The lovely Lighthouse!

One of the best parts of my job is when I go down to the Lighthouse and see all the fantastic things that are happening down there. The Lighthouse is our specialist centre for profoundly deaf children. They currently have 15 pupils there from 3 up to 11 years old. Within the centre, there are teaching rooms, a speech and language room, a cookery room and an amazing sensory room. The children in the centre spend part of their day in the Lighthouse and the rest of it in their classes. Last week, I popped down there and saw some great learning taking place.

Jay signing the Christmas story.

Romeo and Adriana signing their songs from the Foundation Stage's Nativity performance.

Francesco sharing his weekend news.

Luke looks very happy to have his mum in school. Here she is with Luke and the team that support him.

Jamie and Mayas invited two friends from 1S to join them in their cooking session.

Here is Alfie learning about different feelings.

Well done the Lighthouse. Keep up the great work!

Rona Mackie

Head of School

Our talented pupils

This week, as part of our annual anti-bullying week, the children were celebrating everyone's unique talents. Throughout the week, I kept bumping into children practising in preparation for their auditions in front of their class. As a result, this week's theme was 'showing empathy'. I spoke to the children during our Monday assembly about the word empathy and that it meant understanding how other people feel. 

I was so pleased to see all our pupils supporting each other when they nervously stepped up to audition later on in the week. 

I have have always known we have extremely talented pupils at our school but I never knew the range of talents they had. This week, I learnt that we have children who are experts at hair braiding, at tie tying, at keepie uppies and much more! On Thursday, I managed to catch some of the class auditions.

William from the Lighthouse and 3B performing his talent. He is an expert on famous London buildings.

Two talented artists in Year 1, Jayden and Lewis.

Bradley and Charlie in Year 6 are AMAZING at skipping!

I took a lot of videos of these talents but unfortunately this blog won't let me upload them. So watch out on the website as we will ensure they appear soon! Also watch out for the anti-bullying posters and a whole school poem that the children created last week.

Congratulations to all our pupils who either auditioned in front of their class or were chosen to perform their talent during our Friday assembly. I loved all our magicians, comedians, gymnasts, dancers and singers.

Many thanks,

Rona Mackie

Head of School

Parental engagement and exciting school trips!

It has been a couple of weeks since my last blog so I have two entries today.

My first is about the brilliant school trips our pupils have recently experienced and how our parents/carers of children in Years 1 and 2 stay up to date with their children's learning. 

Over the past few weeks, our pupils across the school have enjoyed days out to visit places such as Windsor Castle, Sayers Croft, Tooting in London and the Tate Modern. These trips are always linked to the children's current topic and they really help to support the pupils' learning. We are always extremely proud of the behaviour of our children on school trips and we receive glowing comments from members of the public and staff at the museums. 

This is a photo from the Year 1/2 trip to Windsor Castle. Paige was pretending to be a queen and she was turning Jack into a knight. Apparently, all the children had to bow and curtsey when she walked into the room. Brilliant!

Here are Bailey, Jay and Alfie from the Lighthouse copying the sentry on duty outside of the castle. You can see them in action on the video below. 

I was delighted to drop in on our Year 5 children when they were away on their Sayers Croft residential trip. I joined them for dinner and it was a real pleasure to see them working as a team by serving each other drinks and helping clear away the tables. I also attended their disco and awards night. It was lots of fun and there were some great movers hitting the dance floor (particularly Deon and Jamie T-N)!

Here is a picture of some of the children from 5J. Luckily, it wasn't raining at this point! The mud came later.

More photos are on our website from the Tate Modern and many of the Lighthouse children's trips.

I have also heard about a fantastic new opportunity in Years 1 and 2 for our pupils to share their learning with their parents/carers. Each week, the children invite their parents/carers into the class to show them one of their class books. Mrs Peacock explained that the pupils talk through their work themselves and are very proud to show off their lovely school books. I was delighted to hear how many parents/carers and even grandparents attended.

Miles reading out his writing to his captive audience!

Megan proudly showing her writing to her mum and brother, Liam.

