Hello again everyone, 

We have had another busy, happy and fun filled week in school and I would firstly like to take a moment, if I may, to share a brief but lovely, heart-warming story with you.

One of the local, elderly residents, who was out a walk, stopped for a chat and told us that it’s the highlight of her day when she goes on her daily exercise passed the school and nursery buildings and hears the children’s laughter and their happy giggles and voices. She reminisced about last Autumn, when we shared the surplus apples from our nursery tree with the local community and explained that she had taken a few for herself and her friends. This lovely lady offered to donate some bedding plants to us as a very kind “thank you” gesture. It was so lovely to be able to explain our plans to her for continuing to improve all of our outdoor school and nursery spaces and also how this includes us sharing our home grown vegetables with the community once again soon too.  It was just such a lovely moment and especially so when, as she was walking off, she laughed and said ‘That’s great, I’ll be able to make a lovely pot of soup with all your veg!’ Sometimes it’s these unplanned, special moments that remind us all about what is important and the impact that our actions can have on others and our community.

We are delighted that our P7 hoodies have just arrived!  Thanks so much PTA for organising this and also for all that you, and the other parent volunteers who are continuing to give up so much time to help us to improve and enhance all of our outdoor areas- we simply can’t thank you all enough.  We will give out the hoodies to the P7 children next week and they are very welcome to wear these, as they choose, as part of their uniform and schoolwear throughout the rest of their time in Netherlee.  We hope our fantastic P7s wear them with both happiness and pride. The PTA would like to invite you all to our AGM and next meeting. The AGM will be at 7pm on the 21st April followed by their meeting. The zoom link will be circulated before the meeting. The agenda and last minutes can be found on the website. We also have some great volunteering opportunities over the Spring Holiday to help create a greener and brighter environment for our children to learn and play in. You can sign up for a task here; Netherlee PTA (pta-events.co.uk).

As you know, we have had a short pause in Homework, whilst our pupils have returned to school, to help and support everyone to get settled back into school and family routines.  However, we now feel confident that the time is right to reintroduce homework for all stages after the upcoming spring holiday.  Therefore homework will resume, once again using Google Classrooms,  from week beginning Monday 19^th April.  As before, all instructions will be posted on Google Classrooms however there will be no need for you or your child to print anything at home.  Teachers will therefore also provide their pupils with any worksheets or books etc that they require to be able to complete their homework each week.  

I am very grateful to the Parent Council for providing me with your suggestions, via their survey, in relation to school priorities for the new session starting in August.  I will now discuss and consider your suggestions carefully with all of my staff and we will then use these to help us formulate our School and Nursery Improvement Plan for Session 2021-2022.  I will of course share more information with you on this in due course.

Just a reminder that the school will close slightly earlier on Thursday 1^st April ahead of the holiday period. Children in P1 and P2 should be collected at 2.15pm from their usual gates please and children in P3-7 should be collected at 2.30pm from their usual gates and collection points too please.

[P7 Only] Attached to this email is information relating to Bikeability. Bikeability Info Letter and Map

And now for something really exciting… please see the attached letter from Netherlee’s P7 House Captains who, along with two members of staff, have worked very hard to plan and organise a fun, optional activity for our children and families to enjoy.

Have a lovely weekend everyone.

Please follow us @sand_nc

Mrs Yvonne Donaldson

Head Teacher

Hello again everyone

We have had another busy, happy and fun filled week in nursery and we also have some really lovely, heart-warming news to share. One of the local, elderly residents who was out a walk stopped for a chat and told us that it’s the highlight of her day when she goes on her daily exercise passed the Acorns Nursery building and hears the children’s laughter and their happy wee giggles and voices. She reminisced about last Autumn, when we shared our surplus apples from the nursery tree with the local community and explained that she had taken a few for herself and her friends. This lovely lady offered to donate some bedding plants to us as a very kind “thank you” gesture. It was so lovely to be able to explain our plans for our new planters to her and how this includes the school and nursery sharing our home grown vegetables with the community once again too.  It was just such a lovely moment and especially so when, as she was walking off, she laughed and said ‘I’ll be able to make a lovely pot of soup with all your veg!’ Sometimes it’s these unplanned moments that remind us all about what is important and the impact that our actions can have on others.

