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School Newsletter October 2015

Autumn is here ….

Welcome back to all of our families and I hope that everyone had a restful and enjoyable October break. We have been so lucky with this perfectly autumnal weather so far but it is now so much chillier outside and therefore the need for the winter coats is here. Last term was certainly very busy in school, establishing our Pupil Groups, sorting out our School Parliament, attending various sports festivals and so much more, all of which you can find out more about as your read on.

School Day Just a little reminder that children should be ready to come into school at 8.50am, lined up with their peers and it certainly continues to be successful this year as far as this is concerned.

We fully appreciate your support in ensuring children are ready on time and likewise, we shall do our very best to have your children ready to be collected at 3.20pm, especially as we are aware that with Winter approaching you may well be doing the pick-up in the cold or rain!

School Uniform As ever, our children continue to look very smart in their uniforms as they arrive into school. As it may be time to think about new shoes for the winter or perhaps over Christmas (sorry I had to mention so early on!) when it arrives, it seems like the ideal time to highlight that our school uniform guidance does advise that children should wear dark school shoes. Children are very welcome to change into indoor shoes in school in wetter months and indeed many of our older children bring trainers to change into at playtime and lunchtime to keep their school shoes ‘nice’!

Issue 1

School Improvement Plan Just as our children have been busy since returning in august so have the staff. Our two in-service days in august and our third yesterday combing with our regular Friday afternoon sessions together provided us with incredibly valuable time to make an excellent start to our school improvement plan.

Regular updates on the progress of the plan are given to the Parent Council so look out for the Parent Council minutes with these updates to keep you posted.

Most recently however we have been working in school on a Parental Information Booklet about Assessment which we shall be sending out to some parents for feedback shortly before issuing to everyone. We hope this will give you an insight into how we ensure your child is making appropriate progress with their learning.

Cluster Moderation As with previous years one member of our staff has joined a Cluster Moderation Team (involving representatives from Aberlady, Dirleton, Gullane, Law and NBHS).

Mrs Overmeer will be visiting schools within the cluster to meet with children and to discuss their experiences and progress in Social Studies and aspects of Health and Wellbeing. The Team shall be visiting our school in November which we very much look forward to. Children are selected randomly to meet with a teacher to talk about their learning. This then forms the basis for discussion between teachers at the end of the day when feedback is given to us as a school with regards to how well our children are doing. This model is used across East Lothian and viewed highly at a National level as a means of ensuring that our children benefit from the same level of experiences and expectations of achievement across our cluster schools.

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Highlights As with last session your termly highlights sheet will continue to come home to you on the second Friday after the start of a new term. The recent highlights sheet covered planned learning experiences from August – October and so your next highlights will come home on Friday 30 October outlining the exciting learning opportunities for your children between October and December. We hope that you find this beneficial as a means of being able to share in your children’s learning and to see that we are looking to plan learning across all four aspects of their curriculum and not just the traditional subject areas.

Halloween As the day before Halloween falls on a Friday this year we have decided to invite children to come to school in fancy dress if they choose. We would also very much like to see pupils bringing in pumpkins or turnips (we have even heard of the odd red pepper being carved!) for our Lantern Parade if they would like or perhaps to have a group effort if they prefer not to individually. The Junior Road Safety Officers will award the prize for the Lantern competition. Please do not send your child to school with matches or lighters. We shall judge the lanterns without lighting any candles or tea lights. During the morning there will be a few Halloween themed activities and the opportunity for classes to mix, including our Nursery children, aswell as our usual Friday morning subjects.

Parent Council I would like to say a huge thank you already for work that this group of individuals have put into their efforts to support the school already this session. The first meeting of the Parent Council was well attended with some new members attending which is great to see. The next meeting of the Parent council is on Wednesday 27th at 7pm for anyone who was interested and perhaps missed the AGM. The Fundraising Committee have made great plans for events over the course of this year to benefit both the school and wider community with any funds raised going directly to benefit your children. As part of our next meeting the school and Parent Council shall be developing a Wish List of potential resources to be purchased with any funds raised by these wonderful events for the benefit of our pupils.

Thank you Thank you also to Mr Calder for his wonderful painting over the summer to ensure we had a lovely blank canvas to return to which highlights our outdoor mural. Yet more thanks to Mrs Cotter and Mrs Gray for their work with the Eco committee.

They now have a few meetings under their belts and are focussed on their Action Plan with a display on the wall in the hall detailing what they have been planning. I know there were some very official phone calls made by our pupils to council officials regarding bins!

St Andrews Day One of the highlights for this term we are currently planning is once again how to mark the importance of St Andrews Day in our school and village.

As is tradition we shall have our annual flag raising ceremony outside the school at 10am on Monday 30 November. Two pupils will raise the new Saltire flag at the front of the school at 10am when we shall sing The Saltire song for invited guests from the village. We hope you can join us and spread the word! Following the Flag Raising we shall then invite those assembled to join us inside for some tea and shortbread along with short Scottish performances from our classes.

Skate Park You may well have noticed that work is well underway now for completion of the new Village Skatepark.

This project has been long in the making and it is great to see the hard work of individuals now paying off for the benefit of the wider community.

