What a positive start it has been to our new term at Grange, with so much Great Grange Learning underway. As always there is a buzz of activity and learning around our school as we all continue to REACH FOR THE STARS! #believe…

#progress – This term we will issue our first of three Progress Updates of the year to let you know how the children are progressing in their learning. Based upon feedback from parents last session we have included a teacher comment and the children’s own learning goals. Where children are not yet making the progress we would hope for, staff will be in touch to discuss the support which is in place in school and ways you can help at home. I am sure you will continue to be as impressed as I am by the children’s ability to discuss their progress in learning at our upcoming Learner Led Conferences. On the night the children will also be Sharing Our Learning from our Gaming @ Grange project so don’t miss it!

#positivity – We all know at Grange that we need to be challenged in our learning to become Great Grange Learners and our aim this year is to increase the level of challenge for everyone.We have used feedback from parents, staff and children to come up with our own definition of what we mean by CHALLENGE at Grange…

CHALLENGE IS EITHER TAKING THE NEXT STEP IN LEARNING OR LEARNING THAT STIMULATES YOU TO THINK, REASON OR SOLVE PROBLEMS – SOMETIMES IT’S BOTH!!

This is a first draft and we plan to use this with the children to help us have a shared understanding of what challenge looks like and of course what it feels like (it doesn’t always feel good!). Our staff have been working hard to try out different ways of increasing challenge in our classrooms and I look forward to sharing our progress with you over the year.

#rightchoices – We continue to have weekly Bounce Back sessions in our classes to help the children explore their social and emotional well-being. This will be particularly helpful as we move forward with our work on challenge as we all need the resilience to deal with our mistakes in learning and to use mistakes as opportunities to learn. Our Health Hub MAD group will continue to work hard to encourage everyone to make healthy choices and our Eco Warriors are doing a great job with their recycling duties – well done everyone!

#engageyourself – Our MAD Fundraisers are delighted to have raised over £650 from their apple crumble bags and the chocolate tombola. Thank you to everyone who supported them and they have great plans for the Christmas Fayre to build on their profit to help pay for our Christmas cinema trip. Another exciting enterprise venture has been developed by a group of P5 boys who are making and selling waffles to raise funds for our playground so watch out for more information – look out Sir Alan Sugar! Huge thanks as always to our Parent Council and Grange Gabbers for continuing to support the school by sharing views and opinions and for organising fantastic Halloween events for everyone. Don’t forget that the minutes from Parent Council meetings can be accessed on the school blog and everyone is always welcome to come along and help to improve our school. Our next family learning event will look at supporting our children to cope with anxiety and to build resilience – we look forward to seeing you on the night!

#acceptance –  We strive at Grange to make sure that we know all of our children on an individual basis to ensure they are making progress in learning and that they are happy! To help us with this we will be reviewing our Great Grange Relationships policy this Friday at Grange Gabbers 9.30-10.30am where we will share scripts used by staff and we will discuss rewards and consequences. Please come along if you would like to get involved – by sharing your views and opinions you help us to improve and to continue to make Grange great!

As you can imagine this is just a snapshot of all the amazing work that is going on in our school… I continue to feel privileged to work with such committed staff and of course wonderful children. Their energy, creativity and enthusiasm make our school the vibrant learning environment that it is and make us all proud to be Grangers! #believe

#positivity…This term has seen the start of our first whole school topic ‘Gaming’ which was launched by a visit from The Code Show. This was an exhibition which demonstrated the development of technology and gaming over the years. The classes are now immersed in game design and coding and we plan to share our learning with parents over our Learner Led Conferences in November.

#rightchoices…To link with our whole school topic we held our first in a series of family learning events ‘Parenting in a Digital Generation’. The evening focused upon the impact of digital technology and social media upon our children’s well-being. It was very thought provoking and the evaluations from parents were extremely positive. Please have a look on our blog for more information about apps, online safety and of course our fantastic ‘Guarding Grange’ vlogs!

#engageyourself…Over the last few weeks we have hosted our first Grange Gabbers and Nursery Natters meeting, a Staff Gabbers meeting and our first Mini Gabbers for the children. These all proved really useful ways of getting informal feedback to help us improve. We got ideas and views from parents and staff around ‘challenge’ which is one of our main areas of improvement. The children shared their views about the playground, timetabling and the dinner hall which we will take forward over the coming weeks.

