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A Successful Term – an Exciting Journey!
As we reach the end of Autumn term, we can all look back and reflect
on just what a brilliant term this has been. School is calm, yet
vibrant and full of positive energy. The children are full of
enthusiasm and effort, and they are making real progress. The
Grangetown staff (Team GPS!) are – as ever – absolutely magnificent.
And, parents and carers have proven themselves hugely supportive.
There are so many highlights: the Wine & Cheese Evening, the King
Thing, EYFS Coffee Mornings, The Forbidden Corner, all of our Clubs,
Christmas performances & assemblies, Punch & Judy, the Tudor Feast,
building a Viking Longship, Chinese Dancers, Bruce Ingham (writer),
Paul Cookson (poet)….the list goes on. Yes, Grangetown is motoring
now…we’re on a roll…and we want you to stick with us as we continue
this exciting journey! |
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Time Flies – Mr Mc has been here 1 year!
Mr McAnaney writes: It’s almost a year since I started at
Grangetown. Time certainly does fly by. I’ve enjoyed every minute!
This is a fantastic school and – as the saying goes – the sky’s the
limit! I am so proud of the way every member of staff has risen to
the challenge of moving this school forward. Teachers, teaching
assistants, our admin team, Governors, lunchtime staff, site
supervisor & cleaners – everyone – all have worked so hard to make
the school a success….and we’re winning! The children are benefiting
hugely from the staff’s commitment. It has been a pleasure to work
with the children – they are cheerful, happy, polite and well
behaved. Also, I’d like to thank all parents for your support,
involvement and commitment. Here’s to a successful future for
Grangetown Primary! |
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The King Thing
Our Drama Club Christmas Show – The King Thing – was a triumph! What
a perfect way to launch our ‘new look’ theatre style hall. The hall
was packed, and the children showed just how talented they are. All
of their hard work paid off, as they entertained us with their
superb acting and singing. Thanks to our staff for helping with
preparation and on the night, and of course to our brilliant drama
teacher Mrs Davies. |
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Our Hall has been transformed!
We are committed to the performing arts here at Grangetown! Music,
dancing, singing and acting all have great power to bring happiness
to any school, to raise standards of achievement in all areas, to
motivate, to entertain and to build confidence in children. As part
of our commitment, we have recently invested in a set of
professional lights plus a magnificent pair of curtains for the
hall. This was launched for The King Thing, and looked fantastic.
Roll on the next show! |
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Chinese Dancers!
Fifteen of our year 5 children worked with local choreographer Apple
Yang to create a dance routine. This project was made possible
thanks to our successful bid for funding to the British Council.
Apple and the children spent 6 half-days together. Then, the
children performed for the whole school, plus a huge turn-out of
parents and carers. Dressed in Chinese costumes, the children danced
skilfully and with great energy and enthusiasm. Well done the
dancers, and well done Apple Yang! |
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Let’s Party!
It’s Christmas – and it’s the end of a fantastic term – so everyone
deserved to PARTY! Our children got dressed up, and dad's after
shave and mam's make up was raided! The children ate the special
party food prepared by staff, played games, and danced the afternoon
away. A fabulous time was had by all! |
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Wriggly Nativity!
This was a really special Christmas show, tugging at the
heartstrings and – at the same time – making us smile and applaud.
The children were magnificent, and looked stunning in their
costumes. We welcomed the Mayor – Cllr Tom Martin - and the Lady
Mayoress Maureen Martin to Grangetown, and it was lovely to hear
Cllr Martin speak so highly about the school. The hall was packed,
and parents simply loved every minute of the show. Well done to all
of our children – you were brilliant! And, of course, well done to
our tireless staff, all of whom worked incredibly hard, with the
children, in the run-up to the show. |
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Grangetown Shipbuilders!
Years 3 and 4 travelled back in time recently, building a Viking
longship in the school hall. The ship was built to scale, exactly
one quarter the size of a real ship.