For our children this is a real life example of the importance of perseverance and for some to see the fruits of their labours when so long ago it seemed an unlikely dream. Some of our pupils and ex pupils were involved with this project right at the outset and we look forward to working with them and Mrs Begg to develop some agreed ‘Golden Rules’ for use of this space as a prompt to ensure that our children appreciate this resource and work to ensure that as far as possible it remains a space that is safe and accessible for all. I am sure that our children are greatly appreciative of the efforts of those that were involved in this project and to Mrs Begg for championing this for our children from the start!

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Pupil Parliament Update Following our Pupil Parliament meetings our 3 priorities were decided.

We now have three groups tasked with improving: 1. The House system 2. The pond and the lower playground area (with help from the Eco committee and the Nursery) 3. Golden Time We have now had our first meetings with the next date set for the 4th of November, so watch this space for news coming out from these important Pupil Groups.

Pupil Council In addition to the Pupil Parliament Groups we continue to have a Pupil Council who meet to discuss any issues or to arrange fundraising activities. Our first task this year is to arrange a Whole School Ramble for Children In Need. We are looking to organise this on Friday 13th November and will be looking for lots of adults to join us on this! Please let us know if you can come along and help –time to dig out the walking boots and waterproofs!

Lower Playground and The Muddy Kitchen You will have noticed that once again the lower playground has some new additions. A Muddy Kitchen has appeared thanks to the Nursery and Mr Calder. There was much excitement when it was first used and eventually the children got a turn too! Please can we ask that in the mornings before school that children do not play with this equipment to make sure that everything is safe, organised and ready for use. We have already observed lovely play happening here with all ages and such simple resources have created another great opportunity for our children to express themselves and develop their creativity! You may also have noticed that the beginnings of a sandpit arrived this morning –thank you to Mr Darrie for making this happen for our children!

Hand washing As we approach the winter months it is important that we all revisit the importance of hand washing, making use of soap and warm water.

Guidance provided to us advises that handwashing should take 15 seconds (the time it takes for our children to sing Happy Birthday twice! –yes we may hear this coming from the toilets)We shall be revisiting this in class and would ask that you reinforce this at home.

An issue related to this is sickness absence from school. Based upon NHS guidelines it is advised that all children are kept off school for a period of 48 hours from their last bout of sickness or diarrhoea to prevent infection spreading. We would kindly ask that we all follow these guidelines to avoid unnecessary absence for both children and staff over the winter months and thank you for your support in this.

Really Useful Website for Parents We recently found out about this super website that you can access from home and for free. http://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/ To join takes only your e-mail address and a password. You then have access to over 250 E-Books that are compatible with an Ipad. These are books that you can use at home to share reading together or at times for children to read on their own with fun activities.

There are also links to ideas for supporting maths and numeracy at home along with spelling apps that can also be downloaded. All of this is free and for Ipads aswell as android. Please let us know if you use this and find it useful. I have added a link to our school website also.

School Website We are very keen to continue to make best use of our wonderful school blog as a means of sharing what is happening in school.

It really is very easy to leave a comment and the children really appreciate comments that their parents may have left for them and their class. We would be delighted to hear from you or perhaps even a member of your family who does not live locally –what a great way to share what your child is up to. http://edubuzz.org/blogs/athelstaneford

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Class Updates The Nursery had a very busy first term, everyone settled in well and started off the year talking about the importance of friendships.

They then moved on to Robots and then Castles – life and interests certainly do move quickly for our Nursery children!

Most recently they enjoyed their autumn walk with our countryside Ranger and have been enjoying the outdoors most days in most weathers!

Primary 1-3 settled quickly and very well into classroom routines and life this year. They have enjoyed their energy topic, designing and making windmills as well as looking at Water wheels.

They have enjoyed lots of expressive arts and in particular painting and are very proud of their lovely autumn pictures on the wall.

Dates for your Diary October 30th:

Halloween Activities Day

November 4th: P1 Enrolment Morning th 10 : P7 Camp Info & S1 Transition Meeting (Gullane Primary School) th 13 : Children in Need 26th: P7 Transition Ceilidh (North Berwick High School) 30th: St. Andrew’s Day Celebrations December 7th: P7 Transition Sing A Long (North Berwick High School) 8th: Pantomime at Village Hall 15th: Nativity & Christmas Show th 16 : Christmas Parties 18th: Church Service End of Term

Primary 4-7 We thoroughly enjoyed learning about the Romans last term and are very proud of our classroom walls displaying our learning including the creative shields and mosaics produced as part of our homework. A massive highlight for us was of course our Watersports Day which helped us form important relationships as par to four new class. We are looking forward to startin our new science topic and preparing for St. Andrew’s Day celebrations and preparing for our Class Assembly.

As ever if you have any concerns or queries please do not hesitate to contact me.

Catriona McKinnon Head Teacher.

In PE all classes have been doing lots of Invasion Games.

Primary 4-7 have been umpiring and refereeing their own games and developed vital skills as a result, seeing the importance of results from a different perspective.

No comment required about the quality of refereeing at school/national level! They are now moving on to Cardio Tennis – something the staff were also interested in.

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