Maths Day

On Tuesday, Guildford Grove held its very first 'Maths Day'. The children really enjoyed the day and loved taking part in a range of activities promoting maths across the school. 

I was delighted to see how many children had taken part in the matchbox challenge. I couldn't believe the amount of things children managed to fit into such a tiny box. Our pupils are truly creative when it comes to these types of challenges and I thoroughly enjoyed reading the lists of items included in each box. 

Another highlight of 'Maths Day' was the 'Estimate the items in a jar' competition. The pupils loved walking around the school to locate the jars and enter the competition. One of the jars sat outside my office and I enjoyed hearing the conversations from the groups of children keen to have their chance to enter the competition. My favourite discussion involved a couple of our youngest students debating if they could just open the lid and count the items. I swiftly popped my head out of my office to explain how that was not the point of the game!

Finally, the children also enjoyed counting the money they brought in to complete the coin art creation in our hall. Thanks to the large amount of copper coins, they spent a good deal of the day counting in 1s and 2s and converting from pence to pounds. Great for their maths skills.

Many thanks to Mrs Peacock for organising such a fantastic day. Next week, we are looking forward to our annual 'Wonderful World' week. This year, our theme is 'Food' and we will be visited by chefs from a selection of restaurants in Guildford who will be teaching us about food from around the world. Tomorrow, I will be starting the week with our Monday morning assembly where we will be celebrating diversity.

Many thanks,

Rona Mackie

Head of School

End of term!

I hope that everyone enjoyed their Christmas break! It was lovely to see all the children back on Monday looking so smart and eager to learn. It was a real pleasure to walk around the school and see them all so focused on their work. I imagine some of them felt very tired by the end of the day.

The end of term seems such a blur now but I wanted to celebrate a few of the amazing events that occurred in the final few weeks.

Christmas Jumper Day

What a great day! The children looked great in their Christmas jumpers and you can see more pictures on our website. I did, however, want to show a few on here. Firstly, the most popular jumper proved to be a jazzy reindeer one. As you can see it popped up everywhere! It was great fun and we raised £200 for the Save the Children charity as a result.

The most original jumper award must go to Zanko. His jumper was created by turning an ordinary jumper inside out and painting the image on. Amazing!

Our Christmas productions

Well done to all our children for taking part in the best Christmas performances we have ever had. It started with KS2's carol concert at the cathedral.  The children sang beautifully and the narrators spoke so clearly and confidently. We finished the term with our KS1 and Foundation Stage nativity performances. Again, I was so impressed with the excellent singing, narrating as well as the great acting and dancing too. Pictures of these performances can also be seen on the website.

Christmas Fayre

I was so impressed with the hard work and dedication of the members of Friends of Guildford Grove to ensure that our annual Christmas Fayre ran smoothly. It was fantastic to see so many families attending and supporting this event. The money raised makes such a difference to our school and ensures that we can continue to help reduce the cost of school trips. We made approximately £1600 from this event. A great result!

Parents using their massage vouchers to receive a massage from their child. Miss Holdaway talked them through the 'Massage in Schools' programme.

Look how busy our cake stall was!

Mr Bibby busy on the barbecue.

Our lovely arts and crafts room.

Our wonderful hampers ready for the raffle.

Father Christmas and his reindeer were a huge hit!

Year 5/6 Cake Sale

Our pupils in years 5 and 6 spent the last week organising their own cake sale. Just like 'The Apprentice' the children were tasked to work as a group to organise their cake stall to try and make the most profit. The winning group with the largest profit would be hired by Dame Sugar! Congratulations to team 'Snow Bakes' who were hired after making a profit of £31.20. The whole cake sale raised £362.92.

I cannot wait to see what happens in the Spring Term. Highlights will include Red Nose Day, KS1 Spring Concert and Guildford Grove's Got Talent!

Many thanks,

Rona Mackie

Head of School

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