News Roundup
13 February 2020
Dear Parents
Welcome to our very first edition of our ‘News Roundup’ on the web. Hopefully the layout is easier to view, especially on smartphones and tablets.
The children have been busy participating in a 10 minute fun run during their PE lessons last week. Thank you for your generous donations, we have already raised over £1,000 to go towards our new playground markings. You can still donate. If you haven’t done so already, please Click here
The GPPSA and parent volunteers have been very I know the parents in Year one would agree that the singing last week was amvhjcgently sang a range of songs, the sound of which filled the hall. Well done, year one!
It has been lovely to hear and see that our Acts of Kindness programme has been in full swing in some year groups. The children have signed up to a range of kindness acts, such as older children supporting younger children in the classroom, to Year 6 visiting Springview Care Home. These kindness acts really do make a difference in others’ lives. 'In a world where you can be anything, be kind.’
Wishing you all a restful half term break and see you all back on Monday 24 February 2020.
Tijen Hassan
Headteacher
Dates for the Diary
Class Assemblies
Term Dates, Holidays and School Closures
Keeping Children Safe
Swiggle - child-friendly search engine (SWGfL): Click here is a friendly search engine aimed at children in Key Stage 2. It has been designed and developed by South-West Grid for Learning, a charity dedicated to empowering the safe and secure use of technology. Swiggle.org.uk gives children a great start in encouraging responsible online searching. The internet is a vast resource, and some content is not appropriate for children. SWGfL recommends adding Swiggle to your browser or putting the Screen Cover link on your bookmark bar.
Swiggle is powered by Google Custom Search; the results are filtered using Google SafeSearch, and SWGfL has configured the results to prioritise educational resources. Swiggle also filters the search terms to check that it is not being used to search for inappropriate content.
Further information for teachers can be found here: Teachers' information.
The Swiggle search page is here: Swiggle
Coronavirus: As you may be aware, there has been lots in the news recently regarding the Coronavirus so we would like to reassure you that the school is receiving advice from Health Protection England to ensure that all our pupils remain safe. The advice to date is that we would reinforce with all staff and pupils the importance of good hygiene practices to stop the spread of infection.
All classes have boxes of tissues for the pupils to use and all pupils are being regularly reminded throughout the day that hands should be washed with soap and water, even if hands are visibly clean. Soap levels are also being checked and topped up where necessary. Shared areas and door handles are also being cleaned throughout the day to prevent the spread of infection. All classes have boxes of tissues for the pupils to use and all pupils are being regularly reminded throughout the day that hands should be washed with soap and water, even if hands are visibly clean. Soap levels are also being checked and topped up where necessary. Shared areas and door handles are also being cleaned throughout the day to prevent the spread of infection.
Here is the link for the latest Government advice for the Coronavirus: Click here
Parking: We have had a number of complaints from the local residents regarding parking issues at drop off and collection times. In particular there was an occasion when the resident returned home to find a car parked on their drive! Please be more considerate when parking in the local area as we do not wish to upset our neighbours.
HELP US KEEP YOUR CHILD SAFE
Attendance
Well done to Broomfield who had the best overall attendance of 96.67%. Congratulations to Leopard who won best class overall.
Please support your child’s education by ensuring they have the best possible attendance.
Year Group News
Nursery
Acorn Nursery were extremely excited to have a parent visitor in class to help them make alphabet bunting for our Outdoor Learning environment.
Luca’s mummy brought her sewing machine into school to sew all the letter sounds on with the children.
Everyone used their kind, helpful hands to find all the sounds and put them in alphabetical order. The challenge at the end was folding the bunting up but everyone did a fantastic job working as a team!
Year One
Year 1 have been working hard in D&T to make chairs for a Teddy. We carefully selected the materials we wanted to use and joined them together.
‘I had so much fun making the chairs.’
‘I really had to make sure the chair wasn’t too small for the Teddy.’
‘I found that working with my friend to join the materials really helped.’
Year Three
Year three have made pizzas this term in their design and technology learning quest unit, inspired by their local community, Winchmore Hill.
‘I really enjoyed kneading the dough to make the base of the pizza.’
‘We used the bridge and claw technique to cut our vegetables to put on our pizza. We chose vegetables as the main ingredient to make an informed choice.’
Year Six
As part of their PSHE topic ‘Dreams and Goals’, Year 6 visited Springview Care Home. When they arrived, the children spoke to the residents about their personal dreams and goals, as well as dreams for the world.
