North Hinksey Home School Association

We now have a new supplier of school uniform, however it is REALLY IMPORTANT to we continue to sell our current stock so we can free up previously gifted money for other projects.  If you need to order uniform please continue to see Mrs Harrison.  If you have confirmation that we do not have the size you need in school please click the logo above, this will take you directly to the school uniform order page.  There is a delivery charge so do think about teaming up with other parents and share the cost, making ordering uniform cheaper.

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SUMMER HOLIDAY ORDER DEADLINES

Option 1:             Order by 3^rd July 2009 – Delivery will be made before the end of term

Option 2:             Order by 7^th August 2009 – Delivery will be made during the holidays before the beginning of the new term in September.

If you would like to feedback to us about something, suggest something, ask us a question or volunteer to do something then just hit the COMMENTS box and your remarks will be emailed to us.  It’s easy… and we then won’t forget about it…

Thursday 18th September

- AGM. 7.30pm

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Friday 26th Sept

- Book and toy sale 3:15 – 4:15

28th November 2008

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- Christmas Bazaar  (evening)

Thursday January 29th

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- Quiz Night at 7pm.

Saturday March 28th

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- Family Games.  2-4pm. (event to be confirmed)

Thursday 21st May

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JULY
5.30 to 7pm (KS1)
7.30 to 9pm (KS2)

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SPORTS DAY FIESTA - PROVISIONAL DATE - Wednesday 17th June

- 4pm to 6pm. (Thursday 18th June in reserve)

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Wednesday 15th July

- Bring and share picnic. 6pm to 8pm with yr 6 rounders

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Monday 20th July

- End of year CIRCUS WORKSHOP

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MUFTI DAYS & COOK4BOOKS
We’ve agreed with Mrs Wheatley to have more mufti days in 2008-09 to help raise money for the Circus (Mufti will return to 3 days a year in 2009-10).
These mufti days also incorporate COOK4BOOKS.  Stalls will return to morning break, with after school stalls if stock remains or parents bring in even more cakes to sell!!

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MUFTI DAY    COOK4BOOKS CLASS
Friday 24th October        Yr 5 & Yr 6 (share takings)
Friday 19th December     Yr 4
Friday 13th February       Yr 3
Friday 3rd April               Yr 2

Friday 22nd May             Yr 1

Friday 17th July              Foundation

Click here to view thumbnails of all the sports day photographs. Please note the quality of the images uploaded for this slide show is LOW.  The quality of the photographs on the DVD were too large to upload!  DVD’s of the complete collection of 500+ images are available to order for £5. See Maria for more details or email HSA.MSkoyles@gmail.com

H.S.A. NEWSLETTER JUNE 2008

The Sports Day Fiesta ’08 was our first major event.  Overall, as officers we were really pleased with the event.  A great big thank you goes out to everyone.  Thank you to: the school staff for accommodating us in the Hall (and particularly over lunchtime); those that gave up time to help with a stall or to set up and pack away; and of course those that spent money.  We took £1533.75 at the event.  £435 were consumerable expenses, we gained a £100 asset – the waterslide and have £800 banked to put towards the outdoor classroom.  Kia from year 2 won the £20 gift voucher.  Well done!!

As officers we have reviewed the event and have considered how different aspects of it went.  On reflection:
•    We were really disappointed at the size of the waterslide, it was great for key stage one children but not necessarily for the older ones.  It did pay for itself though.  Unfortunately we couldn’t get hold of the slide used at previous events and we were hesitate to use it for two reasons: there had been problems with access to water; and there were some serious concerns about whether the NCPTA insurance would cover the activity (due to the high risk of breaking a limb).  We do now have a reliable hose and tap fixtures and will endeavour to provide a more ‘grown-up’ activity at the next summer event.
•    We felt the token system worked quite well.  It really helped with managing floats and security.  We do think that the tokens may have been too much pocket money each and will review the price (starting at 30p maybe).  We also think we will keep the price the same up to 20 tokens, and then reduce for bulkier buys.
•    Using the tokens for tuck was popular, and the BBQ in the end! We hadn’t really considered this initially and think it would be good to increase their use across stall s.
•    We thought that the water shot was really successful, particularly as there was such little outlay – this is likely to do at least one more come back tour!!

We didn’t really anticipate the length of time the computer would take to upload over 700 photographs for the slide show.  We will be putting on a slide show at PARENTS EVENING on 7th and 8th July in the LIBRARY.

As part of the photograph display we wondered if you would like to be part of a feedback display.  Below you will find some ‘balls’.  Do encourage the children to get involved and colour them in and cut them out.  We’d like you to make comments on them too.  There will be a set of goal posts to stick them onto.  The higher you kick them into the goals on the board the greater your satisfaction of the event!

Our final event this year is Foundation year Cook4Books on Monday 30th June, do as Gayle (the year rep.) for more details.

Kind regards
Your H.S.A. Officers.     Maria (Chair), Alison (Treasurer) & Mandy (Secretary)

OUR NEXT MEETING IS

MONDAY 23rd JUNE

at 3:30pm

H.S.A. FUNDRAISING - JEWELLERY RECYCLING WEEK
An envelope is attached to this letter. Please fill it with:
o Jewellery – cheap, expensive, broken, with missing bits;
o Watches – new, old, broken.
Please return your filled envelope to the box near the library by Friday 9th May and your donation will help raise money. All the contributions are valued and the school will be given a cheque for their contribution, and you might win an MP3 player. EASY MONEY!! The jewellery collectors will either sell-on stock or use it to create new jewellery – carbon low recycling!

