It is unlikely restrictions will change to allow us to invite parents into school for these meetings so they will be held virtually. Information about signing up for an appointment will follow, early next week.

The appointments will be held on these dates and times:

Tuesday 9th November 3.30 – 5.30pm

Thursday 11th November 3.30-5.30pm

Wednesday 17th November 3.30-5.30pm

At this point, we can’t offer meetings later than 5.30pm due to the need to ensure the building is cleaned after staff leave. Staff need to be in the building to conduct the meetings so that technical support is on hand and so that you can contact us if you experience difficulty accessing the call.

We will be using the The Parents Evening Booking System as our main platform for these virtual meetings. This system automatically pulls your details through via Groupcall to set the meetings up, minimising admin workload.

Please note that it is only possible to log in to Parents Evening Booking system on one device so we do ask that wherever possible parents take the meeting together or one feeds back to the other.

The bulk of our families will use Parents Evening Booking system for their meeting but we recognise that some families may need a different arrangement so that all parents are involved and we can help – either by using Teams or by setting up two meetings. We can also use Teams where a parent needs to meet with two teachers for any reason. If the technology doesn’t work for you, we can use phone call for your conversation with your child’s teacher. If you need an alternative arrangement, please contact me at lucy.jess@fife.gov.uk at the start of next week (beginning 25th October 2021). I would ask parents to be mindful that there is an additional workload for admin staff and teachers in setting up an alternative arrangement and only request one where strictly necessary but we are very pleased to help where it is needed.

We can’t make any use of Zoom as it is not GDRP compliant.

Please don’t worry if you haven’t used Parents Evening Booking system before or if you can’t remember what to do, full instructions will come out next week. This is just an early reminder of dates and confirmation of the process.

Matchbox Competition

Well done to all who took part, the top three boxes contained 86, 86, 92 and 95 items! Everyone who returned a box earned points for their house:

Woodhaven – 115

Newton – 135

Flass – 160

St Fort – 160

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.

Christmas Card Fundraiser

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 Monday 25th October for you to see. If your child’s design doesn’t come home on that day, please contact us to query it. If you would like to order cards, follow the instructions which come home with the design to order and pay for your cards online. You should do this by Wednesday 3rd November.

You must then return your child’s design to school on Wednesday 3rd November 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.

Many thanks

Scheduled building work at the school is continuing.

During the October Holidays, the following will take place:

• New pin boards will be installed in the refurbished P7 area.
• The upper gateway from Flass Road into the playground will be widened and new gates will be fitted. This is the first step of a project to make it possible for vehicles to enter by that route. This will be needed when the modular unit is being built and will also allow emergency vehicles and routine maintenance vehicles into the top playground. Rest assured that the vehicle gates will be locked to stop unauthorised access and keep children safe. Pedestrian access will not be compromised but we will have more secure gates to keep shut during playtimes.
• A site inspection will be carried out in preparation for the work to build the new modular unit (extension to the school in light of a growing roll). No contractor has yet tendered for the job of building the modular unit (hence the delay) but Fife Council are carrying this work out now to reduce the timescale of the build once a contractor has been identified.

During November, the Nursery Garden will be extended. This will likely take 4 days. It can’t be done over the October Holidays as the fencing  materials aren’t available yet. As long as the materials are ready in time, it will be done over the weekend of the November in-service day to minimise disruption.

Harvest/Next week

We will hold Harvest Assemblies next week and will invite children to bring in an item for donation to the foodbank on Friday 8th October. P1-7, please also remember to return your matchboxes by 8th.  Friday is the last day of term and we look forward to seeing the children return for Term 2 on 25th October.

Community News

Some parents have suggested a Community News Page would be helpful on the school website. I have set one up here.  I will be reliant on people sending me contributions to keep it up to date!

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.

Big Park

Over the last week and a half, the children have enjoyed time playing on Big Park. As some parents have contacted me about this, I would like to clarify a couple of points. We don’t have enough staff to allow the children to choose between playing on the tarmac or playing on Big Park, we need to either have them all on the tarmac or all on Big Park to allow for proper supervision. In the first few weeks of term, they were playing on the Tarmac, this was to allow everyone to get into a proper routine at the start of term and while we were easing mitigations and opening up the class bubbles. At playtime, the children only have 15 minutes to eat their snack and we do like them to use this time to go to the toilet and so time does not make it worth going down to Big Park. But we are now making regular use of Big Park at lunchtimes and this will continue whenever the weather and underfoot conditions allow.  I have been grateful to the parents who have offered feedback about the use of Big Park and want to reassure you that we recognise the benefits of outdoor play in this wonderful space and know that this is something our pupils and parents value.

Fundraiser Today

Thank you to all who have supported our fundraiser today. We have raised £219 for MacMillan Cancer.

Matchbox Competition

The due date has changed to Friday 8th October. I look forward to counting your objects!

Dundee Football Camp

Active Schools have shared some information that I have received 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. 

Don’t forget…

…to return your filled matchbox on 1st October. Click here for a reminder of the challenge.

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!

The oldest child in each family will bring home an empty matchbox this week – you can work as a family to do the challenge.  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!

Please don’t put in:

• anything perishable – e.g. you can put in a dried flower but not a fresh flower as it won’t survive.
• anything which is too tiny to find and count (e.g. a grain of sand)
• anything which will crumble away – e.g. you can put in a coffee bean but not an instant coffee granule.

Bring your matchbox back into school on Friday 1st October. On th ebox, please write:

• the P1-7 child(ren)’s name(s)
• their house
• the number of items that are inside.

Everyone who brings their box in will win points for their house and the winning boxes will earn extra points.

Good Luck and Enjoy!

Communication

Nursery-P3 are set up on Seesaw now and P4-7 are getting set up with their class Teams on GLOW. I have had a few questions from parents about communication and so have created a page on the website to clarify our systems. It can be accessed here. Then use the back button to return here.

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.

Running Club

The P6/7 Running Club is currently full but we are keeping a waiting list. We will prioritise P7s as spaces become available as P6s will get a chance again next year.

Ardroy

P7 parents – please look out for a letter coming home about the residential trip and payment plans.

P7 Maths Challenge

If your child is taking part, please note that their entry will be due in by the end of this term.

P3 Homework

The P3 class page has been update with a link to homework ideas. Click here to access it.

Updated Information

I have updated one section of the school website to reflect our policy on nuts in school and Covid guidance. It can be accessed here with new information marked in bold.

Seesaw – Information for Nursery, P1-3 Parents

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.