Just a reminder that Tempest school photograph orders are placed directly through Tempest . You can find the link on the order form or here:

Welcome to Tempest Schools Photography | The UK’s most popular company for schools photography (tempest-orders.co.uk)

As you know it is Children In Need on Friday 19th November.  We are aware that this is an expensive time of year – due to this we are asking for a £1 donation, if you are able to, via the link below (not via ParentPay as stated in the November Newsletter).

Children In Need

Children will take part in a special activity afternoon organised by their class teachers.  Children are not required to wear anything special on this day.

Please remember to complete our homework questionnaire.

Following on from last years Homework Survey we would like to gather your thoughts on our current homework provision.  Your views will help to shape our future homework provision.  This survey will close at midnight on Tuesday 16th November and it should take around 5 minutes to complete.

Thank you for taking the time to respond to this.

P4-7 Introduction into Girls Football 
Pathway available to local quality mark club – Dean Thistle 

St Joseph’s Leisure Centre
Outdoor – Astro Pitch
(Please come prepared for outdoor training)

Tuesday 16th November – Tuesday 7th December
(Every Tuesday for 4 weeks)
P4 – 7 Girls
4pm – 5pm
FREE

Maximum 30 – Places will be allocated on a first come first served basis
PLEASE ONLY REGISTER IF YOU INTEND TO COME ALONG AS SPACES ARE LIMITED

If you are unable to complete the questionnaire online please contact the school for a paper copy.

Following on from last years Homework Survey we would like to gather your thoughts on our current homework provision.  Your views will help to shape our future homework provision.  This survey will close at midnight on Tuesday 16th November and it should take around 5 minutes to complete.

Thank you for taking the time to respond to this.

Please check schoolbags as Parent’s Evening Appointments have been given out to all classes today!

Thank You

The next meeting of the Parent Council will be as follows:

Tuesday 23rd November @7pm

This meeting will take place online as are all PC meetings at present due to current restrictions. 

You can access the meeting using the following link: meet.google.com/pfe-dxyt-jar

If you wish to discuss the role of the Parent Council you can  contact them  on:  mcparentcouncil@gmail.com

There are still telephone appointments available for our forthcoming parents evening. Please return your request slip as soon as possible in order for us to allocate an appointment for you with your child’s teacher.

Thank You

In our effort to reduce, reuse and recycle, we welcome you to take advantage of our school’s “Uniform Exchange”, where we have a large resource of good quality used uniform which is available to any family who needs it, completely free! 

Whether your child/children need shirts, polo shirts, skirts, trousers, pinafores, shoes or jackets, we have items to fit all ages. 

Due to current restrictions it is not possible to come into the school to visit the Uniform Exchange, so should you be interested in /require  any items please get in touch with the school office who will be happy to assist.

If you gave permission for your child/children to receive the flu immunisation, this will be administered in school on Friday 22nd November . 

Please check schoolbags as pupil photographs have been given out to all classes today.

Thank You.

The children have been using ” See Dyslexia Differently” resources and have been introduced to Free Writing as a Dyslexia friendly concept. Please ask your child about this at home.

We will be selling our class Festive Calendars this year….more information to follow……..

The pupils will be participating in Children in Need again this year. This will be on Friday 19th November. More details to follow…..

This year instead of donations through Parentpay, we have a direct link to BBC Children In Need  for parents/carers to donate to:

https://app.parentpay.com/ParentPayShop/Foc/Default.aspx?shopid=4642

There will be no P.E this Friday (5th November) for any of the classes, as the Tempest photographer  will be in the school taking pupil photographs. Please can children come to school wearing school uniform.

Here is the link to the latest newsletter:

East Ayrshire School Counselling Service Newsletter (office.com)

Congratulations to our lucky Hallowe’en Raffle winners Gabo (primary 3), Luke (primary 4) and Madison (primary 5).

November Newsletter

Today the children have been having a fantastic day in school taking part in our Hallowe’en activities.  Thank you for purchasing raffle tickets for our Hallowe’en Trick or Treat bags.  From this we have raised £180 which will go towards purchasing items for our Christmas crafts.

