Congratulations to Mrs Taylor and Primary 4 for their efforts in a recent Sumdog competition.
The class came 8th out of all the East Renfrewshire Council schools taking part, which is a big achievement so well done.
A special congratulations to Mustafa in P4 for being placed in the top 50 children participating in the competition.
Another excellent achievement!
Quingo – Giffnock Parent Council’s Family Fundraising Night
Thank you to all the families who came along to our first ever Quingo event which took place on a beautiful summer’s evening on 3rd June.
We had lots of fun with a quiz, bingo, raffle, Willy Wonka chocolate bars, food & dancing at Giffnock North Athletics Club. Thanks to everyone who bought raffle tickets too.
The children are writing thank you cards for all the local businesses who donated prizes which helped us raise £800 for our school next year.
Some of the photos are displayed on the parent council noticeboard in the playground. If you would like digital copies of any pictures, please email giffnockpc@hotmail.com
We hope to do it all again next year. If you would like to input into the parent council, please come along to our AGM on 5th September.
You can follow Giffnock PC on social media on Facebook and Twitter.
https://www.facebook.com/giffnockpc/
https://twitter.com/giffnockpc
Giffnock Primary School had a great Sports Day on Friday. The weather was perfect and lots of people turned up to cheer on the competitors. Many thanks to everybody who helped – Sports Day wouldn’t work without all the volunteer judges, tape holders and sticker givers!
The winner of the Sports Day Cup was Mains-Macintosh. Well done!
The weather looks perfect today – a little bit cooler and cloud cover. Children will leave school at 1.10pm to walk to Huntly Park.
Here are the latest events taking place in Rouken Glen Park.
I would also remind you that Armed Forces Day takes place in Rouken Glen Park on Saturday 18 June 2016, 12 noon to 5 pm.
This is the presentation that was shown to nursery parents at our induction earlier this month. It is a little snapshot of some of the things we enjoy at Giffnock Nursery. As you can see there is never a dull moment! Don’t forget you can also keep up-to-date with what we are doing by visiting the nursery Twitter page.
Play on the Longest Day, Monday 20th June 2016
Play Scotland promotes the annual Playday celebration which traditionally takes place on the first Wednesday in August every year. Playday is the annual celebration of children’s right to play – a national campaign where children and young people get out and play at locally organised events.
After discussions and requests from members in 2011, Play Scotland launched Play on the Longest Day. This enables more schools, nurseries and childcare settings in Scotland to get involved in Playday activities as Scottish schools are on holiday in August. This year this will be held on Monday 20th June.
This years theme is Play Matters
The Playday Play Matters… campaign is calling on everyone to help make sure that children and young people across the UK have the time, freedom and space to play more. As well as promoting children’s right to play, the campaign is highlighting that Play matters for:
You can find out more here:
This month’s newsletter from East Renfrewshire Council focuses entirely on the upcoming Euro 2016 tournament and has lots of great teaching resources to link football and languages.
Judith Boulton-Jones
Modern Languages Development Officer
Education Dept.
Last week we posted about the success of Giffnock Primary School pupils who qualified to compete at the East Renfrewshire Primary Tennis Finals.
They represented the Woodfarm cluster in the competition that is now into its 8th year.
The finals were held today and 22 primary schools played each other in a closely fought contest. Giffnock Primary ended up in an excellent third place. Well done to Heather, Erin, Ellis and Kyle from P4!
Giffnock Primary has taken part in British astronaut Tim Peake’s rocket seed experiment and now children can hear Tim read a bedtime story from space!
He may currently be orbiting the Earth, but Tim has still found time to put the kids to bed.
On Monday 30th May he’ll be reading Goodnight Spaceman by Michelle Robinson all the way from the International Space Station.
The story was inspired by Tim and his two sons, and is about two space-mad boys getting ready for bed – the perfect story for all those little ones who’ve loved watching Tim’s out of this world mission.
Find out more here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/grownups/bedtime-story-from-space
Rocket Science Project Day 35
Today was the last day of the Rocket Science project. All the team came to record the final measurements of the experiment: the percentage of seedlings still alive in each tray.
We are waiting for further information from the Royal Horticultural Society’s School Gardening team to tell us how to upload our data to their database and what we really want to know- which seeds were in space?! The children are definitely split between those who think our better growing seedlings from the red packet are the space seeds and those who think the seeds from the blue packet, which are not growing quite as well, are the ones which were on the International Space Station. We can’t wait to find out!
