STRATHBLANE PRIMARY SCHOOL AND NURSERY CLASS
June 2010
NEWSLETTER
Welcome to another Newsletter – I can’t believe how quickly the time is passing by!
It has been a hectic few weeks and there are many more events coming up. It has been great fun this year getting to know all the pupils at Strathblane Primary School, and I’m really endeavouring to get to know all parents and carers too.
Thank you to everyone who returned the Parent Survey, asking for your views as part of the School and Nursery Improvement Planning process. As a result of the evidence gathered through the school and nursery self-evaluation process – three key areas have identified as the focus for school and Nursery improvements for 20010/2011. The three key areas for improvement are:
• Implementation of Curriculum for Excellence- building the curriculum with a focus on writing across all curricular areas, assessment and reporting.
• Ethos and school approaches to promoting positive behaviour, and embedding the school values.
• Improving the school environment- buildings, ICT and Reading resources and continuing the enhancements to the school grounds.
Staffing News
After almost two decades of service, teaching primary 1 pupils, at Strathblane Primary School, Mrs Lowry has decided to take early retirement from teaching. During her time at school she has been a valued member of staff. Mrs Lowry will finish at the end of June 2010. If any parent, carers or pupils would like to contribute towards a gift for Mrs Lowry please place any donations in an envelope marked “Leaving gift- Mrs Lowry” and these can be handed to any member of staff except Mrs Lowry, please!! I’m sure that everyone will join me in wishing Mrs Lowry well and hope that she has a restful and enjoyable retirement.
As intimated in the May newsletter the pupils and parents and carers will get information about class teachers following interviews for the vacant posts. We will welcome Ms Paterson to our staff as a probationer teacher who will work in the school for a year, and she will share a class with Miss Spencer. In order to maintain single stage classes this year Miss Spencer will also share a class with the person appointed as the replacement for Miss Allen whilst she is on a career break. Teachers will be interviewed on Monday 14th June for this post, and we will appoint a temporary replacement for Mrs Lowry on that day also. This will allow us the time to go through the recruitment process early next term to appoint a permanent replacement for Mrs Lowry’s position.
Mr McKinnon, Music Specialist is leaving to take up a post as Music Specialist at an International School in Prague.
Parent Council
The next Parent Council meeting will be on Monday 14th June at 7:15p.m. All welcome.
Summer Fair
Thanks to everyone for their support. We had a great fun family day in the sunshine.
National School Sports Week (7th – 11th June) On Wednesday 2nd June we had the privilege of welcoming a truly inspirational guest to our launch of Strathblane’s participation in National School Sport’s week. Dr. Margo Whiteford told us about how despite being born with Spina Bifida she never let that get in the way of trying new sports. Over the years she’d tried golf, cricket and horse riding. However, it’s only in the last decade that she’s discovered her passion for wheelchair racing. She really impressed us by listing the many races where she’s come first and last year she came in 7th place in the London Marathon. Dr. Whiteford now has an army of admiring fans who queued up at the end of assembly to get her autograph. She has made us all determined to try to do a little more sport, and all pupils have made a sports pledge. Please come into the entrance hall of the school building to read our sports pledges.
We also had the great pleasure of seeing our very own Strathblane School Cheerleading Group who opened our Sports week activities with a performance that was both entertaining and extremely motivating – some of the audience joined in with the singing and some were desperate to get up with the cheerleaders and have go!! I hope we can look forward to seeing these girls in action again (and perhaps in the future we can persuade some boys to join!)
Every day, this week, pupils at Strathblane Primary will get the opportunity to participate in a sporting activity. The Sports week timetable is on display in the entrance hall. There will be sports during class contact time, at lunchtimes and after school. These include-
Monday 7th June: In class – Primary 4 will do football coaching, Primary 5 will do swimming and Primary 7 will go to Balfron High School for a Transition Sports Day. After school – Primary 1 football Tuesday 8th June: In class – Primary 5 will do swimming and the Nursery children will do street dancing. All school pupils will do Earth ball games. After school – Primary 1- 3 tennis; Primary 4-7 Table Tennis Wednesday 9th June: In class – All school pupils will get a golf lesson. At 12- 12:30p.m.- Our Sports Guest, Mark Hately will meet the pupils. After school – Primary 2-7 football Thursday 10th June: In class – Primary 3 and 4 will go to Kilburn Country Park. Primary 1,2,5,6 and 7 will get a Tae Kwando lesson. At lunchtime – there will be cross country race (Primary 1 – 7). After school – Primary 2 -7 Netball Friday 11th June: In class- a.m. school assembly on the theme of Challenge. p.m. Sports day
Sports Day
Weather permitting; Sports Day will take place on Friday 11th June at 1.15pm. Parents are very welcome to come along to spectate. We will have our sports at the community playing fields. For pupils’ safety I must ask please that no dogs are brought to the sports day event, spectators stay within the designated area and at the end of the event we ask that all parents and carers come to the school to collect their children.
