JRSO Magic Roadshow

P1 to P4 thoroughly enjoyed Allans Magic Road safety Show on Tuesday. Our special guests, Miss McMillan and our JRSOs, joined the show as they have been working hard to drive forward road safety at our school.

Thank you to Allan for a great magic show that taught our children all about road safety in a fun way and to Ayrshire Roads Alliance for organising this for us.

Red Nose Day

A reminder that Red Nose day is this Friday 15th March. The RRS group have organised a fun afternoon with lots of activities for us all to enjoy. We ask that for your child to take part in these activities a donation of £2 for each child is donated via Parent Pay. Additionally we would like to thank those that have already donated for RND, if anyone else has bubble machines, bubble solution, bicarbonate soda or food colouring they are happy to donate we would be extremely grateful.

Football Sponsorship

We are over the moon with our new home and away football kits!

On behalf of the school football teams, Mr Hyslop and our whole school, we would like to send a massive THANK YOU to Andrew Bicket from Bickets Barrhead Butchers and Grant Chalmers from Drumclog Off-Road Centre, for sponsoring us!

 

Aristos Partnership

Our P6 cohort have been lucky to have received fitness sessions over a six week period by our local gym, Aristos, with the last session taking place at the Aristos gym. Every pupil involved have had a great time learning about fitness and ways of keeping healthy and out class teachers have gained some great tips and hints to incorporate ideas in their future lessons.

We are delighted to share that Aristos have donated skipping ropes and we have been busy using these to promote fitness during our PE lessons.

Thank you Kirsty and staff at Aristos for organising these sessions for the second year and for supporting us to promote fitness and wellbeing in our school.

 

JRSO Road Safety/Drop-off Campaign

Dear Parents and Carers,

As you will be aware, we announced in our last JRSO blog post that we will be starting a Road Safety Campaign. We would like to highlight that we feel that road safety in our school could be improved upon if more families use the drop-off service. We would now like to take this opportunity to share our ideas and plans with you.

At most schools, there is always problems with parking, especially in the morning when children are coming to school and at the end of the day when school is finishing. School related traffic congestion poses a risk to the safety of the pupils, staff, families, motorists and residents in and around our school. As your Road Safety Officers, we would like to highlight some of the dangers that we have witnessed.

  • Some cars are parking just outside the school grounds on Pokelly Place making it difficult for our buses and taxis to safely enter our premises. This is also a hazard for other users trying to access our designated drop off area.
  • Children are often spotted walking through the car park with an adult and we would strongly advise for you to use the paths around the perimeter of the school to safely enter the playground. This may add a few extra minutes to your commute, but walking through a car park must be discouraged at all times.

We have also witnessed parking at our bin cage and parking in the staff car park making it hard for our teachers, support staff and visitors to access.

Most concerning is when our emergency exit is blocked.

Over the next few weeks, you will be able to easily spot us around the playground in the morning as we will be wearing Hi-Viz tabards and have signs encouraging you to think before you park. Look out for Phizz and Blair too who will be displayed outside and will be supporting you to park safely. We are again very grateful to Physioflexx and Blair Garage for sponsoring our signs.

We are very lucky at Nether Robertland as we have Miss McMillan who is one of our Pupil Support Assistants, offering a valuable service at our drop off area. She is there to welcome you and help to get us safely into our playground from vehicles entering our school area.

We would like to encourage as many families as possible to use this service. Rain, hail, sleet and snow, Miss McMillan is always there with a smile!

 

FAMILY BOOKSHELF BORROW

Family Borrow Bookshelf

Our Reading Schools Pupil Group have created a Family Borrow Bookshelf  and it can be found in the Main Reception Area.  The plan is for the Borrow Bookshelf to sit outside the main door to allow for easy access but for now it will remain indoors until the weather improves.  We would like to encourage parents/carers/grandparents and families to borrow a book or two and also add one or two of their own that they have finished with.  The children are really excited about this venture and we are hoping it will allow families to access a variety of books for free.  Please feel free to pop in and have a look!

Thanks

The Reading Schools Group

JRSO Update

We would like to say a big thank you to our local businesses, Physioflexx and Blair Garage, for sponsoring our new JRSO team members. We will be thanking our supporters in our own way very soon. Watch this space.. We would like to introduce Blair and Phizz. Alongside ourselves and Miss McMillan, we will be carrying out a Road Safety campaign, focusing on safe parking and use of the drop off option, in the morning of week beginning 5th February. More information will be coming your way soon.

 

Rosie, Arran, Finn and Aimee

Our Vision – January 2024 Challenge

LEARN TODAY, LEAD TOMORROW

In January, we will be thinking about our vision and what it means to us.

What is a vision?

  • Our goal
  • Something we strive for
  • Future tense and ambitious

What does our vision mean to us?

  • Importance of learning
  • If we learn, we will be ready for the future
  • Learners today are leaders of tomorrow

As all of our children are leaders and lead in different ways, in January we will be exploring our vision in class and at home. We ask that you discuss the following questions with your child at home to prepare them for the class task.

As our vision is something we strive and work towards, think about the following:

  • What you think you’ll be leading in the future?
  • What job would you like to do when you grow up?
  • Why do you think you will be good at leading in this?

Parents’ Evening Questionnaire Feedback from November 2023

Thank you to everyone who completed the parent questionnaire during Parents’ Evening. Please see what the responses were below, along with some further information.

Question Reponses Additional Information
How many of our school values can you name? Please share these with us. May 2023 November 2023 Parents/carers are more familiar with our values.
29% knew all values 38% know all values
20% knew two or three values 39% know two or three values
33% knew no values 14% know no values
What is our vision?

