On December 2nd, we hosted our annual Walkden High Christmas Fair. The event was a celebration of all things Christmassy and was a huge success - raising a whopping £1400 for the School PTA. The event could not have gone ahead without our wonderful stalls that our inspiring Walkden High Pupils ran on the day. All our pupils RECEIVED 50 achievements for their outstanding contributions and also earned themselves a Stars & STripES badge. Read their stories and make sure you join in next time too!

Firstly I had to decide what I was going to sell on the Christmas Fair stall. I researched a few ideas that I thought were cheap and would make some money. I remembered about the Santa sweet bags me and my mum had made for the fair the year before. I thought these sold well so I decided to make these again.

I bought the sweets, ribbon and cone bags and made these over the following 2 weeks, bringing in a sample to show Mrs Sneddon to ask her if they were okay. I made 30 in total.

On the day, Caitlin and I ran the stall with the help of Mrs Faulkner and Mrs Cutting. I also helped Mrs Knipe on the teddy stall when ours was not busy. At the end Caitlin and I walked around selling the last of the sweet bags. We managed to sell them all with the help of Mr Mangas’s lucky dip game.

This contributed to the PTA as we made money to help them buy things for school.

I would recommend that others take part as it was fun making the sweets and running the stall. I would also tell them that I felt proud that I had helped raise money for school. This also made me feel like I was part of the school community.

Bethany Faulkner

Year 7

We decided we wanted to raise money by having a cake sale at the Christmas Fair. Our form tutor and Miss Warren supported in this by arranging for the whole of our form to bake cakes on the day before the cake sale. The cake sale was a success. We also had to organise donations from other students and staff. We raised £35 on the day and a further £40 by selling the remaining cakes on the next day back at school.

During this we learned how to bake cakes and decorate them nicely. We also learned how to work as a team. We had to organise the stall and make sure that somebody was there at all times to serve the customers. We had to be polite and respectful at all times to keep our customers happy.

Yours sincerely

Levi Peer-Harrison & Kirsty Oxton

Walkden High School - Christmas Fair

I help with the Christmas fair every year, with some of the staff and the PTA. I have done this for as long as I can remember and enjoy everything about it!

We start with bags and bags of wonderful donations from the pupils, parents and staff at Walkden High School that we end up needing to sort through and need and put into sections for the different stalls, e.g. chocolate, toiletries, bottles, bears and tins.

We then go through all of the tins and make sure that they are all in date that the students have donated to the school. Once we have done this, we go through all of the teddy bears and I volunteer to take home some of them that need a wash and bring them back into school once this process has finished and they are dry.

Then we have to stick the raffle tickets to the chocolate that has been brought in, we need to mix some non-winning and winning tickets up in a box. We then put the chocolates in order in a clear plastic box, labelled chocolate, so that on the day, we can take them and lay them on the table and they are already in order. We do the same for the bottle tombola and teddy bears.

Many other things are done between then and the fair, for example:

Getting refreshments ready for the refreshment stall. Shopping for the cans, drinks, crisps and hot dogs

Making some very special raffle prizes

Putting advertisements in the newspaper and on social media to promote the fair and to promote people having their own stalls at the school fair, for example you can see this year’s online social media advertisement below :

On the morning of the fair, it is an early start and we all work very hard to get ready for the fair. The staff allocate members to different stalls so we are organised and working on our own things. We set up the tables and get the food and refreshments ready, we get everything out on the tables to go on the different stalls. Once everything is sorted, we open up the doors and hope for many people to make a successful fair to help raise money for the school.

Last year when I was in Year 7 at Walkden High School, we had an amazing success in raising over £1,500 that goes towards the school PTA.

I enjoy helping out, because the money that we raise will always go to a good cause and will end up coming back into school in some way and will help the students of Walkden High School.

Some of the things that the school PTA have purchased are different kits for the PE department, a mug press for the creative department, different pieces of equipment for in and around the classrooms and most recently, they have purchased the school minibus.

I hope that in my following years at Walkden, I will benefit from some of these purchases and maybe even get to use some of these things.