The-Exchange: a counselling and psychological support service for young people

The-Exchange is now providing counselling and emotional and psychological support in your child’s school. The service provides a private space where children and young people can talk about things which are troubling them. Talking things over with a professional can help children to find better ways to cope with difficulties. If your child’s teacher or a key adult within the school feels that counselling may be beneficial to them, they will always contact you before making a referral to The-Exchange. For children under the age of 12, parental consent is required in order for the child to attend the counselling or psychological support sessions. When supporting children under the age of 12, The Exchange involve parents at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of the process with an aim to improve the overall resilience and psychological wellbeing of the family.

If you would like further information, please contact Mrs Schendel email: Roberta.schendel@eastayrshire.org.uk

Our pupils in Primary 1, 2 and 3 have made a very positive and energetic return to school today – it’s been wonderful to see our playground full of happy children playing together.

Thanks to the many parents of our P4-7 pupils who have collected their next home learning pack from school today – it’s been a nice chance to have a wee blether and catch up too.

P4-P7 home learning packs are available for collection from the main office between 9.30am and 2.30pm.  Can P4/5 and P6/7 remember to return their class novel please?

As always, take care and keep in touch. 

Mrs Govans

Primary 1-3 pupils – return to school information

 We are delighted that our P1, P2 and P3 pupils will be returning to school on a full time basis from Monday 22^nd February, as confirmed yesterday in the First Minister’s announcement.  With the health and safety of our pupils and staff being our priority, the following arrangements will be in place –

• We will continue with our staggered start and finish times to avoid congestion at the school gates.  Primary 1/2 and Primary 3 – start at 9.00am and finish at 3.00pm.  Primary 2 and P4-P7 pupils accessing the school support – 9.10am and 3.10pm.
• Parents/carers – please follow all the social distancing rules at our school gates by keeping your distance and wearing masks
• P1-3 pupils do not need to bring in school bags, PE kits or toys from home.  They can bring in packed lunch bags.
• Lunches will be eaten in the classes.  Please ensure that all school lunches are ordered in advance for your child.
• If any P1 or P2 pupil still has a school reading book at home from their first home learning pack, can this be returned please?

We are looking forward to having our younger pupils back in school – we have really missed them and can’t wait to hear our classrooms full of blethers, laughter and carry-on again!

Primary 4-7 pupils – home learning information

Home learning will continue for the next wee while for our P4/5, P5/6 and P6/7 pupils.  A new home learning pack will be available for collection from the school office from Monday 22^nd February (between 9.30am and 2.30pm please) and Miss Feighan, Mrs McCaig, Mrs Schendel and Mrs McKenna will continue to post daily on their class GLOW blogs, focusing on Literacy and Numeracy.  Please email your child’s teacher with any concerns/issues/questions – they will always get back to you and enjoy hearing from you.  

Our teachers really enjoy speaking with their class during their TEAMS calls and GLOW chats so please keep encouraging your child to join in with these interactive sessions as we know how much they benefit from having a wee chat with their teacher and friends.

As always, stay safe, take care and keep in touch. 

Mrs Govans

Today sees the launch of the Scottish Child Payment – a new benefit from Social Security Scotland that is aimed at tackling child poverty in Scotland.

The new payment will see the equivalent of £10 per week being paid for every child under the age of 6 living in a low income household and receiving a qualifying benefit such as Universal Credit, Pension Credit or one of the legacy benefits (Child tax or working tax credits; income support, income based JSA or income related ESA). The new benefit will be rolled out to every child under 16 by the end of 2022 with payments being made on a 4 weekly basis.

Applications were accepted from November but despite this and a high profile campaign by Social Security Scotland, take up has been disappointing with less than 45% of eligible applications having been made. It is anticipated that there are still around 100,000 children in Scotland who are eligible for this payment but no claim has yet been made. That means a family with two qualifying children could be losing out on more than £1000 per year.

The payments are made 4 weekly and applications couldn’t be simpler. You can apply online at https://www.mygov.scot/scottish-child-payment/how-to-apply/ or by telephone on 0800 182 222.

Congratulations – we did it!

As we finish the end of Week 5 of Home Learning, I would like all parents, carers, grans, papas, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters and family members of our pupils to give themselves a well-deserved pat on the back for assisting our pupils and children with their home learning tasks.  We love seeing your photos and videos, and, as always, are impressed by your creativity and enthusiasm for helping your children to learn in these unusual times.

The biggest ‘well done’ needs to go to all of our children at both Catrine ECC and PS – they are coping so well, again, with huge changes to their learning and we are missing them all so much.

With an announcement due on Tuesday 16^th February from the Scottish Government about the return details for ECC and Primary 1, Primary 2 and Primary 3 – please continue to check our GLOW blogs and APPS for updates.

Both the ECC and PS are on holiday on Monday 15^th, with inservice days on Tuesday 16^th and Wednesday 17^th so no online learning will be posted on these days.  Class teachers and ECC practitioners will post work on our GLOW blogs from Thursday 18^th February.

Wishing all our families and the Catrine community a lovely February break.  As always, take care, stay safe and keep in touch. 

Mrs Govans

A total of £112.00 was raised for the Valentine Chocolate Raffle!

