It always seems strange to be writing a report half way through a school year that covers things that happened up to 18 months ago, but it’s good to look back and reflect on our achievements over the 2004/5 year with pride.

The year began with the arrival of well over 100 new Year 7’s, many accompanied by their parents, for whom the PTA held a very successful welcome coffee morning, ably assisted by the Caterlink staff in the kitchen, to whom our thanks. We were, as in the last 3 years, able to give each new boy a calculator as a welcome gift, and we have received several appreciative comments from parents and the maths and science departments alike for this gift.

At Christmas we took a departure from the usual events and held a race night, the direct profit from which (£341) went to Barnardos. A further £150 profit from refreshments etc. went into PTA funds. I’d particularly like to thank our caretaking staff, Roy, Tom and Mick for all their help and support here and throughout the year. Christmas puddings were again ordered and sold very well, particularly at the school carol service at Southwark Cathedral, and a Christmas raffle raised £323.

March was a significant month for the PTA as we adopted our new constitution, based on that of the NCPTA, and subsequently applied for charitable status, which has now been given. We hope that, in due course, this may help attract funding from outside sources.

The summer of 2005 saw our second regatta of the year, the first had been on a clear September evening, coming as a result of the July 2004 event being postponed due to very high winds. Both were very successful events and thanks are due to all those who worked tirelessly behind the scenes organising, cooking, serving, clearing up etc. It was particularly good to have one of the Governors, Capt Graham Pepper, a Master Mariner, helping out and clearly enjoying himself.

Of course there are many things that go on regularly that the PTA is involved with – the weekly sorting of lost property is just one example, and I want to thank Jackie Yardley who has done this for a very long time on our behalf, but who returned to work during the year. Fortunately a number of other members have taken this on and the school staff have been very grateful of their help. Another area is being present at most Parent’s evenings. We purchased a new display system during the year to be able to have a proper stand and this has been very useful and effective, and was up in the hall when a number of dignitaries came to visit on the occasion of the school’s sports hall foundation stonelaying ceremony recently.

Another area the PTA helps out in is the annual school sports day where we provide refreshments for staff, parents and pupils alike. It was a little unfortunate that the track staff were replenishing their vending machines at the same time we were there, but we did, nonetheless, make a profit of £205 on the day.

Financially, it ended as a good year, as, at last, all the money we had in a number of other accounts dotted around the country, was released and is now in one account available to use. Because a high proportion of the PTA’s money was not accessible for much of the year we were only able to donate a handful of items to the school including the calculators previously mentioned, a number of art books, materials to set up an extra curricular italian group and some keyboards for the SEN department. We applied for, and were successful in obtaining, a grant of £1242 from the Lambeth Endowed Charity, to help provide a wide range of camping and orienteering equipment that will be used to provide Outward Bound and other courses when the weather improves.

Survival Guides were produced for parents of those pupils new to the school in Year 7 and those moving on to Key Stage 4 in Year 10 and both these were well received.

We have met 7 times during the year and as well as planning events, a wide variety of topics have been discussed. One of these was the lack of playground space during the construction works, and this was subsequently taken up by the leadership group, resulting in split lunches, a decrease in crowding and more lunchtime facilities. Any parent/carer or member of staff is welcome at meetings and minutes, date information etc. are available on the website at lns.org.uk/pta Thank you again to everyone who has been to meetings and contributed to the ongoing success of the London Nautical PTA during the 2004/5 year.