North Hinksey Home School Association

OUR NEXT MEETING IS

MONDAY 23rd JUNE

at 3:30pm

I received my first copy of the NCPTA Spring 2008 News and Views on Friday. An article that struck my attention was about school uniform. The discussion referred to the Citizen’s Advice Bureau survey ‘Adding Up’, which found that ‘many parents are struggling to meet the growing cost of items such as uniform and PE kit, plus a range of other expenses like trips and specialist equipment’. I decided that this was important and a little investigation was required.



The NCPTA have written an article about pricing, stating that ‘the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) has introduced some important new guidelines that will affect you’ (available on Teachernet)…’The new guidance strongly emphasises the need to keep the costs of school uniform to a minimum’…’the guidance now prohibits governing bodies (and PTAs)…raising additional funds through the sale of new school uniforms’…’PTAs will be able to continue to fundraise from the sale of second hand uniform’… ‘the PTA (school) can continue to sell (branded goods as a sole supplier) if the items are being sold at cost with no profit and the savings are being passed on to parents’.



To ensure that our HSA follows these published guidelines you will see a drop in school uniform prices. If you are concerned about products that you have recently purchased from the HSA please feel free to come and discuss this with one of the Officers.



Maria (Chair)

Would you be interested in us participating in this fundraiser. Take a large plastic bag home, fill it with unwanted usable clothes and return it to school by the end of the week. It would earn 30p a kilo for school. We’d really appreciate some feedback…

Go to www.bag2school.org.uk for more details.

Unfortunately it was a little late in the season for many parents to respond to the Suttons fundraising catalogue.  4 parents responded.  The HSA will receive £22 from these efforts.  Thank you.

We would really appreciate your feedback.  Would you be interested in doing this next year if catalogues were issued early, in January?  Please comment.