Dear Parents,

I am writing to share the information about Extra Curricular Clubs running at Balmerino PS so you know all the opportunities which are available.

Tuesday
P3/4/5 Football after school from 3-4pm run by Active Schools

Wednesday
P4/5/6/7 Multisports after school from 3-4pm run by Active Schools

Thursday
P2/3/4 Lunchtime Sportzone run by our Junior Leaders (P5/6/7 pupils) in conjunction with Active Schools – your child will be able to tell you if they attend this club – it runs in the playground

Friday
P2/3/4 Lunchtime Dance Club run by our Junior Leaders (P5/6/7 pupils) in conjunction with Active Schools – you will have received an email if your child opted to attend this club as it runs in the Morison Duncan Hall

After School Multi-Sports is full but there are still places in the P3/4/5 Football on a Tuesday and if you are interested in your child joining this club you should contact the office to sign them up. Please speak to the office, not to the coach directly and please note it is only for P3/4/5 at this time. We may open it to P2 at a later point if space allows.

I am also pleased to tell you that, through our delivery of PE and extra curricular clubs, we have been awarded a Bronze Sports Scotland Award and we are now working towards Silver.

If any parent is interested in getting involved with running a lunchtime or afterschool club, please contact me to discuss.

Kind regards
Lucy Jess
lucy.jess@fife.gov.uk

At assembly today we did a mid-year review of our school improvement plan.

We spoke about what has been done under each priority heading:

We are becoming a French Speaking School

All children in Nursery and P2-7 are having experiences within French and we are following an agreement made with all the schools in the Madras Cluster which will mean all P7s go up to Madras with the same vocabulary and understanding.

We are becoming a Writing School

All primary children are having good writing experiences in class and writing in a range of genres. P2-4 are trialling some work helping them to think about their writing journey which supports them to improve their pieces. All children are more aware of the feedback they get on their learning (through Our School Our Feedback) and this supports progress in writing.

We are becoming an Outdoors School – we know what subjects we are learning outdoors and how our skills are building.

All children have been learning out of doors in the school grounds, in the streets around the school and at Waterloo Woods. They have been learning in Science and Maths and are developing skills in road safety (Bikeability for P5/6/7 and as pedestrians for P2/3/4) and Teamwork.

Our Parents know about our learning and they can help us learn.

Nursery parents have been to peep and Bookbug and are invited in for soft start. P2/3 parents came in to learn how to use the Read, Write, Count bags with their children. P2-7 parents came in for a Spelling Frame workshop. We shared learning in RME, Literacy, Drama and Music at the Christmas Concert and in Literacy, Art  and Dance at the Ceilidh. We share learning and targets on Seesaw and all children can share learning at home though Sumdog, SpellingFrame and their Reading Books.

The next step for our display in school is to put us evidence of the impact on children. We started talking about this today:

One child said ‘I didn’t use a lot of punctuation in my work but now I do.’ Another said: ‘I didn’t know how to say my birthday in French but now I do.’ A third said: ‘I know to Stop, Look and Listen now’.

The children will continue to talk about this in class and we display their ideas which you will see the next time you are in school. It would also be good to talk about this at home.

Moving forward, we will continue to work on these priorities:

• We have a STEM afternoon and Parent-Teacher meetings planned for P2-7 (the calendar is here

  ). Nursery Bookbug, peep and shared starts will continue and there will be parent chats this term.

• The teaching staff will be making increased use Fife Council Modern Language progression pyramids to deliver the grammar and vocabulary agreed within the Madras Cluster.
• We will be exploring a skills progression and outdoor learning accreditation.
• We will be continuing to work hard to raise attainment in writing by providing good quality inputs and feedback and by offer interventions as needed.

We also celebrated some personal achievements at Assembly today – these have been shared on Seesaw.

Bonni and Lewis had awards for living our values of Teamwork, Curiosity and Enthusiasm. Well done to them both!

Update on 3rd March

Children have been busy adding ideas to the School Improvement Plan wall to show how the improvement work is impacting on them. Here of some of the ideas:

‘I couldn’t write a biography but now I can.’

