Welcome to my posts. I will update this as we share information via our App too. Newest items are at the top.
HT Christmas message
It has been a long and busy term and we are all looking forward to Christmas.
The last two terms have been packed with activities, visitors into the school, education visits. Our Primary 6 annual visit to Dalguise seems a long time ago. We had a very successful cooking group who enjoyed a parent and child session. The food tasted great! We have had an Egyptian work shop, visits to our local Nursing Homes, autumn walks, Sing out for Hansel, Cash for Kids Christmas jumper day, Clean Green litter pick and a visit from The Little Art Company. This has all been done in addition to our day to day work. Our children and staff have also been working hard to cover the curriculum and to ensure our children meet their full potential. The achievements this term have been great.
Our school community continues to grow and this is a huge compliment to the amazing reputation our school has. We are delighted with our positive school ethos and we aim to ensure our school is a happy place to work and learn. Our calm environment is helping our children to thrive and get the correct support to ensure we are getting it right for everyone.
At Christmas time we stop and reflect. Our families have been effected by poverty, tragedy and through it all we have supported each other. I am very proud of the achievements team Annanhill has made. A massive well done to everyone. Children have been recognised for their ability in sport, dancing, gymnastics, swimming, musical ability as well as their academic achievements. Staff have also been achieving academically, this show we all continue to learn. The hard work, determination and resilience this shows is a testament to the dedication and motivation from all involved.
I am delighted to report the children are making very good progress in their learning. We are still needing to engage our children in more reading and this will be our focus for January, through our Reading Schools challenge.
None of this would be possible without Team Annanhill and for that I thank you. My clerical team, janitors, kitchen staff, classroom assistants, nurture team, teaching team and management team are outstanding in every way. Through the tough times we have had with financial constraints we have managed to do the very best for the children in front of you.
Thank you to our amazing parents who work hard beside us to support our children. Some great examples of team work through positive relationships has allowed us to ensure we are getting it right for our children. To the Parent Council. We could not run the school without you. A huge thank you to all for the fundraising efforts, especially our recent Christmas Fayre. You have worked tirelessly in the background to make sure our funds are as healthy as possible, so we can give our children the best possible experiences.
Finally boys and girls, you make Annanhill such a special place to work and learn. I want to thank you for making school full of fun, laughter and cheer. Your kindness, respect and caring attitude shines through. I hope you have enjoyed making Christmas memories with your friends and classmates that you will never forget. I hope you enjoy spending time with your families and most of I hope Santa is good to you all.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
HT update NOV 2024
Good afternoon. It has been a very cold week for everyone. We are making sure the children are wrapped up when they are out playing, but apparently they don’t feel the cold!!!
In assemblies and across the school we have been focussing on our Road Safety Campaign. Our “Be bright be seen” day today will help support the children on their walk to school especially with the darker mornings and nights. In order to keep everyone safe in our school, can I remind you about being extra vigilant in our carpark. Please reduce your speed and park sensibly. Also, please encourage to use paths around the car park and avoid crossing the road between car parking spaces.
We have been informed by our Catering Team that we will be moving to an online meal booking system on the 16th of December. This is to help reduce waste and so you are fully informed of what your child is eating in school. More information will follow regarding this. It has already been piloted in a few smaller schools and it has been very successful. If you are not on Parent Pay we would ask that this is done as soon as possible as the children will have no meal ordered for them without this. We will also keep an eye on what is being selected for the children in case you forget. No child will go without something to eat.
Next week we will be launching our Reading Schools challenge. This is an area of our improvement plan and we are keen to create a school who loves to read. We know this can be a challenge for some people and often children need a purpose to read. We will be showing lots of different ways we can improve our reading skills, in particular reading fluency. Mr Simpson will be launching this with the children at next week’s assemblies.
A massive thank you to everyone who is supporting our Christmas Fayre. We have been blown away with your kindness through our bottle and chocolate donations, your help with raffle donations and the support with organising this event. Our children as so excited to come along next Friday and they have been told about some of the things they will see. I am really looking forward to welcoming you along and please feel free to bring along any other family members too. The more the merrier!
Have a lovely weekend!
