Hundreds of pupils (and parents) flock to school Christmas fair

A PRIMARY school in Henley held its annual Christmas Fair last Friday.

Parents of children at Trinity Primary School, in Vicarage Road, set up 11 stalls for almost 300 pupils to visit and spend their money.

The volunteers were wearing Santa hats, reindeer antlers and tinsel and also staged a range of games for the pupils to play.

This included “Splat the Pud” and “Name the Teddy”, while the products available to buy ranged from sweets to books. Each of the 11 classes at the school had a 20-minute slot to explore the fair and buy presents for their friends and families.

Friends of Trinity Primary School, the school’s parent-teacher association, organises the event each year.

Laura Ashton, the incoming leader of the Friends group, said: “There’s toys for sale, sweets, games, a raffle, so it’s a fundraiser and for the children to have Christmassy fun.”

The event this year was primarily organised by the parents and carers of the children in reception class, who started in September.

The parents then put a committee together to ask the school community for donations and volunteers.

The money that’s raised from the event goes back to the Friends and then gets invested back into the school.

Victoria Harding, who manages communications at the reception desk in the school, said: “They use the money for things including a visit as part of the Henley Literary Festival, where they would buy tickets for that.”

During the fair, the Year 6 children, aged between 10 and 11, accompanied the reception children, aged four to five, around the stalls, helping them decide what to spend their money on. Francesca Goulton has taught at Trinity Primary School for seven years and currently teaches a mixed class of Years 5 and 6.

She said: “The fair is always super popular, the kids have waited literally all day for this and they talk about it all the time.

“It’s a great community event that everybody loves and all the parents love it as well. They come after school and bring their kids, and then they walk around together, which is really nice too.”