• P7 can access Thursday Cafe next week. Usual arrangements! If your child is not in the Thursday Cafe group but would like to attend please email lucy.jess@fife.gov.uk to make arrangements, they can only attend without your permission.
• Bikeability has restarted – P7 are in the process of finishing level 2 and P6 which start Level 2 shortly.  Look out for info on Seesaw.
• Now the better weather is here, the garden will be opening up at playtimes again. The garden will be for children who want to climb on the Trim Trail or do a quieter activity e.g. art, reading , games. The tarmac area also remains available for more boisterous activities look football and tig.

P2-7 STEM Afternoon

P2-7 Parents are invited into school on Tuesday 28th March at 1.45pm to do a piece of Science/Technology/Engineering/Maths learning with their child. We have space for one adult per child to come. If you have more children in the school than adults available to work with them, you can move between the children so that you see what everyone is doing! P2 and 3 will work in their classroom with Miss Diplexcito, P4 and 5 will work in the P5/6/7 classroom with Mrs Purves and P6 and 7 will work in the Morison Duncan Hall with Miss Bowman. Please come to reception when you first arrive and we will direct you to the learning areas from there.

Assembly

We have celebrated pupils who have lived our values of perseverance, effort and curiosity this week. Well done to Sebastian and Edith.

Several pupils have met our behaviour expectations as Secret Pupils and earned points for their house. Well done to: Sebastian, Vega, Luis, Isla, Lilly R, Evie, Mya, Ava and Ola.

We have celebrated some personal achievements which have been shared on Seesaw.

If your child has not had a personal achievement shared on seesaw yet, please encourage them to tell us about one or email me to tell me. Our aim is for every child to have an achievement shared by the end of the school year. Not only does sharing an achievement give your child a self-esteem boost, it also helps us to know more about their interests and talents.

End of Term

Thursday 30th is the last day of term – we will look forward to seeing everyone back at school on 17th April.

Assembly Today

We have celebrated the achievement of the Rotary Quiz team on Wednesday evening. While they weren’t the winning team, they were commended for their teamwork and we are so proud of them for living our school value at a community event.

Hugo has been living our school values of independence and enthusiasm this week – well done to him.

We have had quite a few Secret Pupils who have met our expectations and won points for their house this week. Well done to: Florence, Ciaran, Theo, Mya, Ross, Kaia and Maya.

P1-7 Parent Teacher Meetings

Please complete the form which came home earlier in the week,, if you haven’t already, to let us know when you would like your appointment to be.

P5/6/7 Caird Hall Trip

The class had an amazing time at the Caird Hall yesterday seeing art set to music. They have had a go themselves in school today.

Woods Trips

Please make sure you child has plenty of clothes to keep them warm and dry at the woods – it is still quite wintery. They should have several layers as well as a warm, waterproof coat and boots. Please send waterproof trousers if you have them.

Assembly Today

We celebrated everyone’s success at living our value of teamwork on World Book Day and a special well done to Jess and Lachlan who were chosen for an award after working particularly well together.

Four Secret Pupils have met our expectations and won points for their house this week. Well done to: Ross, Scott L, Nora and Lewis.

We have celebrated some personal achievements and shared them on Seesaw.

We have also had another discussion about the impact of our School Improvement priorities as more children have added ideas to the wall. Click here for details.

There is a French challenge this week – can you say ‘merci’ instead of thank you every time you say it? See if your child can do this at home as well!

Upcoming Inspection

There is a last chance over the weekend to complete the pre-inspection survey if you haven’t done yet. We would really value your views being included – the link has come by text and email so you should all have it but I can easily resend if you need me to – just get in touch at lucy.jess@fife.gov.uk 

We are looking forward to inviting Inspectors from Education Scotland into our school in week beginning 13th March. We discussed this at Assembly today and I asked the children what is good about our school which they would like to share with the Inspectors when they are with us. The children told me:

• Writing
• French
• Maths
• Our Opportunities – the children thought about Dalguise, Snow White, After School and Lunchtime Clubs.
• Our Values – children thought enthusiasm and effort were most important to show.
• Our aims – Opportunities, Wellbeing, Leaning, Support

I have told the children I will make sure their ideas are included in the paperwork I will submit to the inspectors.

Next week, children in P4-7 will have chance to complete a survey in school to share their opinions and experiences with the Inspectors.

Parents – please take 10 mins when you can to also complete your survey which came out by email on Wednesday (and today for Nursery parents). I am keen that all parents’ voices be included in the Inspection and completing the survey is a way for your voice to be heard.

If you might be available to meet with the inspectors when they are in, please indicate this on the survey and they will contact you to make arrangements.

We celebrated three stars who have been living our values of Inclusion, Friendship, Respect, Enthusiasm and Effort – well done to Ola, Finlay and Jackson.

Beetle Drive

Please click here to find out about the Beetle Drive to be held in the village hall. Places are limited and will be allocated on a first come first served basis. If anyone misses out this time, they will be given priority at the next Beetle Drive as the Hall Committee plan to hold another one before too long.

Fife’s Neurodevelopmental Webpages – Launch

Fife Council are launching a website to signpost staff and families to. The purpose of the site is to clarify what we mean by Neurodevelopment, and to provide information on referral, diagnosis and the support available. Going forward, this will be a crucial tool in how we share information on our processes and the advice we can make available to families. The site has very recently gone live, and the Test of Change project team have asked if I would share it with staff and  families. Importantly, the project group is looking for feedback on the site content and structure as part of its future development. Users can leave feedback using the link that is included at the foot of each page. https://girfec.fife.scot/

P7 Transition to Madras

The P7s had a great visit from Mr Wishart (DHT at Madras yesterday). We have made this display to help them track their steps from now to starting S1 on 16th August and to see all the support that will be in place: Transition Display

Assembly

I couldn’t be at assembly today but the teachers led it together giving the children a reminder about the importance of handwashing and celebrating stars who have been living our school values of effort and perseverance . Well done to Annie and Nora.

Next week – Don’t forget!

School and Nursery are closed on Wednesday 15th for the Inservice Day and Thursday 16th and Friday 17th for the February Holiday.

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.