Dear parents

What an incredible half term it has been at our school, brimming with exciting adventures and memorable experiences for our children! Year 2 had a wonderful time on their trip to the London Eye where they enjoyed the breathtaking views of the city! The children in Year 3  had a fantastic outing on their recent visit to Woodcroft Wildspace engaging in pond dipping activities and immersing themselves in nature's wonders.   Year 1 enjoyed a delightful local area walk identifying the human and physical features.  The children in Year 5 looked the part as they learnt about the vikings in their history workshop, enriching their understanding of this fascinating era and Year 4 had a blast investigating what affects the rate of ice melting during their science lessons! 

Our school's sporting tournaments kicked off with enthusiasm and resilience displayed by our children, showcasing excellent sportsmanship and determination.

The PGL residential trip was a triumph for our Year 6 children, offering them valuable life skills and a memorable adventure. A heartfelt thank you goes out to our dedicated staff who gave up their time and slept over to ensure a safe and enjoyable experience for all.

It's lovely to see how well the our youngest learners in nursery and reception have settled.  They have made new friends and are enjoying exploring and learning.

It was great to see so many of you during our learning conversations yesterday, We hope that these discussions proved insightful as you delved into your child's progress with their class teachers.

I am incredibly proud of each and every one of our pupils, and I want to extend a heartfelt thank you to our dedicated staff for their unwavering commitment this past half term.  I'm sure you'll all join me in expressing our gratitude.

Information was sent out earlier on this week regarding a Parent Governor vacancy.  Please get in touch if you have any questions or would like to discuss the role. 

I have been informed by local residents that some parents from our school have been parking inconsiderately in their driveways. This is not respectful and is causing inconvenience to our neighbours.   There have also been reports of our parents parking on Zig Zags and yellow lines and dropping their child off in the middle of the road.  This is dangerous and can cause serious harm.  We kindly request that all parents are mindful of their parking choices during drop-off and pick up times.  

As we move into the second half of the autumn term, we eagerly anticipate our 'Come Learn With Me' event in early November.  This is a wonderful opportunity for parents to engage in classroom activities alongside their children.  Mark these dates on your calendar! 

In these challenging times, our thoughts are with the people and all the innocent victims of the Middle East during this devastating conflict.  We are all deeply saddened by the loss and the suffering of so many people.   We know that this is a difficult time for many people, but we are here to support our children and our school community. Please reach out if you have any concerns or need any support.

As always, thank you parents for your on-going support,  wishing you a wonderful half term.  See you all back on Monday 30 October.  

With my very best wishes to you and your families.

Tijen Hassan

Headteacher 

Please click to view term dates for 2023 - 2024 

Please click here to view term dates for 2024 - 2025

Working together to improve school attendance

At Grange Park we know that regular attendance is vital for our children to achieve their full potential at school. We want to share our expectations around attendance with parents to ensure we work together to support our children to excel. 

Currently our whole school attendance is 96.92% - very close to our target of 97%. Keep it up Grange Park!This week we celebrated a massive 481 children who have been in every day this half term! 100% attendance!

The law around school attendance:

The law entitles every child of compulsory school age to an efficient, full-time education suitable to their age, aptitude, and any special educational need they may have. It is the legal responsibility of every parent to make sure their child receives that education either by attendance at a school or by education otherwise than at a school. Where parents decide to have their child registered at school, they have an additional legal duty to ensure their child attends that school regularly. This means their child must attend every day that the school is open, except in a small number of allowable circumstances such as being

How can parents help?
You can support us with securing excellent levels of attendance by:

• Not booking holidays in term time - written requests must go to the headteacher before any travel arrangements are made.

• Not taking your child out of school unless in exceptional circumstances.

• Ensuring any medical appointments are booked outside of school hours where possible.

• Always encouraging your child to attend school.

• Encouraging excellent punctuality and setting good routines, as persistent lateness will affect their attendance.

