Reminder

P1 and P7 dental checks on Monday 18th

School Photographer

The Tempest photographer will come into school on Friday 22nd September to take individual and sibling photos. As long as you have given permission for photos, all children and sibling groups will have their photo taken unless you contact us to request otherwise. If any child is reluctant on the day we won’t make them so if you feel strongly that you want the photo taken, please make sure your child knows your wishes. If you have a younger child who is not yet at our school and would like to include them in the photo, please call Tracey in the office to make an arrangement.  If you have an extended family group at the school (e.g. cousins) and would like a photo of all the children, please contact Tracey to discuss – we will do this it possible. There is no obligation to buy.

Safety in the Community

Concerns have been raised by staff and members of the community this week about children playing on the main road. Specifically, on Monday, a group of our pupils were riding bikes on the wrong side of the road and standing in the road and on the pavement encouraging cars to honk at them. I have spoken to the children about this and would ask that, if your child regularly plays out by themselves, you discuss safety with them.

P7s have done Bikeability Level 2 and if they are riding their bike on the road, I recommend you remind them of the safety rules they have learnt. P6 have done Bikeability Level 1 but this does not cover road use and the P1-5s have not yet done Bikeability. P6 will do level 2 this session and P5 will do Level 1. I would not recommend P6s and below cycle on the road without an adult unless you are very confident in their safety skills. I recommend all children wear a helmet at all times.

If your child plays out alone or walks to school alone, I recommend you plan a safe route with them and only allow them to cross the road if you have planned a safe route with them. While Gauldry is a quite village, there are no road crossing and large vehicles pass through. The advice I have given the children is never to cross if they can see a moving vehicle, even if it is a distance away.

Upcoming Dates

The Immunisation Team from NHS Fife will be in school on Tuesday 12 September 2023 to administer flu vaccinations to eligible pupils whose parents have given consent.

Wednesday 13^th September – Apple Day – All children are invited to come to school in apple colours (no uniform day). Please send £1 per child, if you can, to help cover the cost of the day. We will harvest the apples and the children will do associated activities. Please note there will be food tastings so make sure you have informed us of any allergies or intolerances.

 Monday 18^th September – P1 and 7 dental checks

Wednesday 20^th September – P1-7 Parent/Teacher meetings 5-7pm

Friday 22^nd September – Tempest Photographer in School to take individual and sibling photos

Tuesday 3^rd October – P1-7 Parent/Teacher meetings 3.30-5.30pm

Please make sure you have logged into Seesaw and made a note of your child’s Parent/Teacher meeting date and time. The targets will come home on Tuesday and examples of your child’s learning towards their targets will begin to appear after that.

Assembly

One of the priorities in our School Improvement Plan this year is to further develop our relationships, behaviour and anti-bullying practice and capture it in policy. As a starting point to involving the children in this, we have started some work today in engaging with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The key learning at Assembly was:

• The UNCRC is a list of promises made by almost all the governments in the world to give children what they need. There are 54 promises called articles.
• Rights are what you need, not necessarily what you want.
• No child can have their rights taken away from them but all children need to act in a way that does not stop other children losing their rights.
• Part of our job in school is to teach children about their rights and about how to respect others’ rights. The key articles for us in school are:

3: All decisions should be made with children’s best interests and safety in mind.

24: The right to health care, nutritious food and clean water.

27: The right to an adequate standard of living.

28: The right to a primary education.

29: One of the goals of education is to teach respect for the environment and for other children an adults.

31: The right to play and relax.

I have asked all classes to discuss this a little further before next week’s assembly and to link the articles to our school values and the Wellbeing Indicators which often talk about in school (safe, healthy, achieving, nurtured, active, respected, responsible, included). You might also like to discuss these articles at home and link them to things you do in your family e.g everyone brushes their teeth before bed (even if they don’t want to!) because you have the right to health (article 24).

Save the Date

Madras College will be hosting a workshop on social media with input from Police Scotland for parents with children attending the cluster primary schools. This will be an opportunity to come along and engage with other parents about Social Media on the following dates:

Tuesday 14^th November at 7pm
Thursday 22^nd November at 7pm

This is suitable for parents with children of any age. The best time to start to understand your child’s use of Social Media is before they get interested in getting involved. Remember that messaging apps like Whatapp are social media as well as Facebook Instagram, Snapchat and many more.

Below is the outline for the workshop.

• Social Media – the positives and negatives
• Different platforms – Discussion
• Support available
• Questions

An Eventbrite booking link will be sent out after the October break.