‘We share our work on Seesaw and our parents give us feedback.’

‘Seesaw lets our parents see what we are learning and how we can improve.’

‘We can have a small conversation in French.’

‘I’m better at maths because I did it in a creative way in outdoor learning.’

Nursery have also been busy evaluating their parental engagement work. Thank you to all the parents who helped with this. Please read the wall when you are in for Bookbug, Peep or Shared Start.

Dear Parents,

I recently shared your child’s attendance rate for the session so far with you. This email is to report on the school’s attendance rate overall.

In order to support schools to promote attendance, Fife Council has given each school at stretch target to work towards. Our stretch target is 95.7% and our current overall attendance is 96.47%, exceeding our stretch target.

Thank you to all parents who are encouraging such good attendance at our school.

To continue to support this, I am sharing this update from Fife Council with advice for when your child is ill:

https://sway.office.com/FIfiO81RKsncHXQJ?ref=Link&loc=play

​

Kind regards
Lucy Jess

The Parent Teacher meetings will be held on:

Thursday 20th April 5-7pm

Tuesday 25th April 3.30-5.30pm

Nearer the time, we will ask you to let us know which time slots suit you best.

In Term 1 we invited you to bring your child to the meeting with you. Only about half of parents did this and we have listened to feedback around this. We feel it is important that children are part of learning conversations with their parents and teacher but we also recognise that there is a place for parents to speak to the teacher without their child there. We have also taken on board suggestions by parents that they would like more chance to look at their child’s jotters at Parents Evening. We are changing the format for these meetings in  in response to this.

You will still receive a 10 minute appointment but we will invite you to come 10 or 15 minutes before the appointment and bring your child with you. There will then be chance for your child to show you their jotters and the learning evidence included. When you go into the meeting, your child can come in for the first part of the meeting. They will then step out of the meeting and go to the hall where some activities will be set up while you conclude the meeting with the teacher, getting the full oral report.

It continues to be the case that the meeting is for an update on your child’s progress and next steps. It is not the occasion to raise new concerns. We will contact you ahead of the meeting if we have any concerns and ask that you do the same.

Office Hours

Please note the school office is open at these times:

8.15-11.45 and 12.15-3.15

If you call outwith those hours you will get the answer phone – please leave a message and it will get picked up when the office re-opens. If you get the answer phone in office hours, leave a message and some will pick it up quickly.

Assembly

We haven’t had an assembly today because of the Ceilidh but we have celebrated some personal achievements this week and these have been shared on Seesaw.

Dates for this term

Please click here to see the dates and activities for this term.

P7 Transition to S1

P7 parents – please remember there is the final open evening at Madras on 23rd February from 6-7pm. If you haven’t yet visited the school with your child, I recommend you attend this meeting. In the early part of February we will have a meeting from Mr Currie (HT) and Mr Wishart (DHT) who will meet with all of the children. We have already begun to share information to support transition and in May, the guidance team will visit school to meet with us to ensure they have all the final necessary details. In the summer term, all children will make transition visits to Madras. The main three day visits are on 13th, 14th and 15th June and there is an open evening for parents and P7s on the evening of 15th. Some children will benefit from additional visits over and above that and this will be arranged according to need. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or concerns about your child’s transition to Madras. A worry for parents and children can be getting ready early enough in the morning to catch the bus! I recommend planning and preparing for this slowly e.g. decide that in Feb your child will aim to be ready by 8:30, then in March: 8:15, then in April: 8:00 and then in May, by 7:45. This way, catching the bus on the three day visit and again in August won’t come as quite such a shock! We will also being doing some work on this with the children.

Message from Active School

Message from the Foodbank

The foodbank would like to thank everyone for their kind donations last term.  We are here to support the community should anyone require our help. We have an emergency mobile number 07840957039 where you can speak to someone at any time, or you can visit our website www.taybridgefoodbank.org.uk

Assembly Today

We have celebrated birthdays by singing in English and in French and we have celebrated two stars living our school values of effort, independence and perseverance. Well done Isla-Rose and Ava L. We also practised Auld Lang Syne for the Ceilidh.

