Phil & Jim Christmas Bazaar

Friday 09 December 2016

The Phil and Jim Christmas Bazaar is an event that the PTA organizes for the children at school.  It is a shopping day, where each classroom gets escorted to the nursery for a shop like no other!

This event is not really a fundraiser, although it does make about £500-£600 for the school.  Its main purpose is to provide a fun, inexpensive, and safe environment for the children to go shopping for Christmas presents for their families, friends and selves!!  They have to make choices, be independent, use money and really consider what they are doing…so it is a great learning experience as well.  (Don’t worry; for EYFS and even years 1 and 2, the LSA’s and teachers are all on hand to help your children with this process!)

How does it work?

For several weeks leading up to the Bazaar, the class reps place a Christmas-y wrapped box (the bigger the better!) in each classroom for donations.  We then ask that each child bring in TEN items to donate.  We are NOT asking you to go out and buy ten items.  The idea is that you search your house for ten new/nearly new items that we can put out for sale.  (However, food and consumables such as lotions and shampoos MUST be new and unopened!)

Looking to get rid of a few books, CDs, tea cups?  Have a box of shampoo and soaps that you brought back from the hotel on your last holiday?  Leftover craft supplies taking up space in your drawers and cupboards? PERFECT.

Our PTA Santa’s helpers will sort all of these donations into categories ranging from 10p to £1.  Then on the day, the children are asked to bring in just £2 to buy their gifts.  With items priced as low as 10/20p, that £2 goes a long way (and many children will not use it all up!)

To give you an idea of the type of items we generally receive, these are the categories we traditionally have on our sorting day:

food/sweets

toiletries

craft supplies/stationary

jewelry

toys

books

cd/dvds

candles

household/miscellaneous

This is an event that all the children, from EYFS to year 6, all LOVE.  They get such a sense of pride with buying gifts for their families and friends.  We appreciate everything that you will do to help us make this a great shopping day at Phil & Jim!