Grazebrook Primary School Bulletin
14th February 2025
Message from Mrs Beecroft
Dear Grazebrook Families
We have come to the end of another busy half term and once again, the staff have been incredibly impressed by the children's hard work, creativity, collaboration and kindness towards each other.
A huge thank you to those of you who were able to attend the PSA's AGM today and have volunteered to help run the PSA and organise our favourite family events including the summer fair. Your support means a great deal to us and we can't wait to work with you and the wider PSA community over the coming year.
The next half of term is shaping up to be action-packed as it will include: World Book Day, British Science Week, our Science Fair, a Wellbeing and Arts Day, charity events and the opportunity to submit an entry into The Royal Academy's Young Artists' Summer Show, as well as lots of Learning Celebration Assemblies, family activities, trips and workshops. Details of these events have been shared in letters on MCAS and in children's bags over the last few days. In case you have missed any of these, please see the Parent Letters section of the website. A summary of some of these events can be found below.
Please be reminded that the school is closed to pupils on Monday 24th February for a staff training day.
We wish you all a relaxing week and hope you are able to spend some quality time with family and friends. We are looking forward to seeing children back at school at 8.55am on Tuesday 25th February (Breakfast Club will be open from 8.00am as usual). For those of you celebrating today, we wish you a Happy Valentine's Day!
The Royal Academy's Young Artists' Summer Show
The Young Artists’ Summer Show is a free, open submission exhibition for young people aged 4 to 18 studying in the UK. Artworks are judged by a panel of artists and arts professionals, with selected artworks displayed online and on-site at the Royal Academy of Arts. We have now registered Grazebrook to take part which means that all the children from Reception to Year 6 can submit an entry and any Nursery children who are 4 years old. Children can either enter at home using this link or bring their entry into school no later than Friday 28th February and we will enter the project for you.
British Science Week
This year, Years 1 to 6 will be celebrating British Science Week at Grazebrook throughout March. The theme is ‘Change and Adapt’. Across the school, children will be asking and answering scientific questions through investigations and research. We will then hold our annual Science Fair on Thursday 27th March, which you will all be invited to. During the fair, children will be able to showcase their knowledge of science through demonstrations and presentations.
Please support your child over the holiday to think about the areas of science they are most passionate about and if they would like to share this knowledge at the Science Fair. Sign up sheets will be up in all Year 1 to Year 6 classrooms for children who wish to present a home learning project or home investigation at the fair. The deadline for signing up is Wednesday 12th March with projects needing to be brought to school between the 17th and 21st of March.
We are also inviting all children from Nursery to Year 6 to enter into a science poster competition. Children could create a poster showing how plants and animals adapt to changing seasons or surroundings, or how humans have adapted to changing technology. They could look at climate change and how we can adapt our behaviours to protect the environment, or their favourite science experiment and how it shows change. The more creative the interpretation of the theme, the better! The deadline for handing in posters is Monday 31st March 2025.
World Book Day
We will be celebrating World Book Day on Thursday 6th March. During the day, each year group will read the special book shown below together. Our Early Years theme is Identity and Belonging and our Key Stage 1 and 2 theme is Significant People. During the day, the children will create artwork, podcasts, poetry and performances in response to their shared texts. The children will also have a special book themed lunch and will be visited by a guest adult from across the school for a story time. We are also encouraging children to take part in our book swap by bringing a pre-loved book to exchange with a friend.
Children are very welcome to come to school dressed as a character from a favourite book. Please don't spend money on new clothes or books. We love seeing children's pre-loved and home-made costumes. Click here for this year's World Book Day low cost dressing-up pack for some ideas for easy and eco-friendly costumes.
Nursery
Reception
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Year 4
Year 5
Year 6
Spring 2 Key Dates
24/02 INSET Day - school closed to pupils
25/02 Start of Spring 2
25/02 Year 5 Bikeability Training Group 2
25/02 Nursery Road Safety Workshops
26/02 Reception Come Dine With Me @ 11.45am
26/02 Year 2 PSHE Workshops
27/02 Year 4 Come Learn With Me @ 9am
28/02 Year 1 Reading Breakfast @ 8.30am
03/03 Year 4 Shakespeare Explorer Drama Workshops
05/03 Year 6 Come Dine With Me @ 12.30pm
06/03 World Book Day
06/03 Year 5 Come Learn With Me @ 9am
06/03 WAMHS Family Coffee Morning - 'Managing Big Behaviour'
07/03 International Women's Day Celebrations
07/03 Year 1 Learning Celebration Assembly @ 10am
07/03 British Science Week Begins
07/03 Year 3 Parent Science Workshops
14/03 Year 2 Learning Celebration Assembly @ 10am
15/03 Zero Waste Hub at Woodberry Down
21/03 Nursery Family Friday @ 8.50am
21/03 Year 3 Learning Celebration Assembly @ 10am
21/03 Reception Family Friday @ 3pm
24/03 Year 5 Bikeability Training Group 3
27/03 Grazebrook Science Fair
27/03 Last Day of After School Clubs
02-04/04 Year 6 PGL Residential
03/04 Last Day of Our Space/Wraparound
04/04 Last Day of Spring Term
22/04 INSET Day - school closed to pupils
23/04 Start of Summer Term
EYFS News
The Nursery children loved having their families visit today to look at their profile books and celebrate all that they have been learning this term. They demonstrated all our Grazebrook values, but especially their focus and creativity. Well done Nursery and thank you families for making the time to come and say hello and celebrate with us.
