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2009 Magazine Report – Friends of Putney Park
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The Friends of Putney Park School (FoPPS) is made up of the parents and guardians of all children attending Putney Park. The primary aim is to make all parents feel welcome in the school through FoPPS organised events, such as coffee mornings and social evenings. It also provides services to parents, such as second hand uniform sales, DVDs of the Christmas and Summer concerts, sales of croissants after school.
read the full report by clicking through the tabs below
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As Chair for the past year, I had two aims: communication and integration. Communication about who FoPPS are and what we do. To that end, we produced a leaflet in November giving detailed information about the annual and ad hoc activities throughout the school year, as well as information of what it takes to be a Class Rep. This was distributed to all parents, via the book bags, and staff in the week following October half term. Early comments suggest that the leaflet has been well received. Mrs Bowman has a number of copies that she distributes to all new parents joining the school. Of course, one of the core FoPPS activities for communicating with parents is the class coffee mornings organised by the Reps. These are always particularly useful for new parents to the school, and for all parents to socialise with each other. I believe also there have been a number of evening social functions …. ! Integration to involve the Upper School much more in FoPPS activities, and raise awareness amongst the Lower School parents of what happens 'across the road' in terms of curriculum matters and the frustrations of parents who never meet because their daughters make their own way to school. The Upper School Reps – Cara Carr and Mirella Gilpin from Year 8, and Kathryn Nicholls and Madeleine Woolf from Year 7 – deserve a huge thank you for their energies in promoting FoPPS amongst parents. See below for some of the Upper School-specific activities they have organised this year. I also met the School Inspectors in November to give them an overview of FoPPS and the relationship between FoPPS and PPS.
This past academic year has been a particularly busy one for FoPPS, with even more activities on offer than in previous years, courtesy of some energetic Class Reps!
The FoPPS page on the Parents’ Area of the school website is up and running and contains documents such as a Welcome to FoPPS, a list of Reps by class/year, activities for the coming year, Handy Guide to being a Rep, and a copy of the Spending Proposal form.
One of the sad but uplifting activities that FoPPS coordinated this year was a collection for the Royal Marsden Hospital in memory of Mrs Leon, who passed away during the October half term break. The collection helped to raise money for the Hospital to ‘sponsor a day’ for Mrs Leon – her family chose her birthday, 21 July, as the special day and as a result of the Putney Park collection, this year Mrs Leon will be remembered on the Royal Marsden website, and signs will appear with her name in the reception areas of both hospitals in London and Sutton.
In addition, Mrs Mann agreed that FoPPS could use a bookcase from the Library to dedicate as the “Mrs Leon Bookcase” as Mrs Leon gave much of her time to looking after the library. Leslie Gathy, a Reception and Year 3 mother, organised a lovely tea party in the marquee to show off the bookcase, which FoPPS has stocked with books that had many memories for Mrs Leon’s children and close friends. Going forwards, FoPPS will provide a sum of money each year to add to the bookcase, and books will each have a dedication inside. Please do take advantage of Mrs Leon’s bench, which you will find moving around various sunny (or shady) spots in the garden of Number 11!
This year FoPPS was able to help the School with a number of financial initiatives, such as contributing towards a fabulous new portable lighting system for the Drama Department, purchasing new playground equipment for the Lower School, including some very popular basketball hoops and balls, as well as providing digital cameras for the children in Reception to Year 5 to use during school trips and curriculum based activities. Requests and suggestions for using FoPPS funds can come from either parents or teachers, so if any one has any ideas, do get in touch with your Class Rep.
Regular FoPPS activities continued throughout the year, with much success:
Sally Wilson and Sally Gebbie (3I) persuaded us all to plan early for Christmas with the annual Northbrook Wrapping Paper initiative. Trudi Grant (2W) coordinated the wonderful Art for Schools Project Christmas cards created by each child, which are lovely for extended family to receive. Thank you all!
Christmas Grotto – Simone Spiteri and Fiona Torrington of 2C created a Christmas wonderland in the Library and organised filled stockings with each child’s initial embroidered on them. Each class took their turn for a visit to the Christmas Grotto and we even had a visit from Father Christmas! All children in the Lower School participated and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Thanks to Santa and his Elves for surprising us and making this a very special occasion.
FoPPS helped the Upper School (led by Cara Carr and Mirella Gilpin) to organise a drinks evening for parents in November. It was held in the Upper School and Mrs Jan Black even organised for Emma Cantons (a Year 11 parent) to sing for everyone! After a slow (and nerve wracking) response to the invitation, almost 60 of the parents turned up and had a ball! Cara and Mirella very kindly provided canapés and went shopping for the refreshments, and Mrs Hart went beyond the call of duty in helping to pull the event together. Feedback from the parents was that this was a great opportunity to meet parents of their daughters’ friends! This will certainly become an annual event. Sarah Mulford (2C) and Nina Dimond-Brown (2C, RP), continue to do a great job in selling the wonderfully useful Putney Park Eco bags (still a bargain at £5 for 3!). Quiz Night – well this is always one of the most popular social events of the year, and highly charged as the parents, and most of the teachers, try to beat Mrs Mottram’s table …. and avoid the wooden spoon! This year’s winning combo was a joint Year 3/Year 5 team who cruised past the curry table to claim the top prize. Credit to Paula Bowie and Sara Simpson-Dent (Year 5) for this brilliant evening.
