The children and staff are proud to share their anti-bullying learning with you via an online Sway. Please scroll down to see all content.

Click here to share in our whole school anti-bullying learning

Anti-Bullying Fortnight and sharing our learning

We will be sharing our learning from anti-bullying fortnight later this week. In the meantime here is a little sneak peak!

 Tayport Heritage Trail – All children will bring home a brochure about Tayport’s Heritage Trail as well as a rubbing sheet, this week. During 2022 we plan to use the trail as a whole school outdoor learning experience. In the meantime, we have added a link to the community section of the website: https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/fi/tayportps/community/tayport-heritage-trail/

School Photo Survey – Thank you to those who completed the short photo survey last week. 22.2% of families responded and of this group the results were:

53% – would like both a class and an individual/ sibling photo if possible later in the year.
42% – would like an individual/sibling photo only.
5% – did not want a school photo at all.

Based on these results we will contact Tempest and find out what they can offer next term.

Nursery Newsletters – We have added a section to our website to allow easy access to nursery newsletters: https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/fi/tayportps/nursery/newsletters/

Learning Leaders – Pupil participation in decisions affecting the future direction of our school is crucial to ensure we are making the right changes for the correct reasons. This week Mrs Tweed is meeting representatives from every class to review the suggestions for the refresh of our School Vision and Values.  More updates to follow.

Parent Council Christmas Raffle Tickets – raffle tickets were sent home last Friday and should be returned to school with payment as soon as possible.  You can drop off any prize donations at the school office (please do not send in children’s bags).

Toy Drive Self-Referral – Final call to anyone who would like to self-refer their children to receive a gift from the Toy Drive (information about this was emailed last week) Complete this form by 1 December

P7 to S1 High School Enrolment –  It has been agreed to trial an online enrolment system for Primary 7 pupils due to start secondary school in August 2022. Please see information letter sent to all P7 parents/carers.  P7S1 Online Enrolment

Fife Virtual Library: Online focus this week is  Hannukah as well as the usual story times, Bookbug, crafts and more. https://sway.office.com/gFeQMbAWp4nbE5TN?ref=Link

An enormous thank you for your generosity! We raised £312 for children in need on Friday 19th November!

The parent council has donated £600 to support development of our outdoor learning space (£400) and Room 7 “The View” (£200). More details to follow.  We appreciate the school community’s support in improving our learning offer in school.

Anti-bullying Focus – Week 2 – After a very successful first week focusing on kindness we continue our work on making our school a welco

ming, safe and happy place for everyone. This week children will practise using our “Being cool at Tayport School” script. Please keep an eye on our twitter feed for updates:  https://twitter.com/tayportps

We look forward to sharing our whole school learning around this very important subject next week.

Covid-19 Mitigations – Existing COVID-19 safety mitigations in schools are to remain for now, following advice from senior clinicians. This has an impact on plans for the festive period.  If you wish to read details around Covid-19 safety expectations in schools please follow this link: https://www.gov.scot/news/covid-19-safety-in-schools/

Christmas:

• The parent council has generously donated £1.50 per pupil to support Christmas Parties. Teachers will confirm party dates w.b. 6 December. Every child will also receive a small selection box from the parent council too.
• To support the parent council’s great work they will be running an Adult and Children’s Christmas Raffle from 1 – 14^th December with the draw taking place live over the weekend of 18^th/19^th .If you would like to donate please contact the parent council click here for contact details. Prizes can also be dropped off at the school office (please do not sent items in children’s school bags). Information on purchasing raffle tickets will be sent home shortly.
• School Christmas Lunch and Christmas Accessory Day [wear usual school uniform with a Christmas jumper or head band or…] is Wednesday 15^th
• Each class will prepare and perform a Christmas song (linking to expressive arts curriculum) this will be recorded and shared online with our Tayport Community as a “Christmas Cheer” event on Friday 17^th

Pupil Designed 2022 Calendars – The children have been busy preparing their designs for our school calendar fundraiser. The calendars will be £6 a piece and we are ordering 150 to be printed. Details of how to order will be released shortly.

