Old Basing Infant School

✨ It’s Pick a Jar Week! ✨

One of the most popular stalls at our upcoming school fair is back, and we need your help to make it a success! The Pick a Jar Collection is running all next week—from Monday, June 8th to Friday, June 12th.

This fan-favorite activity relies entirely on the amazing generosity of our parents and caregivers. It’s the perfect weekend project to do with the kids!

📝 How It Works:
1 Find some empty, clean jars.
2 Fill them with fun, kid-friendly goodies.
3 Drop them off at either school during this coming week.

💡 Fill Inspiration:
Think about what your little ones would love to win! In the past, we've seen fantastic jars filled with:
🍬 Sweets & wrapped treats
🎨 Crayons, pens, and mini stationery
🧸 Toy soldiers and small figurines
🦄 Stickers and temporary tattoos

⚠️ A Few Important Rules:
🙅 No Chocolate, Please! It melts in the sun and gets messy, so please skip the chocolate items.
🗓️ Check those dates: If you are using food or sweets, please make sure they are well within their expiry date.
✨ New or gently preloved items only.

Thank you so much for your continued support - we can't wait to see what you create!

🌟 HAPPY ! 🌟

This week is all about celebrating the absolute superstars who make F.O.O.B.S. what it is: our incredible volunteers! 🙌✨

Behind every event, there’s a team of parents giving their time and enthusiasm. Thanks to them, we can fundraise for additional resources for our kids at both Old Basing Infants and St Mary’s Junior School. We quite literally couldn't do it without them! ❤️

Why join the F.O.O.B.S. team?

⏰ It’s flexible: Give an hour a term or an hour a week—every bit helps!

👥 It’s social: It’s a fantastic way to meet other parents and make friends.

🏫 It makes a difference: You see the direct impact on your child's school.

We are always looking for fresh ideas and new faces. If you’ve ever thought about helping out, we’d love to hear from you! 🥰

📩 Drop us a DM or email us at [email protected] to find out more.

💪

Just a reminder that it's a non-uniform day at both schools on Thursday 21st May!

In return for wearing non-uniform, we’re asking for prizes for our Summer Fair Tombolas and Have You Got the Bottle stall (or a monetary donation so we can buy them). We need things people actually want to win so any unwanted or unopened gifts would be greatly appreciated.

Here’s what has been donated previously:
• Adult Tombola: Gift sets, toiletry sets, candles, journals, games, books, mugs, and food items like nice biscuits or chocolates.
• Children’s Tombola: Toys, games, water bottles, and kids' toiletry sets.
• Have You Got the Bottle Stall: Any bottles! Toiletries, alcoholic, or non-alcoholic drinks.

⚠️ Please check expiration dates on all food and drink donations. ⚠️

Thank you for your support!

🛍️ HappySchoolBag will be collecting again from Old Basing Infants on Friday 17th April. So, here’s your opportunity to have a big clear out over the Easter holidays!

Collection dates:
Thursday 16th April between 5pm-8pm – at 2 local addresses to be supplied nearer the time
Friday 17th April 8:15-9am at Old Basing Infant School and Royal British Legion carpark

In addition to raising funds for F.O.O.B.S. this also raises awareness amongst the children of the benefits of recycling and reuse. Happy School Bag works in partnership with schools to help us raise funds by collecting and selling your unwanted textiles to the second-hand market industry. These items are exported to various countries worldwide, where thrift markets flourish, providing affordable clothing to disadvantaged individuals and vintage clothing enthusiasts alike.

Please see details about what can and can't be donated here https://www.happyschoolbag.co.uk/what-we-collect/

School uniform – if you have any uniform to donate for either of the schools, please keep it separate and ensure the bags are labelled as uniform if being donated at the same time. This is to ensure it doesn’t get mixed in with the Happy School Bag items. Please note: we do not accept any white t-shirts/shirts or small sized infant school jumpers/ cardigans with the old logo.

🐣 Thank you to everyone who joined us at the Easter Fair last weekend, we had an egg-cellent time 🐣

A MASSIVE THANK YOU to everyone who baked, and provided cakes to sell, we couldn’t host these events without you!

All the winners of the different competitions have now been contacted. The winning info for each is as follows:

🎂 Guess the weight of the cake
The weight was 3,345kg
The winner guessed 3.2kg

🍫 Chocolates in a jar
There were 156 chocolates in our jar
The winner guessed 150 🤩
(3 people all guessed 150x so we pulled names out of a hat to decide the winner)

All the guessed names for the chicks and the bunny were added to a hat and drawn out at random.
🐤 Name the Chick in Session 1 - the chick’s name drawn was Becky
🐰 Name the Bunny in Session 2 - the bunny’s name drawn was Glitter

🐥 Find the Chick - The location of the chick for each session was drawn from a hat and the relevant winners from both sessions have been contacted

Thank you again to everyone who came on Saturday, we loved having you and hoped you had fun. We even managed to book the sun for the day ☀️

From your F.O.O.B.S. committee and special guest, The Easter Bunny 🐰

Wow, what a turnout! This morning we welcomed children from
Old Basing Infant School and St Mary's CE Junior School Old Basing and reached our second highest attendance. We welcomed 45 first-timers, 43 of whom were doing their very first parkrun. Congratulations to the 63 participants who achieved a new PB and the 5 who will be receiving milestone wristbands next week, including Thea who is our first participant to complete 250 junior parkruns, an amazing achievement. Thanks to all our volunteers and we'll see you next week.

🍫 Chocolate Tombola
‼️ WE NEED YOUR HELP

The deadline for donations to the Chocolate Tombola for the Easter Fair is on Friday this week.
The kids love playing on this Tombola for their chance to win an Easter egg, so F.O.O.B.S. really do appreciate your support with this and we would be grateful for your donations.

The F.O.O.B.S. Easter Fair is being held on Saturday 21st March 2026 at Old Basing Infant School and tickets are available to purchase now! See more details here - https://foobs.weebly.com/
Tickets will be available until 8pm on Wednesday 18th March - book early to secure your tickets for one of the two sessions available.

🪩 Year 1 Disco
🕺 Friday 6th March

It's DISCO TIME for Year 1!

The disco will be on Friday 6th March from 17.00 - 18.30 in the school hall. Please note this is a drop off event – drop off is at Reception and the pick-up location is the hall entrance into the courtyard (the teachers will see the children out to their parents at the end of the disco).

Tickets are now on sale until 8pm on Thursday 5th March via the F.O.O.B.S. website https://foobs.weebly.com/ and are priced at £5.00 each (including a drink and a biscuit).