AKPS Smooga Opening

The Smooga was officially opened on a rather rainy 9th March. Thank you to all those who attended.  It is a wonderful legacy to all the FoAKS fundraising over many years! A huge thank you to all those who have been involved with the planning and implementation it is an invaluable addition to our school.

Copy of the letter from Mrs Saville:

I wanted to update you on a very exciting project that we have been working on for a while: creating an all-weather sports area for the school! Well I am delighted to let you know that we are almost there in delivering this for early next year.

This has been an incredible effort by many people both in the school and through the fantastic efforts of our previous and current FOAKS teams. When the previous FOAKS team stepped down, they left the school a wonderful legacy amount of £12,000 from their incredible fundraising efforts, to be spent on something really impactful for the children. The need for an all-weather sports area to be used throughout play and lunchtimes and in lessons was already in our minds and FOAKS were really pleased for the money to be put towards this.

The system we are looking to bring in is called SMOOGA. It will be located on an area of the field with a special matting surface which makes it all weather and safe for the children. The low sides mean children are visible to adults on duty at break times and lunchtimes. This is a fantastic system, which is really going to make a huge difference to outdoor activities in school and after school. Mr Tanner has so many ideas for sports to be played in this Smooga. In order to have a real impact, we have gone for the largest area, so that a whole class can use it at one time and for it to have a path leading up to avoid having to walk on the field when wet. Therefore we have had to raise some further funds from the original generous £12,000 legacy FOAKS donation. The school and FOAKS team have been successful in securing a grant for £2,500 for the project and we are also in the Tesco blue token scheme (See below) but we are still £2,000 short. The moveable construction of the smooga means we do not require planning permission which avoids additional cost and means we can get a bigger size unit.

Now this is where we need YOUR help. We are in touching distance of raising the money by the end of this year ready for an installation at the end of January. We are short of £2,000.

Here are 2 ways you can help us to achieve this wonderful legacy project from FAOKS and the parents of Team AK, for all of our children:

1. TESCO Blue tokens

As many of you will be aware, thanks to the FOAKS team, we are in both large and small TESCOs in Cirencester for their community support scheme. Now we are up against two other schools: Cirencester Primary and North Cerney. Currently it is clear that Cirencester Primary has the most, however it is going to be a close run thing between us, and North Cerney for second. The difference between coming second and third is an extra £1000 for the school! The
scheme finishes as of the 1st January, so all we ask is if you go into TESCO please make sure you get a token or you could smile nicely and gain a few more. Even if you go to another TESCO store please keep your token and either take it into those two stores or we would be happy for you to drop it off at the school office and we will make sure it gets donated. Every token could make a massive difference. Today I spoke to the children in assembly about tokens and our Ashton Keynes coin collector box in Tesco.

2. Leave A Legacy scheme

The whole unit of the Smooga has roughly 100 separate blue fence sections. Each of these sections has a space for a 60cm x20cm sticker. What we are offering is the opportunity for parents of the school to sponsor a section. For a minimum donation of £10 up to a maximum donation of £50 you will get a panel with a permanent sticker dedicated to you/your family. It would be really fantastic if we could fill all the panels with the names of the families of this school that make it such a great place to be. Please contact the office to secure your panel(s).

Please come along to the festive Santa fun run on the village on Sunday 17th December where money raised will kindly be shared between the Alzheimer’s Charity and the school to help with this project. I hope to see you there!

Every penny raised towards this project will be spent on the Smooga and purchasing the sports kit to be able to play all the games including; Uni-hock, Tchoukball, Handball etc.

Finally my huge thanks to all who have been part of making this happen. It has taken a considerable effort by many people to raise the money we have so far and we are so close to making this a reality. It is brilliant to have a legacy project from FOAKS to put the fundraising money for the school into a large visible impactful project like this. I know we can do this final bit of fundraising, and as always thank you so much for your support. I cannot wait to get our smooga up and running in the new year.

Yours really thankfully,

Mrs. Saville