We are focusing on the kindness value this week. At Learn to Learn (Friday’s assembly) we will be celebrating all our strengths and differences linked to International Neurodiversity Celebration Week – ADHD, ASD, Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, Tourettes – and how kindness is always our response to any diversity.  The following clip will be used to promote discussion around ASD: https://youtu.be/Ezv85LMFx2E

Some may be interested in this range of neurodiversity resources for parents: https://www.neurodiversityweek.com/parent-resources

Thank you to those parents who said they would be willing to take part in our virtual job fair. You will receive an email this week with further information about this. If anyone else is interested in sharing some information about their job during term 4 with classes please email me directly: tayportps.headteacher@fife.gov.uk .

Tayport Heritage Trail’s website is now up and running. http://tayportheritage.com It offers a wealth of local information. As a school we plan to utilise the trail next term. More information to follow.

Our school value focus this week is Connecting.

This week marks one full year of schools being open!

We have been advised that there is no crossing patroller at Queen Street zebra crossing for this entire week.

We are currently reviewing the school’s travel plan.  This involves looking at the main routes children take to school and also any issues e.g. around parking. The survey will be emailed to you this week.

Thank you to those who completed our school evaluation survey last week – 35 families were represented in the results (50 children) equating to 22% of the school population. This feedback will be summarised and shared with you soon.

Parent meeting phone calls begin this week. Each family is allocated ten minutes (just as you would if visiting in school) to discuss your child’s progress.

Community News: Please take a look at the Tayport Community Blog which has details of an upcoming exhibition at the Larick Centre, sharing the vision for Tayport in 2030.  Tayport in 2030 :: Creative Dundee – Amplifying and Connecting the City

Library theme is Patron Saints. All the usual bits are on to, such as Bookbug, story times and crafts. Please do let us know if there is anything you would like us to put on YAY which would be useful for you. https://sway.office.com/gNNIVj07477kli00?ref=Link

Our school value focus this week is Achieving. 

Nursery to P1 Transition begins next week with some informal visits by nursery (and playgroup) to the primary 1 classroom.  This is being planned and delivered within a managed Covid-19 risk assessment.  If your child is due to start school in August 2022 please ensure their application is submitted as soon as possible. 

 P7 to S1 Applications – please ensure you have applied to enroll your P7 to your catchment high school before 15th March.  It is customary for children to attend their local school (catchment school). If you don’t want your child to attend the local school, there’s the option within the online form to select up to two alternatives. This request is referred to as a placing request. More information can be found here: Enrol in secondary school | Fife Council  

Parent/Carer Survey issued today – an email was sent to all nursery and school families today with a link to an online survey. We welcome your feedback. Please note the survey will close this Friday 11th March at midday, and not on Friday 18th March (as indicated in the email).

 Individual/Sibling Group Tempest Photos – a new date has been provisionally arranged – Friday 22nd April. This will be dependent on the current Covid-19 guidelines changing before this date. At present we are only able to allow essential visitors into school e.g. community police. Therefore, this new date will be confirmed, hopefully before the Easter holiday. 

 Rugby Taster – a selection of classes are to experience  rugby taster sessions on Tuesday 8th March.  Community Police Visit – our primary sixes will receive an internet safety input from the community police on Tuesday as well. 

 One upper class proudly represented Tayport primary at a hockey festival at Madras College on Friday 4th. 

 World Book Day and Scholastic Book Fair – We had a very successful world book day week and some samples of the learning can be viewed on our school Twitter account. Book sales were also very strong over the week – the school receives a percentage of the sales to purchase books for our library and classes. Thank you for your support with this. 

 Community News: Please take a look at the Tayport Community Blog which has details of an upcoming exhibition at the Larick Centre, sharing the vision for Tayport in 2030.  Tayport in 2030 :: Creative Dundee – Amplifying and Connecting the City   

Our school value focus this week is Responsibility.

World Book Day – Thursday 3^rd March – Your child can bring a favourite book with them on Thursday 3^rd March when we will participate in DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) time throughout the day. We look forward to sharing our WBD celebration via our school Twitter account.

