All posts by Mrs Mossman

Eastwood High School Open Evening

Every year Eastwood High School hosts an Open Evening for P7 Pupils to give you the opportunity to see the school, the facilities and see some of our young people working in classes.

We would like to invite you to the event in the new school on:

Thursday 7th November 2019 in the Atrium of the Main Building.

It is important that everyone is in the Atrium by 6.45 pm sharp as Mr Maxwell, the Head Teacher, will address parents at 7.00 pm.

Thereafter, tours of the departments will commence, which follow a very tight schedule, so timing is crucial. The tours will allow you to visit every department in the school.

Tea, coffee and juice will be served at some point on your tour. This will be in the café area on the ground floor.

If you wish any further details about this Open Evening, please contact Eastwood High School.

 

Big Scottish Breakfast

The school’s Big Scottish Breakfast was a great success on Friday. Over 900 pupils ate breakfast in the school as a part of STV’s Appeal to help children in Scotland who are living in poverty. The event was only possible due to the generous donations from local businesses and we would like to say a big thank you!

Thanks also to all of the parents and families who donated to this great cause, raising over £1400 so far!

Pupil Support Review

Message from East Renfrewshire Council:

As you know all Councils continue to face significantly challenging financial situations. A difficult budget decision by elected members to remove Pupil Support Assistants (Classroom Assistants) from schools was approved as part of a package of savings for 2018-2021. The removal of these assistants was pushed out to the 2nd year (August 2019) to allow schools to prepare for the proposed changes. PSA Classroom Assistants were introduced to support teachers with non-teaching tasks, moving forward there will only be the provision for Pupil Support Assistants (Additional Support Needs) within schools.   No change has been planned for Pupil Support Assistants (Additional Support Needs).  To realise the budget decision to remove Classroom Assistants from our schools we have worked closely with our Trade Union colleagues to ensure that all staff have been treated fairly and equitably.  The decision to take the saving in year 2 (2019/20) has enabled schools to manage into the changes in their Pupil Support allocation with temporary staff having been employed since 2016 when vacancies have occurred. As such the planned saving was achieved by the non-renewal of temporary contracts for staff who had a planned contractual finish date of June 2019.

I understand completely the frustration this has caused many of you as some of the temporary staff have built up strong relationships and have provided very good support to teaching staff, however, I am sure you will realise that there was no expectation by these staff beyond the terms of their contract.  Therefore where temporary staff have been deployed and a need for PSA (Additional Support Needs) support continues, then we will endeavour to ensure a permanent member of staff is redeployed to work with identified children.

Summer Reading

The Summer Reading challenge is a great way to keep children reading during the school holidays. Children can sign up at the library, then read six library books to complete the Challenge. There are exclusive rewards to collect along the way, and it’s FREE to take part!

Please visit the libraries website https://www.ercultureandleisure.org/Activities-Children to find out about Fun for all the Family with

  • Stories
  • Sci-Fi Labs
  • Space Crafts
  • Virtual Reality
  • Space Training
  • Alien Hunts and more.

All ages welcome, free, contact the library to book your interest.

Parental Involvement and Engagement Census

East Renfrewshire Council and its educational establishments undertake regular periodic surveys of parents and carers.  Such surveys support school and local authority improvement planning and provide an opportunity for parents to share their thoughts on current and future involvement and engagement with schools.

Similar practice is undertaken by all local authorities in Scotland and educational establishments under their control.  In order to rationalise this approach to surveying parents/carers and in order to allow comparable consistent data to be collected nationally, which will assist in evaluating the impact of interventions and programmes and support future policy development, every parent/carer of a school pupil in Scotland is being invited to take part in the national Parental Involvement and Engagement Census pilot.

Only one parent/carer per child will receive an email which will include a link to the survey and it is only necessary to complete the survey once per family, per school.  The survey should take no longer than ten minutes to complete and will remain open until 27 June 2019.

The data gathered will be used for statistical and research purposes and will provide East Renfrewshire Council and its schools with information to help:

  • plan, monitor and deliver better policies for the benefit of all,
  • identify and share best practice,
  • better understand some of the factors which influence parental involvement and engagement with our schools,
  • further enhance positive relationships with parents to secure positive outcomes for our children.

The information collected will also be securely shared with the Scottish Government to assist in evaluating the impact of national interventions and programmes and to support future policy development at a national level.

Further information on the collection and how the Education Department and Scottish Government will process the data collected is provided in the Council’s privacy statement and Scottish Government website:

https://www.eastrenfrewshire.gov.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=24585&p=0

https://www.gov.scot/publications/parental-involvement-and-engagement-census/

Should you have any further questions, please contact the Education Department:

Education Department
Council Headquarters
Eastwood Park
Giffnock
East Renfrewshire
G46 6UG

0141 577 3229

customerservices@eastrenfrewshire.gov.uk

Thank you for taking part in this survey collection.

Partnership with The Avenue Wins an Award

Mearns Primary School and The Avenue Shopping Centre have been awarded the Revo Purple Apple Marketing Award. The school has been working in partnership with The Avenue since 2017 to help pupils develop skills for life, learning and work.

Pupils from across the school have visited retailers to learn about the businesses in the centre.

The project has been very successful and we look forward to continuing this partnership in the future.

https://www.glasgowsouthandeastwoodextra.co.uk/business/the-avenue-wins-award-for-developing-the-young-workforce-initiative-in-partnership-with-mearns-primary-school-1-4933654