We have lots of exciting activities planned for November, please read on to find out some more.

School Photographs

This will take place on Friday 5^th November.  All children will be photographed and family pictures for children in school will also be taken.  Please complete the slip sent home this week and return to school ASAP.

Class Videos

This term each class will issue a class video shoeing some of the things that children have been taking part in.  This video will be password protected with a text sent with password details to the main contact in school.  If you do not wish your child to be included in this then please contact the school directly or via the contact us form on the school website.

Sports Leadership Sessions

Our Active Schools link Mark Devlin will complete Sports Leadership activities with our Primary 5 and 6 children.  This will begin on Wednesday 17^th November for 4 weeks.

Children in Need

Children in Need takes place on Friday 19^th November.  We are aware that this is an expensive time of the year, we are asking for a £1 donation if you are able to.  This will be available on ParentPay closer to the time.  The children will take part in a special activity afternoon.

Parents/Carers Appointments

Due to ongoing restrictions parents/carers will again take place via phonecall.  These will take place between Monday 22^nd November and Friday 26^th November.  A letter will be sent home next week with further details for each class.

Book Week Scotland Gifting Event

Primary 1- 3 will have a special afternoon of activities for this on Wednesday 24^th November.  Children in Primary 1-3 can come to school dressed in their pyjamas on this day.  Primary 1 will receive a Bookbug bag, Primary 2 and 3 will receive a Read Write Count bag.

Class Calendar

We will again be offering a class calendar for sale, more details to follow for this.

Christmas Crafts

Each child will be creating a Christmas craft again this year.  Funds raised from this will go towards school funds.

Christmas Events

Each class will attend an Advent services at the Church – date to be confirmed.

An exciting opportunity for pupils to take part in Handball.

HANDBALL COMMUNITY CLUB

PRIMARY:P5-7 boys & girls

DAY:      Tuesday

TIME:    5pm-6pm

VENUE: St Joseph’s Leisure Centre (games hall)

DATES: 26th Oct to 14th Dec

COST:    Free

REGISTER HERE USING SMARTSURVEY BELOW:

https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/Handballclub/

*Maximum 30 places – this is due to restrictions based on COVID 19*

Please only attend if you have registered a place. For more information please email: mark.devlin@east-ayrshire.gov.uk

P5-7 Handball Community Club

Primary 1 Curriculum Overview Term 2 2021

Welcome back to the Primary 1 blog. Here you will find out what Primary 1 will be learning about this term as they continue to grow as learners and as individuals.

Literacy

Primary 1 worked very hard last term to develop their phonological awareness. They have used this new knowledge to support them as they began to learn some of the initial sounds. Primary 1 will continue to learn two new sounds every week until they have learned all initial sounds (26). As Primary 1 grow in confidence, recognising and identifying initial sounds they will use this knowledge to word build. In addition to this, Primary 1 will be learning new common words every week alongside the initial sounds. Primary 1 will have lots of opportunities to practise each new sound and common words in a range of active ways in line with the Active Literacy approach to learning. As Primary 1 become more confident when word building and recognising common words they will focus on using these words to build simple sentences as well as apply this knowledge to read worded texts.

Primary 1 will focus on developing their word attack strategies as they develop their reading and writing skills. As Primary 1 begin to access worded texts, they will also begin to develop their prediction skills. They will look closely at their new reading books each week and make simple predictions (orally) about what they think their book will be about. This will help to deepen their understanding of each text as well as begin to develop their comprehension skills. In addition to this, Primary 1 will develop their sequencing and visualisation skills. They will listen to a range of traditional stories including Goldilocks and the Three Bears and they will have opportunities to role play the stories to ensure correct sequence before they independently sequence the story.

In writing, Primary 1 will focus on descriptive writing. The children will describe familiar objects before moving on to describe characters from known stories. Primary 1 will use the descriptive bubble to support this learning. The children will begin to describe orally. They will then focus on creating detailed drawings of objects and characters before attempting to write descriptions.

