Christmas Show

We are going to be staging a Christmas Show this year. All children win the school will be involved. We don’t anticipate being able to invite parents to see the show but we are going to film it and share it electronically and the children will still benefit from the excitement and enjoyment of being in a performance, developing skills in drama, music, art and literacy. We are looking for donations of the following items:

Message from Dollar Academy

Every year, there are bursaries available at Dollar Academy to support families who could not otherwise afford the fees.  These bursaries apply to pupils who will move to S1 next August. We publicise the bursaries on our website but it would be helpful if you were able to forward this letter to any parent who you think might be interested and whose child might benefit from this opportunity.  The Governors aim to maintain the confidentiality of these awards, and the names of successful applicants are not publicised. Further information is available for interested parents on the Dollar Academy website – www.dollaracademy.org.uk  or by contacting Marion Campbell in the Bursar’s Office – campbell-m@dollaracademy.org.uk. We are still planning to hold our entrance assessments, for admission to Form 1 in August 2022, on Saturday 22 January 2022. Parents will need to submit an application for enrolment prior to that date and the form may be downloaded from our website.

Today was a very busy assembly.

We started by reminding ourselves of Our School. Our Future. which is the Vision Statement for our school and lays down our aims and values. You can read Our School. Our Future. on the home page of the website here.

We celebrated some star learners who have been living our school values of perseverance, effort and enthusiasm. Well done to Leo, Annie and Lexi.

We also celebrated Emily B’s personal achievement in gymnastics and trampolining.

I would like to invite all parents to contact me by email if their child has a personal experience we could celebrate in school.

I then introduced a new school script called ‘Stand Up – Get Help’. This is being developed alongside our Relationships and Behaviour  and Anti-Bullying Policies which are currently under review. As a staff, we are working on these (taking into account Pupil Voice) and after Friday’s Inservice Day, we will be sharing draft versions with parents and looking for your input into the finished policy. You can read Stand Up – Get Help! here.

Miss Diplexcito then spoke to all children about the Pupil Council which will be re-starting in the next few weeks. She has asked all children to consider if they would like to be a Pupil Council member.

And finally, we spoke about the significance of the poppies some of us are wearing this week and I told the children they will all be given a poppy to wear on Thursday if they would like and I invited them to bring in a coin for the Poppy Appeal.

Lucy Jess

In-service Day

Just a reminder that the school will be closed to all pupils (Nursery-P7) on Friday 12th November for the in-service day. Staff are taking part in training on Body Image, supporting children with autism and sensory difficulties and we will be carrying out self-evaluation work with a particular focus on learning, teaching and assessment.

11th November

We will respect a 2 mins silence in school and all children will be given a poppy to wear if they would like. We invite you to send a coin in with your child for them to put in the Poppy Appeal box on 11th.

All children who have returned a consent form will receive their flu vaccination in school on 11th.

PE Kit

P1/2 children should bring their PE kit on a Tuesday and Friday each day this term. They will change in school but then come home in their kit. P3-7 children should have a kit in school everyday at the moment. Thank you for your support.

Pumpkin Competition

Thank you to everyone who took part – here are the four class winners! There was no charge for the competition so if your child did bring £1, it will come back home in their bag.

P1-7 Flu Vaccinations

These will be held in school on Thursday 11th November. Your child will only be vaccinated if you have returned the form and given permission. Please return the form as soon as you can if you haven’t and still wish them to receive the nasal vaccine.

Christmas Card Fundraiser

Please click here for a reminder about the fundraiser.

Looking to work within the council?

Fife Council jobs are now advertised here. Facilities management are actively recruiting in this area. There will also be a PSA job for Wormit PS advertised soon.

Holiday Event

Please click here to find details of an event for primary aged children happening in the school holidays:

St Andrews Botanic Gardens FREE event schools invitation

Milk Fund

The milk fund will be open until midnight on 24th October – please order and pay for your child’s milk for next term before then.

Covid reporting in the holidays

If your child should test positive for Covid during the holidays, you do not need to report it to the school, only to Public Health. If your child will be absent on 25th October with a Covid related reason, please contact lucy.jess@fife.gov.uk to report their absence. All other absences should be reported to the office in the usual way on the Monday morning.

School closes today for the October holiday and we look forward to seeing everyone back on 25th October.

Dear Parents,

We will be carrying out our Christmas Card fundraiser again this year.

The children are busy this week doing their Christmas Card designs. They will bring them home on Thursday 7th October for you to see. If your child’s design doesn’t come home on that day, please contact us to query it.