#acceptance…We are continuing with our focus on ‘happiness’ with weekly ‘Bounce Back’ sessions to help everyone reflect upon relationships and resilience. At a recent staff meeting Mrs McIntosh and Mrs Balfour shared their approaches to daily ‘check ins’ which help to ensure that everyone is ready to learn after break and lunch. Mr Muir and Miss Henderson shared the SPLAT programme which offers our children a range of activities to develop social skills in an inclusive way. Our next family learning evening will support our work in school by considering the topics of anxiety and resilience.

#progress…At Learn to Learn last week our P7s shared their thoughts about ‘challenge’ and our task is now to take their ideas along with the feedback from staff and parents to come up with a definition of what challenge means at Grange! Our shared definition will then help us to recognise challenge in our classrooms as we all know at Grange that challenge helps us to become better learners. The next Head Teacher Challenge will involve every class in creating a ‘Stuck Stop’ to give the children strategies and resources to use when they are stuck! This will help everyone to cope with challenges and to become more independent – P6 will report back in October.

#believe…As if all of the above isn’t enough we hosted one of the most exciting community events Monifieth has seen, our Outdoor Cinema. The sun was shining and our families came in droves to see The Greatest Showman and of course Despicable Me. Huge thanks go out to the parents who made this ambitious idea into a wonderful reality (you know who you are!). In true Grange style we made a memory which will surely last a lifetime and reminded everyone that we should dream big and always REACH FOR THE STARS!

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‘!

The weeks are flying by and it seems as though we will be at the summer holidays before we know it. It has been yet another great year at Grange and as the holidays fast approach we are preparing ourselves for saying goodbye to not only our fabulous P7s but also two very special ladies. Mrs Sherret (Senior Clerical Officer) and Mrs Manley (School and Pupil Support Assistant) have both decided it’s time to retire after many years of going ‘above and beyond’ at Grange.

Mrs Sherret has held the fort in the school office for as long as I have been Head Teacher and she has not only been a great support to me but also to many staff, children and parents. She has always been completely committed to our school and  has gladly given up her own time over the years to help support and organise school events. On top of that she has been reliable, efficient and incredibly loyal to me personally, qualities that I have always admired and never underestimated. Her shoes will be very hard to fill but she will leave behind an extremely organised and tidy office for her replacement!

Mrs Manley has worked in our Purple Room for many years and in that time has built some very close relationships with many of our children and parents. Anyone who has had the pleasure of working with her knows how much love and care she has given our children. She has set high standards of care and a level of nurture that has spread through our school and helped to make Grange the warm and welcoming school that we all love. Her commitment to our children has been infectious and the support she has given to many of our families priceless. Her legacy will continue in our Purple Room and we will strive to live up the standards she has set!

To both ladies we wish you a happy and healthy retirement and I know that you will both keep in touch with all of your Grange friends. You will both be greatly missed but never forgotten…once a Granger always a Granger!

There have been some other staff changes over recent months which include Mrs Spink (School and Pupil Support Assistant) leaving to take up a new post in Arbroath and her replacement Mrs Beattie joining us. We have also appointed a team of Principal Teachers Pedagogy using our Pupil Equity Fund. Mrs Anderson, Miss Kean, Mrs Smith and Mrs Watson have taken up  these new posts on a temporary basis to help us continue to improve our already high standards of learning,  teaching and attainment. They are already off to a great start and it is exciting to see the energy and drive they will bring to our leadership team while continuing to be great class teachers. We are currently making our improvement plans for next session and  I look forward to telling you all about it in my next blog.

Until then Happy Retirement to Mrs Manley and Mrs Sherret and on behalf of everyone at Grange thank you for going ‘above and beyond’ for all these years. Now it’s time for you to relax and enjoy!

Our first Parent Council meeting of the school year will be held on Monday 3rd September at 7.30pm in The Bell Tree. All parents are welcome and we are keen to have all year groups and classes represented. Our meetings are informal and we deal with important issues in a positive and supportive way. We vary the day of the week that meetings are held to allow as many parents as possible to attend over the year. The group is slightly different at each meeting and new members are always made to feel welcome so if you can make it on the 3rd we would love to see you!

For parents who can’t manage to evening meetings I also hold a monthly meeting during the day called ‘Grange Gabbers’. The first meeting will be held on Friday 7th September 9.15-10.15am in the out of school club room. Again this group changes each month dependent upon everyone’s availability and it is a great way for me to gather feedback from parents which helps us to improve. The nursery equivalent is called ‘Nursery Natters’ and is led by Mrs Landsburgh (Principal Teacher). The first meetings will be held in the nursery on Monday 3rd September at 11.00am and 2.30pm.

