Dear all, We hope you had a lovely half term with your families and are keeping safe and well. The second half of the Autumn term finds us in continuing uncertain times, with the new lockdown restrictions coming into force, but we have some exciting plans that we hope we can still move forward with to bring a little magic into the upcoming festive season!
Halloween fun!
Our end of half term activities went down very well with the children, and lots of little witches and ghouls were spotted around Loughton doing the Pumpkin Trail! Thank you very much for your feedback on this, I think we may well do something similar in the future!
The craft packs also were a great success, and since Baker Ross do some lovely Christmas craft items, we’ll be putting some festive packs together for pre-order in the next few weeks.
Cake, as always is a faithful constant in many of our lives… and so we’ll be taking orders for some mouthwatering treat boxes to take home at the end of term!
Fundraising achievements!
All of these activities, although the main emphasis is for the children’s enjoyment, help to raise much needed funds for the school. This term we have helped to buy reading books, play equipment, outdoor activity clothing and a microwave for after school club- all things that the school simply does not have the budget for. We have also been able to fund 2 much bigger projects: replacing the PA System in the hall, complete with new speakers and microphones, and, as some of your children may have mentioned to you, amazing new playgroup markings!
These cost many thousands of pounds, but will benefit the children at Loughton Manor for years to come, a great legacy from all those pounds spent getting face painted at May Fayres, stocking up on second hand uniform and ordering your Christmas cards.
We hope to be able to run some of our bigger events again in the not too distant future so we can start to save up for some more exciting projects!
Big announcement!
Another exciting development is the brand new Friends Website! The wonderful Rebecca Chamberlain, one of the Friends and a parent at LMFS has kindly built this for us, to help us share with you all the fun things that we have going on in school, give info about upcoming events and activities, share photos, show you what we have been spending money on, and give you access to the uniform shop! So…..
www.friendsofloughtonmanor.co.uk
Ta daaaaah! We are officially launched! Do pop by and let us know what you think!
Definitely have a peek at the photo galleries if you’d like to see some of the dressing up fun from our Halloween activities, and have a look at the lovely colourful additions to the playground!
We always love to hear from you, and welcome new members to help us plan our upcoming events! So contact us via the website, or email friendsofloughtonmanor@gmail.com
A great way to stay in touch is via the class Whats App groups. Links to these are on the e-mail this newsletter was attached to, and also on the Website on the ‘who’s involved’ page. They’re a lovely way to engage with other parents from your child’s class, and also for reminding each other about school events and deadlines!
If you are on Facebook, come and join ‘LoughtonManor1stSchoolParents’ (its a closed group) which is often a quick way to get in touch with other parents from across the school. It’s for general info, and isn’t specifically for Friends, but we often post there about our events.
Another way we are embracing technology to help us raise a few more pennies in these socially strict times is by setting up accounts with Amazon Smile and Easy Fundraising. If you haven’t heard of these before, it’s essentially a way of raising money for your chosen cause, simply by buying the stuff you’d be buying anyway! See the pages on the website for further instructions on how to set this up – if we all do it, when doing our online shopping this Christmas, it all adds up!
https://smile.amazon.co.uk/ch/1095137-0
https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/invite/4yamtw/
We’ve also joined forces with a local lady who has her own independent book selling business. Now that Book People is no more, there are some good prices on here! Each purchase will raise some money for the school.
https://book-parties.scholastic.co.uk/party/flmfs
Upcoming Festivities!
We have lots of exciting plans in the works as we look forward to the run up to Christmas! Look out for your Christmas Shop letters that have been sent home this week. Please get your orders in by Monday 16th November so we have time to ensure the elves are organised.
The Christmas Shop is a lovely event that we have been running for many years now. Santa’s workshop is recreated in the school hall, stocked with gifts for all ages. Your children are escorted there by a member of staff, where they help them, (if they need it!) to choose the presents for their family! The presents are then brought home, already wrapped and labelled, to be hidden away until Christmas morning. The children absolutely adore the experience, and love seeing your reactions to their gift choices on Christmas day!
We will also soon be taking orders for the Christmas craft kits and cake boxes, so keep an eye out for more info! You don’t need to worry about ever missing anything Friends related- copies of all letters and forms will be able to be found on the website.
Take care everyone!