As well as assembling the
five-and-a-half-metre-long replica, the children also tried their
hand at several Viking-style activities, including riveting together
wooden shields and using an authentic loom for weaving . They sewed
the sail for the ship from five panels of cloth, and then added a
fierce lion called Rollo! The session was led by Charlie Lupton, a
former teacher who runs history workshops in schools up and down the
country. Daisy Carrol (8) writes:
On the first of December we made a
massive Viking Longboat. First we listened to Charlie the Viking
about what we were doing. He told us what the different activities
were. Charlie put us in to groups and we started our different
activities. We made the boat by attaching pieces of wood together
with guts and rivets. If you got your finger stuck in the rivets it
would stay there for ever but the guts were all right. We moved on
to the colouring in of the dragons head and the oars. Next we
stitched together the sail. It was very hard. We had to stitch
Rollo the lion onto the sail. Then we made the shields. These were
very heavy but fun to make. |
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Grangetown Buddies
We are setting up a team of Playground Buddies at Grangetown.
Fifteen children from years 3 to 6 will take on this important role.
They will be helping to ensure that the playground is always a happy
and safe place. The Buddies have had 1 training session so far, and
will have another at the start of the Spring term. |
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Children in Need
On Friday 19th November children and staff at Grangetown
showed our support for Children in Need by showing our spots! We
all had a great day wearing our spotty outfits, and we raised £150
thanks to your generous donations. The day was packed with exciting
activities for the children. Foundation Stage and Year 3 children
made Pudsey biscuits, Year 2 wrote their very own Pudsey poems and
made bear puppets to take home. Budding clothes designers Kenya,
Gemma, Tegan and Daphne from Year 4 created a Pudsey inspired
t-shirt for Miss Heddle to wear. The money that we raised will go
towards making positive changes in the lives of disadvantaged
children and young people in the UK. Well done everyone! By Miss
Booth |
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Tudor Feast
On Friday 26th November Year 4 held their very own Tudor Feast.
During the morning sessions we did some cooking. We made some
‘sailor biscuits’ which were tasty but contained salt! This may seem
strange to us nowadays but back then they used salt to help preserve
food - especially whilst exploring. We also made some marzipan which
contains a lot of sugar (the children loved this). Tudors considered
sugar as a luxury item and if they were rich would eat lots of it.
By lunch time we were all very hungry and excited to try our
cooking. So on the afternoon we set up the classroom as a buffet, we
had our sailor biscuits, marzipan, a delicious pie (thanks to Mrs
Dawson), loaves of bread and ham. The children tucked in and we even
played Greensleeves written by King Henry VIII and had a little
dance. Overall we thoroughly enjoyed it, but were quite glad that
today we are lucky enough to have such a variety of food. By Miss
Heddle. |
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Our Tudor Christmas!
On Monday 6th December Year 4 were lucky enough to have
Hilary from Gladrags visit us again. Hilary worked with us
previously looking at Tudor songs and music, this time she came to
complete activities based around Tudor Christmas. We really enjoyed
the afternoon and had the chance to learn some tunes on our
recorders. We even danced in a Tudor fashion to the music. We now
know two Tudor Christmas carols and will be singing them during our
assembly. Hilary was kind enough to bring along materials to make a
‘pomander’ a traditional Tudor gift. This was made by pushing cloves
into an orange and then tying ribbon around it, we have put them on
our class Christmas tree to decorate it. Year 4 would like to thank
Hilary for coming into school and for her help throughout our Tudor
topic. By Miss Heddle. |
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Phileas P Souper
Phileas P
Souper was a production our class went to see recently. Paddy was in
this production with 5 other men and it was really good and
entertaining for me and the rest of Y5. Most of it wasn’t speaking
but some of it was and there was music and acting. It was like a
film because it was mostly acting and Paddy and another man were
pretending they were dwarfs - it was really funny. It was a great
experience. I thoroughly enjoyed it. The bus ride back was a bumpy
ride. I wish I could watch it over and over and it wouldn’t get
boring! I sat next to Bailey on the bus and in the theatre too. I
hope we get to see Paddy again because if we do I have a feeling
it’ll be fun. By Ryan Y5 |
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Year 6 Southmoor Visit
Recently, the year 6 children went to Southmoor for a visit. We went
for an R.E. lesson with Mr Hope. We learned all about signs and
symbols and how they are all around us and we don’t even notice
them. Mr Hope, the RE teacher, sang a really old Latin song to us.
