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About Us

We are proud to have a highly active Parent Teachers Association (PTA) at Town Close, which represents all areas of the school from Nursery through to Year 8.


Our primary aim is to bring the school community together. We have events and initiatives (non-fund-raising gestures) for children and parents throughout the year, and our events provide us with valuable fund-raising income for the school.


Alongside this, our parent volunteers run a very friendly and helpful Second-Hand Uniform Shop. The shop is extremely popular, providing a full range of quality preowned uniform at significantly reduced prices (compared to buying new).  As well as providing an option to save money when buying uniform, it is also a platform for parents to sell uniform they no longer need and it significantly contributes to the school's and our own collective sustainability goals.


In 2021 Town Close PTA became a registered charity: Charity Number 1194846.

Our Purpose

"To do everything we can for our children. To lead by example, make them proud and have as much fun doing it as possible"

"No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted."  


The Lion and the Mouse, Aesop






Our Values

Collaboration

We are extraordinarily lucky to have an amazing network of skills, businesses, and people in our school community. It makes an enormous difference when we can draw upon this.


Teamwork

Without this, there is no PTA.


Enough said.




Community

Building the Town Close network, working together and supporting our local community when we can, is what the PTA is about.



Passion

Giving & doing what we can when we can, to make lasting, fun and enjoyable memories for the whole TC Community is what drives us.




Action

Making things happen is what the PTA do. If we support an idea that could benefit the Town Close Community, be it socially, educationally or in another way, we want to make that difference.

Sustainability 

We MUST not only consider this with everything we do but it should be the foundation; how can we make our children (and their children) proud, if we don’t.



Our Strategy

Leave a legacy to be proud of:

Who Are We?

There are various roles within the PTA and there are no prerequisites for the differing positions. Any parent can put themselves forward for any role and many volunteers also sit across multiple roles, depending on the level of time and commitment they are able to give.

All current parents can join the PTA as a committee member.

Every one on the PTA is a committee member.


Committe members can choose to, support or lead on events/initiatives and get involved in PTA decisions and strategy.  They can give there time as and when they are able to and, if they choose to, can take on adiditional roles such as Year Rep, Trustee or Shop Volunteer but there is no obligation to do this.


All Committee roles from Trustee, Year Reps, to Committeee members are all equal members of the PTA.

There is a year group representative for every year group (Nursery through to Year 8)

Our Year Reps are there to help create a year group community, represent their year group within the PTA committee and disseminate PTA communications through year specific WhatsApp Groups.


Where they are able to Year Reps also get involved in events/initiatives as well as PTA decisions & strategy.  This is not an essential element of the role but it makes a significant difference when as many members of the committee as possible are able to support some events etc throught out the year.

Your Year Rep

In 2021, Town Close PTA gained Charity status

The Trustees are legally responsible for the PTA following its charity registration.  This ensures the PTA has effective governance in place to manage all aspects of the charity such as finances, data, and events.  


The Trustees are registered with the Charity Commission and Companies House.  They are voluntary roles and filled by current parents at the school for, ideally, a minimum term of 2 years.     

Trustee Roles

We have a group of volunteers who run and support our second hand uniform shop


The shop is open 1 morning and 1 afternoon per week for 1.5-2 hours per average shift.  Generally the commitment is for circa 1 or sometimes 2 shifts per month and can be worked around availability.


Some volunteers focus their time solely on the shop, whilst others also perform extra PTA roles alongside this.  It's entirely down to each volunteer.

Many parents who are not able to commit on a regular basis...

We welcome any support available for specific events – even on the day! Sports Day, Firework, Easter events and the Christmas Fayre require many hands so do check the calendar to see if you can help. 

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Alongside our parent volunteers we work closely with a number of Town Close Teachers, Management Staff and Operations teams

During out events we have a number of teachers and school staff who offer their time and are happy to roll their sleeves up and provide their support.  Some Teachers have also become  Committee Members and or Year Reps.   As a Parent Teacher Association this is hugely important to us and we very much value this collaboration and support.


In addition to the above, we work closely with the school and meet on a regular basis to discuss PTA matters and orPTA related school requests.  Our governance structure sits alongside the schools own governance and we have regular collaborative meetings, which include both the Head of School and Head of Pre Prep.

Your Current PTA

This is not a comprehensive list of all the active members on the PTA, but it captures those with a specific named role within the committee

Trustees & Roles Name Contact Email Address
Chair Cassie Cox ptachair@townclose.com
Deputy Chair, Risk & Comms Lead Lydia Hutchinson pta@townclose.com
Treasurer VACANCY ptatreasurer@townclose.com
Secretary & Governance Lead Ruth Jones ptasecretary@townclose.com
Fundraising & Sponsorship Lead Marcella Hill pta@townclose.com
Shop Lead Hannah Ellis ptashop@townclose.com
Your 2024/25 Year Group Representatives

Your year representative is listed below, if you would like to contact them and or you would like to be added to the Year Group WhatsApp, please contact our PTA Secretary above and we can put you in contact with your Year Rep.

YEAR NAME
Nursery Lucinda Sawhney
Reception Lydia Hutchinson
Year 1 Tori Hudson
Year 2 Geet Gholap
Year 3 Kylee Moore
Year 4 Rachel Tiley-Nunn
Year 5 Claire Robinson
Year 6 Gemma Minors
Year 7 Hannah Garrad
Year 8 Caroline Steggles
Your 2024/25 Shop Volunteers
Shop Volunteer
Hannah Ellis (Lead)
Teresa George
Kym Mambetalieva
Cassie Cox
Lydia Hutchinson
Jennifer Wharton
Caroline Steggles
Gemma Minors
Victoria McGrath
Chathuri Harwood
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