Robert showing his mum his excellent maths!

Mohammed explaining his writing to his dad.

 Many thanks,

Rona Mackie
Head of School

Being considerate!

On Monday's assembly, I introduced the weekly theme as 'being considerate'. We talked about what that word meant and the children came up with great ideas like being kind, putting others before yourself and being thoughtful. I explained that kind and thoughtful were synonyms for considerate. I was so impressed that Amy in 4H was able to tell me that a synonym was a word that had the same meaning as another word. An excellent example of the great learning happening at Guildford Grove.

Throughout the week, I spotted many moments of our pupils being considerate. It really amazes me how kind and thoughtful our students are. Here are some examples!

Deon was considerate when he stopped and helped Keon on the playground.

Soyo was being kind by turning the skipping rope for her friends.

Samantha was helping a friend with the zip on her coat.

The video below shows a small clip of a group of children enjoying our 'story swap' during Book Week. They were being really considerate by allowing others to enjoy the story too. They loved hearing 'We're going on a bear hunt' read by Mrs Johnstone.

This week, we have two very important occasions to show how we are considerate to others. You may have noticed a fantastic outdoor display appearing on the playground. Inspired by the Tower of London tribute to World War 1, the children have made their own poppies and these have been added to our school fence. I am sure you will agree with me that it looks spectacular. Many thanks to Mrs Curtis and many of our TAs for creating the display. On Tuesday, Mr Thomas will be leading a special Remembrance assembly which will also focus on World War 1.

The rainbow appeared just at the right moment.

'Children in need' is also this week. On Superhero day in September, we raised over £200 for 'Shooting Star Chase Hospices' which is one of the charities that benefit from the money raised by 'Children in need'. So on Friday, we had a very special visitor to Breakfast Club. Pudsey dropped in to say hello to our pupils. I managed to get a photo before he left and thanked him for coming to visit us. Many thanks to Trish for organising this visit.

Other highlights for next week are the Year 1/2 trip to Windsor Castle and Year 5 residential trip to Sayers Croft. I will be popping in to see them on Thursday night so I can't wait. 

Our children always show immaculate behaviour on school trips and once again a member of the public commented on this when our Year 3/4 children visited the Tate Modern last week. We are always so proud of them!

Rona Mackie

Head of School

Respect

I hope everyone has had a lovely half term. It is amazing how quickly the week flies by but I can't wait to see all our pupils looking smart and ready for their learning tomorrow. The next half term is always very exciting with the lead up to our Christmas performances. 

Before the break, I introduced a weekly theme to our Monday's assembly. As well as celebrating excellent attendance, we now also focus on a key area that makes our school so great. Last week, the whole school focus was 'respect'. Our one rule for the whole school community is that 'everyone will be polite, respectful and considerate to others at all times'. 

We discussed what respect meant and how that looked in the classroom, around the school and on the playground. Here are some photos showing how respect looks around our school.

TJ and Mayas showing great respect for each other!

I really enjoyed reading this book to 5J. They were so respectful when listening to the story and loved Eco-wolf!

I spotted this on the playground. Jamie caught Turki's ball and respectfully gave it back to him.

Here are Jessica and Raven working together to achieve a task. They had so much respect for each other!

Here is KS2 showing amazing respect during our Book Week assembly.

Suyog is chair of our school council. I met with him last week and I really respected his ideas.

Here are Freya and Rosie being really respectful to Josey, one of our Lunchtime Supervisors.

Kieran, Bradley, Jamie and Ben (not pictured) showed great respect when working with their teaching assistant, Mrs Whitman. They decided to celebrate by showing jazz hands!

Miss Logan was so pleased with Harley. He was showing good respect to others.

This week we will be looking at 'being considerate'.

Rona Mackie

Head of School

Our wonderful classrooms!

At Guildford Grove, we understand the importance of a well organised classroom that celebrates our pupils' learning. Last week, I took some time to look at some of our new displays that have popped up since the start of term. I have added some of the photos I took below. For those of you old enough to remember, it reminds me of the gallery on Tony Hart's art programme 'Take Hart'! Cue the music!

