Hello and a warm welcome back to all the to all the Children, Mums, Dads, Grans, Grandpas, Friends & Staff at Lenzie Academy. A very special hello to all the new children & parents of the school from Lenzie Academy PTA. Hope you all had a great summer.

Who We Are, What We Do, How Much We Raised & What We Bought

Lenzie Academy PTA are a very small & friendly group of parents & teachers who work hard organising fundraising events to raise much needed funds for all our children at Lenzie Academy. All the money raised from these events go directly to the school.

We had yet another brilliant year, last year, with lots of fun events. We held a Ceilidh, a Race Night, 3 Raffles, an Alternative Fundraiser, a Sponsored West Highland Way Hike and a Doughnut sale. These events along with money raised through The 500 Club & Easyfundraising raised an amazing £8887.51 altogether!!!

With this fantastic amount of money raised by you we have bought the following huge range of resources in the last year, enhancing our children’s education & experiences at school :

• PE Department – £306 for Awards & £1000 donation towards the Breakfast Club, Football Academy & Dance Academy
• £400 – S2 Science Fair
• £500 – S1 Bounce back day
• Health Food & Technology Department – £880.80 for Chef Equipment
• Design Technology & Computing Department – £250 for Equipment
• Support for pupils – £376 for Books and Arts & Crafts Equipment
• Geography – £434 for Field Work Equipment
• Trophies & Engraving – £330
• Library – £214.72 for Books
• Art & Design Department – £255 for Equipment
• Folders for New S1 Pupils – £600

That equates to a grand total of £5,546.52 spent last year alone.Hopefully, with your help, we will be able buy even more great resources this school year. There are quite a few things we already would like to buy. We will keep you posted…

How You Can Help

WE NEED YOU to help us. You can do this in many different ways; come along to a meeting, send in ideas, be an event helper, make a donation and come to as many of our events as possible. We will send out requests for help, events & meeting notices throughout the year. We know that you can’t help every time but if everyone helps a little bit we can make such a difference to all our children. Just do what you can.

PTA Contact Details

You can keep up to date with what the PTA are up to, events, meetings, fundraising, information & what is going on in & around the school in a number of different ways :

• Website – www.lenzieacademypta.org.uk (you’re already here so you know about this!)
• Facebook – Please like Lenzie Academy PTA on Facebook
• Twitter – Follow us on Twitter @PTA_LenzieAcad
• Group Call Emails – PTA email notices circulated via Group Call from the school.
• Email – You can also contact us at any time via email at lenzieacademypta@gmail.com.

Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with fundraising ideas, feedback or questions.

Most people know that the PTA have, in the past, held fundraising nights and other events to raise money for the school, but I don’t get the impression that it is known how much they do. Over March I interviewed 3 teachers who recently got funding from the PTA. From HFT, Miss Walls, who got funding for aprons and Ms Ross, who got funding for sewing machines and materials. From DT I interviewed Ms Forrest, who got money for an inkjet printer.  

The first question I asked was what they bought with their funding and why. 

Miss Walls :

“We asked for PTA funding so that we could buy some new aprons for the home economics department, so that every kid had access to an apron when cooking, because it’s a requirement that when they’re cooking they wear an apron, and our aprons had got a bit old and tatty, and we were getting to the point where the kids were going to have to bring their own aprons in, but not all kids have the money to do that. So, we asked for the PTA to fund us to buy new aprons for every classroom so that no kid was excluded from cooking.”

Ms Ross :

“I needed PTA funding for different materials and haberdashery for BGE, senior and sewing club, so that the pupils could get practicing on a variety of different fabrics using a variety of different techniques. So, we got money for that, and we asked for a couple of basic sewing machines, and the PTA came back with more than what we’d asked for, and better quality machines, which were digital.” 

“Did that cost a lot of money?” 

“Yes. It was definitely more than £1,200.” 

Ms Forrest :

“We got a vinyl cutter with money from Mrs Campbell and the girls with the Faraday Challenge. We got money for a vinyl cutter and a heat press, so that we can do things like vinyl t-shirts, stickers, that kind of thing. But to do that, we needed a printer so that we could print out the stickers, so the PTA gave us the money to purchase a stand-alone inkjet printer and vinyl ink card. What we’re hoping to do with this space here is have a digital fabrication space, so we’ve got the laser-cutter that we can use for larger projects and we’re going to have the vinyl cutter, the printer and the easy-press so that we can have things like T-shirts and stickers. So it was through the PTA that we got money for that, but that is our thought for this space, it can be used by clubs, it can be used for fundraising, that kind of thing. That is basically where the money came from and why we wanted the money in the first place.”

I also asked about the benefits the teachers have seen from the funding. 

Miss Walls :

“Every classroom has now got 25 brand-new aprons and they get used every day by a range of kids from S1 right up to S6. They are wipe-clean so it means that we can use them back to back and we don’t have to worry about them getting laundered or anything like that. Yeah, they get really well used.” 

Ms Ross :

“It’s been good because we’ve been able to let the pupils learn on both manual and digital machines. It’s helped our senior phase pupils a lot because there’s been times where they’ve been able to have just those machines dedicated to them, but we’ve also allowed BGE  (the S3 pupils) and the sewing club to use the machines. So they’ve benefited a lot from that, and it’s a quicker machine that can handle a bigger variety of fabrics in comparison to our manual machines.” 

