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!

Outdoor Learning

P5/6/7 will start Outdoor Learning next week on a Thursday afternoon. They will go to Brownie Woods every week until further notice. Please send suitable clothes and footwear for the weather conditions – they will change into them before they go.

P3/4 will continue to go to Brownie Woods on a Wednesday and P1/2 to Waterloo Woods on a Monday until further notice.

Please assume outdoor learning is on unless you hear otherwise!

Nursery will go to Waterloo Woods on a Monday but it isn’t starting yet. This coming Monday the children and staff are going to Dundee to follow up on a learning interest on transport.

We don’t need you to return slips because we hold permission for local outings but please contact me with any concerns or to withdraw your child from an outing.

Ju Jistsu

An evening class is running in Newport each Wednesday. Click here to access information: WJJS flyers – Newport – September 2021. Then use the back button to return here.

Home Learning Device Access Survey

Thank you to all parents who have completed this survey. The data we are collecting is very helpful. Please use the link that was emailed to you to complete it by end of day on Sunday. We may have conversations with children if we need to fill in any gaps in our data next week.

Online Library Events Next Week

Here is the library service’s online schedule for next week should you wish to access any of the out of school hours events with your child.

YAY for school wb 13 Sept

Data Checks

Please return these to the school office as soon as possible so that we know your details are up to date.

Dates for your diary

P3/4 will be going to Brownie Woods every Wednesday afternoon from now on. Please send suitable clothes and footwear for the weather conditions – they will change into them before they go.

P1/2 will be going to Waterloo Woods every Monday afternoon from now on. They should come to school wearing clothes that are suitable for the woods and their usual school shoes. Please send them with wellies or boots to change into before they go.

We don’t need you to sign a permission slip for woods trips as we have permission for local outings from you. But if you have any concerns or would like to withdraw your child, please contact me directly at lucy.jess@fife.gov.uk.

Ragbag

Please drop your filled ragbag by the recycling bins at the village hall on the morning of 9th September.

Seesaw

At the start of next week, a permission slip will come home to allow us to set your child up for the new school year on Seesaw which is a platform to aid home-school communication and support family learning. Please complete and return it as soon as possible so that we can get Seesaw up and running.

A glimpse inside school…

We miss being able to invite parents into school so this is an opportunity to see your child’s learning environment. It would be good to talk to them about the photos and see if they can tell you about their learning.

P5/6/7 have been learning about the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and have made this charter to support rights at school. We talked about this at assembly on Wednesday and the other primary classes will be doing the same task. P5/6/7 have led the way!

P1/2 have been learning about themselves. They did self-portraits on the first day and a finger print study when learning about similarities and differences. Can you spot some colour monsters on the wall? These show the children’s feelings from the first week – this work was linked to the book ‘The Colour Monster’.

There has been a lot of interest in the work bench in Nursery so the staff have created a second one in the garden so that this play can extend outdoors. They have also set up an outdoor numeracy and literacy area.

P3/4 have started an artist study on Van Gogh. They have been learning all about verbs, adjectives and nouns this week using their reading books and ‘Handa’s Surprise’. In Science they have been learning about what needs electricity to make it work and there has been lots of good discussion about cars and lots in interest in the new charging point by the village hall. Everyone is really enjoying the class novel ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’.

There are two weeks to complete this challenge. It is for pupils at Balmerino Primary School. You can work as a family to do the challenge. The oldest child in each family is bringing home a matchbox today. The challenge is to put as many different items into the matchbox as you can. You want to look for things that are as small as possible but you can only put in one of each item. For example, you can put in one grain of rice but not a spoonful!

Bring your matchbox back into school on Friday 10th September. Write your name(s) on the box and write on the number of items that are inside. Everyone who brings their box in will win points for their house and the winning box will earn extra points.

Nursery children aren’t in a house – they will join one with their older siblings and buddies when they come into P1 next year. But they can still join in the competition for fun.

Good Luck and Enjoy!

(Thank you to P3/4 who helped write the instructions in this post)

Dates for the Year

We are all hoping that this year will be more predictable than last and so we have set as many dates as we can for the school year. These dates are now available on the calendar page of the website which you can reach using the menu above or follow this link:

Calendar

Staffing News

Mrs Dowie (supply PSA) was successful at interview today and will be remaining with her in her current hours up until the summer holidays at least.

Restrictions Easing

We are able to ease our restrictions on keeping classes separate and you will likely start to hear your child talking about playing with children from other classes over the coming week. Any parent who has concerns about this easement should contact Mrs Jess directly.

The majority of Covid mitigations remain in place and we do need to ask you to continue to be vigilant of symptoms in your household.  If your child develops any of the following symptoms they must not come to school. They and all other members of the family should stay at home as soon as their symptoms start, self-isolate, and take a PCR test. Find out more on NHS Inform. The symptoms of coronavirus (Covid-19) are:

• a new continuous cough and/or
• a high temperature and/or
• a loss of, or change in, taste or smell (anosmia).

If you or your children test positive, Test and Protect will contact you to provide tailored advice on what to do. This advice is an extract from Fife Council’s FAQs on Schools and Covid.

Click here to read the full version of Fife’s FAQs on Schools and Covid

Message from the Office

Please return Data Capture Forms and General Permissions Forms as soon as possible. P1-7 Flu forms by 3rd September, please. Don’t forget to send any Ragbag contributions on the morning of 9th September – please place them by the recycling bins at the village hall. Many thanks.

Saturday Rugby

Madrascals Rugby is back and looking forward to welcoming new members to their Saturday morning fun training sessions.  Led by teams of experienced and friendly coaches, everybody from P1 – P7 is welcome to come along.  Free taster sessions are being held at Station Park, the home of Madras Rugby Club, on Saturday 28 August and Saturday 4 September.  There is no need to book ahead, just turn up ready to play and have fun! The times for each session are:

P1 – P2 11:00 – 12:00

P3 – P7 10:30 – 12:00

Any questions should be directed to: madrascals.convenor@gmail.com