The half-term holiday is almost here and the children are looking forward to a well-earned break! Our new Reception children have settled in well, having the care and support of the older children to help them.

We have some exciting news to share!

As many of you know, we have a number of older children in the school who have been attending our club every day – or almost every day – since starting with us in Reception. As we have always been reliant on donations of toys and games, the older children have been using the same things day after day for a long time. The pandemic also had a significant impact, with many of our toys and games being simply worn out. Whilst the younger ones still have plenty of “play miles” in our resources, the older children need something a little more “grown up”.

So, the OSCAR team decided to try a fund-raising campaign in order to try to raise enough to buy a Nintendo Switch for our older children – as multiple children could play together. We have arranged for a stall at the Christmas Fayre, where we will be selling goodies made by myself and Mrs Phillips-Roden.

This is the exciting part! One of our parents – Mr Smith, dad of Henry in Y4 – has made a very generous offer through his business of an Xbox One, a controller and some appropriate games. Needless to say, we are thrilled to bits and very grateful to Mr Smith for his generosity and kindness. This will refresh OSCAR Club for the older children, and is something for the younger ones to inherit in time.

We would still like to raise funds, it just means that we can extend our ambitions to replacing old and worn out toys and games for the club as a whole.

If anyone has any ideas for fundraising or any other ways of helping, we would be very grateful. Our children are very happy at OSCAR, and the team works very hard for the children. It would be lovely to offer the children something fresh.

Thank you all for your support over the years. It’s a privilege to work with so many lovely families.

Wishing you all a wonderful half-term break when we finally get there!

The OSCAR Team.