Hello everyone

Family Focused
The Family Focused Accreditation Team were out today visiting our school and nursery.

Thank you to everyone for filling out the questionnaires – we had an amazing response.  Also, a big thank you to our parents and carers who attended the focus group today.  The Accreditation Team will formulate a report and let us know the results of their visit in due course.  We will keep you posted! Thank you again for all your support with this.

Homework Feedback Thursday
Just a reminder that on Thursday, it is Feedback Thursday. Children should bring in their home learning jotters/project work please.

Parents’ Evening
We are looking forward to welcoming you for our last round of Parents’ Evening on Tues 23^rd and Wed 24^th May. To help appointments run to time, a bell will ring every 10 minutes to mark the start/end of each meeting.

Artwork
All children have created a piece of artwork to mark the King’s Coronation. Each child’s artwork has been framed and will be available outside their classroom for you to collect on Parents’ Evening. To raise money for the school fund, in return for the artwork, we would be delighted and very appreciative if you could make a donation of £3 in cash. All money raised will go towards the school fund, to help us pay for such things as ingredients for cooking, outdoor seeds etc. Thank you.

Home Learning
It has been almost a full school year since we launched our Revised Home Learning (Homework) Policy. Through ‘in person’ and virtual drop-in sessions, phone calls, emails and a feedback form, we have gathered parental views from across the school and we thank you for taking the time to share these with us. We have taken on board several suggestions and as a result of these, we have made some changes to the home learning grids throughout the year. As previously stated, the policy remained in draft this session and we will now be finalising this before we stop in June. If you have any further comments regarding the policy, please get in touch via schoolmail@netherlee.e-renfrew.sch.uk by Thursday 25^th May- thank you. (Mrs Sweeney and Mrs Roberts).

Supporting Diversity at Netherlee
At Netherlee, we understand that communication is key to making sure that the information we provide to parents and the community is accessible for all.  We have therefore made a small, but important, change to our school and nursery website.  Now, when you visit the website, you will see in the top right hand corner the new “select a language” feature which translates the content and information into many different languages.  We hope this is a useful development for our families.

Sports Week Arrangements
Sports Week is fast approaching and Mrs Lynn wants to share with families the final arrangements for the week.

House Family Mornings
Wednesday 31 May – 9.15am – 11.15am – Blue and Red House Family Morning
At 9.15am, the BLUE house children will leave the school by the Clarkston Road door. Parents can meet their children in the P2-5 playground before making their way to the Fitness Area (P2-5 Playground for A-M surnames) or Cheerleading (P6-7 Playground for N-Z surnames).

At 9.15am, the RED house children will leave the school by the Cage door. Parents can meet their children in the P6-7 playground before making their way to the pitch. (A-M surnames at the far end, furthest from the school) and (N-Z surnames closest to the school).

*Please use your child’s surname if parents/ carers have different surnames.

Parents and children will move round the 4 activity stations throughout the morning before finishing off with a picnic on the pitch at 11am.  The children will then return inside school at 11.15am.

Thursday 1 June – 9.15am – 11.15am – Green and Yellow Houses Family Morning
At 9.15am, the GREEN house children will leave the school by the Clarkston Road door. Parents can meet their children in the P2-5 playground before making their way to the Fitness Area (P2-5 Playground for A-M surnames) or Cheerleading (P6-7 Playground for N-Z surnames).

At 9.15am, the YELLOW house children will leave the school by the Cage door. Parents can meet their children in the P6-7 playground before making their way to the pitch. (A-M surnames at the far end, furthest from the school) and (N-Z surnames closest to the school).

*Please use your child’s surname if parents/ carers have a different surname.

Parents and children will move round the 4 activity stations throughout the morning before finishing off with a picnic on the pitch at 11am with the children returning inside school at 11.15am.

Race Day – Friday 2 June
Children do not need to bring a bag to school on this day, just their water bottle and snack.
9.15am – 10.35am          P1-4 Races
11am – 12.15pm             P5-7 Races

Parents are invited to watch their child compete in three races this year before taking part, if you wish, in the most competitive race of all, the parents and carers race! Bring your trainers!

To finish off what will hopefully be a wonderful week, the children will be taking part in a Colour Dash Race on Friday afternoon. This has been generously funded by our PTA. For this, we will be using Holi Colour Powder Safety and Ingredients, which are EU certified. Your child is welcome to wear sunglasses for this event or, if you’d prefer your child did not participate, please email Mrs Linn at SchoolMail@netherlee.e-renfrew.sch.uk. You can also contact Mrs Linn if you have any further questions about Sports Week.

Children can wear their school P.E. uniform for the whole week and can wear their house colours on both Wednesday and Thursday for the House activities.