Primary 1 will continue to develop their talking and listening skills; understanding when to listen and when to respond, taking turns and communicating with others. They will also continue to develop their fine motor skills and pincer grip which will enable them to write their names independently as well as form letters and numbers in the correct way.

Numeracy and Mathematics

Numeracy – This term, Primary 1 will have lots of opportunities to practise and consolidate their knowledge of numbers to 10 as well as quantities to 10 in a range of different ways. As Primary 1 become more confident when comparing quantities, they will now think about “more” and “less”. In addition to this, Primary 1 will begin to learn about the concept of addition within 10. They will have the opportunity to use a range of concrete resources to develop their understanding of this new concept before moving towards applying their knowledge mentally. Primary 1 will have the opportunity to apply their learning through daily number talks.

Mathematics – Primary 1 will continue to develop their information handling skills this term. They will also gain an understanding of money through their shops and shopping topic. Primary 1 will learn to identify coins as well as understand that each coin represents a different value. As the children become more confident, they will have many opportunities for challenge by adding to find totals. Primary 1 will have the opportunity to put their new knowledge about money into practice as they role play in their very own shop. Primary 1 will also touch upon the concept of position and movement in term 2 as part of their fairy tales topic. The children will use their new knowledge of sequencing when undertaking this new learning. The children will also access coding software and use Spheros to apply their knowledge of position and movement.

Health and Wellbeing

Primary 1 will continue to develop their social and emotional skills through our whole school PATHS programme. The children continue to enjoy engaging with the puppets and love it when they visit our classroom. Primary 1 love giving and receiving compliments each day as part of “Pupil of the Day”. Primary 1 will continue to learn about their emotions through a range of activities and stories based around the PATHS puppets. The children in Primary 1 continue to engage enthusiastically with this programme.

Physical Education

This term Primary 1 will focus on developing their large and small ball skills including skills related to playing football. In addition to this, Primary 1 will have the opportunity to develop their social dancing skills in preparation for their class Christmas party. They will learn dances such as The Grand Old Duke Of York. Primary 1 will, as always, complete all physical activities with safety at the forefront. At the moment, one PE session takes place outdoors (Monday) whilst the second session takes place indoors (Thursday).

P.E. days will continue to be Monday and Thursday. Please ensure your child comes to school dressed appropriately with either joggers or leggings and trainers as well as their school jumper on Monday for the outdoor session. Your child should come to school on full uniform on Thursday ensuring they have appropriate indoor gym shoes to change into for their indoor session. Please ensure all earrings are removed and kept at home on both P.E. days.

Religious Education

As November is the month of Remembrance, Primary 1 will learn about different saints including St. Andrew. The children will listen to stories from the Bible that will teach them about love and the importance of praying for loved ones as well as people who have died. Throughout December, Primary 1 will learn about the birth of Jesus. The children will learn how Advent helps us to prepare for the celebration of Christmas. Primary 1 will participate in daily prayers around the crib as well as light the Advent candles at the appropriate time. During Advent, Primary 1 will be reminded of the importance of showing kindness and love during this time.

IDL

This term, Primary 1 will continue to make lots of links across their learning through their Fairyland topic. They have already enjoyed learning different traditional tales and have had opportunities to apply their knowledge through a range of related science, expressive arts and HWB activities. Primary 1 will also learn about different shops and different jobs associated with shops through their shops and shopping topic. They will develop their understanding of money through this topic. Primary 1 will set up their own shop which will enable them to apply their new knowledge of shops and money. In addition to this, as we approach the Christmas period, Primary 1 will think about how Christmas is celebrated in their local community as well as learn about Christmas traditions around the world. Primary 1 will also participate in the Christmas nativity. They will collaborate with the children in Primary 2 and 3 during this time. Primary 1 will develop many drama and music-based skills as they prepare their nativity performance.

Reminder

If your child has not already done so, please ensure that your child brings in appropriate outdoor learning clothes. This will allow your child to fully engage with any outdoor learning experiences.

Please ensure that you write your child’s name on any items of clothing they may take off throughout the school day, eg. jumpers. This will help to ensure your child doesn’t lose any items of clothing.

