Community

WHAT, WHY, WHO and HOW?

WHAT do the FONS do

The Friends of Newdigate School (FONS) is a group of parents who, in liaison with the teachers, get together to arrange events throughout the year for both children and parents. We provide a range of entertaining activities outside of school hours as well as supporting in-school events. Whilst some events are just for fun and an opportunity to meet other parents, many have the added benefit of raising additional money to equip the school with facilities that the Department of Education doesn’t cover.

WHY is it needed

You have chosen a wonderful village school for your child, but in the current financial climate we will need to supplement the school’s budget to buy non-core equipment. Over the last few years the equipment funded by the FONS’s activities includes
•    the interactive whiteboards in each classroom
•    all of the equipment in the playground including the trim trail
•    maintaining the pool
•    and most recently, the new library: seating and books.

WHO are the FONS

There are many parents who get involved in various different ways, including being class reps, running the second hand uniform sales, making teas and coffees or organising specific events.

The Big Sing

Visitors from a Chinese school

The Dorking Schools’ Partnership is a collaboration between secondary, primary and infant schools in the Dorking area committed to supporting and developing the opportunities for the children in the schools located in South Mole Valley.

Headteachers meet regularly to plan strategically and as a small school we benefit in many ways:

• We have access to partnership staff training activities which offer excellent value for money and ensure consistency of approach between different schools in the area
• We work together to ensure that we are meeting the Extended Schools agenda and so although we are a small school we can access opportunities provided by the larger community of schools
• We are members of the Dorking Schools Language Development Group which promotes and provides funding for teaching of modern foreign languages across the partnership. Our children take part in the annual ” Big Sing” where primary age children come together to perform in other languages and we can benefit from strong partnership links with other countries, for example China
• We co-ordinate our special needs provisions, sharing expertise and funding wherever possible and enabling access to a wide range of multidisciplinary pupil support professionals
• We are part of the Sports partnership which provides opportunities for staff training and sports events for pupils.
• Governors from partnership schools are invited to a Governors Forum regularly with opportunities for training and to keep up to date