Grange First Weekly News Spring 1 Week 3 - 23.1.26

Contents

• Parking with Respect
• Parent Workshops
• World Religion Day
• PTFA fundraising (& Taylor Swift event)
• Achievements out of school
• This week in OPAL
• Dates

Parking with Respect

Once again, I am asking a small number of individuals to drive and park with consideration when dropping off and collecting children at Grange. The vast majority of you do this brilliantly, and I thank you for helping to keep our children and local residents safe. Unfortunately, I have received further complaints this week from residents of Kirkley Close about cars parking across dropped kerbs and blocking driveways. This prevents residents from accessing their off-street parking. I have advised residents to report these incidents, along with photographs and vehicle registration numbers, to Newcastle City Council. I have also been told that cars are doing 3-point turns right outside the school gates and are mounting the pavement where our children and families are walking. Please help us to keep our children safe and to maintain positive relationships with our neighbours by parking and driving responsibly.

Parent Workshops

Thank you to everyone who took the time to complete the short survey about the Phonics, Reading and Times Tables workshops held last week. If you would still like to respond, the survey will remain open over the weekend. I would particularly welcome feedback from Nursery and Reception parents. Workshop Feedback January 2026 – Fill in form We received some wonderful comments, including:

• The teacher explained everything very clearly and it was a fascinating insight into how spelling is taught now compared to when I was at school.
• I loved seeing how engaged the children were in their learning.
• It was a great workshop that showed many fun and engaging ways to practise times tables.
• The teacher was very helpful and understood the needs of each child.

On Tuesday 3rd February at 4.30pm and Thursday 5th February at 8.55am, Mrs Dixon, our Maths Lead, will be holding a maths workshop in the hall for parents and carers of children in Reception and Years 1–4. She will demonstrate how maths is taught at Grange, the resources we use, and share fun and practical ways to support your child at home. Please book your place at one of the workshops via the Gateway App.

World Religion Day

This week, we celebrated World Religion Day in assembly. This day helps us to understand and respect the many different religions in our world. The children confidently named the six major world religions and spoke knowledgeably about them. We have children at Grange from all of the 6 major religions.

Children volunteered to share information about their own beliefs and how they celebrate special festivals. It was wonderful to see them speak with such pride. We also discussed the similarities between religions, including holy books or sacred texts, places of worship and belief in a higher being or God. One of my favourite moments was when a child said, “In my religion, we believe that we should respect every religion in the world.” As we say at Grange, “Everyone is different and everyone is welcome.” We are very lucky to have such diversity within our school community. Thank you to all the children who participated and to the parents who sent in photographs and objects to support learning. Please enjoy the photos below.