Dear parents

Welcome to the end of the calendar year and a very snowy end of the term!  Thank you parents for all your support this week with the changes to the drop off and pick up arrangements as the playgrounds were filled with a blanket of snow!  I also wanted to thank all the staff, many of whom live far, for braving coming into school this week and being such troopers!  

We of course didn’t let the snow spoil our festivities this term- the Nursery and Reception Concert was lovely! It is just amazing to think that the children in nursery and reception only started with us a few months ago and were all brave enough to stand and sing and speak in front of such a huge audience! A massive well done to each and everyone of them for being such super stars! And well done to all the Year 2 children who performed their concert.  Their singing was incredible- I think all the parents would agree with how stunning they all sounded! Well done everyone!  

A big thank you to the GPPSA and all the parents who volunteered for the Christmas Fayre.  It was a huge success and it was lovely to see the community coming together.  The grotto was as popular as ever and the choir singing as well as the stalls definitely put us all in the festive spirit! We raised over £7,500 which is amazing! 

On another note, I have noticed that quite a few children are not wearing the correct PE uniform.  Please be reminded that children should be wearing the grey sweatshirt and joggers with the school logo on their PE day.  Leggings and any other joggers/jumpers are not permitted.  Please click here for the full uniform list.  Please support us in ensuring the children look smart when in school.  

We are really sad to say goodbye to Rebecca Eldridge, Saturn Class teacher who is leaving today.  Rebecca has recently moved further out of London and has secured a job closer to home.  Alex Dawson, will be joining us in January as an Assistant Headteacher, who will be Saturn Class's teacher.   We are also saying goodbye to Suze Wynne, who has been on maternity leave for the past year.  Suze has decided that she would like to spend more time with the baby and won't be returning to work.  I know you will join me in wishing Rebecca and Suze the very best and welcoming Alex into the school.  

A big thank you parents for your continued support this term.   On the behalf of all the staff at Grange Park, we wish you a Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year.   The spring term starts on Tuesday 3 January 2023.  

With my very best wishes to you and your families.   Stay safe and well and see you all in 2023!

Tijen Hassan

Headteacher 

 Please click to view term dates for 2022 - 2023 

Please click to view term dates for 2023 - 2024 

Christmas is here! 

While it is always tempting to use our chromebooks for personal use, this is a good time to be reminded that this should not be the case. As part of our safeguarding routine check-ins we run reports on the children’s IP addresses. It is clear that there are children that are using their chromebooks for searches that are not related to their learning.

1. The chromebook is provided to your child to support their learning and should not be lent to anyone else. 

2. It is your responsibility as a parent to ensure that your child’s chromebook usage is monitored.

3. The chromebook is fitted with Home Protect, which is a filtering software, but we would advise that your home internet settings are also high.

4. The school will monitor all activity on this device, please do not carry out or permit any activity that constitutes ‘unacceptable use’ as agreed in the acceptable use guidance, the online safety policy and remote education guidance. 

Please click the link:  Online Safety Policy

Please click the link: Remote learning Guidance 

Raise your child’s attendance and raise their chances. Missing school means missing out, attending regularly allows your child to:

1. Access learning

2. Be involved in all aspects of school life

3. Feel prepared for lessons each day

4. Make friendships and develop social skills

5. Be better prepared for secondary school

In March 2022 the Department for Education (DfE) released some updated guidance for schools regarding attendance. While this document is currently guidance, the DfE are committed to this guidance becoming statutory towards the end of this academic year.  They are clear that – 'pupils need to attend school regularly to benefit from their education. Missing out on lessons leaves children vulnerable to falling behind. Children with poor attendance tend to achieve less in both primary and secondary school.'

This guidance sets out very clearly what is expected of schools.

1. We are expected to have day-to-day processes to track and follow up absence and poor punctuality, and to apply these rigorously.

For example, as a minimum, our arrangements should include to:

• Contact parents on the first day of absence where a reason hasn't been provided and continue doing so where needed to ensure safeguarding 

• Review absences that are not explained for each session and contact parents to find out the reason why, and when the pupil will return

• Regularly inform parents about their child’s attendance and absence levels

• Hold regular meetings with parents of pupils considered to be vulnerable or those that are persistently or severely absent

2. The DfE expects primary schools to pay particular attention to persistently absent pupils. 

The definition given as follows:

• Persistent absence refers to pupils who miss 10% or more of school

Let's work together to encourage great attendance

1. Be particularly watchful and supportive in the run up to any assessments

2. Talk to us - we may be able to help and support you and your child if they sometimes want to stay at home. You are not alone, we can work together to find solutions so that little problems don’t become big ones!