Reception have been reading the book Iggy Peck Architect by Andrea Beaty and David Roberts and have been answering the question, ‘What is an architect?’ This week they have been designing their own homes and collaborating by using construction materials to build their own houses inside and outside the classroom.
Key Stage 1 News
Year 1 went on an adventure to the Southbank to find some London landmarks. They spotted The Shard, Roman ruins, the Golden Hinde and even travelled on the River Thames. They were so inspired by their travels that they created some incredible home learning - a sample of which are shown below. Thank you to all the Year 1 families who helped out on the trips and with projects.
Year 2 have been exploring and comparing the features of London and Alexandria. They were surprised to learn that even though London is a city, there are farms. On their trip to Hackney City Farm, they were able to meet lots of farm animals. The children especially loved seeing the newly born piglets and told all the adults about it when they got back to school.
KS2 News
Year 3 have been learning about rocks and soils in their science lessons. They read the book The Street Beneath My Feet by Charlotte Guillain and Yuval Zommer and created their own explanation texts about what you can find beneath your feet!
The children went on a rock hunt in Abney Park Cemetery where they were able to identify different types of rock by the amount of erosion they observed. They were also virtually visited by the fossil hunter, Mary Anning and wrote letters to her imagining that they were also fossil hunters.
The Year 3 teachers have been really impressed by the children's geography home learning and the variety of ways children have demonstrated their knowledge of settlements. Thank you to the Year 3 families who were able to attend the Come Learn With Me this week. Your settlements are being showcased in Key Stage 2 before they make their way home later this term.
Year 4 have been very creative, both with their home learning and in their lessons. The children have been thoroughly engaged in D&T where they have learnt about pneumatic systems and their purpose. The children designed and created their own moving monsters including simple pneumatic systems made from syringes and tubing.
In dance, the children have been mastering traditional Maori moves and performing a Haka. They have learnt about the importance of the Haka and its cultural significance to the Maori's. In computing, the children created an algorithm and then used repetition and count-controlled loops to make a sequence of steps. Their final product was to design wrapping paper and give precise instructions to the programme to create their product.
Year 5 visited Woodberry Wetlands to explore a range of habits and micro habitats. They took part in pond dipping using nets and trays to explore aquatic habitats and went minibeast hunting looking in the woodland habitats to discover the plants and small invertebrates that can be found within them.
We are very proud of all the Year 5 and 6 children who have represented Grazebrook at a range of sporting events this half term. Our teams have shown passion, dedication and collaboration to consistently make it through to the quarter and semi-finals in a range of Young Hackney and Arsenal in the Community netball and football tournaments. Thank you to the amazing parent volunteers who have joined us and cheered us on! We can't wait to celebrate their continued success next half term.
Year 6 had a fantastic morning participating in Transport For London's Junior Citizenship Scheme. They took part in a carousel of workshops learning about personal safety, hygiene and wellbeing.
During their Come Learn With Me, the children created posters for change, demonstrating their passion to make the world a better place.
In computing lessons, the children have been making fantastic use of their coding skills to develop games using Scratch on their iPad. They shared their creativity by airplaying their code and explaining their games to each other. They used the feedback they received to debug their programmes and make them even better!
Key Contacts
If you have any queries regarding your child's learning, the first point of contact is your child's class teacher. You can speak to them at the end of the day or contact our school office to arrange a phone call or face-to-face meeting. At times, you may wish to contact the member of staff in charge of your child's year group. At Grazebrook, these are:
Nursery and Reception: Ms Kelly O'Callaghan (EYFS Leader)
Year 1 and Year 2 and SENCo: Ms Alex Stockbridge (Assistant Headteacher)
Year 3, Year 4, Year 5 and Year 6: Ms Simone Bunbury (Deputy Headteacher)
All email queries, including those for the attention of a class teacher or school leader, should be sent to gboffice@newwavefederation.co.uk in the first instance with the addressee and/or topic in the subject line. These will be forwarded to the relevant member of staff.