The Parents & Friends Group is an important link between parents, teachers, staff and students at Foster Primary School. This group gives parents and friends if our students the opportunity to participate and contribute to the school community. We work in partnership with the School Council to organise social, education and fundraising events. Over the past 2 years, the Parents & Friends group have run a number of successful activities, raising over $35,000.00 to improve the school community and student experience. These activities will not just benefit your child but future children to come.
So what’s involved to be in the Parents and Friends Group? As little or as much as you’d like! The Parents and Friends Group always welcomes help and ideas. It’s a really great way to contribute to the school and get to know the students, parents, teachers and staff in a different light. Meetings are held twice a year, generally the first and last term and usually in the staff room (little ones are welcome). It is here that we discuss the upcoming year of fundraising and event ideas. Below is the 2023 summary for the Parents & Friends group.
This year, the Parents & Friends group has lots of fun events planned for both students and families. Our current fundraising focus is to build up funds to replace/repurpose and renovate our junior playground area.
If you’d like to know more or get involved in helping to organise or take part in any of these events, please contact Cassie on 0422 137 364.
The Parents & Friends Group also coordinates a monthly stall at the Prom Country Farmers Market held in Foster on the 3rd Saturday of each month. This stall generates income to help pay for our kitchen and garden program – a favorite and much-loved part of our school curriculum. Students and their families have the opportunity throughout the year to run the stall where valuable learning happens in a real-life situation – maths, communication skills, marketing, merchandising, spruiking, cooking, socialising – it all happens at the market!
To get involved in our market stall program, please contact Kimberley on 0400 315 211.
Wow – can it be May already!!?? We have had a really successful start to our fundraising for the year, raising just over $2,600 for our school! Here is a running total of the money raised to date:
Athletics Day carnival BBQ
: $ 412
March Kitchen Garden Market Stall
: $ 416
Lunch order day
: $ 100
IGA Easter Raffle
: $ 1000
April Kitchen Garden Market Stall
: $ 718
Total
: $ 2,648
Thank you to those people that were involved in running these events, you know who you are – a special mention to Cassie Errey though who organised the Easter Raffle – raising a bit $1000 for our school!!
Thanks also to people that returned the blue forms to volunteer their time/service for various Parents and Friends Group events we will run this year – it was FANTASTIC to get so many offers to help and if we haven’t been in touch yet, we will soon!! Again – thank you – these events don’t organise themselves and it is so nice to be able to spread the work among the many capable hands in our school community.
What’s coming up this term?
We’d love to see you at the Market Stall at the Foster Farmers Market in May and/or June – see what it’s all about, enjoy an egg and bacon sandwich (thanks to Foodworks and Oak & Swan Sourdough), and a cake and support the school. Remember that the income from our school market stall is really important to help fund our Kitchen Garden program at school which is such a valuable experience for our kids.
Please put the movie night date in your diary too – it is shaping up to be a lot of fun and something we haven’t done before! More details to come!!
Lastly, we had a great meeting last week to nut out who will do what this term – thank you to those who came – check out the minutes if you missed it.
Thanks for reading – please get in touch if you have any questions about what the Parents and Friends Group is up to – we welcome feedback, ideas, suggestions and helpers! You can contact Kimberley
We had a fabulous meeting to kick off the year this month – check out the minutes for all the details. The main items for discussion were:
This year, if all goes to our current plan, our group plans to raise around $12,000 for our school! These funds will help fund the kitchen garden program, purchase classroom resources, upgrade the line markings in the playground and go towards a basketball ring upgrade.
Farmers Market stall: We are currently looking for volunteers to help out at the FPS Farmers Market Stall – many hands make light work! Please let us know if you can help out – there are lots of ways to contribute both before the day or on the day – could you whip up some cakes or slices for us to sell on the day? Or does manning the BBQ for a couple of hours sound more like you? Bring the kids, they have a lot of fun learning how to handle change, greet customers, display merchandise and much more! It’s a fun mornings work and the money we make is critical in keeping our kitchen garden program running.
Fundraising event in June: We had come up with a great idea for a fundraiser in June…but it has fallen through (long story, I won’t bore you with it)…if you have a killer fundraiser idea (that will make us around $1000+) that we could run in it’s place in June, then please come forth and we will put it into action!
Thanks for reading, keep an eye out on compass for further updates from the Parents and Friends Group
As a Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden school, Foster Primary School recognises the positive impact that good food choices have on children’s healthy growth, learning ability and behaviour. Through its Good Food Policy, the school has elected to favour diverse home-made foods made with local, fresh, clean, wholesome and seasonal produce whenever food is offered by the school. The school also models good food behaviours such as encouraging children to eat while sitting down at lunchtime.
This policy applies especially to special hot food lunch days, regular themed food days (such as Breakfast Club and Hot Food Days), fundraisers and other occasions such as celebrations, sports days, sleep overs, excursions, camps, as well as the Farmers’ market stall.
The Good Food Policy aims to ensure that the school promotes a food culture that celebrates good food and fosters positive and consistent experiences and information in line with the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program. It is hoped that through education and modelling, the students develop an informed appreciation for good food choices and their positive impacts for life.
The Primary School Community has enjoyed another year of access to wonderful books and educational games through the Scholastic Book Club.
Catalogues are distributed to families twice per term and are chock full of great books and resources available at discounted prices.
Foster Primary School earns 20% of all orders to spend on books and resources for the library or classrooms.
This year we have earned over $500 in profit.
We thank the school community for their contributions which have enabled us to buy some great resources.
