Newsletter 7

School Newsletter June 2013

Issue 7

Thank you!

Oh my goodness I can’t believe we are already into June and I have only been back for 5 weeks – just goes to show time really does fly when you are having fun! It really is great to be back.

and Mrs Lord will be jointly teaching P1/2 and P3/4.

Mrs Anderson and myself will remain with P5/6/7 and we welcome Mrs Little as our preferred candidate for our Nursery Teacher alongside Mrs Elliot for next session.

I am sure I have seen most of you by now but I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank you all again for making me feel so welcome on my return. It’s certainly been a packed few weeks and I am sure these next few weeks before the summer holidays are also going to fly by.

The format for this shared arrangement between Miss Hutchison and Mrs Lord will be as follows:

All classes are so busy just now and we are going to attempt to give you a feel for what has been going on and what will be taking place over the next few weeks – enjoy!

P3/4 Mrs Lord will be based in P3/4 for mornings and Miss Hutchison will teach the class in the afternoons as outlined above.

Whats Happening? .….

With only three weeks now to go before the end of term there are many exciting things planned to tide us over to the summer holidays. It will be a busy week this week with Sports Day on Thursday (morning for nursery and a 1.15pm start for the rest of the school) – we hope to see many of you there cheering everyone on and please keep your fingers crossed that this beautiful sunny weather continues for us! As with last year it would be super if you could send your child to school with some time of green or yellow clothing – Green for Pendrachan and Yellow for Peffer. Please note however that this is not essential as I would not want anyone to go out and buy anything especially for sports.

You may also be aware that the nursery have long since started their process of transition to Primary One for our pre-schoolers. Yesterday they met their P6 buddies who will be supporting them in the playground, helping with bags and jackets in the mornings and along with their friends in P2 will be helping our new P1s to settle into life in P1/2.

To complete our pre-summer preparations we are now in a position to share our class organisation for next year. The classes for next session have now been confirmed as P1/2, P3/4 and P5/6/7. Miss Hutchison

P1/2 Miss Hutchison will spend Monday to Friday mornings with P1/2 and Mrs Lord will then teach afternoons focussing on Interdisciplinary work, PE and Health and Wellbeing

I appreciate that when reading this for the first time it may not be what you were expecting however we have confidence and the collective commitment that this new arrangement will best meet the needs of all of our learners. Arrangements for P1/2 and P3/4 have been designed to capitalise on the expertise that we have within our staff. Mrs Lord as you know has previously taken on the literacy moderation role, outdoor learning and enterprise roles at a local level and has previous experience in the middle stages while Miss Hutchison came to us with a wealth of early years’ experience having taken on leadership roles within this area at a Local Authority level. Joint planning sessions and a clear timetable will support this job share arrangement.

We have already started planning for this arrangement ourselves so as to reassure parents and carers when we return in August that you and your child(ren) will know exactly what to expect. This will be no different to any other job share situation operating very well in many schools and yet in our school we have the added advantage of small class sizes and of knowing our children and families very well already. We look forward to working with you next session and ask for your support as we all manage this transition together.

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National Spring Clean Day A couple of weeks ago the whole school took part in National Spring Clean Day where each class took time out to go out litter picking – we went round the village streets, to the park and also had a quick l ook round the playground. All we can say is what a tidy village we have, I think everyone commented on how little litter we all found – well done!

After School Clubs The last of our After School Clubs have been taking place with Bikeability 2 due to finish on 20th June. This has been a fabulous after school club ensuring more of our children are more aware of road safety and ensuring they know basic bike maintenance. Thank you to Mrs Darrie and all those parents who have come along to help us deliver this very important after school club Soft Start We held our 3 Soft Sart Session on Wednesday 15th June which focussed on number and was very well attended – thank you to all who managed to come along. Our next session will be in the new session and we shall attempt to provide dates for the session as early as possible to help with any arrangements you may have to make. rd

Loch Insh We welcomed back to school our Primary 7’s who attended a cluster residential school camp from Monday 22 April to Friday 26 April. Although many tired faces were noted on their return they looked very happy and accordingly to reports much fun was had. Some of the activities which seemed very popular included sailing, climbing, raft building, archery, kayaking and skiing . I think the disco on the last night also went down a storm!

Congratulations Huge congratulations to Jonathan Mostyn who along with his team mates of Saltire TeamGym took part in the TeamGym British Championships at Fenton Manor Sports Complete in Stoke on Trent on 25 May.

by 0.1pts. Well done Jonathan and the rest of your team, what an achievement!

