FOSS – Stathern School

As the school year draws to a close, it seems an ideal time to say hello and thank you to the wider village from our still relatively new team.

Many will be aware that FOSS has worked for many years for the children at Stathern School. The primary aim is to fundraise for some of the ‘nice to haves’ that tight school budgets may not always allow. These range from leavers activities for the Year 6, whole school events such as a Christmas cinema visit, right through to bigger projects such as IT equipment upgrades and playground renovations. Our secondary aims are (i) to run some fun experiential events for the children helping them create great memories, and (ii) very importantly – to provide another layer of community engagement for the school and village stakeholders. The difference between a ”Friends Of….” organisation and a  PTA is that a Friends Of is intentionally more open, allowing inclusion of ex- parents and other members of the locality. 

At the start of this school year, seven new members stepped forward to pick up the baton from – among historical others – the incomparable Mary Swain. We were incredibly lucky to be able to inherit the legacy of the hard work that has gone in before us. So to all those that have been involved in FOSS in the past, thank you for making our lives so much easier this year! The new FOSS team make up has had a lovely balance with two teachers (Abbey & Sarah), two parents from other Vale villages (Amy & Heather) and three of us parents living in the village (Kat, Marcus and Lou). We also have benefited from a side group of extra parent helpers who couldn’t quite commit the time but have been able to tip in now and again.

We wanted to avoid overegging the pudding, but didn’t want to lose some of the great activities that have gone on in the past. As such we targeted one fundraising event per term, and one kids based activity per term. Plus… of course we absolutely had to continue the FOSS Christmas Tree sales. This has been such a success in past years so as daunting as it was, we made sure we took that on and distributed hundreds of trees in December. For the Christmas term we ran a raffle with many generous donations from throughout the area and the children had a Christmas Disco in the WMI. In Spring we reignited the Curry & Quiz and the children  had a fun Easter Hunt after school. Finally, in early June we provided cakes, drinks and ice pops for the competitors and spectators at the school Sports Day, plus you may have spotted our Summer Fair and Orienteering Challenge. Mainly in pairs, competitors were dispatched for an hour into the badlands of Stathern (up Toft’s Hill mainly) to beep in at a series of 30 checkpoints against the clock. Matt and Karen White from the village were so generous in running that event for us, and coupled with the normal summer fair fun (tombola, BBQs, games, face painting, bar etc) this was a fantastic event for all. The orienteering in particular is something everyone should try when we next run it – great fun for all abilities. Between all these events we’ve raised over £6,000 for projects and activities in school which is obviously brilliant. Thank you to everyone. Many people from the area have supported these events despite not having kids currently in the school so we wanted to thank everyone for their generosity both last year and going forwards.

So, what’s next? If anyone is interested in helping out you’re more than welcome – just get in touch (foss@stathern.leics.sch.uk). We are meeting in September to start planning how we can build on this year’s successes. In particular, we will be looking to get our Christmas Tree order as big and as accurate as we can, we’re looking to run a Halloween disco in Autumn, we’re likely to be on the look out for raffle prizes, and it’s always lovely to be offered sponsorship to help us fund the costs incurred on these events. Lots of ways to help out and to contribute to the experiences that the kids have at our outstanding little school.