School Photos – Thank you for your patience while we investigated alternative options for school photos. After much consultation we have decided to stay with Tempest Photography as we are satisfied with their product and the level of PVG and GDPR. Currently, Tempest will only do group photos outside, not individual. Our hope is in the new year restrictions will be lifted.  In the meantime, I am asking you to complete a very short form by 12 noon on Thursday 25^th November to understand if there is demand to purchase school photos during this academic year: https://forms.office.com/r/qieZEQQc7J

Fife’s Virtual Library have some great dianosaur activities available this week:  https://sway.office.com/F7ymd7ncVGtmvYeH?ref=Link

Antil-Bullying fortnight Please keep an eye on our Twitter feed for updates on our OneKindWord focus fortnight.  We have set up a new area on the website with helpful links and resources for parents which we will continue to add to. Click here to go to the anti-bullying section of our website

The staff and children are also trialling “Being Cool at Tayport School” scripts and we plan to share these is this area too once they are finalised.

Children in Need – Dress Down this Friday 19^th.   Please donate £1 if you can.  We have created a Just Giving Page, directly linked to Children in Need, to avoid cash coming into school. If possible please donate here: click here to donate on just giving 

• Please note £2 is the minimum donation on JustGiving. If you wish to donate less this, it is no problem, just send cash into school on Friday. Apologies for this inconvenience.

Parent Council Meeting on Teams on Thursday 18^th November at 7:15pm.  Here is the Teams Link to join: Join parent council meeting 18 Nov at 7:15 pm

If you wish to contact the parent council go to their section of our website here

Our Community section of the website has information about the local toy drive and also some of our primary seven pupils laying our poppy wreath at the Tayport War Memorial. Later in the day a group of primary ones also visited the Memorial Garden to lay miniature poppies on crosses in the grounds. #lestweforget

An Ardroy 2022 Information evening has been arranged for current P6 families. Click here to find out more on the website.

Ardroy – Miss Narauskaite, Miss Gallacher, Mrs Heggie and myself attended the first P7 Ardroy residential in over 2 years with 33 children last week. The trip was a huge success and provided unique learning experiences, not just physical activities such as abseiling, but also developing independence and life skills. I was very proud of everyone who attended, they supported one another, had great humour and fantastic manners throughout the week. I would also like to thank the staff who gave up their own time to make the trip possible. There are some photos on our Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/tayportps

November is always a busy time with important national events often overlapping each other. Here is a rundown of how we are doing things at Tayport this year!  There have been a few changes to dates so please check the calendar section of the website here

Flu Vaccine in school Tuesday 9th Nov

Poppies are for sale in school this week.

Inservice Day 3 – Friday 12^th November – School closed to pupils.

Anti-Bullying fortnight commences Monday 15^th November with an Odd Socks Day.  Children and adults should come to school sporting their oddest odd socks. No donations please as we are supporting Children in Need later in the week.

Over the fortnight the whole school will be sharing learning and key messages around bullying.  We will ask our families to join the ‘5 Days of Kindness’ challenge.  The ‘5 Days of Kindness’ challenge is a social media campaign which runs alongside Anti-Bullying Week. It’s a simple and impactful challenge for schools and everyone across Scotland to participate in to help share kindness – no matter how big or small, kindness helps to spread kindness. . By spreading kindness, we champion how kindness can halt hurtful behaviour in its tracks.

 Need some inspiration?: 

• Donate to a foodbank
• Start a conversation with someone new
• Tell someone they are doing a good job
• Hold a door open
• Ask someone if they are okay

Children in Need – We have moved the dress down day for Children in Need to Friday 19^th November. Please donate £1. We have created a Just Giving Page, directly linked to Children in Need, to avoid cash coming into school. If possible please donate here: Click here to go straight to Just Giving

Book Week Scotland also runs from 15 – 19^th November. P1-3 will receive their Read, Write Count bags during this week.

Fundraiser – Calendar for 2022 – All children will contribute to designing a whole school monthly calendar which will be on sale shortly. The calendar is a month to view and in colour. It will cost £6. We plan to order 200 calendars and will be available on a first come basis.  More details to follow.

Halloween: Tayport Primary children have been preparing Halloween art this week to hang in a window at home to create an informal Halloween trail.  Over the weekend, you may wish to get active as a family and spot the spooky pictures around the town (look up high at school and you might spot a spider or too!).

A Halloween goodie bags is coming home today. Children have been asked not to open these before you check the contents at home. All items are vegan. These have been generously prepared and filled by your Parent Council.  The next Parent Council meeting has been arranged on Teams on Thursday 18^th November.  Click here to see Parent Council information on website

P7 Residential to Ardroy – 1-5 November – Mrs Tweed, Miss Gallacher, Miss Narauskaite and Mrs Heggie will accompany the learning visit to Ardroy. Mrs Peterson will be first point of contact for all parents during these dates.  The bus will depart from school at 9:00 am on Monday so we anticipate that the main entrance will be extra busy on Monday.  In our grounds all adults are politely reminded to wear a face mask and to maintain 1m distancing from each other.

