Rebranding our PTA

[devotedcurrylover]

We're trying to 'rebrand' our struggling parents group which is currently called 'The Friends'. We're thinking PTA is a bit boring and formal, but Friends sounds a bit cliquey and like a cult! Any ideas?

PTA is the name most schools use, so don't worry about how it sounds.

Don't try to sign up parents in the playground, or enthuse them to come to your next meeting - it isn't what it's about (surely?!). Put on a fun event - Friday night after school disco/party - which all the pupils will want to come to so will bring their parents. Do a short 'spot' about PTA and what it's for, and how funds make a big difference to school. Don't talk about committees/meetings 'taking on responsibility','committed team of volunteers'. Chat to parents (especially the newbies who may be keen and possibly more wanting to make friends). Ask on-side parents to mingle a bit!!

Basically, parents will see PTA or whatever is fun, sociable, supports their own kids' school experience. Bingo! Next time you want help for jumble sale, go up to parents by name and ask for help with cake stall. Whole thing becomes more personal and 'relational'. IME letters in book bags asking for people to offer help, be the treasurer etc will be carefully ignored....

What is the school called - is it a St or a neighbourhood name??

Agree with inky that it is very often how the PTA conducts and promotes itself ..

Also, perhaps a breakdown of what the raised funds have bought for the school - or have some 'wish list' from the school and choose a few items and at least have an attainable and visible goal IYSWIM..

For what it is worth, our PTA is salled POPA - Parents of Pupils

Ours is called The Parents Support Group...which makes me envision weeping parents who sit in a circle and tell terribe tales of their DC's failures! They don't do that though...they organize the fetes and so on! They're all nice...but I can rarely help sadly.

Get the kids to design you a logo - gives you an excuse to spell out exactly who you are and what you do. They could do it in class if you're lucky (and if it ticks an art/design box!).

Hi, We are also trying to re launch our school fundraising group and have just started to call ourselves a PTA.

We felt that our previous name was obsure and PTA is a name that easily recognisable and one that (hopefully) parents can identify with.

Thera are currently about 10 active members in our PTA in a school of 300 children! We run discos, bingo/beetle drive evenings, xmas fayres, summer fetes etc which are always well attended but would love to hear of any other ideas for fundraising and encouraging volunteers.

Our PTA has recently undergone the massive rebranding to PSA. Staff instead of just teachers.

What about Schoolname-Super-Heros?

I would be annoyed if you changed the name. I just about got my brain around what "The Friends" do at my school (and what a PTA does, even), you go and change the name I'd be wondering WHY? and are they doing something different now, hence the need for a name? Or what?

I wish that our "Friends" would regularly issue newsletters to tell everyone what they are doing, and when they expect to meet next. Very simple, A5 size papers would be adequate. This would be so much better than "rebranding" in terms of making them an attractive group to support, imvho.

Ragged at our school we produce regular newsletters and flyers for upcoming events. The school also has an excellent text system so we text all parents with dates for meetings/agm/events. Despite this our membership is quite low although lots of parents will help on the day with the bigger events.

We don't see ourselves as an exclusive group just a bunch of parents same as all the others. We worry that the newsletters/flyers are not most effective way of communicating with parents and have thought of setting up a website linked to the school site - do people think that this is a good idea? What do other schools do?

Oops sorry devoted didn't mean to hijack your thread we're just getting bit desparate for new ideas

I agree with everything InkyFingers says.

Our school's PTA has a huge number of active members.

This has grown from a tiny cliquey handful after a fantastic chairwoman took over four years ago and applied much of what InkyFingers said.

"Tears and tea" events for new reception starters, etc, raise no money but are enormous value in terms of good will and meeting new parents, for example.

At our school they got a lot more volunteers by making the jobs more defined and much, much smaller. e.g. there is a team of about six whose sole job it is to sift through the lost property and reunite it with owners.

Often people want to be involved but are scared by how much commitment it might turn into.

At some school the grandparents, step parent, nannies etc are often keen to be involved too, so friends can be made to sound more inclusive, not less so. If you have a parent (or friend ) who works in PR, they might be keen to help with a bit of a re-brand and fresh push.

Would definitely go for PSA rather than PTA if you don't want to be friends though, for the same reasons.

It is the 'Friends' at our school. They make a big point of telling every new starters parents and family that everybody is a member of the friends as soon as their child starts school. They have a website linked to the school website that is very useful and successful.

Meeting times are well documented and now take place at the village pub normally to make it more relaxed, the AGM is held at school right after the reception and KS1 start of year meeting, most parents hand around for that as they have wine!

The friends are very very successful at our school as they get the communication about right, website, emails and the odd thing in a bookbag, also the chat at the school gate (made easier being a small village school).
There is an element of them feeling a bit cliquey but I think that's hard to avoid (and no, I am not one of them, in fact shamefaced me has never been to a meeting but I do help out with things when I can), there are lots of fun things organised throughout the school year by the friends, some simply for fund raising like the fate but others are for the parents to have fun (last year it was an adults school disco, this year the theme is the 70's) and also for the children (we have a Christmas craft fair which is fantastic for all including pre-school children and toddlers).

This is a fairly affluent village but there is a really good mix of families from all backgrounds, allot of money gets raised, some split with charities (the three peaks challenge was a good one, half to a charity and the other half built an out door class room and benches for the back field) and some direct for the school.

The type of thing routinely raised by the friends for the school is to buy laptop trolleys (16 laptops per trolley), each class teacher gets £25 per term for incidental class room expenses so the teachers aren't having to put there hands into their own pockets for resources all the time and things like paying the cost of coaches for school trips to keep costs down.
Current things being worked towards are putting in an all weather tennis court and helping to pay for the building of a new classroom so we can have one class per year group.

I think it is important for the PTA to be fun, to be able to see where the time and money goes, to look at supporting charities with things as well and to not put too much pressure on parents to be involved but make it so everyone knows what's going on and why so the load of helping out is shared out so it isn't always the same old people doing everything.

Sorry for the long post!

PTFA

Parents, teachers, friends association