Friends of Wren Academy

We are a small welcoming group of parents who FUNdraise to make our children's education at Wren Academy even more brilliant.  We also hold social events to help create a community among parents.

Without the support of our parent and carer community we could not achieve all the things we do, but we really need more volunteers to help plan and deliver all of our events and activities. If you are able to help, even if you can only spare 10 minutes, please contact us on friendsofwrenacademy@gmail.com. Thank you!

Last year was an amazingly successful year, with fantastic events and activities.  Thanks for all your support, we are hugely proud to announce that we raised an incredible sum of over £35,000!  Using the money we raised last year, plus some left over from the previous year, we were able to fund over £50,000 worth of projects and activities, including:

• Buying a new Minibus
• Financing a new Laser Cutter for the Secondary Phase
• Refurbishing one of the Primary Playgrounds
• Maintaining and equipment for the Allotment
• Workshops such as STEM weeks, literacy support, wellbeing etc
• Financing the Choir, Orchestra and Music Therapy sessions
• Buying Books
• Creating an Outdoor Gym

In the past we have also paid for other larger projects such as:

• Buying New Laptops for each Primary Phase class
• Creating a nurturing Sensory Room for children who need some one-to-one care.

So, THANK YOU to all those who have contributed their time, energy and money in the last year we could not have done this without your help.  Your support will be even more critical this year as the school is strugglIng with rising costs, so we need to support them as much as we can.  We are a very small team and we will not be able to hold events without more help.  We specifically need people to help us with our Summer Fair, Christmas and Fireworks events. Email us here if you can help!

Upcoming Events

Pop Up Shop - Friday 8 March 

Mothers, Family and Carers Day pop up shop. We will be opening a shop after school on Friday 8 March.

Children will be given the opportunity to purchase small gifts for their loved ones, all priced under £3.00

 

 

Easter Bake Sale - Thursday 28 March

There will be a special Easter themed bake sale on the last day of term.

All contributions, whether home-made or shop bought are welcome.

Thank you.

 

 

Summer Fair - Saturday 29 June 2024 - 12.00 - 4.00pm

Please keep this date in your diary and keep a look out for more information which will be posted here.

Please volunteer

We have lots of stalls to manage and need 2 volunteers from each class per hour to run a stall or game.  Just an hour of your time helps enormously.  Please let your class rep know what time you can volunteer so they can add you to the rota.  We also need general volunteers for set up, tidy up, Face painting etc.  Please click HERE to volunteer

Buy your Raffle Tickets - friendsofwren.charityhive.co.uk/raffles

Help us raise over £2,000.  Buying raffle tickets is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to support the school!  Win a silver edition Apple Watch, £200 cash, £150 meal voucher for The Ivy or one of our other top prizes worth over £100! Also, if you would like to sponsor a prize or voucher for the raffle please email us.  Please share the above link far and wide with family and friends.

Recent Events

Santa’ Grotto and Colourful Calendars

Thank you to the FWA for organising such a fantastic Christmas Grotto, which together with sales of the Children's Calendars and Christmas Boppers rasied a fantastic £3831. There is still time to purchase your child's calendar; simply make a suggested £5 donation at friendsofwren.charityhive.co.uk/donate  and forward your payment confirmation to primary@wrenacademy.org and we will send your child's calendar home. 
 

Secret Santa - Elf Shop 

Thank you again to the Chief Elves, Sophie Sundberg and Rebecca Bird, for arranging the Elf Shop again before Christmas.  It was a great success.  The children loved being able to buy gifts on their own and in secret! The shop raised an amazing £1970 for our children.   

 

If you were unable to attend or participate in these events but would like to make a donation to support all the projects and activities that Friends of Wren organise and pay for, please visit our dedicated events website: 

MAKE A DONATION  : friendsofwren.charityhive.co.uk/donate  

Fireworks Night - Friday 3 November

We held our second Fireworks Night we are pleased to announce that we made a massive £4465 on the night.  Thank you to all those who attended or supported the fireworks.

 

If you would like to volunteer with assisting or organising future events,  then please do get in touch.
 

Years 5 and 6 Bake Sale

We decided to combine the year group bake sales and will now hold one per term, which will lighten the load on volunteers, but also make sure there are enough goodies for children attending clubs. Please help us by donating for these sales when it is your class’s turn and by buying up what has been prepared on the day.  Remember that bakes and treats can be healthy and nutritious as well as sweet and delicious! 
 

Friends of Wren AGM

We had our Annual General Meeting in the secondary school Restaurant on 12 October. 

Sounds dull but it was not!  The meeting had 15 minutes of official business followed by free drinks and a chance to meet other parents from across the school. We would love to see you at our next AGM.