Your child’s attendance will continue to be monitored as part of our whole school attendance monitoring process.  If at any point you experience difficulties in relation to your child’s attendance, please do not hesitate to contact the school attendance officer, Debbie Miller, so that we can offer support and guidance. Debbie Miller can be contacted by telephoning the school or by email.

Celebrating our family’s attendance:

Keeping children safe online: Education Child Protection (ECP)

Over the course of this half term, we provided parents with access to an Education Child Protection (ECP) video that aimed to empower parents to keep their children safe while using technology. This topic is a priority in our school.

There were four areas covered in this session:

1. What ECP teaches children about online safety (on safer internet day, your child will also be watching an ECP video).

2. The latest trends of what children are doing online; including apps & games.

3. The issues and dangers children face online.

4. How we can make children safer online.

Education Child Protection has kindly sent us the slides from the video that you will find HERE 

We are pleased and excited to announce School Parliament 2023-2024. Since the start of term, Year 6 and children across the school have been working hard writing applications and preparing speeches ready for the school elections where every child had the opportunity to vote. The Year 6 MPs made excellent speeches during family assemblies, outlining brilliant manifestos that we can see having a great impact on the children’s experiences at Grange Park. They spoke confidently and with clarity whilst filling the room with anticipation of what was to come. On Monday 2 October the whole school voted for the speeches and MPs that they thought would best represent the school and have the most impact. As well as this, children in class had the opportunity to tell their peers why they would make a good councillor so that they would vote for them.

The first meeting for MPs took place this week where they found out what real MPs do and shared some wonderful ideas of initial starting points. MPs will be helping to support assemblies this year, delivering family assemblies with the family lead and supporting Road Safety Week. They will be continuing to improve our playground provision, ensuring that there are plenty of activities for children to take part in during lunchtime play. They will also be focusing on supporting mental health, the acts of kindness programme and making sure that pupil voice is heard. In addition to this, they are part of the Safer Streets Campaign that they will be working on with Merryhills Primary School and HIghlands. We look forward to telling you about the improvements that we have made and the impact that it had.

Black History Month is an important event that takes place in October in the UK. It provides an opportunity to share, celebrate, and understand the impact of black heritage and culture. People from African and Caribbean backgrounds have been a fundamental part of British history for centuries. However, their contribution to society has often been overlooked or distorted.  Black History Month aims to raise awareness of the importance of black history and to celebrate the achievements of black people throughout history. It also provides a platform to challenge racism and promote diversity. Celebrating Black History Month is a way to recognise the events and people who have shaped our society and continue to do so.

This month, we have been celebrating Black History Month. We held an assembly to discuss what Black History Month is and why it is so important. We also explored the life of Walter Tull, a significant figure in history. To raise awareness of other important figures, we will be placing posters around the school with QR codes that children can scan to learn more about them.

New battles have now begun between classes, families and year groups, so work hard to ensure you lead your team to victory!!!

Phoebe and Isabel in Yr6 ran the GOSH 5k Race Saturday. They have so far raised £904! What a fantastic achievement, well done girls! 

Grange Park would like to welcome you into school for our Autumn Term Come Learn With Me event.  This is an exciting opportunity for you to come into your child's classroom and join in with their activities! Please see the dates below:

Did you know you could hire the school for clubs or for a one off event?   We have classrooms of varying sizes and halls within the school that can be used in the evenings after 4.30pm and on a Saturday until 2pm for clubs or children's parties. If you are interested in hiring a space please contact lettings@grangeparkprimary.org with details of your proposed club or event. We will then confirm cost and availability.

We hope you are having a good Autumn! Our first event of this year, the nursery, reception and year 1 picnic on Saturday 23rd September was a success and it was lovely to see the families coming together.

