Dear Parents

Dear Parents/Carers,

A belated welcome to the new term from the Committee and here’s your first newsletter from us this academic year! We do hope all the children have settled in well, whether they are returning to join their friends or starting at Jack & Jill for the first time.

Throughout the year, our Newsletters keep you informed of upcoming events and let you know the success of past fundraisers. Jack and Jill Pre-school is a charity, therefore relies on fees and a proportion from fundraising to pay for its general day-to-day running costs. Fundraisers are also a good way for us to raise extra money for special pieces of equipment; which is why we are so grateful for your support with such events and initiatives, plus they are usually a lot of fun!.

We’ve yet to have our first committee meeting and so will send out another newsletter once we have elected our new committee at the AGM next week. In the meantime, I have listed below some upcoming fundraising events, please have a read through and mark the dates on your calendar.  We’d like to say a big Thank you to all of you who supported the Pre-school by putting a green token in the Jack and Jill box at Waitrose in Ringwood in July.  We raised an amazing £238!  Also the Online Facebook auction we held in June was a phenomenal success raising around £2000! Thank you everyone!

AGM – Tuesday 9^th October, 8pm (please arrive at 7.45pm)

We are required by law to hold an Annual General Meeting, during which we elect our Committee for the next year. As a registered charity, Jack and Jill can only run with a Committee of volunteers.  Our Committee is responsible for setting Jack and Jill Pre-school’s policies, managing the finances, employing and managing staff, and fundraising. Due to several people stepping down this year, there are a number of positions that will need to be filled at the AGM – you should have received a letter explaining this more from Pre-school. Being a Committee member is a great way to meet new people, and to have a say about how your child’s Pre-school is run so please do have a think about whether it is something you would like to get involved with.  The AGM is also a chance to inform our current/future Committee members and parents of our past and future performance and activities. As stated in our constitution, we need a minimum of 10% of parents with a child attending Jack and Jill at the time of the AGM to attend in order for this meeting to go ahead, so it would be great to see lots of faces! If you haven’t done so already, please do let us know if you plan to attend.

Hallett Photography – Monday 22^nd October

Hallett Photography will be at the Village Hall from 10 – 11am offering photo shoots for children, siblings, family members, and even pets! The photo shoots are available not just to Jack & Jill families but to any others wishing to have photographs taken, so please spread the word! No need to book, you can turn up on the day. They take wonderful photographs and any orders taken raise money for Jack & Jill too. Please note this is during half term when Jack & Jill is closed.

Bag2School- Friday 9^th November (collection date)

Why not have a clear out over half-term and donate any unwanted clothes to raise money for the preschool!  A bag will be given to you in the next few weeks, so you will have plenty of time to fill them before Bag2school collect them from Jack and Jill on Friday 9^th November. You are able to drop off bags from Monday 5^th November. You can also drop off in regular bags and we will place into official bags for you and we will have extra bags available for friends and family too who want to help.  They will take Men’s, Ladies’ and Children’s clothing, Paired shoes (tied together or elastic band around), Handbags, Hats, Bags, Scarves and ties, Jewellery, Lingerie, Socks, Belts, Soft toys, Household linen, Curtains, Towels, Bedding (bed sheets, pillow cases and duvet covers).

Christmas Fayre – Saturday 24^th November 10am – 1pm

The Committee are in the process of organising the Christmas Fayre which is a wonderful chance to get into the festive spirit with other Jack & Jill families and the village. There will be plenty of opportunity for Christmas shopping and Santa will be paying us a visit. There will be craft activities and games to keep the little ones busy and the Jack & Jill children will be singing. If you or anyone you know would like to rent a table to sell products at our Christmas Fayre please let us know.  Hire of a table is £10 and the seller keeps all profit from their sales at the event.  Previous traders have sold jewellery, toys, cards, beauty products etc. Please email me or talk to Helen O’Reilly (J&J Chairperson) for further details or information.

We are also looking for helpers at the event and for companies to donate raffle prizes for the Christmas Fayre raffle – if you have a prize you would like to donate, or work for/know someone that might be willing to donate, or can lend a hand please let us know!

Chocoholics

Chocoholic catalogues will be in circulation very soon. The commission from the sales helps to pay for our entertainer at the children’s Christmas party so please get as many friends and family to place an order too. Nothing is too small.  Look out for a party date in the near future!

Support Jack and Jill every time you shop at Amazon!!

Please copy the link below and choose Jack and Jill Preschool in the search box. You then need to remember to start your shopping at smile.amazon.co.uk but if you set this as your home page, it should be easy to remember. Jack and Jill will then benefit every time you shop!!

Please support this easy fundraising idea.

https://smile.amazon.co.uk/ch/1028854-0

We look forward to the year ahead, and as always, thank you for your continued support.

Kind regards,

Stacey Harriss

Committee Secretary

Dear Parents

A big Thank you to those of you who are using the tapestry app to help support your child’s learning. Among the photos from home have been…….

 Celebrations e.g. family birthdays and days out with friends, growing fairy gardens, planting vegetables which helps support Knowledge and Understanding of the World.