As part of our ongoing reflection and improvements, our staff team have discussed how we plan within each nursery bubble/ zone and the ways that we share the children’s learning with you. For our planning, we always start with the interests of our children or a seasonal/cultural focus.  We really want to reflect in the Learning Links where this spark of interest has come from and why the children are engaging in particular playful learning experiences. Therefore, from today, the Learning Links we share with you will reflect this and the ways staff are extending current interests within your child’s own bubble/ zone. You will see that lots of learning experiences are on offer for our children and they can choose to be involved or engaged in a combination of child led and/ or adult led activities. We hope you find the changes to our Learning Links make it easier for you to see the opportunities available for your child and the reason (spark) which has started off the learning. As always, we welcome any feedback or any comments from you about these changes.

We would like to remind everyone that nursery closes for the spring holiday next week, with our last day being Thursday 1^st April.  We are of course open until 6pm as normal however, should you wish to collect your child any earlier whilst picking up siblings from school,  we ask that you pick up either before 2.15pm or after the school playgrounds are clear from around 2.40pm.  Thank you for your help and understanding with this.

Finally, please see the attached letter from Netherlee’s P7 House Captains who, along with two members of staff, have worked very hard to plan and organise a fun, optional activity for our children and families to enjoy.

Have a lovely weekend everyone.

Yvonne Donaldson (HT) and Angela Kerr (PT)

Hello again everyone

We hope you’ve had a good week and have enjoyed the lovely spring weather.  Our children and staff are really enjoying, and also benefitting from, so many fabulous experiences whilst back in Netherlee, including learning outdoors.  We really wanted to share these experiences with you and we therefore hope you enjoy getting a snapshot of this in our Netherlee Outdoor Learning Sway. Please click on the link https://sway.office.com/vKT1C7rugwR0NwV4?ref=Link.  Thank you to Jilly Bell and Angela Kerr for putting this fabulous Sway together for us all to enjoy.

We are sure that your children tell you all about their love of staying for lunch and eating with their friends. Can we please ask you to quarter grapes and cherry tomatoes if providing these for your child. Please click on another useful link for interesting information about creating a healthy packed lunch and portion sizes. etc  https://www.nhs.uk/change4life/recipes/healthier-lunchboxes.

Finally, please see an important reminder from Netherlee’s Parent Council regarding the PC survey.

Dear parents and carers, this is the final opportunity to HAVE YOUR SAY by completing our very short Parent Council Survey Netherlee Parent Survey. The survey closes on Sunday 21st March. Tell us how you would like us, the Parent Council, to communicate and what your priorities are for the school going forward.  Your opinions do matter! 

Parent Council/PTA Information Sheet

Have a lovely weekend everyone.

Yvonne Donaldson (HT) and Angela Kerr (PT)

Hello again everyone

I hope you’ve had a good week and have enjoyed the lovely spring weather.

What a joy it has been this week to have Netherlee back to being more like it’s normal self again……  I simply can’t describe how happy it has made myself and the staff to hear the sound of busy, happy, bustling, noisy J, giggling children again.  Both children and staff have had a spring in our step and smiles on our faces.  We have and will, of course, continue to support any of our pupils who have been a little unsettled and have needed some reassurance or support in any way over the past days.  We very much rely on your help with this too so please do get in touch with us at any time- no matter is ever too small and it is so much better for your child if you let us know as early as possible if they need any help at all.   We have many different methods and strategies to support our children and families whether this is in line with any aspect of learning and attainment or with having a more positive mental health and wellbeing eg anxiety, anger, bereavement, nutrition etc and we will always do all that we can to help.

We are going to introduce a new ongoing Uniform Recycling Scheme very soon and I will share more information about this before we stop for the upcoming holiday.   Meanwhile, we would be very grateful if you could hold onto any uniform items which are in good condition and that your child has grown out of.  Thank you.

Our children and staff are really enjoying, and also benefitting from, so many fabulous experiences whilst being back in Netherlee, including learning outdoors.  We really wanted to share these experiences with you and we therefore hope you enjoy getting a snapshot of this in our Netherlee Outdoor Learning Sway. Please click on the link https://sway.office.com/vKT1C7rugwR0NwV4?ref=Link  Thank you to two of my Principal Teachers- Jilly Bell and Angela Kerr, for putting this fabulous Sway together for us all to enjoy.