We looked at signs and symbols from to the Christian faith and
discussed their meanings. We had a look at lots of different robes
and sashes and Louis dressed as a Bishop. |
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Niall’s Mile Success!
On Friday 22nd October we held our Nialls mile walk
around the school grounds. The aim of the mile walk was to raise
money for Sunderland Foundation Charity lead by Sunderland chairman
Niall Quinn. The afternoon was a great success, all of the children
managed to walk the four laps around the school in their red and
white clothes (some even managed more!). We would like to say a big
thankyou to all the parents/ grandparents/ carers who walked with
us. Most importantly we managed to raise almost £200 for the
charity. Well done everyone! By Miss Hough. |
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Coffee Tastes Better with Friends!
The Foundation Stage Team were full of beans after the success of
our second coffee afternoon for our Foundation Stage parents.
Parents were invited to join us to learn more about how we teach
phonics to our Foundation Stage children. The afternoon consisted
of a demonstration phonics session, ideas to help your child at home
and of course refreshments! We also had lots of free gifts; parents
took home a booklet about supporting children to read, a nursery
rhyme CD and a framed photo of our wonderful children on their first
day of school. The feedback we received from parents on the day was
very positive and it would not have been a success without your
continuing support. We look forward to seeing you next time. By the
Foundation Stage Team |
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The Truth about Teachers!
Have you ever wondered “What’s the truth about teachers?” Paul
Cookson, the poet came to visit school to tell us the answers. Paul
visited school as part of the Northern Children’s Book Festival and
spent time with pupils from Key Stage One and Two. He performed
poems from his books “The Truth About Teachers”, “The Truth About
Parents” and “Pants on Fire”, whilst playing rock songs on his
Ukelele. He then created poems using the children’s ideas.
Everyone agreed poetry can be fun! By Mrs Cole |
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Year 5 Dancers!
This term the Year 5 children have worked with Mrs West exploring
“Narnian” based movement and dance. Eva wrote: The dancing was
amazing and weird and we had great fun trying it out. We were as
excited as a little boy on his birthday! We worked in groups and had
to make strange shapes, melt like ice and freeze like stone as if
enchanted by the White Witch, this was called Ice Dance. It was
great! Chloe wrote: We moved to music so we got the rhythm, we
pretended that we were going through the wardrobe pushing our way
through the clothes like Lucy, Susan, Peter and Edmund did and one
week we tried to do some lifts in our groups making the castle of
Cair Paravel and then we showed everyone else. We would all like to
say thank you for a fabulous time. By Mrs Collins. |
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Uniform Update
We hope you are finding it reasonably easy to get the uniform items
you need. We have managed to get some stock to keep in school. We
are planning to make an announcement about the new school badge
early in the new year. |
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Finally…A Special Visitor!
It’s Christmas, and here at Grangetown we were determined that our
celebrations should feature a visit from the man himself…Santa! It
took months of secret negotiations, more than a few phone calls to
Simon Cowell, and several staff whip-rounds, but finally we sealed
the deal! Sure enough, at 2.30 on Thursday 16th December,
we heard the magical sound of sleigh bells …and a great whoosh as
Rudolph carefully brought the giant sleigh to a halt on the snowy
roof of our school hall. Santa, and one of his elves, arrived
carrying a huge sack. He sat behind our new hall curtains. The
children thought they were there to play more games, and were
astonished – and so excited - when the curtains were drawn open to
reveal Santa! The children told Santa they’d all behaved themselves
this year – not a single one of them had been naughty! So, our eager
Nursery, Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 children each met Santa and
received a gift and a few kind words! Then, with another whoosh,
Santa set out again for home, back to the North Pole to continue
preparing for Christmas Eve. Thanks Santa! |
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This
month’s Quote:
“Christmas isn't just a day. It's a
frame of mind"
Valentine Davies ,
in Miracle on 34th Street |
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