Parents & Friends

Who are we and what do we do?

The Parents & Friends Group is an important link between parents, teachers and students at Foster Primary School.  This group gives the opportunity for parents and friends of our students to participate in and contribute to the school community.  We work in partnership with the Principal and School Council to organise social, education and fundraising activities.  Over the past few years, the Parents & Friends Group have run a number of activities, raising much-needed funds to improve the school community and student experience.  These activities have not just benefited 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 welcome new ideas and/or help.  It’s a really great way to contribute to the school and get to know the students, parents and teachers in a different light.  Meetings are held once a term, usually in the school staff room (little ones are welcome).  The Principal attends the meetings to report on school activities and initiatives as well as responding to issues or questions that may have come up.  There is usually an agenda sent out before the meeting and submissions are welcome to this!  There are many ways to contribute even if you can’t make it to the meetings.  A summary of the meetings is posted on this page of the website so you can keep in the loop.

If you’re interested in getting involved, don’t hesitate!  Meeting dates and times are posted on Compass.  We look forward to meeting you and working together to improve Foster Primary School.

Term 3 Update

Well, here we are at the end of Term 3 and what a topsy-turvy term it has been!  Despite our best planning efforts, we had to cancel our 2 major fundraising events for this term – the Music night, with our very own Nick Carver, and also the Father’s day stall.  The music night will be rescheduled to next year and the funds raised will go towards the school production of The Lion King, which as you would have read, has also been pushed back to 2022.

It is not all doom and gloom however! 

If you made it to the movie night (screening The Lion King) at the end of last term I think you’ll agree it was a LOT of fun. If you didn’t make it, don’t worry, we will definitely run another movie night in the future so you won’t miss out!  The FPS Kitchen Garden Market Stall has still been able to go ahead with the help of lots of different people- thank you! At the end of Term 3, 2021, with lots of plan A, B, C’s etc we have still managed to raise a solid $6,600!! – see summary below:

It is not all doom and gloom however!

If you made it to the movie night (screening The Lion King) at the end of last term I think you’ll agree it was a LOT of fun. If you didn’t make it, don’t worry, we will definitely run another movie night in the future so you won’t miss out! The FPS Kitchen Garden Market Stall has still been able to go ahead with the help of lots of different people- thank you! At the end of Term 3, 2021, with lots of plan A, B, C’s etc we have still managed to raise a solid $6,600!! – see summary below:

Jan – April

: $2648 (see update below for details)

Mothers day stall

: $ 1040

May kitchen garden market stall

: $ 450

June kitchen garden market stall

: $ 623

Movie night

: $ 1000

July kitchen garden market stall

: $ 325

August kitchen garden market stall

: $ 525

Total year to date

: $6611 (as at 15th September)

Once again – thanks to everyone who contributed to these fundraising activities/events – your time, ideas, and work are VERY much appreciated!

Last term we were able to supply the junior department with a document scanner to display students work up on the TV to share with the class (a bit like a modern day projector!), we also shouted all students to icy poles, contributed money towards the snazzy projector screen in the BER building. The work we do does make a difference!

What's coming up in term 4?

It is so incredibly hard to plan events right now and we feel the vibe of COVID exhaustion that many people are experiencing, so we are putting on hold most of the events we had planned for term 4. There was going to be a golf day in October – we will aim to run it next year in 2022 – bigger and better! The market stall will continue and we trying very hard to find a way for the colour fun run to go ahead – stay tuned, I will keep you updated.

Thanks for reading – please get in touch if you have any questions about what the Parents and Friends Group is up to and/or would like to get involved – we welcome feedback, ideas, suggestions and helpers! You can contact Kimberley

Term 2 2021 Update

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

Term 1 2021 Update

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.

We need you!

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

Good Food Policy

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.

Scholastic Book Club

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.