Our code club has been meeting on Tuesday’s from 3.20 – 4.20 in the P7 classroom. Open to P5, P6 and P7 children, 10 children, (5 boys, 5 girls) have worked with Mrs Connor and Susan, our code club volunteer to use Scratch to write scripts using block programming, translating into animations.
Over the last 2 weeks the children have had free reign to design their own Christmas animations using the skills learned this term. Please take a look at our animations.
Our Inspection Report has been published and we are all feeling very proud. We are proud of our children, our staff and our whole community. Below is a copy of our report. There are also links which take you to the summary of inspection findings which give more detail of the inspector’s visit and their findings.
28 August 2018
Dear Parent/Carer
In June 2018, a team of inspectors from Education Scotland visited Woodlands Primary School
and Nursery Class. During our visit, we talked to parents/carers and children and worked
closely with the headteacher and staff. We gathered evidence to enable us to evaluate aspects
of the quality of leadership and children’s achievements.
The inspection team found the following strengths in the school’s work.
Staff have created a nurturing, inclusive learning environment, where children are
developing resilience for learning, and attaining and achieving very successfully. The highly
effective leadership team, led by the headteacher have a clear vision for the school and
give well-defined direction to staff. They involve stakeholders in the life and work of the
school.
Children are confident, successful learners. They are motivated to do well, and are very
enthusiastic about their learning. They are very articulate, respectful and contribute well to
the life and work of the school.
Staff work together very well to implement whole school approaches to self-evaluation.
They track children’s progress effectively, and identify priorities for improvement which lead
to improved outcomes for all children.
Staff have taken forward well-planned improvements for learning, teaching and assessment
to raise attainment in numeracy and mathematics across the school. Sector leading
approaches to embedding a numeracy-rich environment for learning, which is leading to
excellent progress in early mathematics for almost all children in the nursery class.
The following area for improvement was identified and discussed with the headteacher and a
representative from Angus Council.
As planned staff should develop further approaches for learning, teaching and assessment
for literacy, with the same rigor they brought to improving numeracy and mathematics.
Woodlands Primary School and Nursery Class Inspection Report
Summarised Inspection Findings for Woodlands Primary School and Nursery Class
Primary 7 have been very busy this term. In maths we have been learning about algebra. We have been collecting terms, simplifying expressions, expanding the brackets and learning new rules like the ‘change side, change sign’ rule. We have also been adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing negative numbers.
In writing we have been preparing our pupil profiles for moving to high school using ICT to support us. Recently we have worked with P3 to create imaginative characters and in MIE we have learned how the create atmosphere and a film trailer.
Our science topic has focussed on materials and how to conduct a fair experiment. We have been learning about particles, the properties of materials and their changes. In class we conducted experiments and looked at dissolving , predicting which materials would dissolve in water.
Primary 7 had a fabulous residential trip to Ardeonaig. We had a great time staying away for 3 nights. Our activities included hill walking, canoeing, high ropes, the pizza box, archery and team challenged.
We have now had our final transition days to our high schools. We visited a range of classes and met some of our future teachers. In chemistry we we conducted an experiment and used the bunsen burner and in home economics we made scones.
We are looking forward to starting first year.
Although we have learned lots of things in Primary 6, activity week stands out for us all. We enjoyed canoeing, raft building, pond dipping, high ropes and much more. Many of us were taken out of our comfort zone but, with the encouragement of our class mates and the teachers, we achieved success and were all so proud.
We have looked at many topics throughout the year, comparing Brazil and Scotland, looking at the World of Work and learning about Mary Queen of Scots. We have created movies and made our own maths games.
Primary 6 has been a busy year and we hope that Primary 7 is just as much fun.
This term in Primary 5 we have had lots of learning opportunities. We attended a STEM workshop in Arbroath. STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths. We worked in groups to create a 3D model of a shoe and invited parents and carers in to school for our Soft Shoe Shuffle Showcase.
In maths we have been learning about bank accounts, credit/debit cards, scams and different currencies. Miss Mullis’s dad came in to speak about his job and we found our more about the bank. We have used ‘Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs’ as our stimulus for imaginative writing and worked on our drafting, editing and proof reading skills.
We completed personal projects for homework and presented these to the class and use adobe spark to create videos for our new teacher telling her all she needs to know about us. We have had a very busy, enjoyable term, packed full of learning.
Primary 4 have been learning all about the human body. We can label different parts of the heart, digestive system and the brain. In writing we have focussed on imaginative writing and looked at the ingredients required for a story. We worked with a partner to create contrasting characters and also learned how to make a speech mark sandwich.
In maths we linked our learning of division to help us with our work on fractions. We have also learned about measuring and have been discussing weight, area and length.
On our trip to Montrose Basin we searched for a range of pond and sea life. We wish you all a lovely summer and are excited to move to P5 in August.
This term we have been learning about water and the water cycle. We worked in groups to design posters using the words: evaporation, condensation and precipitation. We also found out about the main organs within our bodies, what they do and where they are found.
In maths we have been investigating fractions and can now work out fractions of an amount. In writing we have looked at the features of instructions, we did this by looking at examples and highlighting with pens (great fun). We then made crispy cakes and wrote down the instructions, making sure we had used the correct features. Our learning was fun and tasty!
we have really enjoyed P3 and are looking forward to starting P4 after the holidays.
We have been learning to read and write large numbers. We have found the place value of digits in large numbers. we have also been working with money and can find total amounts and how much change we get back after buying things. During our trip to Crombie Country Park we took part in a bug hunt and made some tally charts of insects and bugs which we then used to make our own bar graphs once we were back in class.
We have been learning about the life cycle of caterpillars and reading ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’. We have also investigated the human body and can name and show where some bones and organs are found in our own bodies. Lots of our writing this term was focussed around our caterpillar book study.
This term we have been learning about sharing groups of objects. We loved using the dinosaurs to help us make groups. We have also made good progress in our reading. We know this from looking at our hot and cold tasks.
In health, we enjoyed learning about the body. We can name some organs and know what they do to help our body. We are excited to be challenged even more in Primary 2.
Ending 4
On the way home they sailed into a massive storm which contained megladons. The storm thrashed them about the boat which tipped from side to side in the wind. The boat was slowly being chomped up by the waves. Nia cried, “Gizmo, what are we going to do?”
Suddenly, the boat crashed into land they ran from the wrecked boat and thought they were safe. But they ran into scorpions and spiders and had to run from that next danger whilst the scorpions and spiders chased them. They swam to the next island which had an active volcano. They stared at the volcano for a while then went searching for some food and shelter. They met an explorer that welcomed them with lots of bananas which made them very happy. “What are you doing here?” asked the explorer.
“Oooo-aa,” said Nia.
“Don’t you know the volcano is going to erupt?” said the explorer.
“Oh no!” said Harambe, “we better leave now.” “You probably have another 5 days,” said the explorer. The monkeys started to panic. “We need a raft now!” said Gizmo and that’s what they did.
The volcano was about to erupt. Harambe and Gizmo went on a hunt for supplies to build a small boat and oars. They found long, thin branches to build the oars and another old boat which they repaired with laves and rusty old metal which was in the water. As the volcano was erupting they built their boat just in time and sailed away. They got back to the jungle and went back to their families to live a peaceful life.
