden (thank you to our volunteers who helped spread it around, there’s still work to do if anyone else is around!); and over £100 for little chocolates, candy canes, paper hats and stickers for the school’s Christmas lunch.

HOW YOU CAN HELP NEXT YEAR

There are lots of ways you can help FROGS in 2024:

• We will need volunteers for the Cinema Night on Friday 26 January, the Jumble Sale on Saturday 16 March and the Easter Egg Hunt on Wednesday 27 March. Please look out for our volunteer sign up sheets which we will share in January.

• We are looking for help to paint the toilet block and repair the murals in the Spring.

• We will also need work to plant herbs, trees and shrubs etc in the garden in the Spring.

• We are thinking of organising a GalaBid silent auction so if you would like to help organise this or have some big prizes to give away for this let us know!

• We need a volunteer organiser for the Enterprise Fair in June.

• We are planning to redecorate and transform the 1st floor reading room, if you can help by painting a wall or know a professional who could install wallpaper on one feature wall please get in touch. We have armchairs and a light but we will be buying new furniture including a new table and chairs, as well as magazine files to hold the school’s Read Write Inc teaching resources. Here’s how it looks now:

If you can help with this project please let us know!

The SEASON FOR GIVING

At the moment we are collecting money for the Grasmere staff’s Christmas present. The total will be divided equally between everyone who works at the school – teachers, teaching assistants, office staff, kitchen team, caretaker etc... Please donate here (or simply leave a message).

We are also supporting the Winter Toy Appeal and the Hackney Food Bank. (You can also leave food and toiletry donations on the FROGS shelf in the covered walkway – no jumble items please).

SAVE THE DATES

We’ve lots of great events planned for the Spring Term, please save the dates:

Thank you and have a lovely break,

FROGS

December News

Hello,

Thank you to everyone who has ordered Grasmere tops, Christmas trees and Christmas cards through our last fundraisers. The tops and cards should all arrive at the beginning of December, before the winter fair, and the trees will be delivered on 8 December in the morning.

Thank you also to everyone who attended last week’s online Frogs meeting – you can read the minutes of the meeting here.

Please read on to learn more about our latest fundraisers and projects, and how you can help at our last event this term, the Winter Fair.

SPRING BULBS

To help green up the school and make sure that it looks its best come spring time, we have bought soil and bulbs (as well as wheelbarrow!) for the children to each plant bulbs in the various containers around the school. Each year group should have done this by now, here is Year 5 in action:

We are also in the process of ordering play bark and will be asking for volunteer to spread it around the garden to make it less muddy and more fun for the kids.

CAKES SALES

Well done to Year 4 who raised just over £200 with their cake sale, and to all our parent volunteers who helped raise £234 for the Red Cross’ Israel & Occupied Palestine appeal – thank you all!

Winter Fair

Our last event this term will be the Winter Fair, after school on Friday 8 December. As ever we need lots of volunteers to make this a really fun event for the kids, please sign up here if you can. If we do not have enough volunteers we’ll have to cancel some stalls and that would be a real shame!

There’s also lots of other ways to help. You could donate:
- mulled wine and homemade cakes for the kitchen stall
- second-hand soft toys, wintery books and games for the tombola stall
- homemade gifts such as knitted gifts, jam, cards etc to see in the shop
- second-hand Christmas jumpers & decorations to sell in the shop
- duplicate/unwanted Pokémon cards for the lucky dip stall
- temporary tattoos and nail varnish for the nail bar
- unopened, unwanted gifts for the Guess how many baubles prizes

(Please note we cannot accept any other second-hand items/jumble as we do not have space to store it and it creates a lot more work for our already stretched volunteers, thank you)

We will also have a Santa’s Grotto where children will be able to meet Santa and his wonderful elves and receive a little gift – you can buy your ticket here, or on the day. We will be selling stamp cards & tickets on the 8th in the morning if you want to skip the queue, and reception will hand out stamp cards and tickets to those who need them as usual.

Thank you in advance – the fair is a big fundraiser and the children all really love it!

HandyMen & BUIlDERS WANTED!

We are currently working on getting more quotes for our Woodland play area for the garden. We will be meeting soon to discuss the various options and costs. We are hoping to have a more detailed plan after Christmas, organise some fundraisers for this in the spring, and have it installed as soon as we reach our target. We think we could have something great for around £20,000, including some nice climbing and balancing elements.

We could potentially save money by revamping the mud kitchen area ourselves. If you are a keen carpenter/builder etc and think you could help fit some sturdy play ovens, fridges, sinks, countertops and tables, or build a planter for the mud/soil, then please get in touch. This work could be done at the weekends, or whenever convenient for the volunteers.

We will also need painters later on: in the spring we will also be repairing our existing murals and painting the toilet block in KS2 to match the climbing wall mural.

Also, we are hoping to apply for a grant to decorate the metal fence just in front of the reception door – if you know a local blacksmith who could help please get in touch!

SEASON of giving

We are collecting money to give all Grasmere staff a little something this Christmas. The money will be split equally between them, and is from all of us parents and carers. Please add your donation here – (even if you can’t donate, you’re welcome to just add a message).

And finally, like every winter we are supporting the Winter Toy Appeal, who distribute toys to all children who need them in the borough and beyond (including some children at Grasmere) and who are celebrating their 10th anniversary this year. If you can, you could also help by replenishing our food bank shelves in the covered walkway, donating money or time to the Hackney Food Bank, and baby or children clothes and small toys to the Hackney Baby Bank.

Thank you and take care,

FROGS

PS: We’ve also come across this campaign, Turn On the Subtitles – did you know turning on the subtitles when your children are watching TV can really help with literacy?