Bikeability
We are currently working to ensure that our current P6 children receive this training at the earliest opportunity in the next school year when they start P7. If any of our parents/carers are already Bikeability trained and could help us with this, please get in touch.

In addition, Bikeability Scotland are running training sessions in June to help parents/carers get involved and help deliver the Bikeability sessions. Please see below and attached for more information.

Bikeability Scotland Instructor Course (BSI): This is the standard training course for staff and parents to allow you to deliver Level 1 Playground Training and Level 2 On Road Training – for those who have never been trained previously.

Dates/Venues: Monday 12th June and Tuesday 13th June at Carolside Primary, Clarkston, 9am-12.30pm both days (Participants must attend both days). Further dates – TO BE CONFIRMED – Likely to be in Newton Mearns. Candidates attending should be comfortable doing some basic cycling in the playground and on road. A bike and helmet is required to take part, there may be a few bikes and helmets to borrow on the days, please let us know if this will be required.

We would be very grateful of any help received and if any parents/carers could participate with the training to help with future sessions.
Bikeability

Pro Judo
Pro Judo are inviting your child to a taster block that has been specially organised for Williamwood Primary students. The taster block is a great opportunity for your child to experience the martial art of Judo, which can help them develop essential skills like balance, coordination, and discipline.

The taster blocks run on a Monday.  The first class will be for students in P1-P3 and will run from 5:45pm to 6:30pm. The second class will be for students in P4-P7 and will run from 6:30pm to 7:15pm. Both classes will take place at the Pro Judo dojo in Parklands Country Club and will be led by experienced Pro Judo instructors.  To secure your child’s place in the taster block, please book their spot using the following links:
P1-P3 class: https://www.bit.ly/3Vz4vTA
P4-P7 class: https://www.bit.ly/3LAHjjh

Please note that spaces are limited, so we encourage you to book your child’s place as soon as possible. We believe that Judo is a fantastic way for children to learn important life skills while having fun and keeping active. If you have any questions about the taster block or Pro Judo, please do not hesitate to contact us at admin@projudo.co.uk.Thank you for your attention, and we hope to see your child on the mat soon!

Have a lovely weekend.

Yvonne Donaldson
Head Teacher
Netherlee Primary School & Nursery Class

Hello everyone,

A big congratulations to one of our school and nursery parents, Mrs Cross, who recently published her own book ‘Grow, Cook, Inspire’. Well done- this is a fantastic achievement.

Living Streets Walk  to School Week
As you know, on Monday 15^th till Friday 19^th May, we are taking part in the Walk to School Week led by Living Streets. The aim of this week is to help encourage as many children as possible to experience the benefits of walking to school and in day-to-day life. We had a special assembly this week to learn more about how to take part and each class has received a Living Streets challenge pack which includes an activity diary if children wish to record if they travel actively (walk/wheel, cycle, scoot or Park and Stride) to school during the week. Park and Stride involves parking or hopping off public transport at least ten minutes away from the school and walking the rest of the way. Our P4 Wellbeing Committee will be leading an active warm up on Monday morning to launch the start of the week alongside Strider the Living Streets mascot. Our nursery children will have a special visit from Strider too! We hope by taking part in this week we can raise awareness of the health benefits of walking and that it is fun! We would also like to say thank you for completing our Living Streets Active Travel parent survey earlier this year and for your continued support.

PTA AGM & Uniform Sale
The Netherlee PTA is having its AGM on Wednesday, 17 May 2023, at 7pm in the Hub at Netherlee Primary School. Anyone is welcome to attend. We are calling all our parents and carers who would want to volunteer some of their time, skills, talents or creative suggestions to get in touch with us. We are especially looking for volunteers for the Treasurer and Secretary functions. If you are willing to take on these roles we would not necessarily ask you to commit to every meeting and event. We can adapt and appreciate any time and support you can give to the PTA. We are looking to include all parents and carers in our wonderful school community. Being dads, mums, grandads, grandmothers, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, the list goes on. Please email netherleepta@gmail.com to let us know.

Our May 2023 new badged uniform sale is on! https://www.pta-events.co.uk/netherleepta.
The uniform samples will be available to view at the Saplings building from Tuesday, 9 May, until Friday, 26 May, from 8am – 6pm. We recommend that you try on items for size as we do not keep stock and cannot exchange items. Netherlee PTA always strives to offer the best value and quality for our parents / carers, and we work closely with the school to ensure consistency. For that reason we would encourage you to purchase the school hoodie via the PTA. We appreciate your continued support in this to help further our fundraising efforts. We are also looking forward to welcoming all our new starts. Email netherleepta@gmail.com if you need any assistance.

Have a lovely weekend.