Thank you for visiting the Primary 1 blog, keep a look out for any further updates as term 2 progresses!

Thank you,

Mrs Dunsmore.

I hope you all had a relaxing October break and are ready to embark on the forthcoming Hallowe’en and Festive celebrations!! We are certainly ready for another busy term of learning in Primary 1/2, while still managing to get caught up in the fun and excitement of the Christmas term.

Literacy

Primary 2

In phonics we will continue with our joined phonemes (2 letter sounds) and become more confident in reading and writing these.

As we learn new common words, spelling will continue to be an important focus for us to ensure we can develop our independent writing skills.

We are working our way through the Bug Club texts, appropriate to our stage of learning. Please continue to login to these as required for our homework tasks. If there is any issue with logging on, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

During this term, we will focus on our word attack skills using our phonics knowledge and we will be developing our understanding of texts by answering literal questions. We will also be deepening our prediction skills by using the title, blurb and illustrations to justify our responses.

Primary 1

This term we will be continuing to practise our letter formation and pencil control skills to ensure we can write the letters we have been learning.

Now that we know some of the sounds the letters of the alphabet make, we will be “blending” these together to make words. These words will help us with our reading and writing tasks.

In writing, we will continue to describe people and objects, orally and pictorially focusing on colour, shape and size.

In reading we will be predicting what a text is about using the title, front cover and blurb. We will also be sequencing parts of the story in the correct order to check our understanding.

Numeracy

Counting will always be a focus in P1/2, ensuring we can count on and back from any number to give us the fluidity needed for mental addition and subtraction.

Primary 2

Our main focus this term will be addition within 10 and 20. Some children will be exploring the number stories (facts) to 20 including the tricky skill of “bridging” 10!

Within addition we will think about the mental strategies we use to answer calculations including counting on, doubles and near doubles.

Primary 1

Now that we have explored the numbers to 10 fully and have looked at “more” and “less”, we will be focusing on the concept of addition. We will begin by combining two quantities and understanding that when you do this, the quantity gets bigger. This will lead us on to learning our number stories, where we learn the different ways to “make” our numbers to 10. These number stories (or facts) are the building blocks to which all the other number processes are built upon, so we will spend a lot of time on these, ensuring they are well embedded before moving on.

Writing numbers can be tricky, so number formation will also remain a focus.

As a class we will also be exploring the properties of 2D and 3D shape, identifying the different types of shapes and describing them in relation to their number of faces, edges, corners etc.

We will also begin to look at the many aspects of “Time”. We already start each morning by looking at the days of the week and finding the date on our calendar, but we will also be learning the sequence of the months and their corresponding seasons. We will start to look at telling the time (on the hour and half past) using digital and analogue clocks as the topic progresses.

Health & Well-Being

We continue on with our PATHS programme by reflecting on the emotions we have been exploring and learning of ways to manage these. Our favourite PATHS puppet, Twiggle, will be helping us with this as he shows us how to do “Turtle”, giving us a strategy to calm ourselves when things get a bit too much.

Friendships continue to be a general focus and we will also be considering the importance of our mental health and who we can ask for help.

In PE we will begin our first of two blocks of gymnastics. The main focus for this block will be to develop our skills in travelling, jumping and rolling. During outdoor PE, the focus will be football, developing passing and receiving skills.

In preparation for the social event of the year (the Mount Carmel Christmas Party!!) the children will also be learning social dancing.

PLEASE REMEMBER TO TAKE EARRINGS OUT FOR GYM DAYS ON MONDAYS AND THURSDAYS.

RE

We have been learning about the importance of the bible in RE and have already read the story of “Creation”. We will continue to thank God for giving us a world of natural beauty and think about what we can do to help look after it.

Throughout November our theme will be remembrance. We will learn  what it means to be a saint, before exploring the lives of St Andrew and St Francis of Assisi.

As December arrives, we will celebrate advent together, preparing for the birth of Jesus by showing love and kindness to those around us as much as we possibly can. We will be exploring the story of the nativity through songs, role play and craft activities.

