🤗Welcome Back🤗
It was wonderful to welcome our school community back on Tuesday all looking so smart and refreshed! Welcome to our new families not only in Nursery and Primary 1 but right across the school! I do hope you all had a wonderful summer.
It has been a week of catching up with friends and colleagues and I have thoroughly enjoyed hearing all the children’s stories of their summer adventures in the corridors, playground and dinner hall. I was at Monifieth High School yesterday morning, and it was equally as lovely to bump into a few of our P7 leavers who all seem to be setlling in well!
We are looking forward to the term and year ahead!
Our new Primary 1’s are settling into school life very well and we have all been very impressed at how quickly they are getting into the new routines. The children are doing a great job. You should be very proud parents!
Our new nursery children have had lots of fun exploring the different environments including our Onery, Nursery Garden and rooms and it has been lovely to hear laughter and excitement outside my office.
We have finished the week (P2-7) with our first “Learn 2 Learn” of the session talking about curiosity and the importance of asking questions and how to ask deep questions. This was linked to our “Learner Quality” of the month… Believe in Yourself Benji!
We revisited our 3 simple rules of Being Kind, Being Safe and Believe and what the expectations of each were and how we can achieve these by making good choices.
The children were informed what we, as a whole school, are working on improving this session.
School Improvement Priorities
Every year we gather data from pupils, staff and parents that informs what we are going to be working on as a school for the following session.
Here is a link to the visuals that explain a bit more about what we are improving this session along with the standards and quality report for last session:
https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/an/grangeprimaryschoolblog/school-improvement/
Staff News
Miss Smith has returned to school as Mrs Baxter after a beautiful wedding in July. Huge congratulations to the happy couple!
We have welcomed some new members to our staff team this term:
- Mrs Lee joins us from Langlands Primary
- Mr Docherty joins us from Seaview Primary
- Miss Finnie and Mr Mitchell are our newly qualified teachers and are supported by Mrs Simpson and Mrs Houston
- Mrs Wood (Support Assistant)
- Mrs Brown (Support Assistant)
- Mrs Slusarcyzk (Support Assistant)
- Miss McInally joins us as our new Principal Teacher from Hayshead Primary
Leadership Team
We would ask that if you have any pastoral concerns or issues, please speak to the class teacher in the first instance. However, if you wish to discuss something with a member of leadership team then please feel free to contact the relevant member of SLT by messaging on Dojo or calling the school office.
Ms Strachan (DHT) – Nursery, P1&P2
Mrs Houston (PT) – P3,4&5
Miss McInally (PT) – P6&7
Mrs Baxter (PT for Inclusion) – ASN
Our School Day
As a reminder the timings for the school day are as follows:
Nursery – 9.00-3.00pm
P1-4 – 8.50-3.00pm (break 10.30-10.50 and lunch 12.10-1.00pm)
P5-7 9.00-3.10pm (break 10.55-11.15am and lunch 12.40-1.30pm)
Uniform
Thank you for supporting us to maintain high standards by sending your children to school in their uniforms, whether that be the traditional or relaxed version. To ensure that items do not go missing please label everything, more than once if possible!
Parent Engagement Group
It will be great to continue the group we had last year to help with implementing our school improvement priorities and fundraising events to enhance the school for our children. Any parent is welcome to join us, the more the merrier! We will attempt both an in person and hybrid approach if technology will be our friend! The first of our meetings will be on:
Tuesday 8th September @ 6pm
Further dates for the year will be discussed at this meeting
Meet the Teacher P2-7– Friday 4th September
Based on the feedback from the parent survey, it was clear that most parents wished to have two parent’s evenings this session rather than the settling in meeting at the end of this term. With this in mind, we have diaried parents’ evenings mid November and March however, we recognise that it is important as a parent to visualise your child’s classroom and teacher.
We invite you to pop for a quick visit to say hello to the class teacher and for your child to show you around the class on the afternoon of Friday 4th September from 2-3pm. All parents should enter and exit through the school office. You may take your child home following this event but please let the class teacher know. We do ask that if you have siblings that they are NOT brought into each other’s classes as space is limited. We would also ask that there is only two adults maximum per child visiting. We would also ask that prams and buggy’s remain outside the classrooms. Your help with this would be greatly appreciated!
Meet the Teacher Primary 1 – Friday 4th September
As we have a large number of Primary 1 children this session, we wish to split the timings so that the children are not overwhelmed with the classroom becoming too busy.
Child’s Surname A-L: 1.30-2pm
Child’s Surname M-Z: 2.15-2.45pm
As with P2-7, all parents should enter and exit through the school office. You may take your child home following this event but please let the class teacher know. We do ask that siblings are NOT taken into each other’s classes as space is limited. We would also ask that there is only two adults maximum per child visiting. We would also ask that prams and buggy’s remain outside the classrooms. Your help with this would be greatly appreciated!
Nursery families have My World Meetings taking place in October, along with lots of opportunities throughout the term to come into the setting and see what we’ve been learning. For this reason, this date does not apply to our Nursery families.
Reminders:
Please remember to select your children’s lunches, even if a packed or home lunch, on Parent Pay. These can be done weeks in advance to save doing it daily / weekly. Please also make sure your child knows what they are having each day as this can cause confusion and upset at times.
❗Nut allergies❗ We continue to have a number of children in our school with severe nut allergies. To ensure everyone’s safety it is greatly appreciated if snacks containing nuts are not sent into school. It is also worth noting that children only require one snack for their morning break.
Please can we ask that dogs are not brought into the playground. If you have a dog, please remain outside the school gates and arrange to meet your child there.
For everyone’s safety, please remind your child if they bring a bike or scooter into the playground, they must dismount at the school gates and walk it to the bike shed. Thank you!
Please can parent’s refrain from entering the playground before 2.55 (P1-4) and 3.05 (P5-7) as we still have children learning in the playground at these times. Where possible, for older children please arrange to meet them at the gates.
In the mornings,, we would also ask that parents as the term goes on, encourage their child to walk into the school grounds themselves (not applicable to P1 & Nursery). P5-7 children should be able to do this from now on and would ask that parents remain outside the school gates.
The barrier goes down at 8am for everyone’s safety. Please do not walk around or under it. Please use the main gate to enter and exit the school.
🎊 Colour Run Helpers🎊
We are short of helpers for next Friday’s Colour Run. If you are able to support at all please message me directly on Dojo over the weekend. This may result in the event being cancelled so please come and join in!!!
Dates for the Diary
- Friday 28th August 3-4pm – Rescheduled Colour Run (weather & helper dependent)
- Friday 4th September (see timings above) – Meet the Teacher (P1-P7)
- Wednesday 8th September @ 6pm – Parent Engagement Group in Grange PS
- Friday 2nd October – end of term (normal finish times)
- Monday 19th October – Start of Term 2
We look forward to seeing you all very soon!