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H.S.A. FUNDRAISING EVENT - SPORTS DAY FIESTA – Monday 16th June - 3:30 – 6:00pm
(or Tuesday 17th – weather dependant)
The H.S.A. are organising a special ‘after sports day’ extravaganza. You will be approached soon by your class rep. asking for you to support the event by giving a short amount of time (30-60mins). Special features will hopefully include:
o A Pimms tent (during the children’s sports activities);
o Refreshments, including BBQ, ice creams, teas, coffee, cakes and advance booked luxury family picnics;
o Football penalty shoot outs;
o Netball shoot out;
o Bouncy castles;
o Lolly lotto;
o Wine lotto;
o Tombola;
o Chuck the chicken (AKA chicken soup!)
o Striker;
o Crafting your own sports cup.
So watch this space – we are holding a meeting on Wednesday 7th May at 3:15pm to determine which class takes on which stalls (Bazaar and Fete style) so if you would like to contribute to the planning please come along. The meeting will end at 4pm. A video will be provided for the children to watch.

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SCHOOL ORGANISED EVENT – PROM ONE.FIVE.OH! – Tuesday 22nd July
This is a school 150th celebration committee organised event. The H.S.A has agreed to support in giving time. The school will be underwriting the expenses as part of the 150th celebration but is obviously very keen to draw even. In previous years the parents and children have been invited and involved in two end of year activities: a summer picnic and the children’s end of year discos. It was thought it would be a good idea to combine these events, making one large event: yet not increasing any additional financial pressure on parents. PROM ONE.FIVE.OH! will be an all family event, where everyone is encouraged to bring a picnic (‘Ascot’ and ‘Picnic in the Park’ style) and eat it amongst other current and past: families; pupils; and teachers from the school. There will be a small ‘on-the-door’ admission charge likely to be about £5 per family (or £2 per adult and £1 per child) to cover the cost of marquee hire and disco entertainment. We hope you will all support this event especially those year six pupils that will be leaving us this year for adventures new! Look out for the posters…

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Kind regards
Your H.S.A officers.
P.S. Go to www.northhinskeyHSA.org - let us know what you think and add your comments.

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)

Dear parents

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Hello! We are the new chair, treasurer and secretary of YOUR Home School Association committee. This is our first – and hopefully last lengthy newsletter!! We are hoping that the new H.S.A. noticeboard in the year 1 window will be the main communication tool for you all, along with an updated website and possibly email updates? Firstly, we would like to thank S, K, and M and all the many parents for the hard work in raising funds for school.

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Secondly, we want to thank the 50 or so of you that completed the last questionnaire. The feedback was very useful and helped us to start making some informed decisions, particularly about the next Christmas Bazaar, now scheduled for Friday 28th November 2008 from 5-7pm: 58% felt that was the most appropriate time!

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Thirdly, we want to know more!! There are approximately 130 families in the school so the last questionnaire was a reflection of 38% of you. Only 22% of you might really think that a Friday evening is a good time for a Christmas Bazaar! We do sincerely hope not! We want to ensure that we make decisions that the majority agree on. This can only be done with ALL your help… so please spend 5 minutes ticking the boxes (or not!) and return the attached questionnaire to your year rep, or by posting it to us in the SEND US A MESSAGE file on the reverse of the new H.S.A. notice board located in the year 1 window.

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Which brings us onto ‘what we’ve been up to so far’. Since the formal meeting on 4th February the H.S.A. have:
o Made a new notice board – please check it out in the Year 1 window – it contains lots of information:
if you think something is missing let us know and we’ll add more;
o Cleaned the BBQ after the cooking at the Christmas Bazaar;
o Started thinking about a special Sports Day event;
o Organised an Easter Egg raffle – details out shortly (if not already!).

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Over the coming weeks we anticipate:
o Making more of the H.S.A. website ;
o Establishing a better Gift Aid scheme;
o Making a school address book;
o Planning a Sports Day Special.
We will also be reviewing the feedback from the questionnaires and acting according. Our plans may well change in accordance with what you tell us. At the last meeting is was also decided that there would be no Summer Fete this year so the school’s social plans to celebrate the 150th anniversary aren’t overshadowed.

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The H.S.A. is a committee made up of parents who volunteer their time for the benefit of the school community. All school children and families should be able to see how the H.S.A. contributes to school life, whether it is in a fundraising capacity or at a social level. Parents’ involvement is vital. There are currently two vacant posts. If you think you might be able to help in any of these roles please let us know. Many hands make light work!

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YEAR REP’s.
The year rep is crucially a communication role, feeding information to and from the parents in that year group. They may be asked to delegate tasks to parents in their class or be a face for collecting or distributing stuff. We currently require a rep. for YEAR ONE.

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SCHOOL UNIFORM DISTRIBUTOR
This role would suit someone who would like to offer time to school life but at their own convenience. This volunteer would: collect in uniform order forms; forward cash/cheques to the treasurer for banking; make up the order and distribute to the appropriate year rep./class teacher. They would also need to maintain the stock and order items when required. Please let one of us know if you can help.

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Our next meeting is at 3:15pm on Wednesday 19th March. This will be an informal meeting when we will be thrashing out ideas for forthcoming events, EVERYONE IS WELCOME TO ATTEND. A film will be playing to entertain the children. If you have ANY ideas please forward them to a committee member or write us a note by 3rd March. All ideas will be added to the agenda.

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FROM
YOUR H.S.A. COMMITTEE REPRESENTATIVES
Maria Skoyles (chair), MR (secretary) & AB (treasurer).