Welcome back…What a pleasure it has been to welcome all of the children back to school looking so smart and ready to learn. We have a number of new children joining us throughout the school and I have been so proud to see how kind and welcoming our school community has been. Our new recruits in P1 had their first full day today and they coped so well however I’m sure they will all be early to bed tonight (staff included!). Today was also the first day for our new Senior Clerical Officer, Mrs Jill Linton, who has replaced Mrs Sherret. I am sure I can rely upon everyone’s patience as she gets to grip with her new post and of course she will be assisted ably by Mrs McKee and Mrs Hanbury in the meantime.

#progress…This year we have two main areas of school improvement – HAPPINESS and CHALLENGE. Our Learning Council spoke to everyone about our improvement plans last week at our first Learn to Learn session. You can see a short video of their presentation on the School Story on Class Dojo, it’s most definitely worth a watch. We plan to ensure that all children feel happy at Grange by focusing upon their well-being through yoga, mindfulness, developing our playground and restorative approaches, to name but a few activities. To develop challenge we will be exploring classroom practice and investigating ways of making sure that all children are challenged in their learning. Last week I set all of the classes a Head Teacher Challenge at Learn to Learn – they have been asked to discuss what challenge is, how it feels, how we know when we are being challenged and how we cope. P7 will report back at our next Learn to Learn so I will keep you updated!

#positivity…We are not even two weeks back and the school is already buzzing with activity. Last Sunday a group of children, parents and staff took part in the Kilt Walk. It was a rather soggy occasion but lots of fun and a hugely successful fundraiser. We managed to raise around £2500 which will be used for playground improvements and we also got to meet Judy Murray who is keen to come to Grange to provide some tennis sessions – WOW! If that’s not enough excitement we now have an Outdoor Cinema coming very soon…we are really counting on the support of our whole school community to make this a success so please get your tickets either from the school office or online from Blue Monkey Events. Bring all of your friends and the whole family and let’s make it a weekend to remember!

#engageyourself…Look out for the first of a series of Family Learning events…on Wednesday 18th September 6.00-7.30pm we will be hosting an evening on Online Safety and Parenting in a Digital Age. This is particularly pertinent as we embark upon our whole school topic on ‘Gaming’ so watch out for more information. Our first Grange Gabbers meeting will be held on Friday 6th September 9.30-10.30am when we will be discussing our school and nursery improvement plans and ‘challenge’ – everyone welcome so please come to the school office if you can make it along. The Parent Council will be meeting on Tuesday 24th September in the school at 7.30pm – children are also welcome to join us for those of you who find childcare a challenge in the evenings. These are just some of the ways you can get involved so please join us if you can.

#acceptance…And finally (for now), last week we said goodbye to Mrs Mackenzie (Additional Support Needs Teacher) and this week we say goodbye to Mrs Harkins (School and Pupil Support Assistant). Both ladies have worked so hard in their time at Grange and have supported and cared for many of our children. They are both moving onto exciting new opportunities and we all wish them the very best of luck for the future. They will both be greatly missed and I am truly grateful for their commitment to our school. They will be very difficult to replace and I will keep you updated about new staff in due course.

If you are still reading, thank you for your interest and your support. It’s going to be another great year at Grange and I continue to feel truly privileged to lead such a vibrant and connected school… #believe

Over the last year parents and carers have been invited to provide feedback to help us improve. Your feedback has been gathered in a variety of ways including Survey Monkey questionnaires, Grange Gabbers and Nursery Natters, as well as evaluations on parents’ evenings and curriculum evenings. It is always so important to us to hear from you about what we are doing well and ways in which we can continue to improve. I would like to let you know some of the ways your feedback has influenced decisions made this year and our plans for improvement.

Reporting

Feedback: I worked closely with the Parent Council and groups at Grange Gabbers to explore how we can better support parents to understand their children’s progress in learning. Parents said they wanted more regular progress updates and a clear indication of whether progress was as expected. At Grange Gabbers we developed a Progress Update template and we trailled it back in September. The feedback was extremely positive with almost all parents telling us they found it helpful. Some further suggestions for improvement were to include children’s learning goals and a brief written comment from the teacher.

Outcome: We will send home Progress Reports 3 times this coming year and they will include children’s learning goals and teacher comments. We will also continue with our November Learner Led Conferences and an end of year meeting with the class teacher as a result of the overwhelmingly positive feedback.

Curriculum

Feedback: I held a Curriculum Evening in November as a result of feedback from the Parent Council questionnaire. On the evening I shared the story of our curriculum at Grange and I asked for feedback from parents to find out what they valued most as we started to review our curriculum plan for the next 3 years. Parents said they wanted their children to have a passion for learning that makes excited to come to school, real life learning experiences which develop creativity and for children to feel self assured and self aware. This feedback was really helpful when we came to review our curriculum plan.

Outcome: Our new 3 year curriculum plan has a strong emphasis on providing real-life experiences for children linked to the world of work. This coming year look out for  whole school contexts including ‘Gaming’ which links with the current V&A exhibition, ‘Creating’ which will involve ‘upcycling’ and business enterprise and ‘Travelling’ which will link with the Olympics and of course Sports Day! We will also introduce ‘Bounce Back’ which is a whole school programme for developing children’s resilience and self awareness.

Parent Council

Feedback: Our Parent Council is committed to supporting the work of our school and they are always looking for ways to improve. Parents said they would like meetings to be on days and times that suit everyone. They also said they would like to know what is discussed at the meetings and to find out more about ways they can be involved. It was noted that while the school blog contains a wealth of useful information, not all parents were aware of it or confident with accessing it.

Outcome: Meetings are now scheduled Monday- Thursday on a rolling basis and the venue also varies. Some meetings are held in school at a slightly earlier time so that children can come along in case childcare is an issue. The minutes are emailed out to all parents and they are also posted on the blog. A calendar of meetings is issued for the year so that parents can plan accordingly. The calendar includes Grange Gabbers and Nursery Natters meetings which are informal meetings held during the school days for those who cannot make evenings. The Parent Council also actively seek volunteers for planned events and this is proving to be an effective way of getting more parents involved in different ways. The calendar of events has been planned in line with the responses from the Parent Council survey. Mrs Landsburgh emailed all parents a useful guide for accessing the school blog with instructions on how to add to your bookmarks.

Learning

Feedback: Our survey results were very positive indeed and the one area that was highlighted by a few parents was the school providing enough challenge for children in their learning. At our curriculum evening I asked parents about the areas of health and well-being that they would like support with and the feedback showed that most were interested in resilience and anxiety. The feedback from our Progress Update meetings told us that when children are not yet making expected progress in learning, parents would like more information about how to help at home.

Outcome: A focus area of improvement for us all this year will be increasing the level of challenge for all children. We will work together to make sure we have a shared understanding of what this means and we will build everyone’s resilience to help them cope with challenge. We have planned family learning events related to digital parenting, resilience, anxiety and attachment theory to help parents with supporting children. We will also try out some new numeracy resources that can be used at home to support children’s progress.

Communication

Feedback: Our parent survey showed that parents are no longer keen to receive school newsletters but prefer the use of Class Dojo and the blog.

Outcome: I will post a brief blog each month to give you an update on school improvements and achievements. We will also continue to use Class Dojo at class and school levels and we look forward to introducing our STARS Awards to help us celebrate children’s learning out with school.

Please look out for the Parents iCal which is coming you way very soon. It contains all of the important dates for the year including all meetings and please keep giving us your feedback because as you can see it really does ‘Make A Difference‘!