Dear parents

I have been so very proud of all the children this term.   We started off the half term talking to the children about our character trait 'determination' and it's been wonderful to see how the children have displayed this across the term.  We had our very first Music Extravangaza Concert whereby our orchestra, choir and musicians performed to parents.  The children in Year 3 and 4 were amazing in their concert to their parents and I was so impressed with the children who performed at the Dance Festival this week.  Well done everyone! 

Thank you for joining in the fun with our Wacky Crazy Mad Hair Day and raising money for our school.  It was great greeting the children this morning as they were coming into school with their hair styles! 

We are sadly saying goodbye today to Lloyd Newey, as he has secured a Deputy Headteacher position at another school.  Lloyd has had a huge impact in the school as his role as Assistant Headteacher and I know he will be very much missed by the children and the staff and you will join me in sending Lloyd our very best wishes. 

Thank you parents for your continued support this term.   I hope you all have a lovely Easter break.    See you all back on Monday 17 April. 

With my very best wishes to you and your families.

Tijen Hassan

Headteacher 

 Please click to view term dates for 2022 - 2023 

Please click to view term dates for 2023 - 2024 

If you have any concerns about bullying, please arrange to speak to your child’s class teacher or email the school office who will pass your concern on to the relevant member of staff. We would also like to remind you of our ‘Virtual Trust Box’ located on your child’s Google Classroom or linked to the home page of the school website. This is a space where your child can voice any concerns or worries that they may have confidentiality and be assured that it is looked at daily and will be acted upon promptly.   Also here is a Link to the school’s Anti-Bullying policy which outlines our approach to preventing and tackling bullying.

Grange Park would like to thank you for your persistence and support in ensuring that your children maintain good attendance percentages. Many children at Grange Park have 100% attendance. This half term we have 371 children who have achieved 100% attendance. We are very proud of these children and they have been celebrated in our assemblies this week. Keep it up! These high rates of attendance ensure that children maximise their progress as learners. We endeavour to ensure that we make learning engaging at Grange Park, and are so pleased that children are happy in the school environment, wanting to come to school each day.

We have set the ambitious target of 97% for whole school attendance in 2022 2023 academic year. We are working together with you to try to reach this goal.

In order to do this, please be reminded:

Absence procedures: Parents should contact the school on the first day of their child’s absence through ParentMail. When parents notify us of their child’s absence it is important that they provide us with details of the reason for their absence.

Appointments: We understand that occasionally it is necessary to take your child out of school for medical appointments however please try and arrange these after school or during the holidays if you can.  Please always let the office know in advance.  Many of our children find a change to their routine difficult to manage, so in order to minimise the impact on children’s progress and wellbeing, we politely ask that you try to bring children to school for part of the day if the appointment is not a whole day one. 

On Saturday 25 March at 8:30pm, millions of people across the globe united to show that they care about the future of our planet, by switching off for Earth Hour. It all started in 2007 when more than 2.2 million people and 2,000 businesses in Sydney, Australia switched off their lights for one hour in order to tackle inaction about climate change and protect nature.

That one particular hour has gone global, with more than 190 countries participating in switch-off events every year with the same aim as in 2007 - to unite the world in caring for our planet.

At Grange Park, we took time out to reflect on what sustainability means and how we can make a difference by having our very own Earth Hour from 2 - 3pm on Friday 24 March. We switched off devices, screens and lights in the classroom and made sure we weren’t using photocopiers or any other equipment during the hour. This reminded us that even small actions can make a big difference when all of us join in to collectively reduce environmental impact.

Did you know?

During Earth Hour, we saved around 300 Kwh of electricity. That’s roughly 1 kg less CO2 in the atmosphere.

After two terms of learning either saxophone or clarinet, year 4 performed to their parents in an amazing concert. They have made so much progress since September and should really be proud of themselves!

We have had another fantastic term of Enrichment Clubs.  With 31 clubs to choose from including the new Coding Club and Junior Newsround Up, there was something for everyone to get involved in no matter what their talents or interests were.  Last week we held our Spring Showcase and I was so impressed with the wonderful things that the children have been learning and making in their clubs. Lots of new skills were harnessed and as always the children showed our school value ‘Resilience’ and character trait ‘Determination’. 

We still have spaces on some of our fantastic clubs so  keep an eye on your parentmail as any clubs available to book will pop up here. Alternatively  if you missed the original letter and would like to see what’s on offer. See the schedule here. 

We managed to raise a massive £1,240 on our Non Uniform Day for the Turkey/Syria Earthquakes.  The money went directly to support three families in Turkey, see below.  Thank you all for your generous donations.  

