PICTURE SPECIAL - HAVE A GREAT SUMMER EVERYONE AND SEE YOU IN SEPTEMBER

Here's a little message below from our wonderful PTA, FOSS. We are completely staggered by the amount raised this year - £50k plus - and cannot thank FOSS and our wonderful parents enough for the monies raised. In a world where school budgets ever tighter, this money literally means the world to us and makes such a difference to our children's education on a daily basis. Nowadays, when education is more technology dependent, the money you provide for us is a phenonemal help. Thank you and over to FOSS ... AND MORE FOSS NEWS ON PAGE FOUR ...

Thanks A MILLION to our amazing St Stephen’s School community – by supporting our events through volunteering, promoting and participating, we have managed to raise almost £50k this academic year. All of this goes directly back to the school to support the curriculum all of our children benefit from! YOU ALL really do help our school stand out from the rest and we can not thank you enough for your support in securing these extra provisions for our children!!!

What have you helped pay for in 2021/22?

• Weekly Specialist Modern Foreign Language Teaching

• M-Tech (specialist music course)

• Wellbeing service – support for parents and families

• Accelerated reader

• Mathletics

• Readiwriter

• Gardening Club

• Coloured bibs for all future Sports Days

• Teacher Appreciation Week

• Gardening

• Classroom donations to teachers (£100 per class – to be spent in September)

• Reception welcome packs

All this has been possible through fundraising events: Bounceathon, weekly Cake Sales, Quiz, Silent Disco, Easter & Christmas Fairs, Comedy night, Bake Off, Silent Auction, Rugby match day stalls, football tournament, St Margaret’s Fair, Stranger In The Window, Fireworks stall non-uniform days, Christmas cards, tea towels, Christmas trees, Children’s Christmas Market, Diwali take away, second hand uniform sales and the Summer BBQ to end the year with a bang!

Thanks to loads and LOADS of generous donations to our Silent Auction and raffles by our parent community and local businesses.

Thanks to generous donations from parents through their Corporate Giving initiatives at work – thank you to those parents, you know who you are and it has helped a lot!!

Thanks to participation in the School Lottery and Easyfundraising

Thanks to sponsorship from: Property Partnership, John D Wood, Fullers

If you would like to become more involved in FOSS and/or run an event next year, please contact Miranda (07939858939) or Fay (07900 986306). We really appreciate all your time and effort, in whatever shape or size you can spare!

Have a great summer and see you in September!

Love, the FOSS Team xx

SO LONG, FAREWELL

Saying goodbye to lovely colleagues who have become a value part of our school community is always sad. This year we bid fond farewells to Jess Tozer, Sam Allen, Hannah Wells, Catherine O'Connor, Alice Maddison, Sinead Barrett, Sara Colton and Craig Brown. We would like to thank them for their invaluable contribution to our school and wish them all well in their new roles. Turn to page Two to hear more from some of our leavers.

This issue is very Year Six heavy but we make no apologies for that. It is time for us to say goodbye to this wonderful bunch of children but they know that they will always be part of our St Stephen's family and we hope they come back and visit us. Our Leavers' Service is always a fabulous chance to hear about their memories of St Stephen's and this year the children also took the chance to pay tribute to Miss Pidgeon with a song and some wonderful words. Lauren, the Children's Pastor at St Stephen's Church reminded us how important it is to share kindness and support, but our experience of this group of children has already showed us these are two values that they regularly embrace. Good luck Year Six! For more pictures of this lovely lot on their school Journey to Hooke Court last week, turn to pages three and five.