3. Help them to catch up on missed work.

Other ways to support your child’s attendance:

1. Report your child’s absence straight away on ParentMail

2. Only allow days at home for genuine illness (you will know!)

3. Avoid taking holidays during term time, these are not authorised

4. Medical appointments should be made (or changed to) out of school hours

Congratulations goes to Grovelands family - the winning family this half term!

Hopefully after Christmas all children will be well rested and we can make an effort to reach our whole school attendance target of 97%

A massive well done to our ‘Always Stars’. ‘Always Star’ children are children who ALWAYS show that they follow the Big 3, they are ALWAYS respectful, resilient and show responsibility and they ALWAYS try their very best, taking on new challenges with a growth mindset and never giving  up. Here are the 'Always Stars’ for this half term.

The Nursery and Reception children performed their 'Magical Christmas Journey' concert this week.  What superstars each and everyone of them were!

On Thursday 8th December, the choir had a great time at Elizabeth Lodge and the residents really enjoyed our singing and smiles! 

Road safety week took place the week commencing 21.11.2022. We started off our week with our Junior travel ambassadors promoting Road safety in our themed assemblies. We looked at the importance of active travel, the benefits of it, parking, road safety and the green cross code.  Each year group took part during the week and completed an activity. Here are some examples:

At the end of last half term, Y5 were lucky enough to have visitors from University College London (UCL). Together with our children, we created an air quality experiment that was carried out over the last few months. The students returned to share their results with the children - and the news was quite positive actually, the general air quality around our school was quite good. If you look at the attached image, the map shows the order from best air quality (1) to worst (11). We then created posters to raise awareness of how to improve the air quality.

Restorative practice is a way of working with conflict that puts the focus on repairing the harm that has been done.  It helps to develop, maintain and repair relationships by building a community based around empathy and self-learning, where children take responsibility for their behaviour.’  It is about a fair process that allows everyone the opportunity to freely express their point of view, feelings and emotions and encourages children to take responsibility by thinking through the causes and consequences.

Supporting Early Reading Skills Nursery Parent Workshop’ hosted by Aine McCarthy

Together, we explored why early reading skills and experiences are essential for young children, ways to engage and motivate young readers and how the parent role has the potential to positively shape a child’s lifelong reading journey.  Many thanks to all the parents who came along to the workshop. You were all very engaged and hands on with the learning! 

There are still places on our brand new Animation and Photography club - contacted them directly to book. 

The DfE funded Holiday Activities and Food Winter Programme (HAF) is running in Enfield between 19th – 23rd December and 28th – 30th December 2022.    

Children and Young People in receipt of benefits related free school meals can receive up to 4 days of free fun and food across Enfield.  Each day will include a nutritious hot meal, snacks and a selection of activities ranging from football and swimming to coding and cooking. 

For more information: https://www.enfield.gov.uk/

For more information, email Ordnance Road Pantry : ordnancepantry@gmail.com

For more information, email Bounces Road Pantry:  sadiyaam@hotmail.com

For more information, email Other Support with Food: www.enfield.gov.uk/helpingyou

On Friday 9 December the children  took part in lots of festive activities and enjoyed a lovely Christmas lunch! 

We  also had a very special guest in the office...

The GPPSA would like to thank everyone involved this term from our parents and carers, the teachers and staff, Sean and Ilter, our local businesses that work with us to the Committee members for making it such a success!

We have had some fantastic events including the Halloween pumpkin carving and fancy dress, movie nights, bags2school collection, Xmasforschools, Guess the Bears birthday, various pop up stalls and of course the Christmas Fayre.  We are pleased to tell you that we raised over £7,500 alone from the Fayre which is fantastic! 

Overall this term we have raised £11,720 for the school farm.

The winner of the Christmas Raffle star prize was Sofia in Tiger Class who was presented with the iPad at the Fayre. The Guess the Bear birthday winners were Ibrahim in Jupiter, Eftelya in Jaguar, Sid in Kingfisher, Jamie in Picasso and Namari in Dragonfly.  Congratulations to all our raffle winners and all outstanding prizes have been distributed to the winners via the school office.

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 

WISHING YOU A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM ALL ON THE 

GPPSA COMMITTEE!

Click to go to our GPPSA page 

GPPSA - Looking to Help? 

