Today Mrs Leon shared with the school that we are once again working with Living Streets to encourage active travel to school. Every class is tracking how children come to school each day and children can earn a badge if they walk, cycle or scooter at least once a week. We have been working in partnership with Wantage and Grove Active Travel to produce a series of maps showing walking, cycling and scooting routes to school from different parts of the local area. The maps have been designed to make it easier for families to discover practical active travel routes and to encourage more people to walk, cycle or scoot for local journeys. The maps can be seen above and can also be found on our school website at www.groveprimary.org on the Travel page. We understand that some families live further away and may need to travel by car. To help reduce congestion around the school, we have partnered with The Bay Tree Pub on The Green, Grove, OX12 0AN, as well as the Market Square car park, providing convenient locations to park and walk, cycle or scoot the remainder of the journey to school. This will still count towards your child's badge for active travel! We hope these options will help families who need to drive to school to consider parking a short distance away and completing the final part of their journey actively. This will help reduce traffic and congestion around the school while also supporting healthier and more sustainable travel choices. We encourage you to take a look at the maps and consider whether any of the routes or park-and-walk options could work for you and your family. Thank you for your continued support in helping us to promote active travel and reduce congestion within our local community.

KS2 AUTHOR WORKSHOP - SUE PALMER - THE SHELL SECRET Dear Parents, On 24th September, author Sue Palmer will be running workshops for years 3 to 6 at Grove CE Primary School, called 'Secrets of the Shore – Rocking rock pools' and introducing her new children's book to us. The Shell Secret is an award- winning adventure and mystery story, set on the Cornish coast. Sue will be reading from her book, sharing the backdrop to her story and revealing the amazing and strange lives of some of the creatures to be found on our shores. For 11-year-old budding detective Alice Clark, summers in Trevellen used to mean roaming the beaches and rockpools, collecting shells with her sister, Poppy. But this year is different. Without Poppy and forbidden from visiting the beach alone, Alice reluctantly strikes a deal with Jasperthe annoying boy who's just moved in next door. But the arrangement quickly becomes more complicated than she expects. Drawn into the heart of a World War II mystery, Alice and Jasper find themselves in real danger, unearth a shocking family secret, and risk losing the one thing Alice came back to Trevellen to protect. "Gripping...packed with mystery, danger and hidden truths" "A thrilling adventure for 7–12-year-olds" "Fascinating, intricate and totally absorbing" If you would like your child to have a book signed by Sue or to order books for gifts, please order your copy from the Wallingford Bookshop Grove Primary School Page by the 21st September. https://www.wallingfordbookshop.co.uk/sue-palmer-school-visits They are discounting the price of The Shell Secret for our event. Sue will bring the books along on the day and sign and personalize each book. Please do order one if you can as Sue is running these workshops at no cost to the school.

As we gathered at church on Tuesday for our Leavers Service, we celebrated an extraordinary farewell to our phenomenal Year 6s; outstanding staff and colleagues; and students embarking on new adventures! Wishing them limitless next chapters, where they'll continue to let their light shine. We also honored the shining stars in each class who exemplified our school values all year, earning the prestigious Governors award. Congratulations to these excellent pupils!

Why not visit Letcombe Brook this summer for these fun events?

Oak, Rowan, Willow, Maple and Sycamore Classes have already visited Grove Library this term to learn about how to sign up for the #SummerReadingChallenge 2026 and start their summer reading adventure! Make sure your family has a library card and pop in to Grove or Wantage library to join in the fun! https://summerreadingchallenge.org.uk

Years 1 to 5 voted for their new school councillors last week, who will be representing their new classes in September. Today they were invited to an event run by Sustainable Wantage, to find out more about what other local school councils have been doing to encourage environmental awareness and to take part in some fun activities. They met Olly Glover, Liberal Democrat MP for Didcot and Wantage, found out about Letcombe Brook and Wild Wantage, powered a battery with pedal power and saw a robotic dog that uses AI to map out the room. We can't wait to think of ways to help our environment around school!

Postponed!

Quidditch at Grove! Today we had a very magical day learning how to play Quidditch; the game played in the Harry Potter book series. Our Professor, Jamie, began the day with a sorting ceremony where our house captains were chosen using the sorting hat and assigned a Hogwarts House based on their attributes. Once we had our captains from Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin each class had a session learning the rules of the game. The children had so much fun learning how the quaffle and bludger balls are used and we had speedy human snitches zooming around whilst others tried to take their golden tags for points! The day ended with the announcement of which house got the most points. The winners were.... RAVENCLAW! Thank you so much to Jamie and to Miss Cooper for arranging such a fun day for the children.