End of another year!

It has been a real delight to return to Athelstaneford for the end of this final term.

With the sun shining and plenty of opportunities for Outdoor Learning, preparation for Sports Day and beginning to plan for next session, it is a very exciting time. I will see many of you at school or events over the next few weeks but want to take this opportunity again to say a huge heartfelt thank you for welcoming me back to our wonderful school and to say how much I am looking forward to working with you all again when we return after the summer holidays.

MMR Immunisation Catch Up Campaign NHS Lothian is running a catch-up campaign for young people aged 10 to 17 years who have not received two doses of MMR (Measles, Mumps and Rubella) vaccine. They will be writing to parents and guardians of these children and encouraging them to contact their General Practice to arrange MMR vaccination for their child.

Some young people missed out on the MMR vaccination when they were younger. Two doses of the vaccine are required to ensure protection.

Visit immunisationscotland.org.uk to find out more, or contact your GP to make an appointment.

Dates for your diary June 11th 13th:

14th 19th, 20th 24th 26th: 28th:

Pre-schoolers join school for playtime P1 Information Morning (9am) School Sports at the park from 1.15pm Pre-schoolers join school for playtime th st 20 , 21 : P7 Transition Events (NBHS) All children spend time in new class School Reports coming home Awards Assembly End of Term Service

Jonathan’s team consists of 10 children within the age range of 8-12 years and were so proud to achieve a Silver Medal only being beaten to gold S:\Admin\Newsletters\1213\Newsletter 7.doc

Class News Nursery We are very excited in Nursery at the moment waiting and watching for tadpoles to turn into frogs and caterpillars to turn into butterflies – we are also looking forward to our trip to Butterfly and Insect World on Tuesday.

We have been very eco aware over the past few weeks making a minibeast house with Mrs Gray and also planting lots of plants with Louisa and Imogen’s mummy – keep an eye open near the apple tree as we have planted lobelia in the shape of the St. Andrew’s Flag. We would also like to take this opportunity to thank Mr & Mrs Lowe, the parents of Charlotte in P1 for donating all the lovely plants – many thanks!

We were so happy to be able to take part in Walk to School Week – we had a walking bus from the bus stop at the part each morning so that those of us who don’t normally get the opportunity to walk could join in – it was really good fun.

Our pre-schoolers have started their transition programme and have spent an hour in P1 this week – so far so good, all those involved have all came back with lots of fun stories to tell.

P1/2 We have been learning all about the weather in P1/2 and to find out about the wind we made and flew kites in the playground.

We have been enjoying ICT, using Google Images to copy picture and paste them into word with some writing. We also used our spelling words to practice finding letters to type quicker.

In numeracy and number we have been looking at doubles and near doubles, we have also been using tallymarks to help gather information and transfer the information onto a graph.

We are enjoying our travelling safety project with the pre-schoolers and are looking forward to them joining us in class again soon.

P3/4/5 P345 are busy exploring different countries in South America. They are travelling in partners and on their return to the village they'll be sharing what they have discovered when they give a talk to the class. All of our learning in literacy this term has helped us with our current research, we've been learning how to skim and scan, use a contents page and glossary, take notes and check different sources.

In maths we've been revisiting different ways to measure length, capacity, volume and weight.

This has linked to our work on empty number lines and counting in different sized jumps.

Before the end of term we're looking at descriptive language in poetry, this will link to the drawing experiences we will have in art. We're also looking back at our proudest moments from this year and our hopes for next.

P5/6/7 In P5/6/7 this term our Interdisciplinary Study is SOS –Save Our Scotland. In groups we have been set a challenge to create a wall display and presentation for our class on: 1. The various types of Scottish Landscapes.

2. How to protect Scotland 3. Renewable and Non-Renewable Energy Sources.

As part of our literacy work we have been looking at note taking and at the differences between explanation diagrams and instructions. We made flow charts to show how compost is made and the life of a silk moth.

In Maths we have been learning about multiplication and division of decimals. We have been looking at probability and chance –we even played some games using dice, cards and coins! (Not gambling!)

In ICT we created Wordles to show the excellent opportunities we have at our school. During ICT we have discovered that we would all benefit from practising our typing. We are using a website – BBC Dance Mat http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/typing/ This is a good activity for the Summer if you have access to a computer at home and looking for something to keep them entertained!

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.

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