Fun Day – this year Sarah Mulford and Nina Dimond-Brown once again took on the task of organising the day with a new theme - Putney Park’s Got Talent. We can now definitely confirm it certainly does have talent! Fantastic entries included gymnastics, rock’n’roll dancing with air guitar, beautiful singing and great joke telling. Our four judges certainly had their work cut out for them and we are very grateful to Mrs Mann, Miss O’Gorman and Mrs Mottram for their support in this really fun competition in the marquee. Other favourite stalls were back including the Pimms stand, which was so popular Mrs Dimond-Brown had to do an emergency purchase of more Pimms as supplies ran out. The Rock Shop proved once again a popular choice for the children to spend their tokens on, as well as the Jams Jars and Tombola stands. Mr Tweedie-Smith’s tasty sausage sizzle did a roaring trade with the salad bar a wonderful addition to it. Even though the rain appeared it did not hold back the fun and excitement with four new shows including sell out performances of Mamma Mia and High School Musical! We are as always very grateful to all the support the Class Reps give in putting on this great day out.
As with last year, half the profits from Fun Day will go to a charity nominated by a parent from the school. This year the charity on the receiving end is Small Steps, nominated by Sally Wilson, Year 3. Small Steps is a registered charity based in SW15 helping children with special needs, aged 6 months to five years. They have 60 children attending each week and more on their waiting list, all with some form of physical disability such as cerebral palsy or a genetic condition or other syndrome. These children need great deal of extra stimulation and assistance to help them reach even the most basic milestones like sitting, talking or walking. Parents work with their children, guided by teachers and physiotherapists, through a series of stimulating and challenging tasks and activities that help them help their child, so parents are supported too.
I’m sure that you will agree that this is a very worthy local charity. In future years, we would like the parent group to nominate a local charity, or one they have close ties with, to receive a percentage of the Fun Day profits.
Just as we thought the year was almost over for FoPPS, the Upper School held a Fashion Show. The evening of the fashion show in the penultimate week of the term was the brainchild of four Class Reps : Kathryn Nichols and Madeleine Woolf from Year 7 and Cara Carr and Mirella Gilpin from Year 8. Their aim was to have a year-end social evening for parents, with the added bonus of a fashion show for the girls from Years 6 upwards. All girls could either take part as a model, help with hair and make-up, organise the music and be a DJ, sell raffle tickets or be ushers. Everyone had an active role for the night! It certainly brought all year groups together.
Girls went to get fitted for their outfits for the fashion show which were donated by various top recognised High Street and Designer Brands. They also had the luxury of visiting Headmaster Hairdressers in Putney to have their hair styled to go with their outfits for the evening. Headmasters supplied super goodie bags for all parents watching the catwalk - just like a professional London Fashion Show. We were fortunate to have the wonderful Lisa Butcher to present the show and she also showed the girls how to professionally "walk" down the run-way! The girls thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
The evening was held in a marquee in the garden at No 11 with a drinks reception followed a by a wonderful buffet supper. The evening then went on with the fashion show and ended with a superb auction lead by Geoffry Black, aided by Cara Carr. We had an amazing number of items to auction, amongst them a tennis ball and match programme signed by Rafael Nadal, Ballet shoes and programme signed by a Principal Ballet Dancer from the Royal Ballet and accessory designer, Anya Hindmarch, donated a purse….. to name but a few! All proceeds raised go towards FoPPS and the Putney Park-sponsored local charity - The Paddock School.
Of course, it’s easy to forget to mention two of FoPPS’ most useful, and probably underrated, activities – the second hand uniform sales and the weekly croissant and pains au chocolat sales. Cathy Arnfield has been fantastic over recent years in organising the uniform sales; sadly she is now leaving Putney Park, but don’t worry, the sales will go on! Karen Segal will be your contact.
And what can we say about Biffy McNally (Year 5) that hasn’t already been said? Biffy began the Friday afternoon croissants sales 5 years ago when Lauren started in Reception …. And she is still driving between the bakery in Southfields and Woodborough Road. Sadly, she too is leaving the school this year. She has raised almost £5,000 through these weekly sales, and donated to various charities along the way – the Blue Cross animal hospital, the RNLI, Comic Relief and MacMillan Cancer. Our thanks to Biffy for all her efforts and to Rebecca Bakke for volunteering to take on the sales job.
FoPPS works for all the parents in Putney Park School, so we hope that you have in some way enjoyed the experience. A special thank you must go to Lynne Hubbard for acting (and continuing to act) as Treasurer for FoPPS, and to Sue Grunnell for completing her second year as Secretary to the FoPPS Committee, and as a Class Rep.
It’s been a great year, both socially and financially for FoPPS, and I believe that FoPPS continues to provide active communications between all the parents who come to Putney Park.
For my part, I’d like to say a great big ‘thank you’ to everyone who participated in any of our FoPPS events over the last year, either as an organiser or an attendee. So I guess that means ‘thank you’ to all the parents in both the Lower and Upper Schools! My thanks also go to the Putney Park staff who have continued to support FoPPS, particularly Mr Tweedie-Smith, Mrs Mann and Mrs Hart.
Sue and I both now hand over our roles to Sarah Mulford (soon to be Year 3) as Chair, and Lucy Mason Pearson (soon to be Year 6 and Reception) as Secretary. I wish them lots of luck and enjoyment, and look forward to another year of wonderful events!
Janet Whitehouse
Chair of FoPPS, 2008-2009
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