This past year and a half have been very difficult for everyone. The children, the school, staff and our lovely families. We are hoping that the next school year will bring a greater sense of normality for everyone.

Because of covid 19 and the related restrictions, the Governing Board find ourselves in strange territory, where we would like to ask our school family for help.

In a normal school year, our PTA fundraising events would help raise additional funds to assist the school budget. However, because of the inability to run PTA events and clubs for much of the past 18 months we are looking at a significant funding shortfall.

As it is the end of the year, a number of parents, recognising the impact of losing fundraising opportunities, have kindly asked what they can do to help. In this strange post covid time, we would like to therefore ask our families for voluntary donations, to go towards those projects that would have been ordinarily supported through the normal PTA events.

The key projects we would like to support, to ensure the children have the quality school experience children want from Braywood include:

• Refurbishing the ever-popular Trim Trail, which has sadly started to show how much use it has had over the years.

• Outdoor maintenance and planting to ensure “colour after covid” and making the school a more welcoming place for the children.

• Work on the Willow arch, which has become ever more overgrown and dangerous to taller people passing through.

• An outdoor shelter for the children to enable covered play in wet or sunny days.

• Further sports equipment.

• Additional learning materials to enhance the children’s understanding of topics.

We completely understand that many families are struggling themselves, so we would like to stress this is voluntary and not compulsory.

We hope to be back to a more normal situation in the coming school year, with the normal events able to be back in the calendar. In the meantime, we would like to thank everyone for their continuing support of the school.