the friends of ditcham park school

The Friends of Ditcham Park School Ditcham Park School, Ditcham Park, Petersfield, Hampshire, GU31 5RN

www.friendsofditchampark.com; Tel: 01730 825659

Vicki Harvey (Chair); Denise Allen (Treasurer); Jules Wilson (Secretary)

Registered Charity Number 1048655

Wishing you all an Eggcellent Easter” The spring term has come and (almost) gone…and this weekend we hope you’ll be able to celebrate a Happy Easter Day with your families and friends. Maybe you’ll be hatching plans for your very own Easter Egg hunt? Whatever you’re doing, have a great holiday!

JUNIORS’ EASTER FUNDAY

On Monday this week the Juniors enjoyed a special “Easter Funday” organised by FDPS in conjunction with the Juniors staff. The afternoon’s activities included an Easter Egg Hunt, Egg Rolling and visits from the Easter Bunny and Mad Hatter. Chocolate eggs were gifted to every pupil of the School. Earlier in the day the Juniors enjoyed an Easter Bonnet assembly – so there was plenty of spring like exuberance and colours all around that day! We must pay a special thanks to FDPS Committee member Lucy Reidy for organising such a wonderfully joyous event; keeping the children so well entertained, challenged and happy! Lucy has asked me to pass on her sincere thanks to all the parent and staff helpers including those who came along on Monday to set out and run the outdoor activities in the very chilly conditions, and for the lovely mums and staff who provided the warming teas and coffee to the watching parents!

IMPORTANT NOTICE… We have quite a full newsletter this week, but if you do nothing else please make sure you read page 2 where we give you details of how to order a limited edition print of the unique and original painting of the School by local artist, and Ditcham parent, Louise Braithwaite! Don’t miss out!

http://www.friendsofditchampark.com/





Some photographs of the day have been provided by Mr Ainsworth, Mrs Mothersele and parent Dave Hall. Thanks so much for these fabulous fun images!

The Ditcham Park School painting -order your print now! At the end of this week’s newsletter we provide a letter giving background details behind the beautiful painting of Ditcham Park School that has recently been hung in the Main Entrance Hall. We are thrilled to offer you the exclusive opportunity to order you own limited edition print of this unique and original work of art by local artist, and Ditcham parent, Louise Braithwaite, for just £50 each! Please be aware that there will only be one opportunity to purchase this print, so please let us know if you’d like one so we can make sure this unique print run is sufficient to meet demand! Please don’t delay; get your order in to FDPS as soon as possible (feel free to do this over the Easter period) and no later than Friday 1st May. We aim to deliver your print to you during the early part of the Summer term. Full ordering details are given in the accompanying letter, or you can access details on the Friends’ website in the coming days.






Medieval May Fayre – a few notices & reminders!

When we return from Easter holidays, it will be just three short weeks until our Medieval May Fayre on Saturday 16th May and we have a number of important reminders for you in regard to this popular annual event below:

“Donations Day” will be on Friday 8th May (Friday 15th May for food donations) We are always so proud and grateful of the way all our families pull together and provide greatly valued donations on these days! The items you donate enable us to vastly improve the fundraising totals from our Christmas and May Fayres – they really do make a great difference! Although 8th May is NOT a Mufti Day – Mr Rowley has kindly agreed that house points will be awarded to recognise the combined House donations towards the Fayre, so please get involved by donating some of the following items:

Bric-a-Brac & unwanted (great condition) toys for “The Village Trading Post”

Bottles – wine, beer, soft drinks etc for Raffle prizes and “The Jolly Dragon Tavern”

Old Unwanted Crockery – for the popular crockery smashing stand!

Sweets for the sweet tombola

Filled Jars – how creative can you be?

Books – both adults or children; for the popular Book Stall.

Cakes and savouries for the Tea Tent! (don’t forget “no nuts”!!)

We thought you might appreciate a little notice about this so you can gather some donations during the Easter holidays if you can help in this way. Thank you for any help you can offer with this year’s May Fayre Donations Day






The Grand Medieval May Fayre Raffle 2015 Each of you will receive a letter just after the Easter break giving details of some of the exciting prizes to be won in our May Fayre raffle. Included will be 2 books of raffle tickets and, if you would like to take part, we urge you to return these promptly via the School Office when we return to School after the Easter holidays. If you do not wish to buy any or all of the raffle tickets sent to you, please can you return unused books to FDPS, via the School, for the attention of Vicki Harvey or Denise Allen. Thank You and Good Luck!

ARTWORK CHALLENGES – get creative over Easter! Juniors Competition – Design the Programme Cover Design our Medieval Fayre Programme cover and win yourself a prize! (Last year’s winning Wild West cover is shown here).

A few weeks ago templates were provided to all Juniors (from Reception through to Uppers), who we invited to draw a medieval themed picture to grace the front cover of our May Fayre programme. We are delighted to have seen a selection of wonderful drawings already, but don’t forget you have until Tuesday 28th April to submit your child’s design – so there is still time to get involved! If you have mislaid your template entry form, don’t worry! A replacement template can be found on the website from this weekend (www.friendsofditchampark.com) The lucky winner will receive £5 of tickets to spend at the Fayre on the wide variety of activities plus a £10 Amazon voucher!