End of Term and Leavers Assembly
There will be a final End of Term and Leavers Assembly when we will send off our P7 children with songs, dancing and maybe a little tear! We will be sending invitations to the parents of the Primary 7 pupils to join us at Strathblane Primary School on Thursday 24th June at 2p.m. Other parents are welcome to join us BUT space is very tight so I must insist that it is only parents who come along to join us on Thursday 24th June.
Book Trust Events at Strathblane Primary School
On Wednesday 26th May primary 1- 5 pupils were able to take part in a “Meet the Author Event” run by the Scottish Book Trust. The children were able to see Julia Donaldson and ask questions via a live streaming. Apart from a few screen freezes- the event went really well. This was wonderful opportunity to see an author who is very familiar to a lot of the children.
On Tuesday 15th June, Kjartan Poskitt, author of the Murderous Maths Books, will visit our school to talk to pupils in Primary 4-7. Kjartan is a very entertaining speaker and I’m sure that lots of pupils will come away from this event inspired to try some challenging maths problems ( honestly, he really is that good!!)
Visit Kjartan’s’ website at : http://www.kjartan.co.uk/
Books, Books, Books
Primary 7 have been working with Lynne James, the librarian, on a project that involves them being the champion of selected books. This will culminate in a “Greenaway Conference” on Wednesday 16th June, when the pupils in primary 7 will give their presentations about the books that they are promoting.
Fair-trade Fred and Brand New Andrew
On the afternoon of Thursday 17th June, Hopscotch Theatre Company will visit the school to perform their play “Fair-trade Fred and Brand New Andrew”. This performance has been subsidised by a donation made from the profits from Fair-trade fashion Show.
This play is about a boy called Andrew who wins a competition as coolest dressed schoolboy in the country and is picked to design the new school uniform. However, much to his annoyance, he is paired up with Fred who is happy with whichever clothes keep him warm and has no interest in what brand they are.
Andrew and Fred go on a journey around the world to see how clothes are made and the conditions people work in to produce consumer goods for the west. They meet some of the kids who work in factories.
Andrew begins to feel embarrassed about the expensive clothes he wears. However, they also discover that the bargain clothes that Fred wears are also manufactured in sweatshops. They are confused as to what to do next until they discover Fairtrade goods.
We hope that the children will enjoy this performance and perhaps they’ll have lots to talk about that evening.
Burns Club and Primary 6 outing to Burn Heritage Park Strathblane Burns Club have been very supportive of the school over the years. This year has been no exception when the Burns club paid for buses to take two classes to the Celtic Connections concert at the Royal Concert Hall earlier this year. On Friday 18th June members of the Burns Club will accompany the primary 6 class and member of school staff on an excursion to Burns Heritage park in Alloway. The Burns club will pay for the bus and the children’s entry fee to the park. They have also offered to pay for the school to become members of the Scottish National Trust; this will allow the school to get a reduced entry fee to all National Trust sites and events. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the local Burns Club for their continued support of Strathblane Primary School.
Primary Leavers Night Out When Primary 7 approach the end of their Primary School career there is always a mixture of emotions as one chapter of their lives draws to an end another exciting chapter opens. To help celebrate this transition the pupils, parents and some members of staff will go to Bearsden Ski Slope on the evening of Wednesday 23rd June, where we’ll basically have a bit of party!!!!
I’m sure that the whole school community will join me in wishing our primary 7 pupils well as they venture on the this journey to the next part of their growing up life.
Closing for the Summer Holidays The school will close on Friday 25th June at 12:15p.m. for the Summer Break. When the bell rings at 12:15p.m. pupils will be dismissed by their class teachers.
If your child needs to have school lunch that day- lunch will be served at 11:45 a.m. The only choice available on Friday 25th June will be sandwiches.
Pupils will return to school, after their Summer Holidays, at 9a.m. on Tuesday 17th August.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank pupils, parents and members of the wider community of Strathblane Primary School and Nursery class for making me feel very welcome this year. I have really enjoyed all the challenges of being a Headteacher at this school. The support of the Parent Council and the Parent Fundraisers group has been invaluable in helping the school to achieve great things including the installation of interactive whiteboards in classrooms, decoration of pupils’ toilets, subsiding school events and trips, running the many after school clubs and most importantly working in partnership with the school to take forward school improvements.
Thanks also to staff for the many additional hours that they put in to attend community events including the Christmas fair and Summer Fair, Gardening Club and much more.
I look forward to everyone’s continuing support during the next school year, and some of the changes that we will be working through together. I’d like to wish everyone a fantastic Summer Holiday, and hope that the sun shines – at least some of the time!!!!!