CHEWTON MENDIP PARENT TEACHER ASSOCIATION (PTA)

First and foremost, welcome to Chewton! We hope you’ll settle in quickly and enjoy your time here.

We have an active and productive Parent Teacher Association that we hope you will join. We are a listed charity and work closely with the teachers to support activities and purchases that would be tricky to fit into normal school funding.

We never turn away any help offered!

Where the money goes

The fantastic school swimming pool is an ongoing PTA priority. It is normally open between May half term and the first week of September. Children benefit from regular swimming lessons and school families can lease a key so they can swim in the evenings and over the weekends and holidays. It’s an amazing addition to Chewton and a brilliant way of getting to know other families.

In 2020 we did the “Big One” of replacing the computers in the ICT suite. Annual spending includes a Christmas Treat, which this year was a visiting Pantomime; match funding money raised by each class’ cake sale so that Class can decide what they would like to with their earnings. This has included the turf and sheds in Hazel Class outside space; magazine subscriptions; a willow weaving course and the Leavers’ Hoodies for Blackthorn. Regular book top ups, Emotions Management workshops and materials for Arts Week have also been funded recently. PTA is always looking for new ideas so please come to a meeting and join in.

Where the money comes from

We are in unknown times currently, and are having to think about how best to go forward with fundraising. Traditionally we have run an event each half term: Fireworks, a Christmas Fair, Soup Lunch in February, Easter Bingo, the Sponsored walk and in conjunction with the village the Summer Fete. We are working through what might and might not be possible for next year and appreciate all help and thoughts! We also have been successful with a few charitable grants for specific projects.

Amazon Smile : we are Chewton Mendip C.E.V.A. Parent Teacher Association on Smile. If you’re buying through Amazon and use the site Smile.Amazon.co.uk, please nominate us as your preferred charity and we get a small % rebate on most purchases. It adds up really quickly across the school and costs you nothing.

Easyfundraising.org.uk This is a web portal that gives us a referral donation if you then buy through one of the companies using them. This includes thousands of big name companies such as phone and energy suppliers, travel sites like Expedia, Hotels.com and Booking.com plus a number of retailers like M&S, John Lewis, Argos. We are “Chewton Mendip C of E Primary School” and we will post a referral link on Classlist which gives an extra £5 donation for first purchases. Again, this costs nothing.

We also have Preloved School Uniform and a PTA Party Pack of enough reusable plastic plates, cups, platters etc for a party of about 40 children, on hire for £5 + deposit.

We’re really looking forward to you joining the school in September. We’ll post details of the first PTA meeting on Classlist asap and hope that you’ll join us for a friendly coffee and chat.

"The PTA has over the years raised vast sums of money that contribute to your child’s learning and development at Chewton Mendip