Sent on behalf of Active Schools

Dear Parent/Carer,

I am excited to announce that Active Schools in partnership with Kingsbarns Primary School and Cambo Estate are hosting the Cambo Cup. This is a running event for pupils in P1-7 and is set to take place on Friday 29^th September at Cambo Estate from 3:45pm-4:45pm. This is set to be a fantastic event for all involved. In order to register your child for this event if you could please complete the below sign up form no later than Thursday 28^th September that would be great. 

Please note that this event will be extremely busy on the day and that all directions for car parking must be followed. This event is free of charge. 

https://forms.office.com/e/MwHJJERdhi

If you have any questions please do just get in touch with me 

Thank you,

Madison Garland 

Active Schools Coordinator 

Madras College Cluster

Madison Garland | Active Schools Coordinator

Madras College| Bell Brae | St Andrews | KY16 9BY

Office:03451 555 555 Ext. 452 904 |  Mobile:07864 617 946

Visit: Active Schools | Active Fife – leisure hub 

Dates for the School Year

Dates for Nursery and School Events for this year are available by clicking here.

All children will also bring home a paper version.

Dalguise Payments

P6/7 Parents – a polite reminder that the final payment of £150 for Dalguise is due on 15th December. I am conscious that this is an expensive time of year but we have to pay the balance to PGL by the end of term so I need to ask that, if at all possible, you meet the payment date. I think it is good for children to understand the cost of the trip and you might well want to make this part of their Christmas present this year. If any family feels the will struggle to meet the final payment, I can help but I need to plan financially to do so. Christmas is also an expensive time for the school! If you think you will need help, please contact me as soon as possible and definitely by 15th September so that we can make a plan. You can contact me in confidence at lucy.jess@fife.gov.uk . If I don’t hear from you by 15th September, I will assume you can meet the final payment. Thank you for your support.

School Photographer

The Tempest photographer will come into school on the 22nd September to take individual and sibling photos. As long as you have given permission for photos, all children and sibling groups will have their photo taken unless you contact us to request otherwise. If any child is reluctant on the day we won’t make them so if you feel strongly that you want the photo taken, please make sure your child knows your wishes. If you have a younger child who is not yet at our school and would like to include them in the photo, please call Tracey in the office to make an arrangement.  If you have an extended family group at the school (e.g. cousins) and would like a photo of all the children, please contact Tracey to discuss – we will do this it possible. There is no obligation to buy.

P1-7 Parent Teacher Meetings

Thank you to all those who have completed the form already. If you haven’t done so yet, please do so over the weekend. The appointments will come out on Seesaw next week.

P1 Photos

During September we will be taking a photo of the P1s for inclusion in the local newspapers’ P1 supplements. Your child will be included in the photo as long as you have given permission for photos. We will give you any information about publication dates once we know it.

Punctuality and Attendance

Thank you to all our families for a great effort with punctuality. I have checked the late book for August today and there are no concerns. This is great as when the whole class is in the line at 9am there is a smooth start to the day for everyone and classes can hit the ground running with their learning. Everyone sleeps in  or runs late sometimes – its always better to arrive late than never or stressed so please know we understand the odd occasion of lateness, we would only contact you about your child’s punctuality if it was frequent or formed a pattern.

I have also reviewed attendance in August and am delighted that almost all P1-7 children have 100% attendance rate in August.

Polite Reminder

We ask P1-7 children not to bring toys or playground equipment to school as it can lead to mix ups and arguments. Please support your child to remember this! Playground equipment is available for playtimes and lunchtimes. We don’t allow equipment before 9am as the playground is too busy for it to be used safely. I am grateful for your support with this.

General Permissions and Data Check Forms

Thank you to everyone who has returned their forms. If you haven’t yet, please do so ASAP – it means we know your wishes for your child and can be sure we have up to date details.

Assembly Today

At assembly today we discussed the wellbeing indicators (Safe, Healthy, Active, Nurtured, Achieving, Respected, Responsible and Included) and related them to our school values.

P1-7 Flu Immunisation Forms

We are still waiting for a few immunisation forms, please note these should be returned whether you wish your child to be vaccinated or not. You can opt them out on the form if you don’t wish them to have the immunisation.

P3/4 Afterschool Football

Afterschool football recommences on Wednesday 30th, there are still spaces available.

Message from Active Schools

Dear Parent/ Carer/ Volunteer, As you may be aware Active Schools Fife aim to provide more quality opportunities to take part in sport  and Physical Activity before, during and after the school day and to develop effective pathways between schools and sports clubs in the local community. We are currently striving to recruit volunteers both with or without experience in sport within the Madras College Cluster. It is important to us to have parent volunteers input into your school where appropriate to provide a sense of belonging within the school and community.