Yvonne Donaldson
Head Teacher
Netherlee Primary School & Nursery Class

Hello everyone

Coronation Artwork
To mark the King’s Coronation, today all children have created a piece of artwork with a nature/conservation theme, two areas that are very important to King Charles. Each child’s artwork will be framed and available in the atrium for you to collect on Parent Evening. To raise money for the school fund, in return for the artwork, we would be delighted and very appreciative if you could make a donation of £3 in cash if possible. All money raised will go towards the school fund, to help us pay for such things as ingredients for cooking, outdoor seeds etc. Thank you.

Parent Council Meeting Highlights
Thank you to the Parent Council for producing the latest Meeting Highlights Newsletter. We had a very productive meeting and the highlights can be found here.

Celebrating Wider Achievements at Netherlee
Recognising and celebrating children’s achievements is an integral part to the Curriculum for Excellence. We are always looking for new ways to recognise and celebrate our children’s wider achievements out with Netherlee. As detailed in our Promoting Positive Behaviour Policy, during Celebrating Success assemblies each month, certificates are awarded to pupils who have really tried to uphold the Netherlee Values, for Effort and Progress and for Achievements within and out with school. For example, many of our children take part in extracurricular clubs and competitions, charity work or simply have learnt a new life skill. To help us celebrate as many children’s achievements as possible.  If you wish to share information about a recent wider achievement that your child has done, we would encourage you to complete the form below.

Wider Achievements Form

Bank Holiday
Please be reminded that the school and nursery will be closed on Monday 8^th May and will re-open on Tuesday 9^th May- thank you.

Have a lovely, long weekend.

Yvonne Donaldson
Head Teacher
Netherlee Primary School & Nursery Class

Hello everyone

Recycled Donations
Thank you so much to everyone who has kindly donated recycled items so far. This week we would gratefully receive any large loose parts from our wish list below. Loose parts are any materials which can be combined, redesigned, lined up, taken apart, and put back together in different ways. If you have, and are finished with, any of these large items, please contact the school office beforehand to discuss a suitable drop-off time. If you have any of the smaller items then please place these in our Recycled Donations Box situated at the main school office entrance from Tuesday 2^nd May. Many, many thanks.

Hardwood plywood sheets
Wood / timber planks
Crates
Pipes
Gutters
Small Tree stumps
Ropes

Bikes and Scooters in the Playground

With the recent nice weather, we have noticed a lot more children cycling and scooting to school, which is great to see! Please could we ask that, on entry to the school playgrounds, that all children (and adults) dismount from cycles and scooters and push them to their location. You’ll understand that the gates are very busy in the mornings and at collection times, and we want everyone to stay safe. Thank you for your support with this.

Coronation
As you know, the Coronation of His Majesty The King and Her Majesty The Queen Consort will take place on Saturday 6th May, 2023. At Netherlee, as we know that King Charles is passionate about art, nature and conservation on Friday 5^th May, we would like to celebrate by creating a piece of artwork inspired by these themes of nature or conservation. Every child will take part and then we hope to sell their artwork (for a small price only) to you, their parents and carers, at our next Parent Meetings.  This fundraiser will help us to restock our hub cupboards with cooking ingredients and kitchen resources for the Hub for next session. The money raised by the Primary 7 children’s art will contribute towards funding their P7 leavers’ dance. Thank you so much for your support.

Parent/Teacher Meeting Appointments
As detailed in our Calendar of Events, our upcoming Parent/Teacher Meetings will be conducted via In Person meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday 23^rd and 24^th May.

The first named contact on our system will receive a separate email from us on Friday 5^th May, advising how to book an appointment. If you have any enquiries about this, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Family Focused Gold Award: Update
We have been working hard to prepare for our Family Focused Gold Award accreditation date on Friday 19^th May. Our nursery, please click here Acorns and Saplings and school Family Focused Charters are finalised and are visible at the entrances to our buildings. Thank-you again to Freya in Primary 6 who came up with the winning design! Please see again our charter statements included within the charter which were created with our Everyone Matters parent group. These statements uphold our school and nursery values and underpin the principles of family centred approaches.

Only if you haven’t filled in the form already for the school or nursery, please could you do so by clicking on the links below.

• nursery parent and carer questionnaire
• school parent and carer questionnaire.

If you have a child in both school and nursery, we kindly ask that you complete the nursery questionnaire only, if at all possible.

Access to the questionnaires will close on Friday 12^th May at 3pm.

Save the Date for Sports Week
Exciting plans are being put in place for our Sports Week this year, which will be held from Tuesday 30 May until Friday 2 June.