Mrs Landsburgh has been working hard on the school blog to include as much information about our school as possible. The information included was suggested by parents for parents and we hope you will enjoy browsing. It continues to be a work in progress and we are always keen to get feedback which could help us to further improve. Mrs Landsburgh has recently added a calendar of events which you might find helpful. As part of our school improvements this year the Parent Council aim to develop a calendar of events for families so keep an eye on the calendar for more information. Huge thanks to Mrs L for all the time and energy she has put into the blog!

Finally our first family event ‘The Grange Big Lunch’ will be held on Saturday 8th September 11.00am-1.00pm. Bring along your deck chairs and picnics or treat yourselves at Fallone’s Pizza Van and the ice-cream van! Our P6 children will be leading playground games and we have some local clubs coming along to give taster activities. We will also have a pom pom station and an art project for ‘upcycling’ plastic water bottles to help decorate our school entrance. It will be a fun way for parents and families to get involved with the life of our school and I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible. It is only by working together that we can truly make Grange great and give the children the best possible learning experience so go on…get involved!

It has been wonderful coming back to a new school year and seeing the children so happy and eager to learn. Last term we had a whole school focus upon Great Grange Behaviour and we saw amazing improvements particularly in corridor and playground behaviour. The school leadership team were outside in the playground over breaks every day as well as supervising the dining hall and corridors. The children made us all extremely proud by rising to the high standards of behaviour we aim for at Grange and several visitors commented upon our polite and well-behaved children.

Over the last two weeks we have been building upon our success by focusing upon Great Grange Relationships. Our three goals are for our everyone to be Safe, Respectful and Ready to learn. The leadership team continue to be outside at breaks and highly visible around the school to support this. We are also trying out a ‘Meet and Greet’ every morning. This involves me welcoming the children at the gate (alternate days at each gate) and Mrs Tweed, Mrs Oldham and Mrs Landsburgh welcoming in the class lines to allow the class teachers to welcome the children at the classroom doors. Our hope is that by personally connecting with every child as they enter the school they feel safe, respected and ready for the day. That’s when the best learning can happen!

We have been giving out golden raffle tickets all week for children who are behaving well in the dining hall. The raffle tickets have all gone into a golden tombola and eight winning tickets will be drawn each Friday. The eight winners will have their lunch at the Golden Table the following Friday and they can also invite a guest to join them. The excitement is almost too much…and that’s just me!

Have a great weekend everyone and watch out for my next blog coming soon…

Last term we surveyed the children and staff to find out what they think about the behaviour at Grange. The results showed that while everyone feels the general behaviour across the school is good there is room for improvement in the playground and corridors. The P5-7 children worked in groups to come up with ‘change ideas’ to help us improve the playground and the corridors and they had some very creative ideas! I have been visiting the classes each week to introduce a new challenge from the ideas the children generated. The P7 children are gathering data about what’s happening in the playground and corridors each week so that we can identify which ideas are working and how much we have improved.

In the playground the children want more to do! They have identified 10 zones and I have set each year group the challenge of working out the resources and rules they need for one zone each. Where they need to buy new resources they have to complete a Business Proposal Form which will be considered by the MAD Fundraisers. Some children and staff are working with representatives from the Parent Council who are also keen to help and to use the funds they have raised to buy new resources. The Parks Department are going to clear the forest area to make it safe so it can become our Adventure Zone. We have also submitted applications for funding from different sources and our aim is to have as many of the zones up and running by the end of term.

In the corridors the main problem is children running and bumping into each other. The first week we introduced a timetable for the Leadership Team to supervise each corridor area, dining hall and playground. Last week we introduced the idea of ‘Fantastic Walking’ where everyone slows down and walks proudly through the corridors keeping their hands to themselves. This has been great fun and the behaviour has improved dramatically with less running and pushing and with very positive feedback from a number of visitors, children and staff. This week the staff are escorting the children in their lines to the doors at the end of each part of the day to make sure everyone leaves in a safe manner.

Over the coming weeks we will be working on conflict resolution, excellent manners and class/ school rewards. Our overall aim to is to revisit the surveys we carried out last term and for the children to see that their ideas and efforts have led to significant improvements. I look forward to sharing our progress and the great fun we are having as we REACH FOR THE STARS!