Now that we are moving forwards again into more normal times, I am very keen to ensure that my weekly Friday updates are useful, informative and helpful to you.  I would therefore really like and appreciate you getting in touch with me if there is anything in particular, of a more general matter, that you would like me to describe or explain a little to parents.  This can be about, for example, an area of the curriculum or a particular target in our School and Nursery Improvement Plan (SNIP).  Netherlee’s SNIP is always available to view on the school/ nursery website within the Information Tab- please do let me know.

Finally, please see an important reminder from Netherlee’s Parent Council regarding the PC survey.

Dear parents and carers, this is the final opportunity to HAVE YOUR SAY by completing our very short Parent Council Survey Netherlee Parent Survey. The survey closes on Sunday 21st March. Tell us how you would like us, the Parent Council, to communicate and what your priorities are for the school going forward.  Your opinions do matter! 

Parent Council/PTA Information Sheet

Enjoy this lovely weather everyone and have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Yvonne Donaldson
Head Teacher

Hello everyone,

We hope you have enjoyed the opportunity to talk with staff this week on the phone and that it has been reassuring to know that your child has settled back into their nursery routine and is engaging in lots of play with friends. If you would like the opportunity to discuss anything further with staff please just let us know via email and we can get back in touch with you.

At a time when we are all experiencing ongoing, uncertain times, positive mental health has never been so important. East Renfrewshire Council has developed a guide, Healthier Minds, to promote the mental well-being of our children and young people. This resource aims to help you find the information needed to support your child to meet life’s common challenges and to develop resilience. Please click here to access if you would like to find out more: https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/er/healthierminds/coping-covid-19/  or, as always please get in touch if  you need further help as we’re always here to listen and may also be able to point you in the right direction of other supports available.

We are really looking forward to having a really busy, bustling school next week as P4-7 return after their further period of remote learning.    Please help us to keep everyone safe by continuing to wear a face covering at drop off and collection times  and by moving away from the buildings, gates and surrounding areas very quickly after you have collected your child from nursery- thank you.  Next Friday afternoon, the Netherlee House Captains have planned some exciting fun activities for the children of Netherlee to enjoy- this is to recognise Red Nose Day and also to simply enjoy having fun- back together again in Netherlee.  Please see the attached flyer for details.

The next Netherlee Parent Council meeting will take place on Wednesday 31^st March at 7pm.  Please click on the Parents tab on our school and nursery website to access the Parent Council section.  This is where you will be able to view the agenda for this upcoming meeting as well as other Parent Council information. Please also see the message below from the Parent Council.

The Parent Council and PTA have recently appointed new members and actively wish to engage you, our Parent Forum. Please see the attached flyer which explains the focus of each committee and how you can get involved.

Also, just a reminder to all parents to HAVE YOUR SAY and please complete our very short Parent Council Survey Netherlee Parent Survey. Tell us how you would like us to communicate and what your priorities are for the school and nursery going forward.  Your opinions do matter! 

We hope you have a lovely weekend with your family- please remember to access Google Classroom for our weekly Learning Links.

Yvonne Donaldson (HT) and Angela Kerr (PT)

Hello everyone,

Well we have made it and it’s almost time to have all of our wonderful children reunited again in Netherlee.  Our P1-3 and nursery children have settled in very well indeed and I am certain that my teachers and staff will make sure that this is also the case for our P4-7 children too.   Thank you if you have got in touch with us over the last couple of weeks to discuss any questions or concerns that you have had about your own child… please continue to do this- just as we have throughout this period of remote learning, we will of course continue to work in close partnership with all parents in order to ensure that our children feel safe, happy, confident and ready to learn.  P4-7 parents- I hope you found the information that I shared with you mid-week helpful and informative.  As always, if anything needs tweaking or we need to have a rethink about any aspect of, for example, collection and drop off procedures then we will of course do so and your suggestions on this are always helpful and very welcome too.  Once again I would like to sincerely thank you as parents, and also the many grandparents, siblings and friends, as well as of course my fantastic and skilful teachers and staff – this combined effort and dedication has supported our children, and each other, very well indeed during this extraordinary time.  I hope you all… at that moment on Monday morning… at 9.01am… you put the kettle on and… breathe, knowing that you have done a phenomenal job and that your child is busy and happy seeing their friends again and getting settled back into school life! J.