Summer Fair

The fun filled Wren Summer Fair came back after two years which consisted of; Reptile Encounters, Live Music and Entertainment, Bouncy Castles and Trampolines, Raffle, Tombola, tonnes of Games and Activities, Face and Body Art, a BBQ and Bar, Cakes and Ice Cream to cool off with!

It was an incredible community event which will raised over £5000 for a range of activities to support our children.  

 

Match Funding

Do you work for an IT company, multi-national (i.e. Microsoft), asset manager (i.e. Schroders) high street bank or supermarket? 

If so, you can probably help us double our funds through Match Funding if you volunteer, even for 30 minutes, at an event. For every £1 your stall raises, your employer matches to a similar or the same amount. It really is that simple!  

Three easy steps to match fund: 

1. Find out if your employer does Match Funding by speaking to your HR or CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) departments.   

2. If they do, fill in this simple form and we will do the rest. 

3. We will give you a small task to get you qualified to match fund. 
 

Second Hand Uniform

We have a recycling scheme for school uniform that allows parents to buy good quality Wren-branded uniform at lower prices, and save waste when children outgrow their clothes. This is done in partnership with the North London Hospice, a fantastic North Finchley charity.

Used uniform can now be purchased from the two local North London Hospice’s shops:

North Finchley: 724 High Road, London, N12 9QD,

Finchley Central: 15 Ballards Lane, London, N3 1UX.

If you would like to donate used uniform, that is in clean and good condition, please drop it off at either of these shops. Please do not drop it off at the school.

Achievements for 2018/19

Last year we raised over £23,000 and paid for a new playground, which will be used by the Secondary students as well as those from the Primary Phase.

We did this by holding bake sales, which raised over £400 each, a Christmas Fair, a Disco for the Primary Phase, a Science Food Fair and a Summer Fair.  We were also supported once again by Martyn Gerrard which was brilliant. 

Summer Directory 2019

A special thanks goes to the parents who advertised their businesses and the volunteers who helped distribute 1,300 copies of the Wren Summer brochures locally to places such as Martyn Gerrard, gyms, nurseries, tuition centres, shops, cafés, salons and clinics.

Advertising space proved to be in high demand with a total of 58 adverts being placed. We are proud to announce that after deducting printing costs, the 2019 brochure raised an incredible £3,493.00. A massive thank you to Sophie Sundberg for all her months of hard work on creating this brochure.

If you did not pick up a copy at the Summer Fair, a digital copy can be downloaded here

http://bit.ly/WrenSummerBrochure2019

There are lots of great contacts to keep on file

Summer Fair

Our Summer Fair took place on Saturday 14 July.

We do hope you enjoyed the Summer Fair as much as we did. It was such a lovely day and it was wonderful to see so many families and teachers enjoying the music and games. We couldn’t have done it without you and have a long list of thank yous:

We raised around £11,350.00 from our summer fair activities including Brochure and MG Board Challenge. This puts our total for this academic year at nearly £27,000.00 which is amazing.

Cherry and Conker Class Cake Sale

We were inundated with incredible donations of the most exquisite cakes on 11 May.

The parents and children had a wonderful time tasting everything and we even raised £200 for the school!  Thank you to all of those who took part.

Holly and Acorn class, your turn is next! How much will you raise?

2016/17 Achievements

We started the year we another brilliant Christmas Fair. It was bigger and even better than last year with the most fantastic raffle prizes ever! We had the most incredible hampers plus a drone and the winner went home with an Apple Watch! The whole school community had an amazing time and we really appreciated the support of our new Friends of Wren Committee.

We also held our International Food Fair in the Spring term to celebrate International Week which was a fantastic evening. We all got to taste delicious culinary delights from around the world.

This year we held our first ever Rock Star Disco. The children (and Parents!) had such an enjoyable time and it was wonderful to see everyone socialising together. The entertainer played a range of music and everyone enjoyed the popcorn and pizza which was valuable. The children especially enjoyed the glow paint, the flashing disco glasses and the air balloon guitars! What an fun evening!

We held a really successful Summer fair with a range of popular stalls. The secondary school prefects all planned and organised their own House stalls which all the primary children (and adults) loved. There was a range of delicious food available and the most popular activity was our giant inflatable obstacle course! Great fun and a huge well done to the committee for an amazing year.

2015/16 Achievements 

Last year we held three major events which were all incredibly successful. We held our Christmas fair for primary and secondary students which was very well receieved. In the Spring term we organized an International Food fair where so many parents cooked delicious food for us all to buy. In the Summer term we held our first summer fun afternoon. All the new Wren children were invited to attend and everyone had so much fun. We are working hard to raise money for a new minibus for the school to use. So far we have raised nearly £5000!! Thank you for all your support with these events.