Annanhill Primary School
******Christmas Card Competition!*******
Each year we send a Christmas Card to anyone who visits the school. We also send an email to wish everyone who works with us, an electronic Christmas Card.
We want an A5 Card that is colourful and sends a message to say Merry Christmas.
The design brief is:
A5 size
Black pen outline
Colourful
Has a message from all the pupils, parents and staff of Annanhill
Has our badge somewhere on the card
(may also have our motto?)
Winners receive a gift voucher and 2 runners up will receive a selection box
All entries must be in by Monday the 16th Dec
Here are 10 simple steps to teach a child to read
- Use songs and nursery rhymes to build phonemic awareness
Children’s songs and nursery rhymes aren’t just a lot of fun – the rhyme and rhythm help kids to hear the sounds and syllables in words, which helps them learn to read.
A good way to build phonemic awareness (one of the most important skills in learning to read) is to clap rhythmically together and recite songs in unison. This playful and bonding activity is a fantastic way for kids to implicitly develop the literacy skills that will set them up for reading success.
- Make simple word cards
Cut out simple cards and write a word containing three sounds on each one (e.g. ram, sat, pig, top, sun, pot, fin). Invite the child to choose a card, then read the word together and hold up three fingers. Ask them to say the first sound they hear in the word, then the second, and then the third.
This simple activity requires little prep time and builds essential phonics and decoding skills (helping them learn how to sound out words).
If the child is just starting out with learning the letters of the alphabet, focus on the sound each letter makes, more so than letter names.
- Engage your child in a print-rich environment
Create daily opportunities to build children’s reading skills by creating a print‑rich environment at home. Seeing printed words (on posters, charts, books, labels, etc.) enables children to see and apply connections between sounds and letter symbols.
When out and about, point out letters on posters, billboards and signs. In time you can model sounding out the letters to make words.
Focus on the first letter in words. Ask the child “What sound is that letter?” “What other word starts with that sound?” “What word rhymes with that word?”
- Play word games
Building on from the previous step, introduce simple word games on a regular basis.
Focus on playing games that encourage the child to listen, identify and manipulate the sounds in words.
For example, start by asking questions like:
- “What sound does the word start with?”
- “What sound does the word end with?”
- “What words start with the sound ?”
- “What word rhymes with ?”.
- Understand the core skills involved in teaching kids to read
It’s important to remember that learning to read involves various different skills. There are five essential components of reading. These are the skills all children need in order to successfully learn how to read. In summary, these include:
- Phonemic awareness – the ability to hear and manipulate the different sounds in words
- Phonics – recognising the connection between letters and the sounds they make
- Vocabulary – understanding the meaning of words, their definitions, and their context
- Reading comprehension – understand the meaning of text both in storybooks and information books
- Fluency – the ability to read aloud with speed, understanding and accuracy
- Daily play with letter magnets
Middle vowel sounds can be tricky for some children, which is why this activity can be so helpful.
Prepare letter magnets on the alphabet rainbow boards and pull the vowels to one side (a, e, i, o, u).
Say a CVC word (consonant-vowel-consonant), for example, ‘cat’, and ask your child to spell it using the magnets.
To help them, say each vowel sound aloud (/ayh/, /eh/, /ih/, /awe/, /uh/) while pointing at its letter, and ask the child which one makes a sound similar to the middle sound.
- Harness the power of technology to keep children engaged
Learning to read should be an enjoyable process to keep kids motivated to improve. Sometimes a child might be full of excitement and eagerness to learn at the beginning, but once they hit a wall can feel overwhelmed and give up easily.
Reading needs to have a purpose for children to keep practising the skills. Print and reading should be in every activity.
- Read together on a daily basis and ask questions about the book
A lot of people don’t realise just how many skills can be picked up through the simple act of reading to a child.
Not only are you showing them how to sound out words, you’re also building key comprehension skills, growing their vocabulary, and letting them hear what a fluent reader sounds like.
Most of all, regular reading helps the child to develop a love of reading, which is the best way to set them up for reading success.
Strengthen children’s comprehension skills by asking questions while reading.
For younger children, encourage them to engage with the pictures (e.g. “Do you see the boat? What colour is the cat?”).
