Guest blog: Your Christmas shopping could help fund your computing wish list

Could your school community’s Christmas shopping help pay for new tablets, laptops, coding equipment, your Purple Mash subscription or other much-needed computing resources?

With easyfundraising, it can.

Black Friday and Christmas bring plenty of online shopping. By shopping through easyfundraising, parents, carers, staff and the wider school community can generate free donations for your school – without spending anything extra.

Those donations could help your school invest in the computing resources pupils need.

Turn everyday shopping into better computing provision

When members of your school community shop online with participating retailers, the retailer makes a donation to your school. Purchases families were already planning can therefore contribute towards your fundraising target.

Imagine putting those donations towards:

• New laptops or Chromebooks for classroom computing.
• Tablets and iPads to use throughout the school.
• A subscription to Purple Mash to support computing and learning across the curriculum.
• Coding and physical computing resources for hands-on learning.
• Robotics equipment, like Mai-Z MouseBots for programming and STEM activities.
• Interactive technology and software to enhance learning.
• Replacing ageing devices that are becoming slow or unreliable.

Whether you're replacing a few old laptops or working towards a bigger whole-school computing project, every donation can move you closer to your goal.

Your Christmas shopping could help fund your computing wish list

Now is an especially good time to get started.

Last year, more than £2.2 million was raised through easyfundraising between October and December, thanks to major shopping moments including Black Friday and Christmas.

Think about how much shopping your whole school community does at this time of year – and what that could mean for your computing wish list.

How does easyfundraising work?

It couldn't be much simpler.

Instead of going directly to a retailer's website, supporters start at easyfundraising's website or app and click through to the retailer. They shop as normal, and the retailer provides a free donation to their chosen school.

Participating retailers include familiar names such as John Lewis, Tesco, Etsy, Argos and M&S, alongside thousands of others.

Once registered, simply invite parents, carers, staff, governors and others to become supporters and start shopping.

easyfundraising also provides ready-to-use resources that schools can share with their community to help get more people involved.

From everyday shopping to resources for learners

That's exactly the approach taken by Heronsbridge Special School, which initially introduced easyfundraising to staff, friends and family before rolling it out more widely to pupils' families.

For the school, turning everyday shopping into additional resources has particular value.

So, what's on your school's computing wish list?

Get started with easyfundraising today and turn this year's Black Friday bargains and Christmas shopping into free funds for your school's computing resources.