A dragon created by the children of 1T linked to their literacy work on the story of 'George and the dragon'.

2J using a photo frame to celebrate success. Great team work!

Our Superheroes from 3G.

4C 'All about us!' display.

6K's display on their topic of India.

A wonderfully descriptive poem about India by Ines.

6J's display on their future goals linked to their class assembly.

Sarah-Louise's lovely piece of writing. She has been inspired by Mrs Schollar to become a teacher!

A super science display from 4H.

Using a display to focus on class rules in 1S.

Rona Mackie

Head of School

Celebrating success!

At the start of the week, the pupils enjoyed an assembly focusing on a couple of sporting successes. They enjoyed watching clips of the European golfers retaining the Ryder Cup. There were lots of cheers and gasps at some of the amazing shots played. Mrs Johnstone spoke about how the players had worked as a team and how they all had to overcome challenges to go on to succeed. The pupils also heard about Mrs Johnstone facing her own challenge of running a half marathon at the weekend and she spoke about what helped her to get through the long race to reach her goal. With this in mind, I spent the week spotting moments of success amongst our own pupils inside and outside of the classroom.

Throughout the week, many of our pupils have come to show me how proud they are of a piece of work. Their books are always a joy to see and I hope parents/carers will enjoy having a chance to look at them during next week's parents' consultations. 

Sarah and Ellie showing me their excellent work on subtraction!

Congratulations are also in order for some of our Year 5 and 6 children. Our School Council met for the first time this week and some important roles were decided. Suyog is now the Chair of our School Council and is supported by his Vice Chairs, Mya and Dillan. The School Council do a fantastic job of representing the voice of our pupils and are regularly given opportunities to be involved in key decision making for our school. A photo of the full School Council will be added next week. Congratulations also to our Year 6 lunchtime helpers. These are children that have been chosen to play an important role at lunchtimes. They help the younger children and organise games. It is a very important job to have and I was really impressed with how skilful they all were when I watched them in action on Thursday. We have so many future leaders amongst our pupils.

Our Year 6 lunchtime helpers - Summer, Morgan, Amy, Evita, Ben, Daniel and Billy.

Finally, on Friday I was called to come and hear one of our Year 6 pupils playing the school piano. I was amazed with how confident he was to play in front of his whole class. All the pupils were so supportive of him and it was lovely to see. Our pupils really support one another and enjoy celebrating other people's successes not just their own. It was a great way to finish the week.

Stephen playing the piano.

Rona Mackie

Head of School

School dinners and Superhero Day

This week has been another busy week! On Tuesday, I spent time in the dining hall with our younger pupils. It was lovely to see them enjoying their school dinner. Since September, all children in Reception, Year 1 and 2 are now able to get a free hot meal every day and it has been great to see so many of our pupils taking up this offer. You can see from the photos below that many of them didn't even stop to smile at the camera as they were so busy enjoying the food. Our lunchtime supervisors and catering staff have done an excellent job at organising the changes we have had to make due to the increased number of children having school dinners.

Our Reception children being supported by the Foundation Stage staff and the Lunchtime Supervisors.

Great table manners from our Year 1 pupils!

Yummy dessert!

Our Year 2 pupils enjoying the pasta.

Today was an exciting day as the school suddenly became full of Superheroes. We saw hundreds of Spidermans, Batmans (and girls) and Supermans. It was a fantastic day where we raised money for two very worthy charities. The children's MUFTI money went towards the Shooting Star Chase Charity. This charity has two hospices, one of which is in Guildford, that support children with life-limiting conditions. The staff also had a coffee and cake morning and raised money for Macmillan Cancer Support.

Below are the finalists from each phase who were selected as having the most original Superhero costumes. As you can see, we had some really creative entries. We had 'Bling Girl', 'Army Man', 'Guildford Grove Boy' and 'Super Spanish Girl'.

Our Foundation Stage finalists

Our 1/2 finalists

Our 3/4 finalists

Our 5/6 finalists

What a fantastic way to end the week!

Rona Mackie

Head of School