parents – Page 5 – Brydekirk Primary News World

Open Meeting and Maths Makes Sense evening for parents

Just a post to say thanks to the parents, prospective parents and members of our community who turned out in response to the Cluster Working Review, to support and discuss the best way forward for Brydekirk Primary.

Special thanks to Mr Simpson who presented the current state of affairs to all, and also to Mr McBain Chair of the Parent Council and Councillors Carruthers for their valued input.

This evening was initially planned to share our new approach to teaching Mathematics in our school: Maths Makes Sense. We did manage to cover a bit of this although it made for a long evening, and wasn’t a particularly easy sell after an hour and a half discussing the serious topic of the Cluster Working Review. Here’s a video explaining a bit more and others can be found here.

[kml_flashembed movie=”https://www.youtube.com/v/JHZE1NvE__4″ width=”480″ height=”260″ allowfullscreen=”true” /]

School to close at noon

Due to weather conditions the school is going to close at noon.

Children may be picked up at anytime between now and then.

Schools Cluster Working Review (CWR)

What is the Cluster Working Review (CWR)?

In response to a number of strategic considerations facing Education Services over a period of years, Dumfries and Galloway Council have decided to look at the following strands of our provision to young people and families:

Transition Activity P7-S1
Dual zoning and catchment delineation
Sustaining small schools

The strategic considerations that led to this Review were that:

40% of Headteachers (HT) are eligible to retire in primary schools across Dumfries and Galloway in the next 4 years
there are increased expectations of staff as a result of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE)
there has been an inability to recruit to teaching HT posts resulting in chronic instability for some schools
over all our schools there are falling rolls (5%) over the next 4 years
Headteachers have raised concerns over their workload when teaching and managing
Staff have concern over progression in learning from P7 to S1 impacting on success in secondary school
there is an inconsistency in learning and teaching in schools where the HT teaches and manages
Many young people are in peer groups of 5 or less

To find out more about this process, which will have an impact on Brydekirk Primary, and to share your views please click here.

Scholastic Book Fair

Our book fair is open: today 3.30 – 5.30PM, tomorrow 10.30-1.20PM and Monday 3.30 – 5.30PM.

A Day in the Life of James F

We managed to borrow a Vtech camera today, which we are thinking about buying for the P1-3 class. After showing two members of the little class how to use the camera they went off and took all apart from the last picture above at different points today. Mr Archibald then took the camera and posted the pictures here. The camera can also make videos and record sound.

Halloween Disco

All had a fun time at our Halloween Disco last night with dancing and some games.

Well done to all who took part with some cracking costumes on display. The P7s deserve a mention for organising some of the night, well done.

Also a big thanks to the parents and staff who helped out: Mark’s Mum, Ellie’s Mum, Adam’s Mum, Emily and Sarah’s Mum, Iona and Aidan’s Mum, Sandy and Douglas’s Mum, James’s Mum, Mrs Turnbull, Ms Burn and Mr Archibald.

The proceeds raised will go towards the P7 residential trip later this year.

Accelerated Reader

On the evening of Thursday the 11th of October, the staff invited all Brydekirk Primary parents in for a presentation about the new upper school approach to reading: Accelerated Reader.

There was a great turn out of parents who listened carefully to all of the work that has and is going on with reading and the library in the school. The parents also came up with a great suggestion for children to bring books they have previously read in and even came up with a sensible way to do this.

Below are the slides from Mr Archibald’s presentation and also a parent’s guide to AR.

Thanks to all involved.

Accelerated ReaderInformation Evening for Parents Power Point

Parents_Guide_to_AR_-_Condensed Parents Guide to AR