Speak up, stay safe week

A few weeks ago, Guildford Grove organised its first ever safety week. During the week, the children designed their own safety superheroes to help them understand the meaning of safety. They also took part in daily PSHE lessons focusing on staying safe.

On the Wednesday, our school council organised an after school session to review our anti-bullying policy with staff, parents, volunteers and governors. It was an excellent event and the school council, along with some of our Year 6 yellow band lunchtime helpers, spoke confidently and worked with the adults to come up with a definition of what bullying is. We were very proud of them all.

Morgan speaking confidently to the audience

Mya sharing some national statistics about bullying 

Our staff, parents, volunteers, governors and pupils completed a market place activity

One table's work

Staff reading the definitions of bullying

As part of the week, we also held a 'Make Technology Safe Fayre'. Parents were able to bring in their electronic devices and speak to experts to get advice about how to ensure they were safe for their children to use. It was great to see so many parents and children attend with a range of devices from gaming devices to mobile phones.

What a great week!

Rona Mackie

Head of School

Lunchtimes

I hope everyone enjoyed a lovely half term. The children looked so smart this morning in assembly and are ready for their next half term. We talked about how our attendance is slowly improving and how this half term is a perfect time to get back on track by attending school everyday.

I was pleased to see a number of our pupils in their Brownies and Rainbow outfits for 'Thinking Day' today. It's lovely to see so many of children committing to an out of school club and working hard to earn their badges.

This week, is a special week at school as we are holding our first ever safety week. It is called 'Safety Super Heroes - Speak up, Stay Safe!'. During the week, the children will be learning about the meaning of being safe and focusing on key areas such as the safe use of technology and safety on the roads. I hope that parents and children attend our 'Make Technology Safe' Fair on Thursday 26th February from 3pm in the hall. We are encouraging parents to bring their electronic devices (phones, laptops, iPads, gaming devices etc) to this event to get expert advice on how to make them safe for children to use. 

Lunchtimes

Just before half term, I spent a lovely lunchtime out playing with the pupils. It was an extremely cold day but the children were still enjoying themselves and the lunchtime supervisors were doing a great job with keeping them moving and entertained! The smiles show how much they love their time outside.

Some of our Reception children staying out of the cold!

Great friends

Imaginative games

Supportive staff

They love the bubbles!

A great way to keep warm!

Mehmet showing his batting skills

Freddie and Junior having fun on the trim trail

Friendships across the school

How many children can fit into one skipping rope?

A chain of Year 2 pupils

Many thanks,

Rona Mackie

Head of School

Wonderful World Week 2015

This week, we held our annual 'Wonderful World Week'. 

We started the week celebrating diversity and discovered the variety of nationalities that we have at our school. This became one of our themes of the week!

The other theme focused on food. We were really lucky to be visited by a range of local restaurants throughout the week who put on cooking demonstrations and also got the children cooking too. It created a real buzz around the school! Thank you to Sir and Madam, Ask, Jamie's Italian, Yo Sushi and Burrito Loco for running the sessions for free.

Ask session with Year 1 where they tried pasta and sorbet and learnt about where food comes from

Jamie's Italian came in to help the Year 6 children make crostini bread starters

Burrito Loco having fun with Year 2

At the end of the week, we welcomed back Jim who visits us every year to run our drumming workshops. The children love his sessions and we all enjoyed his assembly today where he played the steel pans to 'Under the sea' and 'Let it go'. The children sang along beautifully.

Jim working with our Year 6 and Lighthouse children

Many thanks to Mr Crossley and Mr Thomas for organising such a successful week. I know many of you will either be attending the Year 6 drumming assembly or going to our open classroom session at the end of the day to see what your child has learnt about this week.

Have a lovely weekend,

Rona Mackie

Head of School

News!

I thought you would like to see a couple of things that came to my attention this week that we should all be extremely proud of.

The first is about one of our pupils making the front cover of a magazine this week. Elyas (in 4H and the Lighthouse) is pictured on the front of the Riding for the Disabled Association's annual publication. Our Lighthouse children really benefit from their regular riding sessions and have learnt a lot about looking after and caring for animals as well as learning to ride. Elyas looks like such a natural!

The second thing relates to a book that has recently been published. Many of you might remember Mr Peter Burrows, who was a teacher at our school when we opened in 2001 and taught in Years 5 and 6 for many years. He has written a book for teachers about the teaching of grammar and I thought you would like to see his dedication in the book. 

Mr Burrows thanks the children and staff at Guildford Grove as well as Mrs Corlett!

Guildford Grove is truly on the map!

Many thanks,

Rona Mackie

Head of School

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