There will be two opportunities for you to come along and participate or spectate with your family. These dates are as follows:

Blue and Red House Families: Wednesday 31^st May from 9am- 11.15am
Green and Yellow House Families: Thursday 1 June from 9am- 11.15am

P1-4 Children (Race Day): Friday 2 June from 9.15am- 10.40am
P5-7 Children (Race Day): Friday 2 June from 11am- 12.30pm

There are also opportunities for you to come into school to share your experiences of competing in sport or, for leading an active session with a class or stage. If you are able to volunteer, please contact Mrs Linn through School Mail at SchoolMail@netherlee.e-renfrew.sch.uk.  Many thanks for your continued support.

Bank Holiday and In-Service Day
Please be reminded that the school and nursery will be closed on Monday 1^st May (Bank Holiday) and Tuesday 2^nd May (in-service) and will re-open on Wednesday 3^rd May- thank you.

Have a wonderful long weekend.

Yvonne Donaldson
Head Teacher
Netherlee Primary School & Nursery Class

Hello everyone

On behalf of the school, nursery and Netherlee community, we would like to wish all families, who celebrate Eid, a very happy Eid Mubarak. We hope you have a wonderful time celebrating with friends and family.  Please accept my apologies that this important day coincided with our Open Classrooms this morning which meant that some families didn’t get the opportunity to come along.  I am sure you will understand that planning out the whole school year’s calendar ready to share with parents in August is a huge undertaking but I will try my very best to avoid this clashing next session.

On that note though, it was wonderful to once again open the doors to the school and classrooms- thank you so much for taking the time to come along.  These opportunities mean so much to both the children and staff and we know how much you as parents appreciate them too.  There was such a lovely, happy buzz everywhere- in classes, corridors and the school gardens.  Thank you also for returning the GIRFEC questionnaires.  We have hundreds of responses so thank you for filling these out.  If you didn’t make it along to school today, there is a box lying at the front door school reception, please pop up anytime next week and drop your form off in the box if you would like to complete it.

Over the coming weeks, I will collate all responses and will of course share the emerging themes and data around this with you.  Your comments will also be used to shape our School and Nursery Improvement Plan for next session too.  Thank you again.

Family Focused Gold Award Questionnaires (School and Nursery) – now live!
As part of our upcoming Gold Award accreditation, school and nursery parents and carers are required to complete a questionnaire containing a series of reflective statements about both settings. We require at least an 80% return rate, so we would be very grateful for your responses.

Many of you will have filled out this form this morning when you visited our school for the open classrooms- thank you. We’re sure you’ll all agree that our P6 and P4 children did a wonderful (and very thorough!) job asking for the forms to be filled in! Only if you haven’t filled in the form already for the school or nursery, please could you do so by clicking on the links below.

nursery parent and carer questionnaire
school parent and carer questionnaire.

If you have a child in both school and nursery, we kindly ask that you complete the nursery questionnaire only, if at all possible.

Access to the questionnaires will close on Friday 12^th May at 3pm.

If you have a child in both school and nursery, we kindly ask that you complete the nursery questionnaire only, if at all possible.

Access to the questionnaires will close on Friday 12^th May at 3pm.

 Information to Support Parent/Carers
As you may be aware, we sent out a ‘save the date’ notification for Tuesday 25^th April for a parent/carer workshop evening.

As we have hosted many different daytime and evening events over the session, we feel it would be more beneficial for you to make the information that was due to be shared, accessible for all, by placing it onto our school website instead. We would like to reach as many of our families as possible and understand that not all parents and carers would be able to attend in the evening. Therefore, the information evening will not take place as scheduled but we will be in touch, in due course and before the end of the term, to let you know when and where you can find this on the website.

Foodbank Donation Drive
We are joining other establishments in East Renfrewshire to support the East Renfrewshire Foodbank, The Trussell Trust. More information can be found in this letter.

P4c P.E Days Update
P4c P.E days will now be a Tuesday and Friday. Can all children please remember to wear kit on these days.

Primary 7: Beauty and the Beast- Collection Arrangements & Show Tickets
We would be grateful if you could please complete the form below to allow us to ensure that all pupils are dismissed safely at the end of our Primary 7 school productions on the evenings of the 3rd and 4th of May 2023.
Collection Arrangements Form

We also want to remind you that the show tickets are available to purchase via ParentPay.  We are incredibly excited about our show and being able to share all that we have been learning and rehearsing and would love it if you were able to spare some time to come along to see us!  Tickets are £2 and there is a maximum of 2 tickets per child per show. Tickets will be allocated on a first come, first served basis and we are anticipating this to be popular, so please get your tickets as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.  Please see the official invite below with more information about dates, times and how to purchase tickets.
Beauty and the Beast Invite

Have a lovely weekend.

Yvonne Donaldson
Head Teacher
Netherlee Primary School & Nursery Class