Grange First Weekly News Week 5 Summer 2 - 11.07.25

Contents

• Parent Survey
• OPAL Play
• Money Snake Challenge
• Reports
• Goodbye
• Year 1 Wonderful Writers
• Summer Term Dates

Parent Survey

A huge thank you to the 136 families that took the time to complete our annual parent/carer survey. As promised, here is a summary of the responses:

• 98% of respondents stated that their child enjoyed school
• 98% stated that their child feels safe at school
• 97% stated that school makes sure pupils are well behaved
• 9% don’t believe that school deals effectively with bullying – We will try to tell you more about how we deal with bullying in school
• 99% agree that school tells them what their child is learning throughout the year
• 97% stated that when concerns have been raised with school, they have been dealt with properly.
• 99% of parents and carers feel able to approach staff at school if they have any concerns
• SEND- 23 families who responded had a child with special educational needs. 83% of these parents/carers said their child receives the support they need at school.
• 90% of families agree that school has high expectations for their child. We need to explain to parents and families how we do this in school. We will aim to work on this in the new academic year.
• 99% stated that their child makes good progress at school.
• 95% said school let’s parents know how their child is doing.
• 98% feel well informed about what is happening in school through the newsletter, website and Facebook.
• 99% believe the school supports their child’s wider development
• 97% of families would recommend Grange First School to another parent

What do you think the school does well? Some of the things that came up frequently were:

• Staff are friendly and approachable
• Dedicated, nuturing staff
• Excellent teaching and children make great progress
• Superb PTFA
• The wider curriculum- OPAL, Forest School, special events, visits
• Warm, welcoming ethos
• Inclusive and supportive school where everyone is respected
• Excellent communication

I’m very grateful for everything Grange has done, it’s been a wonderful place for my daughter to grow, learn, and feel happy every day.

We absolutely love everything about Grange and feel so lucky to have it as our first school. It's given our child a brilliant grounding across so many things - academic, social and extras too.

This school and the staff are exceptional!

Is there anything we could do to improve? Some of the things that came up frequently were:

• Sports Days on different days- we will do this next year
• Better communication for parents if their child attends TreeTops as they miss the little interactions at the start and end of the school day – we will discuss this as a staff group and work out how we can improve on this.
• More bike and scooter storage – a member of our PTFA is currently working on this
• More updates on Facebook and from all classes – we will aim to do this from September
• More clubs – there is a limit to how many we can provide as we only have one school hall. We already have 3 or 4 clubs taking place after school, at lunchtime and before school each week. This doesn’t include some clubs like KS2 sewing club which take place for one term or Year 2 maths club which takes place for one term etc. There are also several more informally run clubs at lunchtime- loom band club, Swifty Club, Times Table Rockstars…We try to provide a balance between clubs which are free and those which are run by external providers and have a cost associated with them. We will continue to look for any additional club opportunities that we can provide.
• More homework – We can never please everyone with this one. Some parents want more and some want less. Our goal is to strike a healthy balance that supports learning without over burdening children or families. To accommodate different preferences, we aim to provide core tasks. We send home KIRFs (Key Instant Recall Facts) every half term in maths and we also ask you to read with your child every night. We also ask you to support us with spellings at home. We send home half term topic planners so that you know what we are teaching in class in all subject areas. If you would like extra homework to do, you could do some work linked to the topic. We always love to see any extra homework children choose to do at home.
• Music clubs or tuition to learn an instrument- Mrs Price, our music lead, runs a school choir but we don’t currently have a peripatetic teacher who comes to school. I will look into this to see if we can find one.
• Learning a language in Year 3 and 4 – We teach the children Spanish in year 3 and 4. They then continue with this in Year 5 and 6 at middle school. We have a French Club at lunchtimes for Yr1-4 that runs all year and a Reception Club which starts in January.
• KS2 toilets- we will be returning to male and female toilets for our KS2 pupils in September