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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After School Clubs Following on from the success of the number and variety opf After School Clubs we have been able to offer we will once again be looking to repeat this next session. If you have any talents you would like to offer as an After School or even a lunchtime club (no pressure, this could just be for a few weeks if you can spare the time) please do get in touch with us. It is a great way to get to know your school even better and we will support you in this. I will be holding a coffee morning on Friday 23 August from 11.15am in school. During the morning I will share our priorities for next session as well as all of the different ways that you can get involved and perhaps sign up to one or two groups. I look forward to seeing you there. Our Active Schools Coordinator will also be available on the day to share with you information about training for parents or the variety of clubs that we can offer. Open Gardens Scheme What lovely weather and a great turn out for the Open Garden Day in the village. This is a phenomenal amount of work for everyone involved and a great community event for our village. Thank you to everyone who took part and to the committee responsible for allocating the funds raised. The school benefiited greatly by way of a cheque for £279, all of which will go towards developing our own grounds next year for the benefit of chidlren and families. Thank you all. Shared Start Next Session The Soft Start activities have been a great success this year and we look forward to hosting these again next session. We are keen to provide more opportunities for y ou to experience our delivery of Maths in school however should you have any other areas you would like to find out about please do let us know.
Priorities for School Improvemnet 2013/14 It may seem a little strange to be mentioning our priorities for next session when we are all looking forward to our holidays so much, however, our plans are all now finalised now for next session. We are excitied to be continuing with our three year plan, focussing next year on further improving our approaches to literacy. We also intend to develop Parental Information booklets for Literacy and Numeracy to share with you the types of experiences your child will have at each of the levels and how you can support at home. We are looking forward to developing our lower playground with the Parent Council and any other willing volunteers – perhaps you could help us out with an After School Gardening Club. Thankyou to Lynn Reynolds for helping the Nursery out with planting this year.
Thank you to all of you who have contined to support us this year. Special thanks must go to Ms Woolley who led our Motor Skills Group and also to Mrs Paton, Mr Mair and Mr Henderson for their help running our Bikeability After School Clubs. Of course we couldn’t forget about our Parent Council for their ongoing support and dedication to our school. This school really is a very special place and I look forward to working in partnership with you all again next sesion as we continue to work towards providing the highest possible quality learning experiences for our children. On behalf of myself and the rest of the team I wish you all a restful and happy holiday and look forward to welcoming everyone back on Wednesday 21 August. Please remember to keep an eye on the school blog http://edubuzz.org/blogs/athelstaneford/ for the most up to date information. As ever if you have any concerns or queries please do not hesitate to contact me. Catriona McKinnon Head Teacher
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