APS newsletter 2

Dear Parents & Friends Two weeks in and I’m pleased to announce how well everyone has settled back into school life. The children have already participated in their Personal and Social Development week where they developed all the rules necessary for effective learning and by now you will have received a copy of the important rules for their class. Hopefully you will all have agreed with these and signed the letter in agreement. If you have not yet sent this back, we would be most grateful if you could do so as soon as possible.

Mrs Cameron has been busy getting the school calendar ready and this can now be copied for sale at £1.00 to cover costs. The calendar has all the significant dates for the year including assemblies; parent consultation evenings; trips; Christmas Parties and much more. Please find an order form at the end of this newsletter.

Assuming the role of Responsible Citizens, pupils have been busy filling in application forms for important duties and positions of responsibility within the school, including Pupil Council Representatives, Eco Committee Members and Junior Road Safety Officers. Shortly, these groups will have their first meeting of the session and create their Action Plan for the year. In addition to this P6/7 have assumed the responsibility of Relief Office Duties. Each day while Mrs Cameron takes her well-earned break two pupils will man the phones and take messages.

Many of you will have noticed that much of the playground has been re-surfaced over the Summer making it safer and making a real difference to the activities this area can be used for.

Thank you very much to Mrs Chandler for the beautiful window boxes that appeared overnight and make for a very pleasant approach to the school. Any other Greenfingered members of the community? We will shortly be looking for a Band of Helpers to help us with our school garden. We are also keen to be ensuring that we maintain close links with our community and with that in mind wish to make a plea to anyone interested in helping out or able to offer particular skills we would greatly like to hear from you! ‘Your school needs you!’

We have now completed the school Improvement Plan and a copy is available in school for anyone who wishes to read the full document. For those of you who are happy with a summary: Priority 1: Begin planning for learning & teaching which reflects the 7 Principles of Curriculum Design using the new Curriculum for Excellence outcomes and experiences to develop literacy, numeracy and health & wellbeing progressively

across all stages and in a range of contexts. The 7 principles include challenge & enjoyment, coherence, progression, relevance, depth, breadth and personalisation & choice, and should permeate everything we do in school. In the same way, the life skills of literacy, numeracy & health & wellbeing should be planned for in everything we do in order that children are able to use these important skills for life.

Priority 2: To develop increased and improved opportunities for children to learn across all aspects of the curriculum. As defined by our new Curriculum for Excellence, the curriculum is described as ‘the totality of all that is planned for children and young people’. This session we will focus on ensuring that we are creating learning opportunities across all 4 aspects of the curriculum: • The Ethos and life of the school as a community • Interdisciplinary Studies • Opportunities for Attainment and Achievement • Curriculum Areas and Subjects Both of these priorities link closely with Curriculum for Excellence. A useful website for parents looking to find out more information about this and many other school related issues is: www.ltscotland.org.uk/parentzone Can I remind parents that we really do want to encourage the children to have a bottle of water with them every day. I am sure you will already be aware of the benefits of this and the link between regular drinks of water and attainment – so, please support us by providing a bottle with your child’s name clearly marked on it which they can fill from the water fountain in the foyer.

As part of the Scottish Government push for Health & Wellbeing and our own concerns for the health of our pupils, our Healthy Fruit Tuck Shop will continue to run in school and we hope you will support us further by ensuring that packed lunches and snacks are as healthy as possible. Primary 1 and 2 will of course remain part of the free fruit initiative.

Our Nursery children have all settled well back into routines. They have been very busy making the most of the outdoor area while the weather holds!

Josephine Innes the Dental Support Worker has been in already helping the children to get started with brushing their teeth in nursery and reading them stories. A walk into the village last week brought back lots of stories about sunflowers and much painting was to follow! Finally, the children will shortly be starting with their fortnightly Basic Moves session on Friday mornings and this Friday children will be coming home with their ‘Book in a Bag’.

All children have the opportunity to have a healthy school lunch and I am hopeful that many parents will take up the offer of a tasting session in the school this Friday at 12.30pm. Letters came home last week about this and if you have misplaced it just come up to the office and we can issue you with another. These

need to be returned to us in order that we can organise the correct number of meals to be available.

Our Parent Council will have it’s AGM on Tuesday 1 September. It will give you an opportunity to find out more about the role of the parent council and what they achieved last session.

Reflecting the importance of all aspects of a child’s learning, pupils continue to benefit from the input of several specialists: P.E - Mrs Patterson on a Thursday afternoon Music – Mrs Broadley (her new married name – congratulations!) on a Wednesday morning French – Mrs Swan – Thursday morning LS – Mrs Tennant – Tuesday morning.

In addition to our wonderful team of specialists pupils receive additional input from various educational groups. This session already P2 have taken part in a 3 Little Pigs Drama workshop – Mrs Lord has the photos on our school blog.

As the weather remains relatively dry children continue to bring their bikes to school and it has come to my attention that one or two bikes may have been damaged while stored in the Bike Shed within the playground. Thank you to those parents who brought this to my attention. I have investigated this and we shall continue to monitor this closely.

Shortly in school we will be proceeding with the launch of the Backpack Project.

This is part of a cluster initiative to try and raise funds for Malawi. Some P6/7 pupils will be taking the lead on this with more details to follow shortly. Additional information about the charity can be found at www.marysmeals.co.uk You will have received updates from each class letting you know that they will be learning about this term and our next newsletter will have further information from each class about what they have been doing so don’t miss it. Children should also be coming home with a brand new homework diary. This diary will be used to record all homework (including reading) that is issued in school. Please check school bags for this as we would wish parents to sign as a record that they have seen the homework.

I think that’s about all for now. Should you have any concerns at all, please get in touch and we will do our very best to help solve any would be problems. Anyone who may require this newsletter in a different language or larger print, please let us know and we will do our best to ensure that this is available to you.

School Calendar Order Form Below………/

Dates for your Diary September 1 P3/4/5 Tennis Coaching with Parent Council AGM 7.30pm 2 SSPCA visit 4 Judo Taster Sessions School Meals Tasting Session 12.30pm 7 P6/7 Geology Event 10 P1 Photos for East Lothian News 11 Backpack Appeal Launches 18 P3/4/5 Assembly 21 Holiday 25 JRSO Launch October 8 P1/2 Assembly 12 Health Week Begins Book Fair in school all week n. o.

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Parent Consultations 6-8.30pm Parent Consultations 4-6.30pm

End of Term

…………………………………………………………………………………………………… ……….

ORDER FORM FOR SCHOOL CALENDAR I would like to order ……………. School Calendars at £1.00 each and enclose ……………. to cover the cost of these.

Child’s name ………………………………………………..

Class …………………….

Parent / Carer signature ……………………………………… Date ……………………..