Design a Medieval Pennant activity FDPS challenge all children to design and produce their very own medieval pennant. Each one can be produced using the template supplied to Juniors direct, or (for the whole School) available online from the FDPS website (www.friendsofditchampark.com)








Every pennant will be displayed at the May Fayre, so if they love to draw and paint why not encourage your children to get involved by designing and submitting their own Medieval-themed pennant, and then enjoy looking for it amongst all the others at the Fayre itself – it will be great fun! This is a “just for fun” activity and we hope that many of the children will take the opportunity to research, design and contribute their pennant to what, we hope, will be a very colourful display!

Easyfundraising News

It has been a few weeks since we updated you with our latest fundraising “totaliser” balance – and we’re thrilled to note that, as we finish the Spring Term, we have exceeded our £1,250 target and are well on the way to £1,500! Even better, we are so very close to being within the “Top 200 PTAs”!! If you’re new to the School you may not know about Easyfundrasing. It is a fabulous way to help FDPS by raising commission every time you shop with a vast array of popular online retailers, with no additional cost to you! Find out more on our website here…with a short film of Mr Rowley signing up and an explanatory film by Easyfundrasing themelves! If you have any questions about this fundraising method please do not hesitate to contact us via the website contact form.






FOR FRIENDS WHO LIKE TO COOK! Last week we advised of some recent additions to certain areas of the Friends’ website. These additions include an area (currently) called “From the Ditcham Family Recipe Book”. You’ll remember we hoped to produce a printed cookbook but were unable to reach the required number of recipes to be a financially viable fundraiser; well, we still wanted to share the recipes submitted with you all and thought an online “recipe book” with a “recipe of the week” feature could be just the ticket! We will be in touch with all the

contributors of recipes submitted last Autumn during the coming weeks*, to get their permission to share their favourite family recipe in this format. However, in the meantime, if you’d like to get involved and show off your culinary skills, please head on over to the website (link here), and we’ll hope to have you published online in the “shake of a cooks’ whisk”!

*As a thank you to those who submitted a recipe last Autumn we will pop your names into a Lucky Dip draw to win a signed copy of an exciting new cookbook “Go Faster Food for Kids” by Kate Percy. The winner will be announced during the Summer term.

Whatever you’re doing in the coming three weeks, we hope you have a happy, healthy and enjoyable time. See you at the end of April! Denise Allen, on behalf of Vicki Harvey & the FDPS Committee


http://friendsofditchampark.com/noticeboard/lets-get-cooking-recipe-of-the-week/





Dear Parents, Staff and Governors 1st April 2015

Your invitation to own a piece of Ditcham Park School history! Last week the School proudly unveiled a wonderful original painting of our school. This picture is a unique and special painting, completed by all of our pupils and staff. Each of them, under the masterful and skilled leadership of local artist and Ditcham parent Louise Braithwaite, added their own brush strokes to help create the wonderfully vibrant representation of our school. The project was ingeniously planned and generously commissioned and donated to Ditcham Park by the parents of 2013-14's Head Boy and Head Girl –Thomas Baynes & Annie Davis. Hopefully you will all have had the opportunity to view the painting, which is now hanging in the Entrance Hall. There is now an opportunity to buy a very special “limited edition” print of this painting. Every child has been involved in this painting, led by Louise and it will be a wonderful memory of their time at Ditcham. The Friends of Ditcham Park School has managed to arrange a special price of £50 per print (which would normally be £95) for a one-off print run. Each print will have its own unique print number and once this run has been completed, there will be no future chance to purchase this unique piece of art. Each print measures approx. 32.9cm x 40.6cm including the mount (actual print size is approx. 26.9cm x 34.6cm). Please note that the print is supplied unframed. Please indicate if you would like to purchase your print on the reply slip, and return to the School Office for the attention of Vicki Harvey by Friday 1st May 2015. Prompt return is required so that the print can be produced in the coming weeks and supplied to you during the summer term. Additionally, The Friends of Ditcham Park will commission a print run of greeting cards featuring the same image and these will hopefully be available for sale at the FDPS May Fayre on 16th May, ordered via this reply slip or via the Friends' website www.friendsofditchampark.com






- 2 - If you are interested to purchase either of these items, please indicate this on the reply slip. Please return your slip & cheque by FRIDAY 1ST MAY, to ensure that you do not miss out on this fantastic opportunity. Please make your cheque payable to Friends of Ditcham Park School (or “FDPS”). Alternatively you may pay by bank transfer direct to FDPS (banking details provided below), and if you choose this method please indicate this on your return slip. We sincerely hope you will wish to take the opportunity to own this very unique print of the School, capturing a moment in time of the School's history in which your child has taken part. Kind Regards Vicki Harvey Chairperson, on behalf of The Friends of Ditcham Park School ............................................................................................................................. ..... Name :.................................................................................................................... Email: ..................................................................................................................... Contact Tel: ............................................................................................................ Child Name..........................................................................Form:........................... I wish to purchase ...........(number) copies of the limited edition print of Ditcham Park School @ £50.00 each I wish to purchase ................. (number) of Greeting Cards/Envelopes @ £1 each or ..................(number of packs) 6 Greeting Cards @ £5/pack of 6 cards. I enclose my cheque payment of £............... (total) made payable to Friends of Ditcham Park / FDPS I have transferred my payment of £............. (total) by BACS transfer to Friends of Ditcham Park’s bank account (details below): Sort Code: 40-36-16 Account Number 21140647 (HSBC) Please give your surname as a reference identifier


the friends of ditcham park school

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