We also held our AGM on Monday 2nd October.  Alexia and Sarah will continue as Chairs.  Alev, our secretary has stepped down and Carrie has taken over.  We want to thank Alev for all of her hard work and to welcome Carrie!  Penny will be continuing as our treasurer and we are pleased that we have also had a few new members join.  Thanks to all who attended.

This year we are continuing to raise funds for additional farm/chicken coop set up, playground resources, fixing some of the existing playground resources and an internal/external PA system.

Our next events are our Halloween activities and the discos!  We can't wait to see you there.  Keep an eye out for the flyers!

One of our main events is also fast approaching - the Christmas Fayre on Sunday 3rd December from 11am - 2pm.  We are currently sourcing raffle prizes and looking for stall holders for the event so please reach out if you are able to help us.  Thank you to all the parents who will participate in the Xmas for Schools!

Please do not hesitate to contact us via email on gppsa@hotmail.co.uk if you have any questions, want more information about vacancies on the GPPSA or how you can help us.  Our next meeting is at 2pm on 17 November.

Thanks in advance for your support.

GPPSA

Please also bear in mind the initiatives that are available year round:

• Amazon Smile - we would like to encourage parents to use Amazon smile when making online purchase through Amazon (where Amazon will donate 0.5% of the purchase price to the GPPSA) search = Grange Park Primary School Association 

• School lotto:  www.yourschoollottery.co.uk/lottery/school/grange-park-primary-school-association 

• Donate page - http://easydonate.org/HTDT006 

The children in Acorn class have been busy painting self portraits of themselves by using different sized brushes and following simple instructions. They looked at their reflections in the mirror and paid particular attention to the colour of their eyes, hair and skin.

Year 1 have been following their inspirational sports personality World Champion gold medalist Jake Jarman to motivate them during their PE lessons in gymnastics.  We have been learning to move like  champion gymnasts. ‘Champion’ refers to when pupils are being silent, pointing their fingers and toes and are still when they make a shape/balance. We have been learning to use the large parts of our bodies to create wide, narrow and curled shapes both on the floor and on apparatus.

Our Year 2 children had a fantastic time on their trip to the London Eye a couple of weeks ago! They travelled to and from the attraction via the tube and were very safe and represented our school very well. The children were very excited to see the London Eye in person and they were blown away by all the sights when they got to go on the carousel. They saw many landmarks, including the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace and the Shard. The children did a fantastic job at identifying the features they saw from the London Eye and some of them even drew maps to show what they could see in the south, north, west and east. The trip was a great learning experience for the children and they had a lot of fun too. We are very proud of how they represented our school and how much they enjoyed themselves. We’re also very grateful for all the help we received from the parents on the day of our trip! 

Over this half term, Year 5 are looking into the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings. We have had a workshop where we studied artefacts and thought historically about where the items would have been made and what the purpose of each artefact was.

Children have also learnt about the seven kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon era and how they came over to achieve owning areas of land after the Romans had left around the year 410 AD. They have also learnt about the one pot styles of cooking throughout the Viking era in Design and Technology. Children have designed, created and evaluated their own stews using kitchen equipment and ingredients that would have likely been found to make this. 

In Science, children have been investigating different forces focusing on gravity, air resistance and water resistance. They have conducted experiments to see how these different resistances affect the speed of gravity.

Last week, the year 6 children went to PGL at Marchants Hill, Surrey. Throughout the week, the children took part in a range of activities: abseiling, climbing, zip wire, trapeze, Jacob’s Ladder, archery, sports and team games, rifle shooting, campfire and a disco. Each day they enjoyed a range of delicious foods for breakfast, lunch and dinner as well as consuming lots of ‘healthy’ snacks in their rooms! 

The pupils of Grange Park were an absolute credit to the school, demonstrating collaboration, resilience, respect and responsibility throughout the duration of the trip with an incredible spirit and sense of togetherness. When their peers were finding an activity challenging, they encouraged one another and celebrated each other’s successes. We are so proud of you and feel so lucky to be the teachers of such a wonderful group of children.