Parent Teacher and Friends Association

Hello and welcome to the Shay Lane PTFA. We’re a friendly committee of parents, grandparents, guardians, and teachers (and anyone else willing to get involved!) who organise fun events to help raise money and support the school.

Our Purpose

Shay Lane PTFA exists to enrich the lives of all of the children at the school. PTFA members give their time and expertise to raise money and facilitate initiatives that enhance the pupil experience. This includes funding educational activities and hands-on learning experiences, buying new technology, art and sports equipment, and running social events that provide entertainment and promote community spirit.

What We Provide

We are constantly looking for opportunities to support the school. We liaise with Mrs. Melgram, leadership, and the teaching and support staff to understand their priorities for the school year and where PTFA funding could make a real difference – examples of this in 2022/23 included subsidising yeargroup trips to Filey and Lotherton Hall, visits from a 'real' Roman and Viking, and the famous duckling eggs for EYFS and much more. We also bought Christmas selection boxes for every child to sprinkle a little extra stardust on the school's Christmas celebrations!

We have our own initiatives too, such as organising and staging events like the Easter Parade, and Summer and Christmas Fayres that we fund and manage, or prizes we provide such as a Pizza Party for the class that wins the Summer or Christmas Fayre Competition. We fund the attendance prize, which in Summer 2023 was a family trip to Lightwater Valley, and pay for a Pantomime to be hosted at school. We also hosted a Scholastic Book Fair that resulted in over £450 in rewards to go towards the school library.

Outside of financial support we give our time to run activities – such as hours spent sourcing raffle prizes, or the scarecrow building sessions for the school's Crofton Scarecrow Competition entry!

How We Work

We are a registered charity (no. 1190976) and abide by the rules and regulations for charities in the UK. Day to day decisions are taken by our committee, lead by Chairperson Hayley Gilbert, and are voted on by committee members.

We have an Annual General Meeting (AGM) at the beginning of the school year and regular meetings throughout the year to plan our fundraising events. Debriefs occur after every fundraising initiative to share feedback and decide how to make the next one even better!

Our meetings are open to all, and we are committed to diversity and inclusion. We do not tolerate discrimination or harassment of another based on their gender, race, sexuality, ability, ethnicity, religion, culture or background. We promote a culture of tolerance, and work hard to ensure all voices and opinions are heard and represented in our online and in-person communications.

Look out for details of our next meeting on here, or via Our Schools App or Class Dojo.

How You Can Help

There are many ways you can help support the children of Shay Lane Primary!

Even just a small amount of your time can make a difference – bake a few buns, spread the word about our big events with your family and friends, and buy online via one of our fundraising links (see FAQs).

To get a little more involved you could come along to one of our planning meetings, or help to run a stall at one of our annual events. Maybe you’d like to join the committee and have a say in what we do and when. Or perhaps you work for a large company who could match-fund our fundraising, or potentially supply the school in other ways.

The big thing is we want you to be involved. Without you, your time, your support, and your spare pennies we couldn’t do it. So let’s raise money together for the children, and let’s make it fun!

FAQs

We are adding to this section all of the time, so if you don't see your question here please contact us via email:  shaylaneptfa@gmail.com

How can I get in contact with the PTFA?

Please email us on shaylaneptfa@gmail.com

How can I support the PTFA throughout the year?

You can make online purchases via our special links, each one donates to our fund, and it doesn't cost you a penny!

Via EasyFundraising:

1. Follow this link and as you spend, brands donate to Shay Lane Primary PTFA: easyfundraising
   

How do you decide what the PTFA spends money on?

At the beginning of the school year we liaise with Mrs Melgram about school priorities, and what they would like to purchase that may be beyond the school budget. If we have the funds available to make high priority purchases immediately we do so, otherwise it becomes a target for our next fundraising event. Outside of this 'wish list' of items we believe in offering things that are unique to the PTFA, such as special prizes or events that can bring a little magic to everyday school life. 

We’d love to hear your thoughts. So if you’d like to see the children supported in another way, or want to suggest a fundraising activity, please get in touch on our email address.

Do you benefit personally from any of the funds raised?

We are a registered charity, run by volunteers, so none of the money raised by the PTFA goes to its members. All monies are handled by our Treasurer, Tina Neill, and our accounts are independently audited annually to ensure they are done correctly. All funds are accounted for, and typically cover the costs of staging an event or the price of items purchased for the school. PTFA members do not get paid for their time at events, even when providing services such as Face Painting. Instead we use the money saved from using our own skills to give more to the school.

How do you measure success?

We use qualitative and quantitative best practices.

On the qualitative front we gather feedback from students, teachers, parents and other family members (plus the wider community) through a variety of means; in-person or online, such as class WhatsApp groups, or Facebook groups. And also ask questions of ourselves and the volunteers (including school staff) both after specific events and throughout the year.

This anecdotal feedback gives us a good sense of how our work is received and we pair it with our qualitative data analysis, which runs from simple profit and loss calculations, through to ROI (return on investment), and benchmark it against national standards. For example, a typical rule of thumb is to ensure costs are no more than 35% of any fundraising event, and at our recent Christmas Fayre our expenses were far lower, around 23%. We also had an ROI of 317%, which means that £4.17 was raised for every £1 spent – an amazing return that will boost the PTFA fund and enable us to buy more things from the wishlist to benefit the children.

This feedback is shared at our meetings or event debriefs and we use it to ensure we are providing good value for money, both in the events we run and the purchases or services we provide.