We will of course be holding our parent/ teacher meetings before the end of the school year- these will take place towards the end of May/ beginning of June.  We have moved these slightly later than usual in order to give your child’s teacher enough time to have gathered lots of information on how your child is getting on now that they are back in school.   I am not yet able to give you any further information in relation to the format of these meetings but I will, of course share this with you in the coming weeks.  You will also receive your child’s End of Year Progress Report and we intend to have these ready to send home to you before the Parent / Teacher meeting so that you can use the information contained in the report to aid your discussion with your child’s teacher.  We hope this will make the meeting really useful and helpful for everyone.

Next Friday afternoon, the Netherlee House Captains have planned some exciting fun activities for the children of Netherlee to enjoy- this is to recognise Red Nose Day and also to simply enjoy having fun- back together again in Netherlee.  House Captains Red Nose Day.

The next Netherlee Parent Council meeting will take place on Wednesday 31^st March at 7pm.  Please click on the Parents tab on our school and nursery website to access the Parent Council section.  This is where you will be able to view the agenda for this upcoming meeting as well as other Parent Council information. Please also see the message below from the Parent Council.

The Parent Council and PTA have recently appointed new members and actively wish to engage you, our Parent Forum. Please see the attached flyer which explains the focus of each committee and how you can get involved. Also, just a reminder to all parents to HAVE YOUR SAY and please complete our very short Parent Council Survey Netherlee Parent Survey. Tell us how you would like us to communicate and what your priorities are for the school and nursery going forward.  Your opinions do matter! 

Finally, please help us to keep everyone safe by continuing to wear a face covering at drop off and collection times and by moving away from the buildings, gates and surrounding areas very quickly after you have collected your child from school-thank you.

I hope you have a lovely weekend everyone.

Please follow us on Twitter @sand_nc

Mrs Yvonne Donaldson

Head Teacher

Hello everyone,

We are so relieved and pleased that we will, once again and very soon, be a complete school and nursery community with the return of our P4-7 pupils on 15^th March.  This is a very welcome step and we really can’t wait to see them, and to have all of our children and staff united again within Netherlee.  We are just finalising our plans for the P4-7 return and I will of course send further, more practical information eg early/exit gates out to parents who have children in these year groups, next week- hopefully on either Tuesday or Wednesday.  I would like to give the P4-7 teachers an opportunity to come into school one day next week, ahead of the return on 15^th March in order to prepare their classrooms for welcoming the children back.  As such, I have allocated each stage of teachers a day for this – P4 Monday 8^th, P5 Tuesday 9^th, P6 Wednesday 10^th and P7 Thursday 11^th  and on each appropriate day, teachers will of course still provide remote learning for the children which will be posted on GC in the usual way, however there will be no live meets for that one day. Thank you for your support and understanding with this.

You can see from the below and attached, that this week’s update includes some very interesting and useful information from both Netherlee’s Parent Council and PTA as well as a letter from our Director of Education, Mark Ratter and as such I am going to keep my contribution into this week’s email bundle slightly shorter than usual.

Firstly from our Parent Council…

Have your say!
The Parent Council is keen to get the views of all parents.  They have created a very short survey to look at how parents can most easily engage with the Parent Council. There is also a very important question to find out what your priorities are for the school going forward.

The results of the survey will be used by the Parent Council to guide ongoing communications with the parent body and to direct the focus of discussions for the next year.  Mrs Donaldson is keen for the findings to also be shared with herself and school and nursery staff in order that they can be taken into consideration when putting together the School and Nursery Improvement Plan (SNIP) for the coming year, Session 2021-2022.

The findings will be fed back to all parents so that you can see how your views are being used.

Thank you very much for your time in completing this survey which can be accessed at the link below.  Your opinions really do count.

https://forms.gle/oJgtChmKjKgxC4wf7.

The survey will be closed in the evening of Sunday 21st March.  If you wish to contact the Parent Council at all in the meantime, then please don’t hesitate to email: netherleeparentcouncil@gmail.com   Also, please find attached the first issue of the new Parent Council Newsletter.