P2-7 Ceilidh

We are looking forward to seeing parents with us at 1.30 on Friday 27th January. If you are coming along, please complete the form I sent by email on Wednesday by 9am on Monday. Just so we have numbers. Many thanks!

Assembly

We celebrated stars who have been living our school values today – well done to Mya G and Matthew.

We have also celebrated some achievements outside of school. Well done to Leo, Jackson (both Football) and Jenna (Swimming). Please let us know if your child has an achievement out of school. You can email me a photo and tell me about it or they can bring a trophy or similar in. An achievement doesn’t have to be something they have won. It might be that they’ve learnt something new (e.g. to ride their bike without stabilisers) or that they’ve done something for the first time (e.g. made their own packed lunch). Or it might just be that they’ve done really well at an activity. It you feel its an achievement, we’d like to recognise and celebrate it! We will celebrate as a whole school. They will have a star put up in the corridor and I will share a photo on Seesaw.

Also at assembly, we went over Our School Our Feedback and the children shared ways they have been getting feedback in class.

Happy New Year to all out families and welcome back to school.

P2-7 Burns Ceilidh

This will be held in the Morison Duncan Hall on 27th January at 1.30pm. One adult per family is invited to come and join the fun with their child(ren)! Apologies that we can’t invite more of you along but there is not safe space in the hall for more that this.

Nursery Enrolments

Nursery enrolments for session 2023-24 are now open. If your child is due to start nursery at any point during the next academic year, you should apply for their place now. This applies to children who turn 3 before the end of February 2024. If your child is currently nearly 2 or is already 2, it is time to apply! Click here for details. If your child is already in our nursery and does not start school in August, you don’t need to reapply unless you want to make changes to their current placement. If your child is of school age in August but won’t have yet turned 5 and you are considering deferring them in Nursery for an additional year, you should speak to me as soon as possible as the deferment paperwork needs to be completed by 31st January 2023.

Enrolments for P1 will open in due course.

Dates

There will be no woods trips next week as we need to risk assess following last nights wind.

Please remember that, as per the letter from Carrie Lindsay last term, our school and nursery will be closed on 10th and 18th January due to Teachers’ strikes. We will let you know in a timely fashion if the strikes should be cancelled and school and nursery be open as usual.

Thank you to all who came to the Concert this afternoon and supported the children’s performance as well as the Parent Council stalls.

Message from Parent Council

We have a busy couple of weeks ahead!

Please check you know the dates:

Monday 12th December

P1-7 parents, please send in your child’s costume for the Concert. Details are here and in the letter that came home with P2/3/4.

Tuesday 13th December

As part of the consultation process on the re-zoning to formally incorporate the old Rathillet catchment area into the Madras catchment area, Education Scotland will be writing a report on the proposal. This report will be completed by Robert Hynd, an Inspector with Education Scotland. He will visit Balmerino Primary School on 13th December to meet with a group of children. He is also visiting other school in the area and later in the same day, he will meet with any parents who would like to share views on the proposal. This meeting will take place at BALMULLO Primary School (not Balmerino) at 2pm. You are warmly invited to attend that meeting at Balmullo Primary School on 13th at 2pm.

Wednesday 14th December

Visit to the Panto at the Byre – details cam home yesterday.

Thursday 15th December

A small group of children will sing at the Thursday Café to entertain the people there. There won’t be room for us to take everyone as the Café has become very popular again. Please only come to the Café if you would be going anyway.

Friday 16th December

10.00: Dress Rehearsal for the the Christmas Concert. Any family member who can’t come in the afternoon is welcome to come along at 9.45 to form an audience for the Dress Rehearsal. I don’t anticipate the hall reaching capacity but if it does we will let people in on a first come first served basis.

1.30: Teas and Coffees and Parent Council Stalls in the village hall. Christmas Concert will start at 2pm. Entry is from 1.30 and by ticket only.

Every child will bring home a Christmas Craft gift for their parents today.

Tuesday 20th December

P2-7 Party – your child can come to school in party clothes – no uniform needed!

Wednesday 21st December

Nursery Party – your child can come to school in party clothes

School finishes at 3pm today for the Christmas Holidays!