Over the holidays, you can decide if you would like to order cards. If you do, follow the instructions on the sticker on the back of the design to order and pay for your cards online. You should do this by Sunday 24th October.

You must then return your child’s design to school on Monday 25th October so that we can send it away – if you don’t return the design on that day, your order won’t get processed.

The cards will come to school in the second half of November and we will put them out straight away. You will receive your cards by the end of November.

Please support this fundraiser if you can.

Friday 8th October 2021

Friday is the last day of term and we look forward to seeing the children return for Term 2 on 25th October.

Parent Council

There will be a meeting on Wednesday of next week – please refer to the email that come home earlier this week for details of how to join.

Community News

Click here to find information about  Open Studios October 2021.

Queen’s Platinum Jubilee

There will be an additional school holiday in 2022 on Friday 3rd June.

Annual Data Check

Please return your child’s form ASAP, if you haven’t already. This is so we can check details are up to date.

P1 Courier Photo

This will be published on Monday 4th October.

Apple Photos

We would love to see photos of how you used your apples at home – please send them to gw15jesslucy@glow.sch.uk. I will collate them into a presentation at teh start of next week to share in classes and at home.

Outdoor Learning

P5/6/7 Parents – please remember to send your child with outdoor learning clothes on a Thursday – some weeks the class will go to Brownie woods and others they will work in teh school garden to meet learning targets. As part of their work as House Captains, the P7s have identified a few areas of improvement they would like to help with in the school garden. This includes repainting some of the woodwork, building bird boxes, improving the pond and making signage for the younger children. The work will meet learning targets within Health and Wellbeing, Technologies and Sciences.  This work will take place as part of outdoor learning on a Thursday so P7 parents should send their child with very old outdoor learning clothes and perhaps an adult sized old shirt to use as a painting shirt.

General Permissions and Data Capture Forms

Please return these as soon as possible if you haven’t already done so.

It’s been a wonderful Apple Festival at Balmerino Primary School today.

All the learning in school focussed on an apple theme with a STEAM focus (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Maths).

Everyone in Nursery got a Headteacher’s award for taking part.

For P1-7 children, the day formed one of our House Competitions. All children were given the challenge today of living our school values for wellbeing and learning. You can find these on our Home Page: https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/fi/balmerinoprimaryschool/

Every time the children were spotted living a value, they were given a House Point and a raffle ticket. At the end of the day, we counted up the House Points, the totals were:

Little Inch: 77

Peacehill: 57

Logie: 71

Then we drew the raffle tickets with the lucky ones winning an apple themed prize. Of course the more you’d been spotted Living the School Values, the more tickets you had in the box and the more chance to win.

Some children are bringing home a prize but everyone is bringing home some apples so that they can carry on the learning and fun at home.

Outdoor Learning

Monday – Nursery and P1/2

Wednesday – P3/4

Thursday – P5/6/7

P1-7 Parent Teacher Phone Calls

We will be holding Parent-Teacher 10 minute Phone Calls in weeks beginning 27th September and 4th October. P1/2 parents will speak to Miss Diplexcito, P3/4 parents will speak to Miss Connelly, P5/6/7 parents will speak to Mrs Hogben. The purpose of the call  is to discuss how your child has settled into the new school year, their current level of learning and next steps.  As the call is only 10 minutes long, this is not the time for parent or teacher to raise new concerns. If we have concerns you are not aware of, we will contact you ahead of the meeting. If you have any concerns, please contact me at lucy.jess@fife.gov.uk to arrange a time to talk about it ahead of the call with your child’s teacher.

Please call the school office between Monday 20th and Thursday 23rd September inclusive to book a telephone appointment with your child’s teacher.

The nursery staff are also doing settling chats.

• Please put your child’s name on all school clothing. We can’t promise to return missing items unless they are named.
• Please send your child with a bottle of water each day, they can drink juice at lunchtime but through the day we only allow them to drink water – this is in line with dental advice as even sugar-free juices are acidic.

Dundee Football Camp

Active Schools have shared some information from Dundee Football Club regarding their October Camp. The camp is taking place from the 11th October to the 15th October 9am-5pm for £60 for the full week of training.  Information is available here:

October Camp Flier

Standards and Quality Report and School Improvement Plan

I sent a summary to all parents via email this week and a paper copy came home in the school bags. Please take time to read the summary. If you are interested in further details, you can access the full documents on the relevant page of this website or by clicking here. 

Flu Vaccinations

Thank you to all parents who have completed our Parental Survey. The link came by email this week. Please complete it if you haven’t done so yet – it takes less than 10 minutes and we want to hear from as many people as possible!