For older children, ask questions about what you’ve just read, like “Why do you think the little bird was afraid?” “When did Sophie realise she had special powers?”
- Play games to memorise high-frequency sight words every day
Sight words are ones that cannot be easily sounded out and need to be recognised on sight. High‑frequency sight words are ones that occur very often in reading and writing (e.g. you, I, we, am, had, and, to, the, have, they, where, was, does).
The strategy for learning sight words is, “See the word, say the word”.
Learning to identify and read sight words is essential for young children to become fluent readers. Most children will be able to learn a few sight words at the age of four (e.g., is, it, my, me, no, see, and we) and around 20 sight words by the end of their first year of school.
- Be patient – the best way to teach kids to read is to make it fun!
Every child learns at his or her own pace, so always remember the single most important thing you can do is to make it enjoyable.
By reading regularly, mixing things up with the activities you choose, and letting your child pick out their own books occasionally, you’ll instil an early love of reading and give them the best chance at reading success in no time.
How do you break down barriers to learning?
Strategies for action:
- Develop an engaging local curriculum.
- Design responsive physical environments.
- Use flexible teaching approaches.
- Create structure and routine.
- Reduce overload and sensory challenges.
Please find attached our Inspection report
Inspection of Annanhill Primary School
East Ayrshire Council
Please be advised that the report has now published on our website and is available from this link: Details | Find an inspection report | Find an inspection report | Inspection and review | Education Scotland.
Anti Bullying Week – 13th Nov
Just wanted to let you see the Parent Toolkit for Anti bullying week.
Here is our October Update from Mrs Johnstone
A few important dates for the run up to Christmas
23/8/23 Good morning and a warm welcome Back to School.
We have been so proud of the way the children have come back to school and they are so smart in their uniforms. With the new equipment, clothing, bottle and packed lunches, can I remind you that it is essential that everything is labelled with your child’s name. We have already collected jumpers, jackets, cardigans, water bottle, packed lunch bags and bobbles in lost property. It is an extremely large pile with no names on the items. We want to make sure we try to reduce costs for all our families this year and by ensuring things have names on them is a goal we all need to keep.
School Update 10/3/23
We have had a very busy week this week. We started off with our Learning Visit from the local authority Inspection Team. Initial feedback has been very positive. We are delighted we were able to showcase the amazing children we have. The teachers, staff and parents were all able to show off a very positive view of the learning and teaching in our school. I want to thank everyone who made this visit such a success and we welcome the feedback from the inspection team so we can shape our next steps in our improvement journey.
Following our inspection we have had some feedback regarding communication and more face to face opportunities for parents to be in school. Unfortunately, at the beginning of the session, we couldn’t start up a lot of these activities but we absolutely have that as a focus moving forward. Another point raised was afterschool activities. If any parents or carers, would be willing in helping with an afterschool club or activity please get in touch.
Our cash for kids activities are in full flow. We are amazed by some of the very creative ideas that our children have come up with. They are so excited to be raising money, not only for our school but also children across Ayrshire who face extremely difficult circumstances. Please join in the fun with our scavenger hunt. A family event that could help you get your steps up this weekend! Please also visit Tesco this weekend as we have some of our Primary 7s collecting for Cash for Kids.
We are all busy working on our children’s progress reports. We are seeing the hard work the children have done this year is paying off. They will be issued on Friday 24th of March. Our Parent’s evening will not be as restricted this time either. We will have work on display in the classrooms, teacher meetings in the assembly hall and the opportunity to see some of the work of the improvement plan set up in the street area.
At the end of a busy week, have a lovely weekend!
Cost of Living Support
As part of East Ayrshire Council cost of living support we are able to offer toast in the morning for some of our children. This will be on a first come, first served basis. It is a grab and go option and so far the children have been really enjoying the opportunity to have a slice of hot buttered toast each morning. It is very popular! However, if you are facing any difficulties with ensuring your child has a breakfast, please let the school know as we can access extra provision for anyone who is finding this difficult.
We also have a basket of fruit outside the sunflower room for anyone who would prefer an apple, orange or pear. This can also be accessed for a healthy snack.
If you required any further support please let the school know via the main email address.
Homework Block update-
