The Acland Burghley Parent Teacher Association (abPTA)

Acland Burghley is a unique, creative and inclusive community. The abPTA contributes to this wonderful culture by supporting the school to organise fun events that help raise much-needed enrichment funds and build links between the school and parents and carers.

Everyone is automatically a member of the abPTA, but it is really important that parents and carers actively support and get involved – and it’s fun!

What do we do?

Our annual events programme includes a Chilli Night, Christmas Concert, Quiz Night and Celebration BBQ. We run termly parent social evenings and provide refreshments and support at Open Events and new Parent Welcome Evenings. We also run occasional events like our Art Auction and a Tabletop Sale. You can view the current events programme here: PTA Events Calendar

The money we raise helps to fund the purchase of resources such as new music, sports and playground equipment, artwork for school spaces, and extras to help celebrate the achievements of young people.

How can you help?

Please come to our events! They are a great way to meet other parents and carers, build the school community and raise funds. Everyone is welcome.

We are always looking for volunteers. Families at Acland Burghley have a huge range of talents and passions, and we like to make use of them! There’s no particular commitment required – you can cook a chilli once a year, run the bar for an hour or join the committee and plan a totally new event for us!

Who are we?

We have a small core PTA committee, a team of Year Group reps, an AEN parent rep, and a wider group of volunteers who share their time and skills with us as and when they can.

Your PTA Co-Chairs for 2024-25 are Sian Halkyard (Y7 & Y10) and Renata Farmer (Y10). We have a committee meeting once a term and anyone is welcome to attend.

How do I find out what is going on?

The abPTA Whatsapp channel is a broadcast only group; no chat, just useful dates and information. You can join here: https://tinyurl.com/abptainfo

Join our mailing list if you’d like to receive more information on PTA events, including our calls for volunteers: abptachair@gmail.com

PTA news is also included in the school’s weekly bulletin, (usually at the end in bright yellow!) Look out for our announcements.

We use classlist.com to coordinate parent communications and send updates on PTA events and activities. It is a great forum for connecting with other parents in your child’s year, asking questions, getting support for issues that you or your child are facing, and sharing feedback with the school. There is a section for each year group, as well as a dedicated AEN (additional educational needs) group, which is open to families from all years.

More information and how to join Classlist are below.

Acland Burghley on Classlist

Every family new to Acland Burghley will receive an email invitation to join Classlist: https://www.classlist.com

The site allows you to contact, and receive emails from other Acland Burghley families safely and securely. It is a UK site that has been set up by parents for parents and is completely free to use. The school have checked where and how the data will be stored and are happy with the levels of security in place.

The online system requires you to enter, manage and update the personal information that you wish to share with your child's year group. It means that you have full control over which of your contact details are shared, for example, just an email address or your full contact details. You can even choose to keep your email address hidden. All requests to join Classlist will be approved by the school before they are validated – this is a secure, closed community group.

The site is fully data protection registered and the school does not upload any information into the site – all information is inputted by parents themselves.

Please note that you will still receive mailings from the school in the usual way (so do make sure they have your up-to-date contact details). Classlist is purely for parent-to-parent communication.

If you haven’t had an invitation, please email abptachair@gmail.com

Can I make a donation?

If you would prefer to donate money rather than time, there are a number of ways to contribute via the Acland Burghley School Trust who are fund-raising to renovate our Grade II listed Assembly Hall – find out more here: https://www.aclandburghley.camden.sch.uk/hallforall/

If you shop online, register with Easyfundraising and Give as you live. This will mean retailers funnel a few pennies from their profits to the Trust every time you shop online with no cost or hassle to you. Each person who signs up is worth on average at least £25 a year to Acland Burghley, so if every parent signed up, we could raise £50,000 a year!