Fife Library Resources for World Book Day week: OnFife Virtual LibrarYAY, week beginning Monday 28th Feb (office.com)

 Scholastic Book Fair – Children are enjoying browsing  and exploring the new texts being sold at the book fair. Details on how to order were shared last week.  The following is a link to online payment: https://bookfairs.scholastic.co.uk/travelling-books/pay  which should be done as soon as possible.

Family/Group Tempest Photos Postponed until term 4. Date tbc.

There have been several ongoing cases of head lice reported in classes. Please check your child’s hair regularly.  Here is some useful advice/guidance: https://www.nhsinform.scot/illnesses-and-conditions/skin-hair-and-nails/head-lice-and-nits

Parent/carer survey – Later this week a survey will be emailed to all families to seek feedback on school improvements this year. We welcome your feedback.

Our school value focus this week is Thinking. Today our school captains visited every class to explain more about the thinking value.  Tomorrow (22 February) is officially  World Thinking Day – https://www.wagggs.org/en/what-we-do/world-thinking-day/  This has been celebrated since 1926, World Thinking Day is a day of international friendship linked to the 10 million Girl Guides and Girl Scouts in 150 countries.

World Book Day – this year’s theme is “You are a reader”.   We will not be dressing up for world book day but a full day of literacy fun will be enjoyed on Thursday 3^rd March.

Here is a link to family resources to support a love of reading:  https://www.worldbookday.com/families/ –

The Scholastic book fair arrives this Thursday (24th February) for one week.  An email will be sent to all families tomorrow to share how you can browse and purchase books.  We have £1 book tokens available to each child too.

Parent teacher meetings – expect a letter on Wednesday which will allow you to book a telephone appointment with class teachers from w.b. 14 March – 23 March.  Please return promptly.

Storm damage – some of our sports hall windows are damaged from the recent storms and are being checked.  Therefore, the sports hall is currently out of use. We hope to have the matter resolved quickly.

Our school value focus this week is Kindness. Here is the launch video:

On Friday P2/3 plan to share their learning from Scottish Mental Health Week and Kindness at Learn to learn.  P3 also plan to share their safer internet day learning. We are looking forward to hearing from both!

Safer Internet Focus Week  theme is All fun and games?  There is some excellent and up to date advice on this theme for parents and carers here

Covid-19 Safety Reminders – all Scottish schools continue to operate under C-19 safety mitigations. Some families have contacted us concerned about the number of adults crowding in our playground and those not wearing face masks.  Please support us in school by keeping everyone safe and reducing the spread and impact oF absences from Covid-19 within our school community by maintaining physical distancing from other adults and wear a face mask.

A huge thank you to our amazing Parent Council team. We had a successful meeting on Teams last Wednesday. We learned that the Parent Council Christmas Raffle raised over £1500! Thank you to everyone who supported this fundraiser.

Parent Portal – A letter will be emailed this week to all families regarding Fife’s Parent Portal which gives access to services such as the My Scot card etc. Just over 25% of Tayport families are already signed up to the parent portal and it is hoped to increase the number.  Please check your emails and in the meantime for general information look here: https://www.fife.gov.uk/kb/docs/articles/education2/schools-in-fife/parentsportal.scot

Dates for your diary – please check the calendar section of the website by clicking here. Please note the Scholastic Book Fair arrives on the 24th February on the lead up to World Book Day.

Our school value focus this week is Connecting. Not only are we looking at making connections within our learning but also reaching out and connecting with our Tayport community. Here is the launch video:

As part of the local “Cultivate” project through the community garden, many classes are getting involved in creating a vision for Tayport in 2030.  shaping the future of Tayport with the local community garden.  Click here to find out more.

We have a significant number of Covid-19 positive cases in school, please remain vigilant to your child displaying symptoms.  Schools continue to operate under Covid-19 safety mitigations, one of which, is ensuring good ventilation in all spaces where children and adults are in school. This can result in the temperatures being cooler in classrooms. We encourage children to wear extra layers. It would be greatly appreciated if top layers were red or black and without large branding motifs. This promotes a sense of belonging and being part of our school.

