School Newsletter 27 June 2013 End of another year and Happy Holidays! What a lovely end to another great year for our school community with the sun shining on us for Mrs Taig’s Picnic on Tuesday. Thank you to our wonderfully supportive Parent Council for planning this event and to all those parents who contributed to make this a memorable day for Mrs Taig. Staffing and PE Next Session First of all some great news. Miss Hutchison has received confirmation from East Lothian Council that having now worked for two years on a temporary Principal Teacher contract she has now secure permanency. This means that from August 2013 Miss Hutchison will be a permanent PT in East Lothian. We are delighted for her and pleased that this very well deserved news has come before the summer holidays. Some of you may also be aware from your children that we have said goodbye now to another member of staff. Sadly, for us, Mrs Paterson is needed more in her other schools as a result of a rising school role and will now no longer be visiting us at Athelstaneford. This is the end of an era as Mrs Paterson has been committed to us for the last 16 years and will be greatly missed by us all. The children all gathered on the Village Green last week to wish her all the very best once we had confirmation that morning that she would be leaving us. We do have a preferred candidate now for our PE specialist starting with us in August and look forward to welcoming them to our team. Mrs Paterson has already chosen to spend her own time at the start of next session helping them settle in to post.
Issue 8 While I am on the subject of PE I would like to make a plea for kit next session. As you will perhaps be aware The Scottish Government have continued with their pledge to ensure that all school age children in Scotland have 2 hours Physical Education in school each week. Given that we do not have hall space big enough to accommodate most PE activities and make use of the village hall for indoor hall space we will most likely have to make more use of the outdoors next session. This could mean that children will be outdoors for PE in slightly damper weather. While we would not take the children out in freezing temperatures or wet weather they may well be out when it is a little drizzly or dreich! To support this requirement of 2 hours PE we would ask that all children have in school both an indoor and outdoor PE Kit. Please can you ensure your child comes to school with shorts, t-shirt, jogging bottoms and a long sleeved t-shirt or sweatshirt and trainers.
Awards Assemblies We finished our final Awards Assembly this session with another large number of Silver certificates being awarded. We also have two children who have reached their Gold Award – congratualtions to Struan Camburn and to Maja Semple. Everyone else who is working towards Gold will receive a Going For Gold Certificate on Friday from their class teacher. This has proved a really useful reward system this year and if you have any feedback on this we would love to hear it before starting again in August.
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