Dear parents

We are all still so shocked and devastated about the unexpected death of a pupil in year 4, our thoughts are with the family at this difficult time.  Today we held a minute's silence in honour of the young boy.  We also took a moment to reflect on what we are appreciative and thankful for.   Classes and children across the school have written messages of support, memories, drawn pictures and this is going to be created as a book and be presented to the family during the funeral next week.  We will organise a memorial at the school in consultation with the relatives in due course.  Thank you for your kind words of support during this difficult time.  

I hope you all enjoy spending time with friends and family during this long weekend and see you in all in school on Tuesday 9 May.  

With my very best wishes. 

Tijen Hassan

Headteacher 

 Please click to view term dates for 2022 - 2023 

Please click to view term dates for 2023 - 2024 

It is normal for children to deal with "bad news" in different ways.   It is very difficult to predict how any individual child will respond. Some children may be immediately sad or angry while for others, they will have no obvious response until something occurs that makes the loss ‘real’ or personally meaningful.

Myths and Facts

“We should protect children from difficult and upsetting information.”

In fact, children can be more resilient that we suppose. The key is to provide simple and factually accurate information, being honest about what is known and not known. It is much more problematic to leave children to their own imaginations and the speculations of others. Secrets and lies are damaging to relationships and communities.

“Traumatic incidents should be dealt with by specialist mental health professionals.”

School staff who know the children, parents and other staff are usually the best people to give the news and provide support. Familiarity and relationships are key at difficult times. We know this is a big ask of staff, and there are external agencies involved to support staff.

“The sooner we provide specialist counselling, the quicker everyone will recover.”

In fact, research tells us that a graduated response is more effective. It’s important not to pathologize or rush the very normal feelings and processes which we experience after traumatic events. Some children and adults may need additional support in the medium to long term, but initially, it’s most important to provide support.

Well done to all the children who took part in the TCS Mini London Marathon on Saturday 22 April 2023.  The children were in awe as they went past Buckingham Palace and over the world-famous finish line at The Mall! The TCS will donate £10 to the school for every child who took part- and this time around it was nearly 100 children from Grange Park! Well done again everyone!

At the Grange Park Coronation Party, we held our own version of the  Kings Coronation Regalia Parade.   The Party involved the children playing a selection of traditional games with a royal theme, including Traditional English Dancing,  a Right Royal Quiz,  Dress the King for the Coronation,  keep the Crown on your head, egg and spoon relay race and many more. 

As with all of our family events, we are always incredibly proud of the children at Grange Park and the way that they exhibit our core values.   It is always so lovely to see children across the years coming together, working collaboratively and including one another in their play. 

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 last half term.

The GPPSA would like to thank everyone that took part in the readathon and smarties for silver challenge.  The winners of the readathon are Zayed - Tulip and Lauren in Jupiter class.   The readathon raised £251.87 and the smarties to date raised £363. 49.  The last Mad Hair day raised £395.66. 

We are also looking forward to the Friendship discos for the children on Friday 12th and 19th May and the Quiz Night (adults only) at 7pm on Thursday 18th May. Tickets are on sale now.

On Sunday 2nd July we will be holding our Summer Festival. Please let us know if you are able to have an estate agent board outside your home by completing the google form that will be sent out via ParentMail. If you are interested in having a stall, can volunteer on the day or can donate a prize for the raffle please let us know.

Thank you for your continued support! 

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!

As part of our topic ‘The World Around Us’ the children have been investigating how sunflowers grow.  They planted seeds and painted individual sunflowers like the artist Vincent Van Gogh using different brushes and tools.

The children enjoyed spotting signs of spring emerging and identifying living things. Before our walk we discussed the features of things that live and grow and made a wish list of things we were hoping to see in our playground. The children were on the hunt for ladybirds, butterflies, leaves, frogs and flowers. 

Year 1 had a very interesting and interactive session with The Freshwater Theatre company who ran a session for us called ‘A Quest for Space'. We became real life astronauts and prepared for a space launch to the moon. On the journey we learned about planets in the solar system. We recreated the journey of Neil Armstrong who was the first person to ever step on the moon in July 1969. It was a brilliant experience and all the children enjoyed their time in space.

Year 2 had a fantastic visit to the National Gallery where we were really lucky to see some paintings by some very famous artists! We especially enjoyed seeing 'Surprised' by Henri Rousseau as we’ve been looking at this jungle painting in class. We learnt that he got all his ideas from visiting botanical gardens and looking at pictures in books. We were quite surprised to find out the picture is very big! We also saw some paintings by Turner and Stubbs including a picture of a horse called 'Whistlejacket'. Some of the children said “The horse looked so real, I can’t believe it’s not a photo!” 

A busy first week back for Year 3! This week in Science, we have started our new topic of light. We have been learning about different light sources and went on a light treasure hunt. During this hunt, we carried out an investigation to discover how hard or easy it is to see objects in different amounts of light. We used boxes with peepholes and torches to try and identify the object inside, we then had to sort the objects according to how easy or hard they were to see in the light. 

Year 4 has been learning about Ancient Rome and we were very lucky to be able to visit the Verulamium Museum. Outside, we were able to see the remains of the town wall and tower which once surrounded the entirety of St Albans! We also got to see a hypocaust which is an ancient Roman heating system under the floor of a building and the idea is still used today! Inside the museum, we saw artefacts such as mosaics, pottery and household items that were discovered many years ago by archaeologists. 

This term, Year 5 started their new Geography unit on South America! We began by locating secret operatives across different countries within South America! The children worked in teams, using key clues to help us locate which country each operative was hiding in. The clues consisted of telling us whether the country had a rainforest, a river, was land locked or contained a capital or major cities. 

In year 6, we have been studying microorganisms in Science. Microorganisms are very tiny living things. They are so small that they are not visible to the naked eye, so a microscope is needed to see them. Microorganisms can be found all around us. They can live on and in our bodies, in the air, in water and on the objects around us. They can be found in almost every habitat on Earth.

 We compared different types of microorganisms: Some animals and plants; fungi, Bacteria and viruses.  To see this in investigation, we created an experiment to see how mold grows. We put 3 slices of bread in food bags and placed them in 3 different locations (by the window, on the bookcase and in a cupboard) to see which location is the best place to keep our bread.

"I predict that the bread in the cupboard will grow the most mold due to it being warm in that location." Sophie 

"I predict that the bread near the window will grow the most mold as it is in a sunny place."  Samuel