'We are super proud of our Seaview Parent Community members, Parent Forum, pupils and staff as we have all worked in partnership over the last two years to try to make a difference in supporting the school and the community. We have raised over £20,000 for the school which has meant we could fund a planetarium visit for each class, a Christmas pantomime for all the children, Christmas craft parent and child bonding sessions, new football goals, wet-playtime board games, computer mice, new reading books, ice-lolly treats for Sports Day, modern overhead projectors, gifts to welcome new P1s and contribute towards P7 leavers' celebrations and even a visit from one of the Gladiators to talk to the pupils about health and wellbeing.
We held a Taylor Swift tribute concert with musical instruments as raffle prizes, a Wonderlicious Chocolate Bar and Golden Ticket competition to promote reading, a sponsorship event that encouraged acts of kindness, a wrestling match (where our head teacher stepped in as the referee at the end!), a donut sale, Hallowe'en discos and Christmas fairs.
The Parent Council has also arranged sponsorship for the girls' football team, supported the creation of a Glee group, successfully campaigned to have the footpath outside school widened, supported the school's fundraising for charity, talked to the local authority about road safety concerns, worked with local people to support the community and create links, supported local businesses, applied for grants on behalf of the school and created discussion for parents at meetings about general school topics.
We most recently held a competition for pupils to create a logo for our group. This was hand-drawn by a pupil and the tagline came from another pupil. One of our parents (who is a graphic designer) turned it into a digital version and put the drawing and tagline together. We announced the winners at assembly and the pupils were awarded prizes. All of the entries from P1-P7 were outstanding!
From our fundraising and a successful grant from Bupa Groundworks, we managed to part-fund an outdoor classroom (which our pupils, teachers and parents voted for when we consulted them about what they would like us to fund). We then worked with environmental charity Scrap Antics (who are amazing!) along with local artist Lauren Morsley to bring it to life. It's now complete with cupboard doors that turn into tables and outdoor beanbags and cushions. Our pupils and teachers are delighted as the work has completely transformed the space! We also worked with local artist Caroline Danso to refresh our sensory garden.
Through Angus Council Community Benefit Gateway (which is an initiative that encourages local contractors to take on small jobs helping the community when given larger council contracts), local company SureServe picked up our request for a sandpit. Another company has also picked up our request to repair our amphitheatre seating on our field.
While we have loved being able to support the school, encourage and facilitate parental engagement and provide things to enhance the school, the best bit has really been seeing what all those things mean to the children and feeling a sense of community within the school and surrounding area.
Thank you so much for all of Connect's guidance and support over the last few years - we wouldn't have been able to find our feet without you!'
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