Parent Council Meeting this Wednesday 2^nd February at 7 pm.  Contact the parent council via this website.  Click here to join the meeting

A few children are bringing footballs into school and playing unsupervised before 9am, resulting in a few minor incidents.  There should be no football being played in the playground before 9am.

This week all our classes are focusing on the Achieving school value allowing us all to make progress.  To do this children need to know where they are in their learning and what their next steps are.  By the end of last week a copy of pupil’s learning steps was sent home.  Here are two creative primary 4s whose class decorated the learning steps with our new vision “On TRACK to a bright future”:

We would encourage you to ask your children about this learning and how they will know that they have been successful.

As our Scots language focus comes to a conclusion Achieving Certificates will be awarded to each class’ three finalists at Learn to Learn on Friday.   Here is this week’s Achieving video:

Homework is an important part of your child’s learning and is set weekly. P1-3 use Seesaw and P4-7 uses Glow or paper copies. Please encourage your child to engage and complete all tasks to a high standard. If there are any issues regarding homework please contact the class teacher to update.

Covid-19 Mitigations remain in place in school. However we have booked provisional dates for Tempest to take individual/family photos and whole class photos.  Please note the dates below and remember this will be entirely dependent on Covid mitigations at the time and therefore are tbc.

• Individual/Families – Monday,14^th March
• Group photos – Wednesday 4^th May

School Calendars – we still have a supply of 2022 calendars which have now been reduced to £3 a copy.

Parent Council Meeting – the next parent council meeting is planned for Wednesday 2^nd February at 7pm, on Teams.  If you would like to join the meeting or have any issues you would like raised please contact the parent council team here.

P1 Enrolment now open – Fife’s online enrolment system for pupils due to start primary one in August 2022 is live from Monday 17 January 2022.  All parents/carers of any child eligible to start primary one in August 2022 should submit an enrolment application online at www.fife.gov.uk/applyforaschoolplace.

The deadline to enrol your child(ren) for Primary one is 15 March 2022. The deadline to apply for a placing request application is 15 March 2022.  It would, however, be appreciated if you could apply online no later than 18 February 2022 to give school staff the opportunity to process all enrolments/placing requests as quickly as possible.

This week we are focusing on the Responsibility school value and are looking forward to celebrating success with this at learn to learn on Friday. Here is the information about this:

 Scottish Booktrust – some superb resources to support reading at home: https://www.scottishbooktrust.com/home-activities

Happy New Year to all our families! Today we have launched our new school vision and values click here to find out more.  Children are focusing this week on our Thinking Value.  Here is the message shared with them this morning:

As you will understand we have tightened up our Covid-19 procedures again in school and so ask that you support us in keeping everyone safe by:

• all adults in our playground wearing a facemask,
• adults not gathering in groups (particularly at the side entrance)
• ringing the bell at the school office and waiting outside (even if the door is open). Someone will come out to see you.

School Calendars – we still have a supply of 2022 calendars which have now been reduced to £3 a copy.  Please contact the school office or send money in an envelope with your child’s name and class clearly labelled, if you wish to purchase.

Current P6s – Ardroy note of interest – Following our information evening in December current primary six pupils will receive a paper letter with further Ardroy information today. This information includes a return slip to express interest in the trip or not and whether financial support from school is being sought. Once we have reviewed all responses we will confirm the booking for August 2022 (Covid-19 restrictions permitting) and share the proposed payment plan. Please send the note of interest slip back by return.

Nursery – Our nursery section of the website has general information,  nursery deferral contacts and deadlines as well as newsletters. access here.

Our local community police officer has asked us to share the following:  Vodaphone are offering a limited number of free downloads on these three internet safety themed kids’ books. There are also free activity sheets for each story.  A fairytale for the digital age | Vodafone Digital Parenting