Grange Primary School: Blog
Hi everyone - hope that you had a great Christmas Break - the run up to the end of term was great with fantastic Christmas Concerts -A Christmas Carol by years 3 &4, The Wizard of Oz - by Years 1 & 2 and very different Nativity presentation by our year 5 &6 pupils . Our youngest pupils in reception presented a more traditional Nativity and a fabulous movie telling the Chirstmas Story based at Tweddle Farm - with all our pupils as angels.
We were very pleased to welcome so many parents, families and friends of Grange to our three performances across the week . We rounded up the week with a special Carosl Service at our last assembly of the term followed by a visit from a Magician for our younger pupils.
We are ready to return to school on Tuesday 5th January - in spite of the snow - did you go sledging?
I hope Santa was good to you - and that you had a great time with friends and family over the holiday. I look forward to seeing you at the start of the new term.
Kind regards and a very happy 2010 to you all.
Louise Perfect
This week Year 6 pupils enjoyed a visit to Hartlepool marina and took part in water activities.
Year 5 enjoyed working with a number of visitors who launched a new project called Good Citizens Day - representatives from the police, fire, community services helped pupils to consider what it means to be a good citizen. They explored issues around anti social behaviour and staying safe. Watch out for their comments on line about the experience. I was very proud to be told how well they worked during the whole event over two afternoons and who wonderful ambassadors for the school they had been - Well done to pupils in Mrs Gibson's and Mr Smith's classes.
Congratulations ot our new starters - would you believe it - our youngest pupils who started school in September have the best attendance rates to date. The attendance winners this week were - Mrs Parkinson's class - who achieved 100% attendance across the week. Fantastic!
We welcomed over 30 parents to the Expo Chef experience this week - they tried out some of the recipe ideas and dishes prepared by our chef Kaisha. We hope to have another event before Christmas about Festive Foods - watch out for the invitations next term .
Week of 6th - 30th October is half term -
Open evenings will be held week of 9th November
The school photographer will be in school on Friday 23rd October
Jimmy - our Expo Chef paid a return visit to Grange School at the start of the new term. He had lots of new ideas for healthy eating - children tried lots of new recipes and even ate vegetables!!! theyhad never tried before. Expo chef will be back - on Thursday 1st October - to work with parents . Come and enjoy some of his ideas for packed lunches - tickets are free and available from the school office - it will be very entertaining - hope you can join us.
Hello everyone - hope that you have had a great summer break and are looking forward to the new term.
There are lots of exciting things planned. We can look forward to a return visit from Expo Chef - who taught us all about healthy eating last term.
He or she will will be bringing us some new receipes to try out. There will also be sessions for parents too - so if you like cooking - watch out for the information in September that will be coming home to you.
Hartley has been off globe trotting again over the summer - listen and watch out for his news. During the summer holiday one of the countries he visited was France - he had a good time trying out his language skills - he is very good at going to the bakery and asking for pain au chocolat , croissants and baguettes. He even found a little village called Les Granges - fancy that! He was quite good in the market asking for legumes and fromages.
I wonder what you have been up to? Which acitivities did you take part in around the region and in Hartlepool? I wonder who has travelled out of town this summer - I wonder who travelled the furthest ? it would be interesting to know about any special days or places you visited - which was the most surprising, funniest or interesting thing you enjoyed?
Hartley visited a very famous and special garden on his travels in Frnace. It was once owned by an artist ..... he will tell you about it next term.
See you all very soon
This week pupils from five Primary Schools met up to learn about movie making - here are their evaluations
I liked today because it was fun and exciting . I would like to do more animation. We worked well as a team . ( Jack – Hart)
Today I enjoyed everything. I loved making the film and I felt that our team was working well together . The funniest part of the day was when we made our characters. My character was a surfing chicken. Our animation was named A Bad Day at the Beach. ( James – Elwick)
I learnt how to make an animation – which is quite easy once you know how to do it. Our group worked well with the making of the characters. I enjoyed ALL of today – it was fun. My film was called Films 4U. It is about two dogs , a snowman, and a dinosaur. My character was Paddy the dog. I really enjoyed today! ( Alice – Grange)
I learnt that when you are filming you have to concentrate . I had different colours on my model. The funniest thing was watching our movie. ( Nicole – Stranton)
I have enjoyed making our models and our own productions. Our film was called Animal Production . It was funny when my model squashed the snail and when the character the flower. ( Ethan – Rift House)
Today I liked working together with my group . I learned lots more about animation and I would like to do it again. It was hard to do some of the bits. I am pleased with my film. I think we really worked hard . We decided to call our film Snowman Football. I have enjoyed making friends to day. It was funny at the end of the film when the dog knocked the snowman’s hat off ( Adam – Hart)
I have enjoyed everything today and I really liked the filming. I had to make sure that the characters were in the right place and that they had to make tiny movements. We worked very well as a team. ( Sally – Stranton)
I have learnt that you have to take your time when filming. I found making my character fun because I like making things out of clay or plasticine. I learnt about animation – it takes a lot of shots to do it. I think we worked well today and we took our time and it was great. ( Chloe – Grange)
Fun with plasticine
Pupils from Grange , Stranton, Rift House, Hart and Elwick Primary Schools joined together this week to learn about stop frame animation. First we had to create characters and make models out of plasticine. Next we had to plan a story and learn how to bring our models to life using stop frame animation. It was great fun - we now know just how hard Nick Park and his team work to make their fantastic Wallace and Gromit movies.
To make a model that can be successfully brought to life you need to choose two or three features on the head and body that can be easily moved. It helps if you make these features big and bold. The model eeds to have big feet and the weight needs to be near the bottom - not top heavy or it will fall over. Making movies is great fun - but you need to work well as a team.
Thank you to the families and friends of Grange Primary School who supported the Christmas Shoe Box Appeal - Operation Christmas Child. The Friends of Grange have been working hard over the last few weeks organising your gifts into boxes for boys and girls. Thanks to your generosity sixty five presents were sent to the charity this year.
Friday was the National Children in Need Charity Event . Pupils and staff dressed in red or yellow and raised over £160 towards the fund.
This week we launched our new Film club for pupils. This is sponsored by Film Education and Love Film. Over 120 children enjoyed Aladdin in the school hall after school on Thursday evening. Coming up next week - Happy Feet.....
Reading for Pleasure—National Year of Reading - stories, stories, stories.....
This year is National Year of Reading and we have already promoted Reading in school through events such as our Annual Book Fayre and a new film made by our pupils called Martin The Martian Bookworm.
In November pupils visited the Magic Attic to enjoy storytelling, writing and puppet making..
Week of 20th October was National Film Week for schools, Year 5 and Year 2 pupils enjoyed a visit to Vue Cinema Hartlepool to view Nims Island and Wall-ee
You can help your child to succeed with reading by encouraging them to choose lots of great books from our school library .
This term we are introducing a film club supported by Film Education and Love Film. Pupils will contribute to the LOVEFILM web site as young critics. Our first two films are Aladdin and Happy Feet.
Just before the October half term break Grange pupils were invited to make a presentation to the Regional Healthy School Co-ordination Panel to be judged in the Healthy Schools Awards of Innovation.
They showed the panel how we promote Health Education through our TV studio broadcast facility.
This week we received a letter informing us that we are the winning school for Hartlepool and will attend the Teeside Healthy School Innovation Award Event on Friday 5th December at MIMA in Middlesbrough.
Well done to all who have contributed and regularly produce out TV programmes. Our work will now be considered in the final of the Teeside Innovation Awards.