Our first ever Friends of Goodrich Winter Trail was a great success and you raised £1603 for FoG.
The hidden word was JINGLE BELLS!
Thank you to the window designers, the stall holders and Alexia Weeple, Kate Benns and Rachel Jones for organising the event as well as thanks to all of you who helped on the day, donated for the stalls and came to the trail!
Cake tins and a scooter which was found can be collected from the school office.
Christmas Cards
Your Christmas card orders raised £742 for FoG so thank you for ordering. Thank you to Mrs Hollingsworth
and Rachel Jones for organising.
Paper Stars⭐️ for the Christmas Trees🎄
The super team at Paper Shapers kindly donated over 150 stars for our Reception and Nursery children to decorate again this year. FoG donated lots of colourful biodegradable glitter for the children to use for a fun Christmas craft. Thank you to Sam Stephenson and Karen Eastwood for organising.
Playground improvements
Over the course of the last term, Friends of Goodrich along with the members of the School Premises Committee have again began working in earnest on ways to improve the children’s playgrounds at Goodrich, in particular the upper playground.
Having been forced to put on the back burner since March 2020, we are now well under way with plans to bring some more colour, texture and interactive elements into the area.
Equipment
We firstly spent £250 on footballs, skipping ropes and tennis balls for the kids to play with in their break times. We are looking to spend a similar amount next term on more things for the children to play with.
We will replace the rather tired wooden pirate ship and to add another hopefully better play structure for the children to play on.
We are also looking at other options and spaces in the playground to do something similar.
Murals
To bring some colour there has been a call put out to parents/carers to get involved creating murals on some of our empty brick walls to inspire the children and invigorate the space. We have already had some exciting responses and we are really look forward to seeing some more in the new year. It will be a lovely opportunity for parents to work with the children and to brighten up the whole area.
Planting
To bring some texture and colour, we are ordering a varied selection of plants which will be added to the existing planters and will come into bloom at different points during the year.
Pond
We hope to tidy up the whole pond area, adding in a bug hotel and bird feeders.
We will be re-painting the school gates as well as relocating the bike racks from the main playground area to free up to give the children more space for them to play.
We plan on having a weekend in the new year when we will invite parents in to school to help with some general maintenance projects, weeding and tidying, as well as benefiting the children we hope this will be an opportunity to meet other parents/carers and to be actively involved in our wonderful community school.
As I am sure you understand, none of this happens quickly! With the added hindrance of covid, these things all take time but we hope you will be able to see the fruits of our labours start to appear.
New card readers
A big thank you to David Sargen at DRS who funded the purchase of eight new card readers for FoG, which were used extensively at the Winter Trail and will be invaluable for future events.
Next FoG meeting
The next FoG meeting will be on Wednesday 19 January at 8pm, venue TBC. Everyone is welcome.
Dates for the diary
FoG Meeting – Wednesday 19 January 2022
World Book Day – Thursday 3 March 2022
Quiz night – Thursday 10 March 2022
FoG events raised this term
Cake sale £460
Quiz night £700
Christmas cards £742
Winter Trail £1603
FoG donations to school this term
African Drumming Year 6 £1800
Sports competitions £1500
Playground equipment £250
Phonics books £410
Research books £778
Sound System for hall £2358
Reception taps £700
Christmas trees and craft decoration £180
Residential bursaries and coaches £TBC
Astro Turf maintenance £TBC
Percussion Trolleys £TBC