The GPPSA would like to thank all those for joining in with the sponsored readathon. The 2 lucky winners will be notified after the Easter break.

Thanks also to The Pantry for helping us with the Easter cookie sale and for parents/carers for purchasing these for the children. Hopefully everyone enjoyed them!

And lastly a reminder about the smarties for silver fundraiser. The children will each be given a tube of smarties today. In exchange for the treats, we would like the children to fill the empty tubes with 20p coins by completing tasks for family and friends over the next 2 weeks.

The summer festival is fast approaching. Please let us know if you are interested in having an estate agent board up outside your home, if your employer can stall match, if you are able to donate any prizes for the raffle or provide us with any support. 

Thanks again for all your support and we hope you enjoy the holidays.

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 

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!

In Acorn Nursery we have enjoyed listening to the story ‘Superworm’ and the wonders of all the amazing things Superworm can do with his body! We have been learning new ways to move our bodies outside in the adventure playground: balancing, climbing and swinging! Many of us have faced our fears climbing great heights and learning to jump down safely to the ground again.

Spring has arrived and Reception have been very lucky this half term as we have had some chicks hatch at school! The eggs arrived in the incubator and we were able to see the chicks hatching. Once they were ready, the chicks were put into the brooder and we had to ensure that we cleaned them out and kept giving them fresh food and water. The children learnt about the life cycle of the chicks as well as how to look after them. They wrote about how to care for the chicks organising their writing using vocabulary such as: first, next, then and finally. Lyra said, “This is the best day ever!” when she arrived at school and saw the chicks were visiting Tulip class. This visit has got the children really excited about our topic next half term: Living and Growing. 

This term Year One was lucky enough to go to Woodcroft Wildspace.  It is a place where you can enjoy and explore nature, insects, birds, pond life, plants and trees in a natural habitat.    When we arrived we were split into 3 groups.  There were three activities which we each completed. The first activity we learnt about plants and trees. We matched seeds and leaves to different types of trees and we found out how old the trees were by counting the rings on their trunks. We also looked at bee hives. Each bee hive had 50,000 bees in each!

Did you know that each bee makes half a teaspoon of honey in its life?

Our second activity was a mini beast hunt. We had to lift logs and look in the wild space to find different types of minibeasts. We had so much fun!

Our third activity was our favourite. We went pond dipping. It was so much fun!  We were shown how to hold the nets correctly and we told which creatures to try and find.   We found pond skaters, ram horn snails, frog spawn and larvae.   We had such a fantastic time at Woodcroft and can't wait to visit again.

Year 2 have been busy learning about seed germination. We have conducted two experiments. Our first experiment involved us placing cress seeds in milk bottle lids to see how they grow in different conditions. Some of our seeds have access to sunlight and water, some only have sunlight, some only have water and some seeds have no light and no water. We made predictions based on what we already know about plants - connecting our learning to Year 1.

The end of the spring term but a busy end

We have been finishing our sewing to make stone age hunter gatherer bags, taking a local walk around Winchmore Hill and even making our own pizzas.

Last week we went to our local area of Winchmore Hill to explore how the area has changed over the years. As part of this we asked local shops and business about their experience of the area and also questioned local residents about what they like about the area.  All this before taking a walk to Grovelands park and St Paul’s church.

Also we have been exploring the history of pizza and how they have originated from ancient times become then national dish of Italy.  We made our own dough from flour and water before using cutting techniques to prepare our toppings.   We then added them according to our design before cooking and tasting them as part of our evaluation.

Year 4 has been learning about figure drawings. We have looked at the famous masters of the skill such as Da Vinci, Sanzio and Michaelangelo. The children have learnt about the importance of using the correct proportions, tone and shadow using light pencil strokes to build a drawing and also using 3d shapes to create the figure of the human body.

In Year 5, we have been creating art pieces, inspired by pop artist David Hockney!

Hockney was one of the first artists to make extensive use of acrylic. Being fast drying it suited his technique of painting large areas of flat colour and then adding details. He also felt that the fast-drying acrylic paint was more suited to portraying the sun-lit, clean-contoured suburban landscapes of California than slow drying oil paint.  We created our own interpretations of Hockney’s work, focusing on vibrant pops of colour, linked to Hockney’s pop art style, including the use of wax resin. 

The children in year 6 have been learning to draw using one point perspective. This is a drawing method that shows how things appear to get smaller as they get further away, converging towards a single ‘vanishing point’ on the horizon line. It is a way of drawing objects upon a flat piece of paper (or other drawing surface) so that they look three-dimensional and realistic. They then applied a variety of watercolour painting techniques to their sketch and I’m sure you would agree the results are fantastic. Well done year 6.