Flu Vaccine – The Immunisation team continue to delivery flu vaccination in schools, if you haven’t returned your child’s consent form, please do so immediately.  Tayport’s session is on Tuesday 9^th November.  If your child misses the school session, please contact the team on 01383 565456 Fife.immunisationqueries@nhs.scot to make an appointment at a community clinic. Evening clinics will be available the week of the 1st of November.

Calendar updates: Click here to see school calendar section of website

Primary 7 pupils went out and about in our local community to spread the word about climate change., contributing to the local Tayport Climate Festival in September 2021. #COP26

We are very proud of Callie who had her very long hair cut to raise over £500 for the Little Princess Trust.

1 October 2021: We celebrated our many talented Tayport pupils who speak another language. Please enjoy:

To improve communication between school and home we have prioritised updating our school website.  Going forward this is where all school updates and general school information will be found. I hope to launch phase one of the website on our return to school week beginning 25 October.

School Calendar – please refer to the school calendar on this website which will be kept up to date.

Pokemon cards – we politely request that Pokeman cards are no longer brought into school as they are causing upset and distraction to many.

School Uniform – it is lovely to see the children looking so smart in red and black. It would be much appreciated if children wore school colours in unbranded items most days.  On PE days children should not wear jeans or Football strips/tops.

Water Bottles – Please send a full water bottle daily. We have many children asking for cups of water from the office which is interrupting learning. Bottles should contain only water, not juice (unless for medical reasons which we are aware of).

Taybridge Head Food Bank donations – Many thanks to those who donated to this worthwhile cause. The donation was gratefully received during Fife’s focus on poverty week.

Medication – parents must hand in any medicines to the office and not send in with the child for safety reasons. We also require permission forms to be completed before children can be given medicine by staff in school.

Staffing – Mrs Eilidh Green and Miss Cara Fearon join us after the break as Pupil Support Assistants.

Covid Safety – Fife schools continue to operate under Covid-19 mitigations. Please can you support this by:

–       Only parents of P1 and P2 children should be in the playground

–       Wearing a facemask at all times when you are in our playground

–       Ideally only one adult should collect a child from in the playground.

–       Not gathering at the side entrance in the morning or end of day.

Road Safety – A few members of our local community have raised concerns around pupils being unsafe on roads around Tayport, particularly when on bicycles. Please remind your child about safety expectations.

Lost Property – all lost property from term 1 will be bagged and available for any parents to check early in term 2.  Going forward primary 7s are going to try to improve the processes around matching lost property back with owners on a weekly basis.  Please put your child’s full name on all items.

Pupil Photographs – alternative options are currently being explored.

Playground improvements – Over the October break a fence and gated area is to be erected beside the sports hall extension. This is phase one of developing a safe outdoor learning space for P1-3.

Pupil Designed 2022 Calendar – Children will be working on their designs soon and the published calendar will be available for purchase early December.  This is a school fundraiser.

Parent Council News:

Our Parent Council is 100% focused on enhancing all Tayport’s children’s school experience. For Halloween they are organising goodie bags for every pupil and these will be issued on Friday 29^th October. To support a Covid safe Halloween, all classes will make a spooky art/craft which could be stuck onto windows at home creating a spooky community display for families to spot if they are out and about over the Halloween weekend. As stated in the school calendar there will be no dressing up in school.

Parent Council Christmas Raffle – A Christmas Raffle will run throughout December, with the draw happening the weekend before the Christmas holidays. Funds raised from this will help towards the Christmas parties and the panto. We will be looking for donations nearer the time for both an Adult Raffle and a Children’s Raffle.  Ticket information will follow nearer the time.

If you wish to get involved in fundraising throughout the session, with the parent council you may be interested in participating in their “Bonus Ball”. Many people from the wider community and school are already involved. The funds raised go directly towards covering the costs of the Halloween goodie bags etc.  If you would like more information about the Bonus Ball you should contact the Parent Council via their Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/TayportPrimarySchoolParentCouncil/

I am sure you will join me in thanking everyone involved for their generosity and efforts in making events special for the children. There will be a Parent Council meeting early into term 2.