Getting dressed without help, helping to prepare food—chopping, cutting, spreading which supports Physical development.

Helping care for a sibling.-Personal Social and Emotional Development

So I thought I would send this helpful advice from a parent, which has already encouraged many of you to begin a 2 way dialogue about your child’s learning.

Here is my advice/tips on using the tapestry learning journal:

• First of all, if you have a Smartphone, download the Tapestry App. It makes uploading posts to your child’s learning journal so much easier, it’s just like updating Facebook or Instagram!
• Once you have logged on to Tapestry via the app, you then can set up a 4 digit pin to for logging in afterwards. I have the app on the first screen on my phone, which helps to remind  you!
• At first I would struggle to remember to update Tapestry but after a while it is habit forming, and I often remember now to take a quick photo with my phone when my daughter is doing an activity and post it to Tapestry with a few comments. If you can, it might be easier to just quickly do a post at the same time as taking the photo, then you don’t have to remember to do it afterwards! Or you could pop a reminder in your phone to update Tapestry later so that it doesn’t take you away from the activity with your child.
• Of course you could purposely set something up to post on Tapestry but I find I don’t need to do that, as there are so many things which would compliment your child’s learning journal from everyday tasks and activities like helping to make dinner, riding a bike, going on a nature walk, reading a favourite book, playing a board game etc! The list goes on and on!
• The posts you make to Tapestry don’t have to be particularly lengthy, just a couple of comments will be absolutely fine! Be as detailed as you feel necessary.
• Honestly the more you do it, the more you’ll just have it in your mind ‘Oh that would be a good thing to put on Tapestry, I’ll just take a photo’. Sharing what your child engages with outside of Pre-school can only enhance the joined up learning experience they are being provided with and it’s lovely for them to be able to share with pre-school the things they love to do and learn at home too.

Dear Parents/Carers,

Welcome to the new Spring Term! The Jack and Jill Committee are busy planning lots of fun events for the children (and the grown-ups!) this term. As you know, we are a charity and as such the events we hold hope to raise funds for the pre-school. All money raised goes towards adding to the range of activities and supplies for the children, for example money from the Christmas Fayre will help towards the cost of our Forest Schools programme for the children.

 If you can help at any of our fundraisers, please do let us know – even just attending and spreading the word through the village is a brilliant way to help. These newsletters keep you up to date with all of the upcoming events we have planned and so please do take a look and put the dates in your diary!

•  Charity General Knowledge Quiz – Wednesday 21^st February

A charity general knowledge quiz is held monthly at Bransgore Village Hall and for February Jack and Jill are the chosen charity and all proceeds from the evening will go to the pre-school! Organised by a friend of Jack and Jill, it would be fantastic if lots of you could come and support this evening on Wednesday 21^stFebruary. Please arrive at 7pm for a 7.30pm start. Cost of entry is £3 per person (everyone will then be in teams of 4). Bring your own drinks and nibbles, lots of your friends and join us for an enjoyable evening testing out your general knowledge skills!

• Parents / Carers Night Out! – Thursday 1^st March

We are arranging to meet at The Crown Inn in the village on Thursday 1^st March from 8pm, for a drink or two and the chance to get together with other parents/carers who have children of similar ages at Jack and Jill. Please put it in your diaries; it should be a fun evening!

• Mother’s Day – Sunday 11^th March

We will be carrying on our tradition of producing our ‘My Mummy’ books, a collection of drawings and thoughts from the children about their Mummies. These will be ready to purchase in time for Mother’s Day and so please look out for further details nearer the time.

• BINGO! – Friday 23^rd March

Held at Bransgore Village Hall, this is always a really great and fun evening to make new friends, meet up with old ones and hopefully win a prize or two! Please arrive at 7.30pm for eyes down at 8pm. £7 for 10 games. There will be cash and chocolate prizes plus a raffle. You can bring your own drinks and nibbles and we will also have tea & coffee available to purchase. Look out for posters with more details!

• Chocoholics

The very popular Chocoholics will be available for Easter, so please do keep this in mind when shopping for Easter gifts. Karen will be supplying catalogues to you all in the near future and we would love it if you could pass these around your family, friends and neighbours too. We make commission from the sales and so the more orders, the more it benefits the children.

• Raffle/Auction Prizes

If you have any unwanted Christmas gifts or if you know a local business you think would be willing to donate us a prize, then please let us know. We have several events coming up where we hope to do a raffle, plus another, sure to be very exciting Online Auction and we want to be able to offer some really fab prizes! There will be a blue box in the entrance to Jack and Jill shortly, where you can pop donations in. Please note we cannot include alcohol in our prizes.

• Facebook Page

Hopefully most of you are aware of the Facebook group which has been set up for parents/carers. It is used often to update everyone on what is going on at pre-school and all the fantastic events which we have coming up. It also helps with getting to know each other too! If you are not already in this group and would like to join, please look for Jack and Jill Pre-School 2017-18 on Facebook and we will make sure you are added as soon as possible.

We look forward to the year ahead and as always, thank you so much for your continued support.

Kind regards

Stacey Harriss

Committee Secretary