 

Our Vision: Learn Today, Lead Tomorrow

 37% know our vision and were able to share it with our P7 leaders Our new vision was introduced at the end of the last session. We are delighted that many of our parents/carers know our new vision and to improve on this further, we will be sharing a family homework challenge in January focusing on our new vision.
63% were not sure what the new vision is
We have experienced some technical difficulties with our school app. Are you now able to access it? 85% have experienced technical difficulties East Ayrshire Council and the school have been working closely with staff for Safer Schools Scotland to trouble shoot some of the issues. As the app is our main way of communicating with you, we need you to let us know if you are continuing to have difficulties so that we can help with this. Please come into school to see us if this is the case.
14% have not experienced technical difficulties
1% do not use the app
Do you use the date section on our school app? 64% use the date section of the app (Calendar) The date section of the app is a work in progress. It can be found if you swipe the tiles to the left. We are continuing to try to make this as user friendly as possible. It is an Outlook calendar. You can change the view to day, week or month. If there is one than one item in a date (You see the +2 sign), just scroll over to the right and you will see the items. Sometimes we add additional information for events and to view this, just click on the event.
36% do not use the date section of the app (Calendar)
Rate how helpful you find our school Blog in providing information about our school. 3.5/5 star rating The school Blog is a website that aims to provide parents/carers with static information that can be accessed at any time. This includes a variety of menus and is a place where we save documents and policies. Please take a look by simply Googling ‘Nether Robertland Blog’ or alternatively, you can access the Blog from the app by clicking on the second tile.
Do you follow our school Twitter/X 50% follow us We currently have 544 followers. We use Twitter/X to share our school and classes successes and achievements. This is a platform that allows parents/carers to share in some of the wonderful learning that takes place in our school.
50% do not follow us

 
If you follow us on Twitter/X, do you like the Tweets/posts? 55% like the tweets/posts We would like our parents/carers to interact with our tweets/posts. We invite you to click on the love heart and/or leave a comment.
31% do not like the tweets/posts
14% sometimes like the tweets/posts
Do we provide opportunities for you to engage with the school and your child’s learning? 73% said that we provide opportunities Ways we provide opportunities for you to engage in your child’s learning:

·         Weekly homework

·         Family homework challenges

·         Meet the Teacher event at the start of term

·         This session every class will have a parental engagement event

·         Competitions

·         School Blog

·         Twitter/X
4% said that we do not provide opportunities
23% said that we somewhat provide opportunities
Do you have any suggestions for how we can improve upon parental engagement? ·         Communication to be more in advance

·         More classroom visits

·         More Twitter/X posts

·         Parent/teacher learner sessions

 We continue to reflect and act on parent/carers view to ensure that parental engagement is prioritised.
Are you aware of how homework is communicated for your child? 89% are aware how homework is communicated P3 to P7 classes – Homework is communicated through Teams

P1 – P2 classes – Homework is communicated through the individual class Blogs
11% are not aware of how homework is communicated
Do you value homework as an opportunity to support your child’s learning further? 67% value homework We feel that we need to gather more views regarding how we take forward homework at our school. We will be consulting with you on this in May 2024.
12% do not value homework
21% somewhat value homework

November’s Family Values Challenge

We would like to say a huge thanks to all of our families and children who took part in November’s Value of the Month challenge. This focused on our value of teamwork. We asked our families to share what teamwork looked in in your homes and in the community. As a family, you selected three words that describe the quality required to display good teamwork and you shared this by putting these words into Menti. We are now pleased to share what this looks like to you. This is represented by the word cloud below. The words that are bigger are those that were selected the most. We are delighted to see aspects such as fun, kind and cooperation are in bold.

Value of the Month – Determination

As a school we have identified the following ways we can show determination.

  • Work hard, be motivated and rise to challenges
  • Never giving up, even when it is hard
  • Making mistakes and to keep trying until you succeed

As our value this month for December is determination, we would love you to share any videos or photos of your family showing determination. Please share these with us via the school email, which can be found below.

eaNetherRobertland.PS@eastayrshire.org.uk

We look forward to seeing all the great examples of determination.

 

Anti-Bullying Week 2023 – Listen up! Respect our Rights

Anti-Bullying Week 2023 will take place from Monday 13 – Friday 17 November with the theme of ‘Listen Up! (Respect our Rights)’ – because bullying is never acceptable.

respectme, Scotland’s anti-bullying service, was launched in March 2007. Their vision is of a respecting, just, equal and inclusive Scotland in which all children and young people can live free from bullying and harassment and are encouraged to reach their full potential. Their work is driven by a focus on children’s rights.

During Anti-Bullying Week 2023, all children will be exploring the theme of Listen up! Respect our Rights through class activities and whole school approaches. Learning will be shared via Twitter/X so please look our for these and feel free to give us a like or comment.

To support your child further, please see the Parent Tool Kit below.

Anti-Bullying Parent Tool Kit 2023

Value of the Month – Teamwork

As our value this month is teamwork, we are spending time thinking about how to show teamwork in school and at home. In school, we have identified the following ways we can show teamwork and we are working hard on this.

  • Working together to get things done
  • Sharing ideas and listening to others
  • Valuing the opinions of others

This month, we invite you to:

  1. Discuss with your family what teamwork looks like in your home and in the community. As a family, select three words that describe the qualities required to display good teamwork.
  2. Click on the link or use the QR code below to share your responses with us at school.
  3. You will share your responses with the class week beginning 27th November.

To support living by our values in school, at home and in our local community, we have given every family one of our values magnets to display in your home as a reminder.