​And now from the PTA…

​Please see the attached flyer for the PTA March events. Thank you to the P5-7 pupils for completing the survey which has allowed us to plan some events you will enjoy. The PTA zoom links for the P1-4 discos will be circulated again by WhatsApp and school mail. The link to register for any of the P5-7 PTA events is Netherlee PTA (pta-events.co.uk)  All the events are provided free. If you can donate to the PTA then please do so on the following link;  https://localgiving.org/charity/netherlee-primary-pta/

​And finally, back to myself….

​Over the course of the next few weeks, I will include in my Friday Updates some, hopefully useful, descriptions around how we are, and will continue to, support the children with both their well being and their learning and also how we will deliver the curriculum moving forwards.

​Thank you to those parents who have got in touch with us to share any important information in relation to their child and how they have settled back into school if in P1-3, or ahead of your P4-7 child returning to school soon.  We are here to help and appreciate that many of our children will have lots of conflicting emotions right now so please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us in relation to this or any other matter.

​Have a lovely weekend everyone.  Take care.

​Mrs Yvonne Donaldson

Head Teacher

Netherlee Primary School and Nursery Class

Hello everyone,

We’ve had a really lovely week with the children having so much fun while playing with the outside taps, making sock puppets or paper bag puppets, baking, exploring with shaving foam, using tools and being very busy wee people! You may notice that lots of soil has been delivered to the Acorn garden. We are really excited to share that this area is being developed into a growing space for fruit and vegetables. In the next few weeks we will be having raised beds built and then the fun will start as we prepare for the growing season. In preparation, one of our wonderful parents, Helen Cross and her family, have very kindly planted fruit trees and berry bushes in the garden. We also had two wormeries delivered, one for each nursery building, and have been learning about how to feed and care for our new, wriggly residents.  These fantastic opportunities are being provided as the school and nursery applied for, and were granted, a financial award from the Scottish Government’s Community Climate Asset Fund.

As you know, we often ask for feedback from you and we are always grateful of suggestions from parents. One of the parents kindly asked us to remind everyone to go on Google Classroom as this is where you will find the weekly ‘Learning Links’.

We would like to remind you that children who attend nursery between 9am and 3pm must be collected just before 3pm please. If you have children to collect from primary school please collect your nursery child first, prior to collecting from school. The children who are in nursery after 3pm are only those who attend 8am-6pm.  Thank you.

Recently we’ve been buying lots of baking or cooking ingredients, items for the garden, woodwork tools, wood, compost and lots of other exciting resources for the children.  Our voluntary nursery fund, £2.00 per week or £20 per term, is your contribution to enable us to continue to be able to buy the children’s daily morning snack and to offer a wide range of resources to the children. We appreciate that these are difficult times financially for lots of families and we really appreciate any contribution you can make at this time. Contributions can be paid through ParentPay. If you have forgotten your ParentPay login details please just let the school office know, via email, and we can very easily help with this. Again thank you.

Next week our staff will be phoning parents to share information about how your child has settled back into their nursery routine as we know that transitions can be tricky for some children. Mrs Flower has responsibility for medication in nursery and will be calling some parents to review the procedures for administration of medication in nursery.

Below and attached, is some very interesting and useful information from Netherlee’s Parent Council and also a letter from our Director of Education, Mark Ratter.

From Netherlee’s Parent Council…

Have your say!
The Parent Council is keen to get the views of all parents.  They have created a very short survey to look at how parents can most easily engage with the Parent Council. There is also a very important question to find out what your priorities are for the school going forward.

The results of the survey will be used by the Parent Council to guide ongoing communications with the parent body and to direct the focus of discussions for the next year.  Mrs Donaldson is keen for the findings to also be shared with herself and school and nursery staff in order that they can be taken into consideration when putting together the School and Nursery Improvement Plan (SNIP) for the coming year, Session 2021-2022.

The findings will be fed back to all parents so that you can see how your views are being used.

Thank you very much for your time in completing this survey which can be accessed at the link below.  Your opinions really do count.

https://forms.gle/oJgtChmKjKgxC4wf7

The survey will be closed in the evening of Sunday 21st March.  If you wish to contact the Parent Council at all in the meantime, then please don’t hesitate to email: netherleeparentcouncil@gmail.com   Also, please find attached the first issue of the new Parent Council Newsletter.

​We hope you have a lovely weekend with your family.

​Yvonne Donaldson (HT) and Angela Kerr (PT)