Dear Parents

Welcome to another jammed packed edition of the News Roundup. This time round we have changed the order of some of the articles, so do make sure you read until the very end so you don't miss anything!

Those of you who have been coming to school would have noticed our incredible playground markings. They have transformed the playgrounds (along with the wonderful plants and hedging that has been planted along the paths). A big THANK YOU for your donations and raising the money to enable this to happen. Please read the GPPSA section to find out what more you can do to help. You will notice that the GPPSA logo has been redesigned and it looks great!

It's really exciting that that we have launched our very own TWITTER account today! Please do follow us to keep updated on what's going on at the school.

It is amazing how well the children who have been coming into school have settled and adapted to the new routines and practices. Having reviewed our risk assessment to identify whether we have the capacity to welcome back any additional year groups we are pleased to invite selected children from additional year groups, part time. However unfortunately we do not have the capacity to invite back whole year groups before September. We are organising ways to support the children with transitions at the end of the year and I will send some more information about this next week. You may have heard that the Governments plans for reopening of schools next academic year will be published next week and they are hoping that all children will return to school by September. We will let you know more about plans for September once we have had the opportunity to formulate a plan. In the meantime we will continue to support you and the children in anyway we can.

Julie Cowley, play leader, is sadly leaving us on Monday. She's been working at Grange Park for 20 years, before that her children came here and she even came here as a child. Your smile and various shades of multicoloured hair will be missed Julie!

With my very best wishes to you and your families.

Tijen Hassan

Headteacher

Please do advise us of any changes regarding your child's physical or mental wellbeing that we should know of, preferably before they return. Let us know, even if you are not sure it is relevant or significant – the more information we have about your child, the better we can support them.

Negative experiences and distressing life events, such as the current circumstances, can affect the mental health of children and their parents. We will endeavour to ensure appropriate support is in place for children. In partnership with parents, we will work to identify those who might need some temporary or more long term additional support and put this in place.

Staff working with children are also aware and have been updated on the possible impact current circumstances can have on the mental health of children (and their parents), who are continuing to work from home, including when setting expectations of learning. Space and time will being given in the curriculum to consider children’s thoughts, feelings and emotions to support them to understand and process these. Please click on the images below for help and support.

Whilst more children return to school, others will continue to stay at home and, in many cases, will be continuing to engage with Google Classroom. At Grange Park, we continue to consider the safety of children working online. We will be vigilant to ensure that use of online learning tools and systems is in line with privacy and data protection requirements. Children who are being asked to work online know how to raise any concerns. Please continue to remind children to do this and do monitor their use, as the News Roundup article also reinforced. Please click on the images below for more helpful advice.

Thank you so much for your continuing support of the school and of your children’s education. Please click on the images below which you will hopefully find helpful, and do also contact us via phone or email if you have any concerns or questions regarding safeguarding at Grange Park during this time.

Last week, children from across the school were given either an assignment, a story to read or an assembly to access to help them reflect on the Black Lives Matter protests that are occurring across the globe.

It is such an important and complex topic but one that is essential for the children to understand.

It has been amazing to read some of the children’s reflections - all illustrating the school’s values of respect for diversity. It has also been amazing to see some of the children’s mature approach to the topic, asking insightful questions, demonstrating a desire for change and trying to understand the history. We are so proud of the children for this and hope that these sorts of conversations will continue.

Please click on images below to read 'The day you begin' and the Blue Peter website where the presenters talk about their experiences of racism.

Sunday 21 June was World Music Day!

Here at Grange Park, the children have been busy making their own music. Here are some raps from year 6 written during the first week of lock down way back in May.

National Picnic Week

The change in weather could not have come at a better time. This week is officially National Picnic Week!

Children from across the school have been set the challenge to design their favourite picnic and/or to host their very own (taking social distancing into account). We cannot wait to see some of the photos. remember to look out for these in the next edition!

A lovely poem for the time...

Smile by Spike Milligan

Here are the results of the battles on Times Tables Rock Stars. Upcoming fixtures can be found on your child’s class stream. As part of our commitment to make maths exciting and high profile in our school, we will be participating in London Rocks 2020. It starts on Monday 22 June and finishes on Friday 26 June. Only points earned between 14:00 and 19:00 on each of those days will count, with the class in London with the highest average score receiving a prize.

Last week the children took part in the Grange Park bowling challenge. The children sent in photos and videos of them completing the challenge.

Well done to everyone that took part!

GPPSA NEWS & UPDATES

We are the official fundraising arm of Grange Park Primary School and look to bring parents, families, friends, staff and local communities together socially to support our school.

2019/20 TARGETS

So far this school year we have raised £12,280 and funded 30 electronic devices, 8 LCD screens, made a contribution towards becoming a forest school and the new playground markings to name a few!

LATEST NEWS As you can see the GPPSA has had a bit of a redesign….we hope you like our new logo as much as we do! The logo has been designed to bring us in line with the school brand and to sit as part of the Grange Park family. We’ve kept our look clean and modern, with a twist by introducing the turquoise, so you’ll know any communications from us is clearer.

SUMMER TERM FUND This week we shared a letter with you all, highlighting the sizeable hole that both the school and the GPPSA have in their 2020 finances in the hope that you can help. With the current situation the GPPSA have had to cancel at least 6 months’ worth of fundraisers and without them we are unable to fund the items for the children that the school has prioritised for September.

At this stage we have resorted to the old fashioned approach and are simply asking for donations through our Summer Term fund page or text, any donation of any size will be gratefully received….

Playground markings

Offers and discounts

Looking for a fun and crafty activity your kids will love? Try a Free ToucanBox (P&P only) and our school will receive £5. You can cancel the subscription at any time. Just remember to click this link.

LOOKING TO HELP? The GPPSA would like to remind all that without your support and if you would like to get more 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.

Nursery children have been busy at home and school learning about 2d shapes. They have created imaginative shape pictures and engaged in hands-on activities to help them describe shapes by their properties: sides and corners.

We had a momentous lift off in nursery this week for our Learning Quest activities! Children made rockets, grew their own rainbows and sent astronauts to the moon!

Year 1 have been exploring their love of reading both in school and at home. The teachers and children have been sharing their favourite books with each other. We have discovered that reading gives us the ability to go on lots of new exciting adventures at any given moment in the day!

Once again, Year 2 students have amazed us with their maturity, hard work and enthusiasm for their home learning. Last week we looked at a poem called 'The Magic Box' by Kit Wright and we challenged the children to write their own version of the poems and record themselves to share with the class. As always the children excelled in their creativity and put a huge smile on everyone’s faces with their fabulous poetry skills. Well done superstars. We love being creative and using this to develop our science knowledge - we made our own terrariums (gardens in a jar) and researched the rainforest. Another activity Year 2 have enjoyed this week was the PE challenge, where they had to spell their names completing different challenges for different letters, they remembered that keeping active was one of the 5 ways to mental wellbeing!

This week, we have been deepening our creative writing skills. Some of us designed innovative schools for aliens, wizards, minibeasts and more! We have been applying our grammatical knowledge too: weasel words, imperative verbs and alliteration. Other children have been developing spy gadgets, spooky setting descriptions and action-packed problems.

“In my story, the secret agents get into a sticky situation. It is very tense." stated Solomon - Ash

“When persuading pupils to attend my school, I’ve added rhetorical questions." explained David, Jupiter

Look at some of our creative school designs and spy gadgets below.

We have been working so hard in Jupiter bubble all week and decided to have lovely, calming brain breaks and think of our wellbeing. This week we created a gratitude jar and thought about everything we're the most thankful for.