Category Archives: Whole School News

Whole School News

Halloween Disco

Halloween Disco – 25th October 2017 – Blaendulais Primary School

Our Halloween Disco will take place on Thursday 26th October.

There will be two separate discos for lower school and upper school:

Primary 1-3 will take place from 6pm until 7pm

Primary 4-7 will take place between 7.15pm and 8.30pm

There will be a small charge payable on the night and this will include DJ, snack and prizes for the best costumes. Children will be given a flyer nearer the time with more information.

If you can help out at any of the discos please get in touch here

 

 

 

Whole School News

P7 Term 1 Update

Welcome back everyone and welcome to the P7 blog! I hope you all had an enjoyable holiday.  I am delighted to welcome back the pupils of P7 who have settled well into the school routine and are enjoying being the top of the school!

Here’s an overview of our learning that will take place in our first term (Aug-Oct).

Literacy

This term we will be focussing on a novel study, The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips by Michael Morpurgo.  As well as reading the book together, the class will participate in activities that relate to other areas of the curriculum including Art, Social Studies and Technology.  We will also continue to develop our comprehension skills through our use of all ALP reading strategies with a particular focus on summarising and identifying the main idea

For writing, we are concentrating on descriptive writing:  Giving detailed descriptions using similes, alliteration, the senses and metaphors to interest the reader.

Spelling groups will continue to use Active Spelling strategies and follow on from previous work.

Numeracy

All groups this term have begun by looking at place value.  We will soon be moving into addition and subtraction.  The class will continue to take part in daily mental activities such as number talks where they aim to use a variety of mental strategies to achieve the solution.  The class are also working on skills beyond number with Mrs McIntyre and are currently developing their knowledge of angles.

Health and Wellbeing

This year we will continue to use the PATHS programme to shape our HWB learning. P7 have already started ‘pupil of the day’ and participated in discussions around feelings and how we manage our emotions.  We will continue to revise the steps of the Problem Solving guide and aim to apply it in situations independently.  We are also investigating the different diets people have due to allergies, intolerances and religious reasons.

For PE, we have participated in team games concentrating on how important communication and teamwork is in order to be successful.  P7 will shortly begin our block of badminton aiming to develop their racquet skills, learn the rules and take part in small competitive games.

IDL

Our topic this term is World War 2.  This ties in closely with our novel study.  We will investigate how the war began, key events in the war (D Day, The Battle of Britain and The Blitz) and how people helped the war effort.  We will be using other curricular areas, such as literacy and technology, to help us understand and research this topic.  P7 have also been watching news clips, information bulletins and listening to music from the 1940s to get into the mind set of Brits during the war.

 

 

Technologies

This term P7 will access and use more features of Glow, attach files to emails, save work to cloud locations and retrieve files using search functions.  We will also have an input from East Ayrshire IT department on how to use and access Chromebooks.

RE

P7 will continue to complete their journal for the Pope Francis Faith Award as well as reading from the New Testament.  We will be looking at the life of Jesus and how he associated with those who were marginalised in society.

 

I look forward to working with P7 in the coming year and hope to have lots of enjoyable experiences that will make learning fun and memorable.

Mr Bertoncini

 

Whole School News

Primary 4 Term 1 Update

 Welcome back! We hope you have all had an enjoyable summer. It has been fantastic to see P4 settle into their new classroom and routines.  

We have had a great start to the term and look forward to a fun-filled term with lots of fabulous learning taking place.  

Here is an update on the upcoming term.  

 Literacy  

For our reading focus this term, we will be developing our comprehension strategies such as visualisation and metalinguistics through our class novel ‘The Iron Man’. The children will be introduced to similes and onomatopoeia; some children can use these in their writing.  

During writing, we will start by continuing to develop our sentence structure and use of description bubbles for various descriptive pieces, we then then continue to work on our characterisation through descriptive skills and language narrative writing.  

Spelling will take the form of active spelling activities and the children will experience phonemes and blends at their working level. 

P4 will also be given revision lessons on alphabetical order, sentence structure and dictionary skills.  

 Numeracy & Maths  

P4 have already looked at how Maths impacts the world around us and where we use Maths in our day to day lives. We have started learning how to round 2 and 3 digits to the nearest 10 and the nearest 100.  

The class will review Place Value knowledge and use it to build on their sense of number. We will look at 4-digit numbers and read, write order and recite these numbers. Through our place value work, we will be able to identify the value of each digit.  

We will then progress to looking at our addition strategies. The class will participate in a daily number talk, to develop mental maths strategies.  

In Beyond Number, the class will start with shaping, look at the properties of a range of 2D and 3D shapes and create tiling patterns. We will then move on to investigate the use of mathematical language to describe and record directions.   

 Health and Wellbeing  

At the start of the term, P4 discussed and identified their right as a child. As a class, we agreed on a Class Charter to allow our class to be fun, safe, hardworking and respectful.  

This term we will begin our PATHS programme for P4. Lessons will include setting up our class rules, looking at individual emotions, building friendships and community within the school, Self-Control and Anger Management.  We will also start the Do Be Mindful programme which will allow us, using a range of strategies, to look at ways we can take a mindful moment each day. 

 PE 

PE is on a Thursday and Friday. This term we will be covering; 

  • Team Games 
  • Football  
  • Badminton 

PE kit must be brought in and left at the start of each term. Before each holiday, the kit will be sent home for washing to be freshened up and returned on the first day back.  Please make sure your child is not wearing jewellery on these days as they will be unable to participate in the lesson for health and safety reasons. If your child cannot take part for any reason, please contact the school. 

 French  

We will be revising the alphabet, basic French phrases and numbers this term through, songs, activities and games. 

 IDL 

P4 will be learning to carry out a comparison study on the rainforest and the Arctic. We will link this with our literacy through our descriptive writing and will develop mapping skills. 

 Expressive Arts  

In Music, we will be using ‘Charanga’ to appraise and learn a song. P4 will have the opportunity to use our new school glockenspiels to accompany the song, learning about rhythm, pace and beat.  

During Drama lessons, the pupils will take part in drama activities to support teamwork and improve confidence. We will also ‘act out’ parts of our class novel.  

As we move on to our IDL topic, we will use various mediums to create some beautiful artwork to depict the rainforest and Arctic, looking at the idea of hot and cold colours.   

 Religious Education  

This term we will be reflecting on our uniqueness and thinking about our God-given talents. We will reflect on the importance of friendship and link this with various stories from the Bible. The children will take part in class prayers and School Masses, and we will continue to build on our knowledge of common prayers and Mass responses.  

 Homework will be distributed on a Monday to be completed and returned by Friday.  

Thank you for your continued support and we look forward to a fabulous term with P4!