Inter-disciplinary Learning (Topic)

Our topic for the term ahead is Forces and Electricity. We will learn what a force is before exploring “push” and “pull”. Magnetic force will also be introduced and we will be experimenting with magnets and magnetic materials.

To develop our understanding of electricity, we will consider the items we use which need a power source to work. We will identify those which use a battery or mains electricity and will have the chance to construct a simple circuit.

We will consider the ways in which we can conserve energy and make power last longer.

Expressive Arts

Our art, music and drama work this term will be centred around the Christmas Nativity.

Thank you for your continued support.

Mrs Duff

Hello and welcome to our second blog post of the session.  Primary 2/3 have been very busy, working hard within their groups and following the new routines and class rules we have in place in class.  We had a fabulous first term and the children are eager and keen to begin their new topics in our new term.

Literacy

Our class novel has been ‘The Enchanted Wood’ during term 1 and this has been well received by the children. We will continue to read this novel in class and will also read the follow-on books from the Magic Faraway Tree series.  This will be for fun and to keep the excitement and enjoyment of our first text going over the coming term.

Our reading and spelling activities are continuing to be enjoyed and worked on in class, at various times throughout the week. Children are using a mixture of practical, hands on activities such as play dough, salt trays, stencils and chalk boards to practice their spelling words but are also employing strategies such as ‘rainbow spell’ and ‘pyramid spell’ to reinforce their spelling knowledge at home and in class. We are using the Active Literacy phoneme stories and word building applications to help us recognise our spelling sound and words in texts we are accessing.

In reading we will continue to work on prediction but the focus will switch to sequencing and ordering events within the text, such as beginning, middle and end and what happen first, next and last in our texts throughout this term. Our focus in writing has been descriptive writing, and this will continue this term, as well as giving the children opportunities to write scientific reports, based on findings from the experiments we carry out during out topic of ‘Energy Around Us’.

Just a reminder that homework will continue to be sent out weekly on a Monday, so please check your children’s bags for their plastic wallet.  Reading books will be attached to pupils’ accounts through our online Bug Club reading programme and all homework should be returned to school on a Friday.

Maths

Our focus in maths this term will be place value and becoming more familiar with numbers to 100 with both our rectangle and triangle groups and numbers to 999 with pupils from our circle maths group.  We will also have a focus on money, as well as addition and subtraction, number talks, and word problems to consolidate our strategies within these operations of number. Children will regularly use their ‘Thinking It Through’ jotters to develop problem solving skills, applying knowledge of number to new contexts and develop strategies for any number problems.

Health & Wellbeing

Our Paths Pupil of the Day is continuing and our Pupil of the Day has been receiving lots of compliments and special jobs around the classroom.  All children will have the opportunity to be pupil of the day for the second and third time throughout this term.  We are continuing to explore emotions, comfortable and uncomfortable and how we recognise these emotions within ourselves and in others.

In P.E, our sessions will happen inside (Tuesday) once per week, and outside (Thursday) once per week and our focus will be on large and small ball skills, gymnastics and dance. We are building on our term 1 topics and hope to see the spacial awareness and team building skills further developed throughout this term.

R.E

Our focus during R.E sessions will be on bible stories, saints and the nativity. As our Primary 3 children will be preparing for Reconciliation after the new year, the sacraments will be discussed in depth, so children fully understand each of the sacraments and their importance in their relationship with God.

Topic

Our topics over the next term will be ‘Energy Around Us’ where children will be given the opportunity to explore toys and how they move, looking at pushing and pulling and how magnets can be used to make objects move.  Children will hypothesise about what force could make objects move, carry out experiments and record their findings.

In the lead up to Christmas, we will have an enterprise topic where children will work in teams to budget for and buy resources, which will then become an item they can sell at Christmas time.  The children will hope to turn their budget and craft item into a profit which will be donated to charity. The focus will primarily be on the different roles within a working group, managing money and financial obligations, whilst looking at the benefits to charity, when a profit can be made.

As always, we hope this is the start of another successful term and that the pupils will enjoy all the different festivities that follow as we prepare for Christmas, celebrating Christs birth and the preparations and production of the infant Nativity!

Take care,

Mrs Travers