About the PTA
St Marys Parent Teacher Association (PTA) is an active part of our school community - our aim is to enrich the learning and play experiences of all the children at St Mary’s and have fun along the way!
We are a very active PTA and the money we raise provides resources and equipment to enhance your child’s learning and enjoyment of school life. Fundraising events serve not only to raise money, but to also enable our families and friends to come together, have fun, create social networks and feel part of the St Mary’s community. We want you to feel part of something special.
Over the past four years, the incredible support of our community has made a real difference to our school. Together, we have created a beautiful outdoor amphitheatre, installed new play equipment for our Reception children, and provided violins for all Year 3 pupils to enjoy. We have also enriched learning by expanding our Key Stage 1 and 2 class libraries and supporting classroom budgets.
Last year marked another exciting milestone as we purchased a new minibus for the school. With ongoing support, we are able to maintain and insure it, as well as continue funding our much-valued school crossing patroller, Alison Durling, who helps keep our children safe every day.
None of this would be possible without the support of parents/carers and our wider school community so we thank you wholeheartedly.
Getting involved
When your child joins St Marys, you automatically become a member of our PTA. Each year group has class reps who will keep you updated with upcoming events so you can be as involved as you would like to be.
How can you help?
Volunteering
We’re very grateful to all in our community who support our PTA – thank you! Our PTA host a variety of events throughout the year, from Macmillan coffee mornings to our famous music Bingo night and Christmas and Summer fairs. We’d love you to volunteer, socialise and buy lots of cakes and raffle tickets! You can do as little or as much as you want. This might look like giving some time to help at a fair stall or perhaps you have useful skills to help us with a project? By lending a hand - even if just for an hour or two - will help us enormously and spread the workload. Children also love to see their parents and carers helping, there is nothing quite like buying something from a family member running a stall at the Christmas Fair.
If you would like to become more active in shaping the way we fundraise then why not join the PTA? If interested, please email stmarysbeckenhampta@gmail.com.
Company sponsorship
As well as giving your time, there are other ways to support our PTA. One of these is charity sponsorship, where employers will match the donations you give us or pay for the hours you volunteer. Quite a few large organisations will support this as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility programs, encouraging staff to get involved in community projects, including School Fairs, BBQ’s, Quiz nights, cake sales etc., by offering to match any funds they raise. Involvement can often be as little as providing a cake, raffle prize or as much as helping to run a stall.
This matched funding is a really easy way to increase our fundraising revenue and can add as much as £2,000 to the takings of one of our events. We are fortunate to have parents at the school who work for companies that offer match funding including Barclays, NatWest, Direct Line, Prudential, Royal Mail, Santander and Sky.
We’d love if you could speak to your HR department to see if your company will match fund a PTA event.
We are also trying to increase the money we raise through sponsorship. If you know anyone who would like to advertise in our Summer Fair or Christmas Fair programmes, or sponsor or donate a raffle prize, please email us at stmarysbeckenhampta@gmail.com
St Mary’s Lotto
We would love you to join our St Mary’s Lotto! Our lotto has 3 draws across the year and costs just £25 to enter. You can join as many times as you’d like via your Parentpay account. The more people that join, the bigger the prizes! You can also enter on behalf of your friends and family.
What have we got planned for the rest of this academic year?
We will keep on doing what we do best, fundraising for our school!
You can find the dates of all our upcoming events and fundraisers on the school calendar and website. We also keep our Facebook page St Mary's PTA Beckenham updated with all events and news.
Current parents/carers can join our Facebook group. To keep the information and pictures we share safe we ask you to complete the 3 questions and password to join. Please speak to your reps who can give you this password.