## **Killinchy Primary School PTA Trustees Annual Report Year: 1st Sept 2022 - 31st Aug 2023** ## **Objectives & Activities** Killinchy Primary School (KPS) PTA is a registered charity and as such its purpose is:- - to promote close co-operation and communication between parents and teachers. - to study and discuss matters of mutual interest relating to the education and welfare of pupils. - to engage in activities which support and advance the education of the pupils attending the school Funds raised by the PTA are to purchase educational and recreational materials for the benefit of all the children at KPS. ## **Activities** The PTA has a number of continual fundraisers running in the background year round, as well as our more publicised events (see below). We have an established Uniform Exchange to sell pre-loved uniforms, three ‘cash for clobber’ collections each year, an ‘easy fundraising’ app to earn money from on-line purchasing and we are also registered with ‘stamptastic’ to earn commission from sales of uniform labeling equipment. Our activities this year included: **Non Uniform Days** - a fun day for everyone to come together, focussed on a particular holiday at the end of the term. **Christmas Card Project -** as an expected fundraiser, we continue to run this popular project each year. **PTA Pub Quiz -** we felt it was time for a pub quiz evening for the adults this year. **Valentines Disco -** a long awaited return of a disco event, held during school hours and combined with a non-uniform day and ‘guess the sweets’ game. **School Fair -** annual school fair which is a must on the school calendar and eagerly anticipated. ## **Achievements & Performance** 2022/23 was a more relaxed year with regards to big fundraising events. However we still brought in a Gross Income over £9,475.25. Due to our success last year and healthy bank balance, the school requested £8,000 for a huge purchase of Foundation Year and Key Stage 1&2 reading materials. This was to buy an entirely new, modern scheme for use in P1 &P2 aiming to replace Bi� and Chip and keep them for supplementary material. New characters, new stories and some non-fiction. For older years it was to gap fill existing reading material at Key Stage 1&2 and also add some new content. It meant that classes could have reading groups of 5 or 6 students all on the same book at the same time. We didn’t have this amount of money available at the beginning of the year, so we set this as a fundraising target and worked towards it. It meant that parents also knew what their donations were going to be used for and as a community we were able to finally pay o� the balance after the school fair. We go into next year with less money in the bank but really fabulous reading resources in the school now. In the first term of the year we ran the annual Christmas Card project. While it isn't the biggest money earner, it is expected by parents and as it's easy to run we are happy to accommodate! We used the same supplier as last year, so parents were more familiar with what was expected of them and orders were placed by parents on-line which kept things simple our end. This brought in a reliable £511. This term we also organised a Pub Quiz for a change. A local restaurant (Balloo House) gave us free use of their upstairs dining area as well as some complimentary nibbles. We sold tickets in advance and realised that an online payment system would be really useful for these kinds of events. We were asking parents to do bank transfers but recognised a PayPal account would have been better. The Quiz questions were provided by an umbrella organisation we are part of called ParentKind. And we also held a ra�e. It was a lovely night and raised just under £800. After the Pub Quiz event we looked into and registered for a Charity PayPal account. Since this has been set-up we have used it so much. For example, donations for our Uniform Exchange were getting lost or parents were forgetting to send money into school. Sending us a paypal payment is so easy that we are making money on the Uniform Exchange for the first time. It is also easy to monitor who we are missing payments from in other areas, such as the market stall payments at the summer fair. A very happy development. In February we combined the half term non-uniform day with a school disco. This took place within school hours and each year group had a 30 minute session. The PTA did a great job decorating and facilitating. Teachers remained responsible for student management and welfare. Some students won a competition to request a song which was played during their class disco. This not only provided an additional fundraising avenue, but raised awareness of the disco and students seemed to really like the idea. Feedback after the event was really positive. We were also approached by the Childrens Heartbeat Trust to help us with the event, as Valentine's Day is a traditional fundraising day for them. The trust supports a number of families in the school and we were very happy to work with them. We were able to split the proceeds of the event and donate £300 to this very worthwhile cause. The year was finished o� with our Summer Fair! After last year this is back to being an expected and highly anticipated event. The weather was amazing this year - sunshine and blue skies! We learnt a lot of lessons from last year and the event organisation this year felt a lot calmer. The big success was the set-up of our food court and eating area. As always we have learnt more lessons and continue to evolve!! We also tried pre-selling tickets through EventBrite to reduce queue times into the event and this worked really well. Interestingly enough, despite having more people come to the fair because of the weather, less money was spent. We think that people were very happy relaxing in the sun and socialising and didn’t visit the actual fair as much. Just right on a beautiful day like that!! The Summer Fair is always a big money earner and we raised £3,001.78. ## **Financial Review** We started the year with an opening balance of £8,845.07. We earned a gross income of £9,475.25 PTA funded a completely new Foundation Year new book scheme and gap filled existing reading material for Key Stage 1&2, costing £12,377.90. Our closing balance sits at £3,329.58 ## **Future Plans** We will continue with our expected annual fundraisers such as the Christmas Project and Summer Fair. Outside of these, we would like to try some new fundraising ideas - to be discussed further at the AGM in September. After a year's break, the school community also seems keen for another Parent v Teacher Easter fundraiser. We would also like to explore the idea of sharing the fundraising workload throughout the school community, perhaps through class representatives who can mobilise parents of a class to take responsibility for a stall at the school fair, for example, or run an independent project they have an idea for. We also want to make more of our PayPal account and card machine, o�ering more contactless payment options. ## **Structure, Governance & Management** Charity trustees are parents of current KPS pupils who volunteer to be members of the PTA committee along with the Principal of KPS. The PTA is governed by its constitution which has been agreed and is adhered to by all members of the PTA committee. The Trustees are as follows: Lorna Cooke Joanna Unsworth Melissa Sloane Janet Copeland Christopher Currie We continue to be a small, supportive and fairly autonomous group of parents. Our point of contact at the school remains the principal, Christopher Currie. As discussed above, we made the jump to register for a Chairty PayPal account. Limits have been established so that purchases cannot be made through the PayPal account and funds are withdrawn daily into our bank account. We continue to use our PTA Whatsapp group to discuss follow-up issues outside of meetings and it continues to be a very useful communication tool. We also continue to feel that our systematic use of class Whatsapp groups to spread information has helped to improve engagement.