This year we aim to:
– Increase the number of extra-curricular opportunities within our cluster schools.
– Consider targeted provision that best suits your schools needs.

Could you be a parent volunteer?

There are a number of different roles volunteers can carry out. These include – coaching, assisting the delivery of activity sessions, supporting events, refereeing, admin, marketing and mini bus driving. Training and support will be provided and volunteers with Active Schools have opportunities to learn new skills, gain experience and often qualifications. You can decide how often you would like to volunteer, we are flexible in our approach and we will work around your availability.

If you have a keen interest in a specific sport or just sport in general please fill out the below form to register your interest in volunteering at your local primary school or at Madras College. We would love to welcome you into our ever growing volunteer network

https://forms.office.com/e/YMfGbAtYhj

Thank you,
Madison Garland, Active Schools Coordinator

P1-7 Flu Vaccination

Your child has brought a letter home about this, please complete the form and return it to school by Friday 24th August. You should complete it even if you don’t want your child to have the vaccine because it means the NHS know your wishes – you can with hold consent on the form. Your child will not receive the vaccine in school unless you return the form giving consent. The date for the vaccines is Tuesday 12th September.

Instrumental Instruction

If your child is in P7, they will carry on with their brass instrument from last year – the lessons will be on Fridays and they should bring their instrument each week.

If your child is in P6, they will bring  home a letter about instrumental instruction – look out for this in the bag. Next week the instrumental instructors will do some work with the class to assess the children’s aptitude for an instrument and some children will be offered the chance to learn brass. Not all children can be offered this chance and it is helpful if parents can explain to them to help avoid disappointment. All children in P5/6/7 will be doing some Ukulele this year.

Message from Parent Council

The 5k sponsorship challenge raised £538. Which we are thrilled about! We are very proud of the students hard work towards this challenge.

Sent on behalf of the Scottish Covid-19 Inquiry

Let’s Be Heard is seeking to hear from students and staff across Scotland during our national engagement period, which runs until 31^st October 2023. This includes students with additional support needs. Click here to find out more: Let’s Be Heard Information Sheet

Sent on behalf of the library service

The Summer Reading Challenges runs until 26th August

Vote for the Boat!

Thank you to all who entered the Wormit Boat Club Competition. We have a short list of three names and each child has until 9am on Monday to vote for their favourite. The link to do this was included in the email with this link. Please support your child to vote over the weekend.

Reports

If your child is in P1-7 or their pre-school nursery year (and this is their main setting) you will receive their report today. In with the report, you will find some information about curriculum levels, a feedback sheet and some information about attendance.

Please return the feedback sheet to your child’s current teach by Wednesday 28^th June. They will pass it onto the new teacher for their information.

Transition Arrangements Next Week

On Monday, all children who will be in P1-7 next year will meet and work with Mr Rose (Principal Teacher at Wormit). The new P1s will come into school for the middle section of the day and will have lunchtime with the primary classes.

On Wednesday, Mr Pellow will be back in for a visit. the new P1 children should line up at the front door instead of going to Nursery. The new P5 children shoudl line up at their new door. The current P7s will work with Mrs Robertson on a Transition task. The new P-7s will work with their new teacher.

Attendance in 2023-24

Please click here to read the Madras Communication Strategy Attendance June 23. This information is shared with all schools in the Madras Cluster as we have a common approach to promoting excellent attendance at school. This information will be in the envelop with your child’s report.

At Wormit, in session 2023-24, we will regularly share your child’s attendance rate with you if their attendance in 2022-23 was below 95% (excellent).

In session 2023-24, we are also going to promote excellent punctuality at school. All P1-7 pupils arriving after 9.10am have their name recorded in the late book. I will be reviewing the late book at the end of each month and will contact you if your child’s name has been recorded. The best start a child can get to their day at school is to be in the line ready to come in with their class at 9am and I encourage all parents to strive for that.

Frozen

Some Wormit pupils are performing in Frozen – a great show which your family might enjoy:

🎟️ ⛄️ LAST REMAINING TICKETS⛄️🎟️

Join us on our trip to Arendelle and meet Elsa, Anna, Olaf, Kristoff, Sven and all of your other favourites! Frozen hits the stage at Dundee’s Gardyne Theatre next weekend! 🎭 🎟️ Tickets are selling fast- https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/stage-academy-dundee ❄️⛄️

Balmerino Primary School and Nursery Class End of Year Summer Fair

Where: Balmerino PS Playground

When: Thursday 29^th June 2023

Time 1-2pm

The Fair will be followed by the End of Year Presentations and P7 memories in the school garden from 2.15-3pm

All parents and friends of the school are invited to attend from 1pm-3pm for the Fair and the End of Year Presentations and P7 Memories.