The GPPSA would like to remind all that without your support none of the fundraising is possible. If you would like to get more involved please let us know at gppsa@hotmail.co.uk or speak to any of the committee directly.

We have a WhatsApp helpers group where information is shared and everyone is welcome to join! Please contact us to find out more.

Please also follow us on Facebook and Instagram @Grangeparkprimaryassociation.

THANKS AGAIN FOR ALL YOUR CONTINUED SUPPORT FROM ALL ON THE GPPSA COMMITTEE!

We have all been very busy in Acorn class getting ready for Christmas. The children really enjoyed the process of making salt dough decorations. They helped to measure out all of the ingredients and mixed together the dough. They carefully cut out their shape and once the decorations had dried, painted and decorated them.  We learnt about the artist Claude Monet and looked at his winter scene paintings. The children created their own winter scene paintings.

We made Christmas stockings, stained glass windows and reindeer footprints. 

Reception have thoroughly enjoyed their unit of People who help us this half term. We have been so lucky to have so many visitors come and share their interesting and inspiring jobs with the children. 

We were visited by Ayda’s Mum in Daffodil class, who works for the London Marathon. She spoke to the children about the importance of being active. She explained to the children that exercise helps to keep our hearts stronger, stay focused and helps to develop our brains. She explained, when people who finish the London Marathon would receive a medal. We even got to keep one for our class!

She explained that the London Marathon is for adults but also there is a mini Marathon for children to take part.  At the end, we all joined in with some exercises which was great fun.

We even had a visit by the London Fire Brigade where the children were able to explore all of the different tools and equipment the firefighters use, they tried on their helmets and even got to spray a fire hose!

Year One were very lucky to go to the Enfield Town Community Church and have an immersive experience of the Nativity story.  It was fantastic! 

Some Year 1 children also had a visit from the London Fire Brigade

The children in Year 2 enjoyed taking part in their Great Fire of London workshop, where they travelled back in time to 1666. They started the morning by becoming apprentices on the streets of London, learning skills common for workers of the era like leather working, metal working, sewing, bread making, candle making and practising medicine. 

As the children learned their trades, the fire was spreading. With the flames drawing closer, the children pretended to take action to stop it.  In the afternoon, the children excavated what was left in the city, looking for personal belongings and documents. They used these to identify which apprentices the items belonged to.

A festive bumper edition for year 3 this time round with a lot of learning and activities going on to finish off a great half term.

In history sessions we have continued to look at the stone age period, exploring communities and tools using Google jamboard, where  the whole class has been working in groups on the same document to create some amazing information pages.

We have also been exploring a neanderthal diet, looking at some actual stone age ‘poo’ to find the remains of berries, seeds and vegetables.  This helped us get an understanding of how they scavenged and gathered during the period.

In our RE and Christianity learning, we had a visit from Zacchaeus himself who shared his religious story from the bible about his meeting with Jesus.  His story is an important lesson about treating each other with kindness and honesty, a good message for us to think about and reflect upon.

As well as this, it was road safety week where we explored how to cross roads safely and the importance of planning a safe route to and from places.  Knowing where the problems might be is key to staying safe on busy roads.

This half term, year 4 have been sampling a variety of breads and fillings as part of the design and technology unit ‘European Sandwiches’.  The children have sampled foods from across Europe, including turkey ham, feta cheese, mozzarella, tomatoes, beetroot, baguettes and ciabatta bread. 

Each ingredient was rated by the children after sampling and the children used their results to decide what they will use to make their European sandwich. Using the famous ‘Michelin star’ as a model, the highest rating that an ingredient could receive was 3.

In preparation for the main event, the children have planned and designed their final outcome and will evaluate their work once their sandwich has been made.

As part of our R.E topic for this half term, Y5 visited the Palmers Green Mosque. This was a fantastic opportunity for the children to see another place of worship - building on their trips to a church in Y1 and a synagogue in Y4. They had the opportunity to see the key features and ask questions about the building and the religion. The children were fantastic representatives of our school - Well done Y5!

In Science, Year 6 are learning about the Human Circulatory System! We have been focusing on the role of blood in the system and the different parts that it is made up of.  To support our understanding of this, we created Blood Soup! After researching the different parts of blood and its role, we used mini marshmallows, rice, orange squash and jelly cubes to create our soup.  Each ‘ingredient’ represented a different part of blood (plasma, white blood cells, red blood cells and platelets). It was a really fun lesson and helped us to understand the importance of the different parts of blood.