Our School Master Classes Need You!

We are pleased to let you know that we are planning to run a set of master classes throughout the whole school for three consecutive weeks this term. The aim of our master classes is to allow the children to participate in a variety of different experiences focusing on life skills and general health and wellbeing in daily life, learning and work.

Can you help us achieve this?
We know that we have many parents and extended family members with valuable skills that we could all learn and benefit from. We would greatly appreciate if you were able to share these skills with the children during our master classes. We have benefited in previous years from our parents expertise and the children have loved the diversity of activities on offer. Some of the wonderful experiences our children have had include:

● visiting Busby Hotel to learn banqueting skills
● first aid
● fire safety
● working on team building skills by assembling Ikea flat pack furniture
● learning to sew/knit
● repairing a bike puncture
● working with stem ambassadors
● developing cooking skills with local chefs.

We know that there must be lots of parents with expertise in these areas or have other skills that our children could benefit from. Our master classes will be running on Wed 26th Feb, Wed 4th March and Wed 11th March from 1:40-2:40pm.

Please contact us if you feel you could help us in any way by emailing the school or using the eForm below.

Master Class eForm

To celebrate our Scottish heritage we will be having a Scottish themed assembly tomorrow morning (Friday 24th January) and all the children can wear “A little bit of tartan”

Please don’t rush out and buy something  …..  it could be a scarf, ribbons, sash, kilt, pinafore, shirt, bunnet or even something blue, whatever you have at home.

The children will all be given some shortbread. We are aware of the children with related allergies however if you don’t want your child to receive this please let the office or class teacher know.

Jan to June Diary Dates 2020

As part of our Religious Education programme we spend time finding out about other world religions, faiths and backgrounds.

In the first two weeks back in January 2020, we will celebrate ‘Other World Religions Fortnight’  as a whole school.

We are looking for different resources to enable us to learn interactively about other religions. If you have anything we could use during this fortnight we would be most grateful.

We are also looking for parent volunteers to come in a speak about their faith. If this is something that you would be able to come in and help us with then please get in contact with the school.

The Religious Education Working Party

In preparation for Christmas our Pastoral Committee run a ‘Sanctuary Space’ for pupils once a week during lunch time. Children can come along for anything from 5 minutes to 25 minutes.

This gives children a space to pray, reflect, and complete short, spiritual activities to help them focus on the true meaning of Christmas.

We would like to invite you to come along on Wednesday 18th December at 1pm and you can spend 5 or 10 minutes quietly praying or reflecting with your child.

There is no formal prayer throughout the time, we will however open/close with a short reflection and Our Father. Tea/Coffee and Biscuits will be provided.

If you and your child would like to attend our welcome committee will meet you in the foyer at 1pm.

The Pastoral Committee

Join us for our Christmas ‘Brew and a Blether’ on Wednesday 11^th December from 8:50am-9:30am in the school dining hall.

There will be tea, coffee, mince pies and some Christmas music for you to enjoy!

We would like to remind you all of the procedures for reporting a child absence.

Please phone the school on 0141 570 7380 as early as you can to report your child absent.  The school phone lines open at 8.30am and ideally we should be notified of an absence before 9am.  When calling please provide us with the following information:

• Child’s name & class
• Brief description of the reason for being absent
• Expected return date, if known

Even if your child has already been off sick or sent home the previous day unless we know they are definitely not coming to school we need to hear from you.  As many pupils make their own way to school we cannot assume they are at home and have a duty of care to check they are safe and with you.

We appreciate the phone lines can be busy first thing, especially during the winter when we have higher absence rates, but please try again later as the school office is always manned.

Thank you for your co-operation,

Our P6 are running an Early Bird Reading Group in the Library from 8.20am until 8.45am on the following days

Tues – P1 and P2

Wed – P3 and P4

Thur – P5, P6 and P7

This will run to the Christmas break.

Below is a link to Parental Calendar

Parental calendar Aug 2019

Please see link below for 2019/20 Holy Dates

Holy dates 2019-2020 Parents

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

Please see below Parental leaflet on God’s Loving Plan.

glp parents leaflet

St. Joseph’s is a very special school community. Our school staff are committed to demonstrating the values of Teamwork, Empathy, Ambition, Motivation and Encouragement in everything we do. We understand that to achieve the very best for every child, we need to work in partnership with families to promote family and community learning.

We would like to tap into the strengths of our local community, including parents, carers and local organisations to create a place where we can all connect and learn. We would like to hear from parents about what you would like to be involved in and what you would like to see happening for families in St. Joseph’s.

We would love to hear from you to hopefully take many of your ideas forward. Please fill in the eForm below detailing what you would like to see/ be involved in within our school community.

Family Involvement eForm

For the last few months East Renfrewshire Council Roads & Transportation Department have been collecting information on school travel in the area and how streets and spaces nearby schools are being used during ‘the school run’. This is to assist developing long term plans on how we invite more walking and cycling, while discouraging car use, to help create safer and healthier school streets.

A key part of this work is how we engage with schools, stakeholders and the community moving forward. We would therefore like to invite you to one of a series of workshops planned during February to help shape future engagement efforts.

Please register you interest via links below and please share within your networks. The more people (of all ages!) that can get involved the better.

Upcoming Workshops

Tuesday 19 February:

1:30 – 3pm; Auchenback Resource Centre, 64 Aurs Drive, Barrhead, G78 2LW

5:30 – 7pm; The Foundry (Heys Room), Main Street, Barrhead, G78 1SW

Thursday 21 February:

1:30 – 3pm; Eastwood House, Eastwood Park, Rouken Glen Road, G46 6UG

6 – 7:30pm; Eastwood House, Eastwood Park, Rouken Glen Road, G46 6UG

If you have any questions or would like any further information please get in touch with myself or my colleague Ross McDowall via Roads@eastrenfrewshire.gov.uk

(DRAFT) Local Improvement Plan 2019-2022

The draft local improvement plan takes full account of the current national priority areas including the National Improvement Framework, West Partnership Improvement Plan, East Renfrewshire’s Community Plan and the department’s strategy Advancing Excellence and Equity in Education in East Renfrewshire. In particular, links have been made to the National Improvement Framework (NIF) priorities and drivers.

I would be grateful if you would look the draft plan and send comments and feedback or other priorities for improvement to to the school.

Please also see below the Standards Quality Report 2017-18

Standards Quality Report 2017-18

Please see the links below on the council website to the ERC Parental Engagement and Involvement strategy

It sits on this page:

About Our Schools

This takes you straight to the document

Parental Engagement and Involvement Strategy

Friday 30th November is St Andrew’s Day and children are welcome to wear a little bit of tartan. We will be having a St Andrews day assembly on Friday morning where the children will perform Scottish songs.

Reminder

Parents’ Evening is this week

Wednesday 7th November 2018

Thursday 8th November 2018

If you are unsure of your time please contact the school office on 0141 570 7380