The residents shared their dreams with the children and the children were lucky enough to ask questions about how they achieved these.
After this, the children taught the residents some card games and enjoyed playing these with them. Some of the residents even taught the children some of their favourite card games!
“It was an eye opening experience!”
“It was really interesting hearing about their dreams and goals from when they were younger.”
Other News
Road Safety Week
As part of our road safety week, Yr 6 took part in a competition with other local schools. Luke and Imogen, Kandinsky class were awarded runners up.
It was a fantastic effort, well done to both!
Timestables Rockstars
The latest results of our Times Table Rock Stars family competition show that it was won by Grovelands family. Well done to all the children that are consistently contributing towards their family scores. In class, we are seeing significant progress in maths of those children that are regular players of the game. Please ensure that your children are using the program as much as possible: to improve their times tables, have fun while doing so and help their family win the next event, which begins straight away. The next winning family will be announced on 24 February and will include the week of half-term. Rock on!
Sporting Update
A massive well done to our Year 4/5 girls who won the Futsal Tournament at Edmonton County School (pictured). The girls played 7 games winning 6 and drawing one. The girls will now go on to represent Middlesex in the female Futsal schools cup.
More great news for our girls Football team, they won 3 games and drew 1 and did not concede a goal to win the group at the Spurs Official Premier League Primary Stars. The girls will now represent Grange Park at Hotspur Way.
Our boys team also performed brilliantly and came runners up in the Spurs official Premier League Primary stars tournament, winning 3 games and drawing 2.
The Boys and girls Tag Rugby team represented Grange Park in 4 league games at Merryhills, winning 3 and losing 1 game, showing some great skills and determination.
All our teams have shown amazing skills , attitude and teamwork representing Grange Park. Well done everyone!
Playground Singing Leaders
Every week our Playground Singing leaders are out in all weathers helping others to join in with singing and clapping games on the playground. They now have smart new jackets with ‘Grange Park Primary School playground Singing Leader’ on the back. Don’t they look smart?
Keeping Grange Park Sustainable
Crisp packets are not normally recyclable but in Trent Park, Southgate Hockey Club have a recycling centre where they can be recycled. Find out more at: Click here
"At today's consumption rate in 33 years time there will be 200 billion crisp packets either sent to landfill or polluting our oceans. Many will be ingested by animals, fish or birds, leading to their slow, lingering death."
Every little helps!
Free February Half Term Cycle Training
Cycle Enfield are once again offering FREE half term holiday cycle skills for various age groups Monday 17 February – Friday 21 February. These FREE sessions are happening at Russet House Primary School. Please be aware this is the only opportunity for younger children (age 4-9) to receive training of this kind. Training can be booked here: Cycle confident.
Curriculum News
Acts of Kindness
This year we have introduced our Acts of Kindness programme with Y6 and Y1 and we are rolling it out in other year groups too. Children receive training in order to carry these jobs out. AOK duties might include: Helping in the dining hall - alongside play leaders and kitchen staff - in order to improve the dining experience for all; helping lunchtime sports coaches to run games for children in the 1 and 2 playground and supporting the learning of Nursery or Reception children in class.
This programme happens during the children's own time at lunchtimes, and children are also able to select self-chosen duties to carry out.
Children have also started to identify acts of kindness of their classmates, in order to share successes and to encourage each other.
Acts of Kindness are part of our community driver - where children consider ways they can improve the lives of others and the difference they can make, starting with their school community.
Children have also considered one-off, spontaneous and random acts of kindness that they can do themselves in their classrooms and around the school, as well as at home with their families; in fact, year 6 came up with a list! Why not add your ideas to these and try some out on your family and friends:
- Close a locker door, even if it’s not yours
- Pick up some litter, even if it’s not yours
- When you’ve finished tidying your table, help someone else tidy theirs
- Make somebody laugh
- Give somebody a specific compliment that you really mean
- Ask someone about their day and listen to the answer!
- Tidy your room
- Offer to do the washing up
Reception and nursery children are being encouraged to show kindness in small ways, and learn about being kind through stories and their own learning.
We want to ensure children grow this very important life skill - that of giving selflessly to others even when we don't feel like it! We are considering how these acts and others like them can affect society, both now and in the future, growing kind and thoughtful children that make a difference in the world.