Please bring a chair or rug to sit on for the End of Year Presentations.

Please send in homebaking at 9am on the Thursday for the Bake Sale – thank you to Parent Council who are organising this.

The following stalls will be run by children for children. Each child will be given 8 tokens so that they can have 8 goes. There is no charge for the tokens but there will be a collection on the gate which we invite parents to donate to as they come in to pay for their child’s tokens – please give what you can:

Lucky Dip

Coconut Shy

Hook a Duck

Limbo

X-marks the spot

Beat the Goalie

Pirate Franks Treasure Island

We are also running the following stalls and are grateful to the  adults who have volunteered to help to do this.

Face Painting – 50p

Tattoos – 50p

Home Baking – priced by Parent Council

Strawberries and Cream – £1

Tombola – 5 tickets for £1

Friendship Bracelets – 50p

There will be a money charge for these stalls – not tokens – you can pay for these with your child or send them with money on the day (though we can’t take responsibility for any money that gets lost). Please bring/send change not notes.

Transition Events

On Wednesday 14^th June and Wednesday 28^th June, there will be chance for next year’s P1-7 children to meet their new teacher and work with their new class.

On these mornings, the children who currently go to Nursery but who will be in P1 in August should line up with Miss Diplexcito’s current class at 9am and the current P4s should line up with Miss Bowman’s current class. The new P1/3/4 class will be brought in by Mr Pellow and will have some time getting to know him, the new P5/6/7 class will be brought in by Miss Diplexcito and have some time getting to know her. The nursery children should bring a school bag, snack and water bottle as they will in P1. They will go out to play with their new class and then come back into Nursery at the end of playtime.

The current P7s will be at Madras on 14^th and will use the time to do a separate transition activity with Mrs Robertson on 28^th.

Message from Active School

Dear Parent/Carer,

I am delighted to say that for the first time the Madras College cluster are running a cluster running event for all pupils Primary 1 to 7. This event is set to take place at Newport Primary School on the 20^th June from 15:50 to 16:45. This event will consist of 3 races , P1-2, P3-4 and P5-7 and it would be great to see pupils from every school in our cluster at this event.

If this is something that your child would be interested in attending please fill out the below registration form no later that Monday 19^th June.

https://forms.office.com/e/Buh1aZP7HB

Please note that pupils are to make their own way to and from the event and should be supervised throughout by an adult – there may not be staff from your school at the event and if there are, they will be there to organise not to specifically supervise – this is a community event.

If you have any questions please do just get in touch with me

Thank you,

Madison Garland

Active School Coordinator

madison.garland@fife.gov.uk

Newport Festival

Dear Parent/ Carer,

The Rio Centre is organising a RagTag Parade on Saturday 24th June as part of Newport Festival celebrations. Betty from the Rio has been in to tell all the pupils about this event and the challenge of creating a costume or outfit to wear in the parade.

Anything goes, it’s all about reusing and recycling! Wear a favourite costume or create a new one. The pupils are invited to come into the thrift shop, now located in the Rio Centre and select 10 items for £1. They can use these to make their own creation.

The parade will be led by local piper ‘Joe’ and will start in the Rio at noon. It will progress down the High St and the lower road, before returning back along the upper road to the Rio. There will be prizes, creativity and lots of noise! We look forward to seeing you there.

Best wishes,

Newport Festival Team & Betty at the Rio

Visitors at Assembly

Betty from the Rio joined us at assembly today to explain the Bag Tag parade on 24^th June.

Last week – Pauline from the Library came in to tell us about the summer reading challenge – this is great and FREE(!) event running in the summer holidays. It is a super way to keep your child’s interest in reading high during the holidays – you can visit any Fife Library to get involved.

The week before that, Lesley from Wormit Boat Club visited to tell the children about the club and gather some ideas from them on how the club can be developed.

It is lovely to be widening our community links in this way.

Attendance/Know Your Number

As you will know, we have placed a big focus on monitoring attendance this session to ensure best attendance and engagement for all pupils as part of Covid Recovery. I have used ‘Know Your Number’ to monitor attendance for all Primary children and to share their attendance rate with their parents. The average attendance across the whole school is now 96.6% which is above the National Average and is an improvement on last year’s rate of 94.8%.