All in all this has been a fantastic opportunity for the children to take part in a real life science experiment and we hope we’ve managed to give the whole Giffnock Primary community a flavour of the project with our regular updates and pictures.
We’ll be sure to share with you when we know which seeds were in space!
Eager customers are queuing up to buy delicious fair trade Kilombero rice in school as part of the 90kg Rice Challenge. If the school sells 90kg of rice, we can raise enough money to cover the secondary education fees of one child in Malawi. Rice will be on sale until 4th June.
You can find out more about the challenge here:
http://jts.co.uk/90kg-rice-challenge
A team from P4 in Giffnock Primary has won the competition to represent the Woodfarm Cluster at the East Renfrewshire Cluster tennis competition. They will soon compete against other primary schools representing their clusters. Well done to Kyle, Ellis, Erin and Heather and good luck!
In January the Junior Road Safety Officers, Lily and Kirsty from P6, helped to install pollution monitors in Academy Road.
The monitors measured different types of air pollution. We have now discovered that at peak times, pollution levels are quite high.
The next step is to try and reduce this and so we held a competition to design a banner to encourage park and stride and walking.
The winners of the competition were Ellie from P6 and Jamie from P7. Their winning entries were turned into large banners which will be mounted outside the school playground.
Thanks to everybody who gave feedback about the March Parent-Teacher Meetings. The attached PDF summarises the responses.
Dear Parents / Carers,
The Pupils at Giffnock Primary School will be helping families in Malawi by participating in the JTS (Just Trading Scotland) 90kg Rice Challenge. Malawi is one of the poorest counties in Africa and a result, secondary education is not free. JTS works directly with farmers in Malawi to develop sustainable markets for long grain ‘Kilombero’ rice. The sale of just 90Kg of rice covers the fees for one child to attend secondary school for a year.
To support this cause, the Pupil Council representatives will be selling delicious fair trade Kilombero rice in school every morning between 9 – 9.30am on the following dates: (until stock runs out)
Monday 23rd May, Tuesday 24th May, Wednesday 25th May, Thursday 26th May, Wednesday 1st June, Thursday 2nd June, Friday 4th June
On Tuesday 24th May, rice will be on sale at the nursery between 12.45 and 1.15.
The rice will cost £3 per KG bag and it would be really helpful if pupils could bring the correct money to school in an envelope. The rice comes with a free recipe leaflet (created by the pupil council) and an entry into our prize draw. This rice is more expensive than a leading supermarket brand, but by buying the JTS rice you will know that the farmer who has grown the rice is getting a fair price for their product.
In addition to selling the rice, the pupils at Giffnock Primary school have been taking part in activities to raise awareness of ‘The Rights of The Child and Fair Trade and have been exploring the similarities and differences between Malawi and the U.K.
After purchasing the rice, it would be great if you could send in to school any recipes or photos of your cooked rice for our display.
Many Thanks Miss Bruce
We have previously posted about the success of Lucy Eccles (P2) and Dougal Sutherland (P3), in this national competition. The story is now in the Extra and can be seen here:
Day 28
The measurements recorded on Day 28 involved choosing 5 seedlings at random in each tray and counting the number of leaves on each. We could then work out an average number of leaves for the seedlings of each tray by dividing the total number of leaves by 5. We recorded this on our measurement chart as you can see from the picture. The trays are still being watered and turned every two days and the Rocket Science teams are doing a great job giving up some of their lunchtimes to come and look after the seedlings. The last measurement will be next week on Day 35 and then we will have to upload the data on to the experiment database with all the other schools and clubs which are taking part. We’re all looking forward to Tim Peake announcing which colour of packet the space seeds were in!
Yesterday P6 went on the road for the first time during their Bikeability training. Everyone had a great time in the lovely weather!
You can find out more about Bikeability here:
Day for Change is for everyone
Friday 13th May
We need your help P4-7
Day for Change is Unicef UK’s annual fundraising appeal, raising money for our vital work to keep children safe. This year, the theme is children in emergencies.
The challenge is to collect as much loose change as you can – from around the house, down the sofa, in your pockets or anywhere else you can think of! You can involve your friends and family!
Please bring into class and put in your collection pot. It will be collected on Friday 20th May. Thanking you.
RRS Committee 