Quotes from children who have benefitted from our AOK programme so far:
'They did a puppet show,. The giraffe ate the person. It was funny!' Albert in Acorn
'They played football with me and I scored more times than them - 89!' Max in Acorn
GRANGE PARK PRIMARY SCHOOL ASSOCIATION
News and Updates
We are the official fundraising arm of Grange Park Primary and look to bring parents, families, friends, staff and local communities together socially to support our school.
This year the school have identified that they need funding for two IT projects (60 electronic portable devices and 8 LCD screens), PE Equipment, reading hub books, a contribution towards becoming a forest school and new playground markings to name a few!
So far this school year we have raised £10,835.50
GPPSA VACANCIES We are still looking for a new Secretary, Treasurer and a Communications/ Fundraising Officer to help us this year. Also general committee members. If you are interested or just want to have a chat about the roles, please contact us. Our next meeting is Wednesday 26 February at 8.30pm so please come along and see what we do! This time it is at one of our houses, so contact us for address details.
SUMMER FESTIVAL planning has started…..remember to save the date - Sunday 5 July 11am-3pm. We are looking as always for sponsorship, commercial stalls, stall matching, raffle donations, new festival/stall ideas and acts for the showcase so if you are keen to help, please get in touch at gppsa@hotmail.co.uk
Quiz Night
We just wanted to say a massive thank you to all those that came to the QUIZ NIGHT on Saturday. It was a fun night and a big congratulations to Bill and the Scuzzy Mummies who were the winning team.
They kindly donated their winnings back to the us which was a lovely gesture! A big thank you also to Zoe from the committee who put together a fab night and to our host Mitch Winehouse.
GPPSA Sportathon
We also wanted to congratulate all those who did the GPPSA SPORTATHON last week. The feedback from the children was they had lots of fun and we have raised a whopping £1,565.50 towards our £5,000 target for new playground markings. The donate page is still open so if you would like to sponsor your child and their friends there is still time: Easy to donate.
This week we also had our Valentines Cake Sale and KS1 Disco. Thanks again to all those that came along and supported these two events. The winner of the best cake will be announced after half term and we are still counting the money and will let you know how much these two events raised in the next newsletter!
New Easy Ways to Help Raise Funds for our School
Have a look at the links below which show all the companies you can use when shopping, including Amazon Smile, easy fundraiser, my name tags and more.
You can log onto our page or search Grange Park Primary School, Winchmore Hill and whilst browsing over 4,000 retailers, shop as normal. When you check out, the retailer gives our school a donation to say thank you. It really is that easy! EASY FUNDRAISING: EasyFundraising
Amazon donates 0.5% of the net purchase price (excluding VAT, returns and shipping fees) of eligible purchases to the GPPSA. AmazonSmile is the same Amazon, you know - Same products, same prices, same service. Support us now by starting your shopping using the link above.
AMAZON SMILE: Amazon Smile
GRANGE PARK LOTTERY – you need to be in it to win it! Grange Park Lottery
In early 2020 we launched our new school lottery – tickets cost just £1 a week and everyone is welcome to join. The lottery will then be drawn weekly on a Saturday night… so good luck everyone. 40% of money raised is donated back to our school.
JUST DONATE: Just Donate
For some of our fundraisers we set up a simple donate page and ask parents to use the url or text service to donate money to a much needed cause! In February 2020 we raised over £1,650.50 for our new school playground markings.
MY NAME TAGS: https://www.mynametags.com/
Looking to get some new name stickers to personalise all your child’s uniform, shoes, books etc. Simply log onto the website as normal, shop and at the end add in our unique code 65741 before you check out. 24% from each order will be donated to our school. See the flyer on our website page for more information.
STAMPTASTIC:
https://stamptastic.co.uk/pages/school-welcome#a_aid=5afc2221a8630
Stamptastic is the fastest way to name all your belongings. A personalised stamp made in the UK, usable on fabric, metal, wood and some plastics. No more sewing or ironing in labels! Click on the link and 20% commission from each order will be donated to our school.
STALL MATCHING: One of the easiest ways for us to make money on our two Fayre/Festival days is through stall matching. If you work for any of these corporates or another company, please ask your HR department about stall matching and let the committee know.
LOOKING TO HELP? The GPPSA would like to remind all that without your support and attendance these events can’t happen so if you would like to get involved in anyway please let us know at gppsa@hotmail.co.uk or speak to any of the committee directly.
We have a new WhatsApp helpers group where information is shared and everyone is welcome to join! Please contact us to find out more.
