Dear Grazebrook Families

Welcome back to the second half of the Spring term! I hope you all had a restful half term break. For those in our community who were celebrating during half term, Happy Lunar New Year! And to those of you who mark the holy month of Ramadan, Ramadan Mubarak. We wish you a month of peace and joy. 

We are looking forward to another exciting and enriching half term at school. Some of the highlights coming up include World Book Day on Friday 6th March, where the children and staff will take part in a range of book-themed activities and are invited to dress up as a favourite book character or author. The children will also come home with a World Book Day voucher which they can use to purchase a World Book Day book at local book shops. 

We will also be celebrating British Science Week throughout March. This will include a range of STEM workshops and activities, science-themed Come Learn With Me sessions, and our much-anticipated annual Science Fair, which Year 1 to 6 families will be able to visit on Thursday 19th March at the following times: 

9.15am 1G    9.40am 1B    10.05am 4G    10.45am 4B    11.10am 2B    11.35am 2G

11.50am 3G    12.10pm 3B    1.40pm 5G    2.05pm 5B    2.30pm 6G    2.55pm 6B

The science fair will also be open for browsing after school during the parent/carer consultation evening for all families from Nursery to Year 6. 

Alongside this, children will be taking part in important road safety workshops delivered by the Hackney Road Safety Team.

Our wider curriculum trips and enrichment opportunities continue this half term and include:

• Cycle training for Year 5

• Intensive swimming lessons for 5B

• Scooter training for Nursery and Road Safety Training for Early Years and Key Stage 1

• Visits to places of worship for Years 1, 3 and 5

• Shakespeare workshops for Year 4

• A trip to the Florence Nightingale Museum for Year 2

• A 5-day residential for our Year 6 pupils

We are also pleased to invite you to our Parent/Carer Consultations, which will take place on Wednesday 18th March and Thursday 19th March from 3.40 - 6.00pm. 

These meetings are a wonderful opportunity to meet with your child’s class teacher, celebrate their progress and spend time looking through their work together.

Appointments will be available to book on Wednesday 4th March from 5pm. Full details on how to book will be shared at the end of the week.

Thank you, as always, for your continued support. We are looking forward to a busy and inspiring half term ahead.

Congratulations to our 5-a-side boys’ football team on their fantastic victory in the grand final of the Hackney Schools Tournament! The team demonstrated exceptional focus and collaboration, winning all of their playoff matches on the way to lifting the trophy.

We are also proud to share that our 8-a-side team has progressed to the final stages of their tournament, following in the footsteps of our girls’ team who reached the finals earlier in the year.

We are incredibly proud of the effort, determination, and resilience shown by all of our players. A heartfelt thank you goes to all the parents and carers who have generously volunteered their time to chaperone sports events and support the teams at matches and tournaments.

The teachers have been so impressed by how focused and creative the children have been in their geography lessons, both at school and through their learning at home. Here is a small selection of the projects that were shared.

We have already seen some incredible history home learning projects coming into school this week and can’t wait to see the upcoming science fair entries as well.

Keep up the great work, Team Grazebrook!

Year 1 have been busy developing a range of new skills. In art, they learned how to create simple, colourful prints. In computing, they used simple codes to run programmes, and in gymnastics they confidently travelled across apparatus. They also applied their problem-solving skills in maths lessons.

Year 4 conducted exciting investigations to explore how sound travels and how we hear. In geography, they enjoyed learning about volcanoes and earthquakes, including a visit to the Natural History Museum to enrich their understanding.

Year 6 and their families combined their scientific knowledge of light and shadows with their design and technology skills to create fantastic shadow puppet shows.

After practising in the playground, Year 5 took their cycling skills onto local roads, learning how to travel safely while demonstrating responsibility for our planet.

Well done to all our pupils for such a fantastic start to the Spring term!

A reminder that school starts promptly at 8.55am each morning. The lining up bell rings at 8.53am. This gives children two minutes to get into their line and be ready to learn. Children complete a learning review every morning as soon as they enter their classroom which includes arithmetic and spellings practice or deepening their understanding of key vocabulary from their knowledge organiser. Children who arrive after 8.55am miss this learning. The later children arrive at school, the more learning they lose, as lessons begin promptly at 9.00am. 

We would also like to remind you that requests for term time leave for holidays or visiting family abroad cannot be authorised unless in very exceptional circumstances. Fines will also be issued for extended absences. 

Please continue to support us by ensuring your child is at school as often as possible and that they arrive punctually each day. Thank you!