1st Prize Lauren P5/6

2nd Prize Kaci

P6/7

Primary 7 would like to thank everyone for their support!

Please find below size chart and available colours for the Primary 7 Leavers Hoodie. Please complete the form below by Thursday 18 February.

Hoodie sizes: 

Medium Youth (age 7-8), Large Youth (age 9-11), XL Youth (age 12-13), Small adult, Medium Adult

If you require any further information or assistance, please email mary.mcdicken@east-ayrshire.gov.uk

Thank you.

Please support Primary 7’s fundraising event to raise money for their leaver’s hoodies. Raffle tickets can be purchased on ParentPay.

Thank you.

Please click on the links below and enjoy live lessons from East Ayrshire Council:

Live family sessions starting the 8th Feb 2021

Live sessions Parent -carer Guidance Document

Are you home schooling this week? Help your child to explore the different ways they can express themselves by taking part in #ChildrensMentalHealthWeek.

You can take a look at the free activity ideas for parents and carers by clicking on the link:

https://www.childrensmentalhealthweek.org.uk/

Primary 7 is organising a “Valentine’s Chocolate Hamper” raffle to help raise funds for their leavers hoodies. Tickets cost £1 each and are available to purchase on ParentPay (please note you can purchase any many as you want ….)

Primary 7 would like to thank you for your continued support!

Due to the increasing number of children having to attend our schools parents/carers are reminded of the following key principles from the supplementary guidance for school admission during COVID-19 school closures.

Only key workers who are physically attending their workplace or who cannot fulfil their critical functions when they are working remotely from home may qualify for places.

Where alternative options are available – e.g. where childcare/remote learning can be provided or supported by one non-key-worker parent or carer who is able to work from home – these should be used instead of children attending school in person.

These principles are in place to ensure that we keep the number of children in school each day to a minimum to ensure that safety of both pupils and staff, as the more children we have in then the more staff we require to bring in.

Thank you for your continued support.

Well done to everyone – we’ve survived three weeks of home learning!!  Thanks to everyone – pupils, parents, carers, grandparents, brothers, sisters and family friends – for your time, patience and creativity when helping our pupils with their learning. You’re all doing a great job!

The next paper home learning pack for every pupil will be available for collection from the school office from Monday 1^st February (between 9.30am and 2.30pm please).

Can P1/2 and P2 return their reading books from the first home learning packs please?

Also, a variety of stationery items – pencils, rubbers, jotters – will be available for collection so let us know what you need to help with your child’s home learning lessons.

As always, we’re only a phone call or email away so please get in touch if we can help in any way.

Have a great weekend. 

Mrs Govans

Please click on the links below and enjoy some live lessons from East Ayrshire Council:

Live family sessions wk 2

Live sessions Parent -carer Guidance Document

If you wish any further information, please do not hesitate to contact the school.

Well done to everyone – both pupils and parents/carers – for their brilliant efforts during the first few weeks of home learning.  The majority of the home learning packs were collected so quickly from the school office, and we’ve enjoyed receiving email and GLOW updates from pupils and parents/carers letting us know what is going well, and also asking for advice or clarification if they were getting stuck.  All teachers are contactable via email and Mrs Schendel, Mrs McDicken and I can be contacted by either phoning the school or email.

We’re here to help and support you and by working together we’ll ensure that our Catrine PS pupils get the best out of these home learning times.

Remember – do what you can when you can.  Home learning needs to work around you and your family.  Our staff are trying lots of different ways to engage with our pupils so keep checking our school blog and class blogs for updates.

Thanks to everyone who completed our GLOW questionnaire about our home learning provision.  We are delighted with the responses and have taken on board the suggestions made to improve what we are offering to our families.

Please click on the links below to see the collated responses.

New home learning paper packs will be available for collection from the school office from Monday 1^st February – we look forward to seeing you then. Let us know if you need any other resources – pencils, rubbers etc – and we’ll check what we have in store.

As always, take care, stay safe and keep in touch. 

Mrs Govans

Question 1

Question 2

Question 3

As we are halfway through our third week of home learning we feel it’s important to have a wee check-in conversation with our parents/carers to see how everyone is getting on and to see if there’s anything else we can do to support you and your family at this time.

Mrs Schendel and I will be phoning every family over the next week, so please let us know if there’s something we can help you with.

Look out for a NO CALLER ID number, and we look forward to catching up with you all and having a good blether!

Mrs Govans

A huge well done to P6/7 who were the daily winners yesterday on the East Ayrshire Sumdog maths competition.

165 classes across East Ayrshire have entered the competition so to be the top class is an amazing achievement!

P4/5 are also on the leader board, so well done to them too!   All classes have until the end of today to take part in the competition.  Let’s see if we can have a final push to see Catrine Primary on the final leader boards.

Mrs Schendel

Please see below

What a wonderful, positive start we’ve had to “Home Learning” at Catrine Primary School. Thanks to everyone who has collected their child’s Home Learning pack from the school. Your support and cooperation at this time has been very much appreciated!

Moving forward, we are always looking to ensure that we are providing appropriate and accessible activities for all of our pupils. Please complete the questionnaire below and let us know we’re on track …………

Thanks to all parents/carers/family members and especially our Catrine Primary School pupils for starting Term 3 with enthusiasm and confidence!

Mrs Govans