Ms Forrest :

“We can use it for clubs, we can use it for department work, and hopefully it’ll just start to generate a bit of cash. Basically, the plan is to start a wee club, so that we can get some of the junior school involved and we can maybe look at things like enterprise, and work on it from there. That’s what we hope; that this space is going to turn into some kind of digital fabrication room.” 

I asked Ms Ross and Miss Walls about how they got their funding. 

Miss Walls:

“I filled out a bid form and then I went along to the meeting and explained why I needed the aprons, and they approved it there and then.”  

Ms Ross :

“Mr Farquar put out an email saying that if anyone wanted to bid for any money, there was a pot of money there, but you had to basically express why you needed the money, and what would be the benefits of that money. So, I applied to the PTA through email, they had a meeting and approved it a few weeks later.” 

In my opinion, the thing that makes a school improve more than anything else is when school staff go well above the minimum of what they need to do and have a passion for getting students excited about school, whether it’s within or outside of the curriculum. The PTA is crucial in giving teachers an ability to improve the school. Thank you to all the teachers who took part, and to the PTA for giving the funding for things that can’t be justified on a tight department funding, but make all the difference in improving our school. 

Despite all the restriction we held lots of fun events raising a fantastic £7435.10 in total. With this amazing amount of money raised by you we bought the following huge range of resources enhancing our children’s education and experiences at school.

• Health Food & Technology Department
  • £50 for cake ingredients to provide cakes to all pupils taking part in the Santa Dash
  • £400 for a Kenwood Stand Mixer and new cake tins
  • £1200 for 3 new sewing machines
• PE Department
  • £500 for new sport strips
  • £400 towards a visit & netball teaching session with The Sirens Netball Team
• Maths department
  • £500 for scientific calculators
• Modern Languages department
  • £400 for a classroom projector & disk drive
• Art & Design department
  • £250 for camera tripods to be used by the Photography Club
• Music Department
  • £3400 to purchase 20 new Casio Keyboards
• Positive Intervention
  • £1050 for 3 new laptops. All pupils across the school will have access to these new devices
  • £160 positive intervention chillout room
• £350 for gardening equipment to be used by Achievment Awards, Outdoor education, Gardening Club, Eco club and more. We look forward to seeing improvements in the green areas around the school
• £400 S2 Science Fair
• £700 S1 Bounce back day inflatables
• £300 bus hire for Lennoxtown pupils to attend transition days
• £1000 donation towards the peace garden in The Quad
• £1200 LA branded re-usable face masks
• £600 leavers party for 6th Years 2021

Health & Wellbeing sessions for S5/6 and S2 pupils. – Total spend £800

• £150 Materials for healthy eating
• £100 Sports instructor
• £100 Water for PE activity
• £250 Yoga instructor
• £100 Ingredients for smoothie bike & blenders
• £50 Art materials for art therapy
• £50 Materials for meditation/mindfulness

Bounce Back Day for S1 – Total spend £300

• Food order for Health Food Technology
• Sweets and toothpicks for Science
• Bouncy Men
• Laminated pouches for resources

Prizegiving Trophies – Total spend £900

• 3 additional trophies were purchased as the existing ones had no more room to engrave prizewinner names on.

Pupil contemplation area – Total donation £1000

• This is an outdoor area being designed with input from pupils and being built within the school for quiet reflection, contemplation and remembrance.

“Thanks to the PTA’s support and provision of cameras, the Art and Design department has been able to run the Photography Club which is open to pupils of all ages and abilities. The PTA’s funding allows pupils who may not have access to their own cameras the opportunity to participate in a club which:

~ Develops basic camera skills

~ Introduces post production techniques using photshop

~ Encourages creativity and imagination

~ Develops observational skills

~ Provides the opportunity to interact socially and creatively with pupils from different year groups within a safe and welcoming environment”

Below you can see some of the fabulous images created by the photography club.

“A big thank you to the PTA for providing us with the funds to enable us to buy some much needed percussion & music for the department. The money allowed us to buy better quality instruments and add a range of sounds and colour to the wind band as well as now being able to have a xylophone in each teaching classroom. The Lenzie Academy wind band has been running for over 30 years in the school and plays at many school events throughout the calendar; Christmas Concert, Spring Fling and Prizegiving. Our pupils rehearse diligently every Tuesday after school under the direction of Mrs Brown and have enjoyed playing a wide variety of repertoire over the years. These instruments will be used throughout the school day in class, but also to enhance the sound produced by the wind band. Thank you on behalf of the music staff and pupils for your kind donation.”

Virtual Reality Goggles – Total spend £1050

• The VR goggles are used by ever year group during science classes.

Cameras for the Art Department.- Total spend £1675

• New cameras have resulted in more students having access to the equipment during classes and in after school clubs. Some of their work was on show at parents night and the standard is impressive.

S1/S2 Science Fair – Total spend £250

• This is an annual event funded by the PTA.

S1 Folders – Total spend £595

• Every new S1 pupil is given a folder at the start of a school year.

Health & Wellbeing sessions for S5/6 and S2 pupils. – Total spend £500