Friends of Leighton Academy is a parent led group that work with the school to organise events and raise funds for the children who attend the school and nursery.  The profits raised through fundraising are directed back into the school, particularly for little treats and extras for our pupils.  In recent years we have been able to fund:-

- Year 6 Leavers T-Shirts or contribution towards Hoodies (2023 onwards)

- Year 6 Leavers Autograph Books

- Year 6 Leavers Do Items

- Nursery Leavers Gifts

- Christmas Presents for all nursery children

- Christmas Discos for the whole school

- Christmas Craft Day 

- Sports Day Ice Lollies

- Rainy Day Games Sets

- Bingo Machine and prizes

- Stronger Together Prizes

- Panto Online

- Supplies for Baking Enterprise Initiative

- Archery Sets x 2

FUNDRAISING / WHAT WE HAVE DONE

We enjoyed a brilliant first term of 2022/2023 - the run up to Christmas is always fun!  We did Xmas card designs, panto online with popcorn, Christmas Disco with snack packs and had a fantastic Christmas Fair with an amazing inflatable Santa's grotto.  Our nursery children enjoyed a special visit from Santa himself who brought them all a book as a gift.

We are looking to support the school this term in helping to stock up on some useful Stronger Together prizes.  The children really love this initiative and all work really hard to try and win each week.  We funded a bingo machine a couple of years ago and are looking to stock up on bingo prizes for this.  Slush is always a popular choice for the winners and we keep this stocked up so there is a supply available to pop in our slush machine for the lucky winners.  Mrs Thompson has also asked if we can support an upcoming idea she has in relation to these awards which we have already given the green light to for the future.

FOLA funded two archery sets for the summer fair last year (under Mrs Holland's advice) and these will be making an appearance at future fairs for any budding Robin Hoods to try their hand.

We have a number of ongoing schemes where you can support the school with all funds raised coming back to be used for our pupils.

Click on the name of the fundraiser below to go directly to their page for more information and to register.

Your School Lottery - A fun way for adults to have a flutter and a chance of winning the £25,000 jackpot, a small weekly cash prize linked to just the people playing our lottery and raise funds all in one go!  Your School Lottery also regularly runs prize competitions with every player entered into a draw for extra great items - join now to be entered into their current offer, to win an IPhone 14!

Easyfundraising - Raise donations for Leighton Academy whenever you shop online.  Turn your everyday online shopping into FREE donations at NO extra cost

APPEAL FOR HELP / JOIN US! 

Friends of Leighton currently mainly consists of just two parents who have worked closely with the school on fundraising for the last few years.  Our youngest children are all in KS2 now so we need to look to encourage new members to work alongside us to futureproof FOLA for the next generation of pupils.  We are in the last years of our involvement and are proud of what we have built up especially having carried on through Covid.  We run many events throughout the year including the three school fairs.  Sadly, without a PTA, events like these might not go ahead in the same way or at all.  We are in desperate need of new members and would like to use our time left to help ease people in - it was something of a launch in for ourselves!  There are many benefits to being involved and if a group of people joined together it can have a great social element too.  We are positive there are some amazing skills and ideas amongst our parents/families that would be a great asset to FOLA and we encourage people to come and have a go.  It is also a good way of getting to know staff and helping to provide extras for the pupils.  Best of all is seeing the children's happy faces when they are enjoying something we have run which is simply priceless!  

If you can’t offer time, think about other ways you can help – Does your company do match funding?  Do you know anywhere that might donate a raffle prize?  Have you heard about any good community grants or initiatives we could apply for?

Let us know any good ideas or if there is something you think would work at Leighton.

Don’t be afraid to interact with us we can’t do it without you and we promise we won’t try to recruit you just by speaking to us :-) 

Contact us directly by emailing us at this link - friendsofleighton@yahoo.com.  

Please follow our Facebook page where we will be keeping you up to date with future information about anything we are planning or need help with and share it with other Leighton families.  We love it when you interact with us so keep any comments and likes coming :-)  Access our page via this direct link - Friends of Leighton Academy Facebook Page

FOLA RECYCLING SCHEMES

Friends of Leighton have a couple of ongoing recycling schemes.

Cartridge Recycling - Every pupil received a cartridge recycling bag last academic year.  Please help the environment and our funds by sending any used cartridges into Leighton where they can be recycled.  If anyone requires anymore bags please let us know.  We have larger recycling boxes within school where items can be deposited - ask at reception about these.

Clothes Recycling - Leighton is the owner of its very own clothes recycling bank.  This is located at the far end of the school car park against the fence and is accessible when school is open to pop in and drop off any items.  This is a great way for us all to declutter, direct our unused items to a new home and to raise funds for FOLA.  

Watch this space during the 2022 - 2023 academic year to hear about our new initiatives.  We hope to be able to keep popular events and fundraisers and introduce and try a few more this year with it always being a bit of trial and error to see what is popular.  

We would love to try to expand FOLA - more help means we can plan more items and we want to welcome as many people to help as little or as much as they can :-)

We are always touching base with school to say hello and see where we can assist with activities and items for our pupils.  Details of currently agreed events are listed below - details of these will follow nearer each event via our Facebook page and/or the Weekly Updates newsletter.

Next Spring Events 2023

Non Uniform Day - Friday 3rd March 2023

Easter Raffle Launch - Friday 10th March 2023

Easter Fair - Friday 24th March 2023 3.20pm - 5pm

FINALLY......

Can we say a huge thank you to all our pupils, staff, families and friends for your ongoing support. 

Friends of Leighton isn't just about running events for profit although of course we do fundraise so monies raised can go towards things our pupils enjoy - however we also try to include some events where we just cover the supplies/prizes (or even make a loss) to join in. 

We hope as you come to our fairs and look at our events you think they are good value for money compared to other similar events elsewhere.  We are proud to run what we call fair price fairs - we could probably double our prices and they would still be competitive compared to other fairs but to us we want to make things affordable and make a smaller profit but ensure everyone can have fun.  The fairs are about getting our pupils and families together as a school community and having a nice afternoon together and we hope the fairs achieve this.

We will continue to do our best to build FOLA up and hope we will get some new helpers onboard to share their skills/ideas and get even more things going for our pupils and families in upcoming years!