Moving forward, I will no longer be using ‘Know Your Number’ for all primary children, only those whose attendance rate on their report is below 95% and therefore falls into the satisfactory or cause for concern categories. If your child’s attendance is just below 95% it will be recorded as satisfactory but I will not continue to use ‘Know Your Number’. There will be a note on yoru child’s report to let you know if I will continue to use ‘Know Your Number’ for them next year.

As we get towards the summer holidays, it is tempting to think that attendance is less important but we encourage all children to ‘Attend to the End’. The last few weeks of term may look different but there are lots of important events which support their transition into the next year of learning and which build team and a sense of belonging. Click here for a message from Fife Council: https://sway.office.com/CVMxE7TzCOeaWWEG?ref=Link&loc=play

Summer Fair

We are looking forward to this event on 29^th June (an email came out earlier this week) but it can only go ahead if we have parent helpers. Please contact the school office if you can help.

Community Event

Click here to find out about a production of Joseph and the Technicoloured Dreamcoat.

Wormit Boat Club are having an open day on Saturday the 20th May and would love to see as many families there as possible? They will have the opportunity to try out any and all of the watersports on offer i.e. sailing, rowing, kayaking, paddle boarding and even be able to ride on a high speed rib, there will also be food, singing and games – all sports are free to try out. The open day starts at 12 and will go on all afternoon.

Message from Active Schools

Looking for a fun family day out this summer? Aged 1 or 101 everyone is welcome for some family yoga in the beautiful walled garden at Cambo. Get all the family together to stretch, get active and laugh with yoga. Family yoga provides kids & adults a chance to embrace their playfulness and spend some great quality time together. Work together with your children creating shapes and moving through playful practices combining movement, breath, meditation and relaxation. This is time to let go of expectations, engage your imagination and find connections. These sessions are open to all ages, from 0 – 100. Any family members are welcome, the more the merrier!

Book your spaces online at https://www.warmheartsyoga.co.uk/summer-yoga

Tickets cost: £15 for a family of 2, £20 for a family of 3 or 4

Price includes: Yoga session, Partner and family postures, Songs and games, Movement, Mindfulness, Breathing, Relaxation

Half price garden entry for adults at Cambo for the day.

Wednesday 26th July, 11am – 12.15pm

Wednesday 2nd August, 11am – 12.15pm

You’re very welcome to bring your own picnic and stay for a play in the nature playground, enjoy some of the family friendly walks on offer or take advantage or half price admittance for adults to the walled garden for the rest of the day (children free).

Coronation Lunch

Weather permitting, we will have a picnic in the garden on Thursday 4th May. Usual school uniform please. If you have not pre-ordered the School Lunch Party Box for your child, please send them with a packed lunch from home. There will be no hot meals. if the weather is too poor to eat outside, the children will eat inside as usual – though still the party box or their packed lunch.

Assembly Today

We have celebrated two stars living our values of perseverance, effort and enthusiasm – well done to Lilly K and Lilly R. Thien An has been nominated by the sports leaders for living our value of effort at Sportzone and scoring a goal!

We had a particular talk about safety today. All the children know that the keeping them safe is the most important parts of my job. We talked about:

Safe places to cross the main road when you walk to school. I have advised children to cross at the traffic calming chicanes as these help them take a direct route across the road and help them avoid crossing by the entrance to the village hall from which cars might be turning out. Staff will remind children of this safe crossing point when they are out on woods trips and it would also be helpful if you went over that with your child if they walk to school on their own (or to help them identify another safe place).

Safe play by the hall and on the pitch (out of school time). Some anti-social behaviour in these areas has been brought to my attention in recent weeks. For example, there has been fly tipping at the recycling point and a microwave left there has had the door kicked in by young people. There has been evidence of fire setting and vaping. I have advised our pupils that if they see something happening that they don’t like when they are out playing, they should go home and tell an adult and then play elsewhere on that day. If your child regularly plays out by themselves, it might be worth having a chat to them about this.

Staying Safe by Staying in the School Grounds. I have reminded children that once they arrive on school grounds in the morning, they can not leave unless a member of school staff says they can. It is very tempting for older children to nip home if they remember they’ve forgotten something and the 9am bell hasn’t rung yet but this can lead to a situation where parents think a child is at school and we think they are off. If your child walks to school on their own, I would be grateful if you could remind them of this rule. I am also grateful to all parents and family members for remembering to come to the school office as their first port of call any time they come onto school property.

P7 have all achieved Level 2 Bikeability and P6 will start their sessions next week.