You are now invited to make appointments for the school’s next parent-teacher meetings. These will be held Face to Face in School not by video call. We are using the Parents Evening Booking system to allow you to choose your appointment but we will not be using the video call system as we did when Covid Restrictions were in place.

Parent Teacher Appointments will be held on:

Each appointment is 10 minutes long – this is an opportunity to meet your child’s teacher and discuss their progress. It is not long enough to raise new concerns or issues. If there is anything causing you concern, please contact me in advance rather than saving it until the meeting and we will do the same.

To make your appointments please login at: Parents Evening Booking System

To login you will need to enter your name, your child’s name ([First Name] [Last Name]) and your child’s date of birth. The login details you enter must match those we have on record for you.

Appointments are available to book until 12 Noon on Friday 3rd March. If you want to meet with your child’s teacher this term, you must book by then. Please do not attempt to reschedule your meeting after that time as the system will not let you do so.

After you have made your appointments you can choose to print or e-mail confirmation. When the day of your appointment comes, please come to the front door of the school five minutes before your first appointment is due to begin. I am looking forward to welcoming you as you arrive and will direct you to the classroom to meet your child’s teacher.

If you cannot login please contact the school office.

N.B. The email address field on the login page is only used to send your appointment confirmation. If you have problems logging in, it will not be because of the e-mail address you entered. If you would like some detailed instructions on how to use Parents Booking, you can download a guide by clicking here. Please disregard the section on joining the video call as you are only using the system for booking.

The system will only allow you to book one appointment per child and time only allows for one appointment per child (except in exceptional circumstances). If both parents can’t attend together, we ask that one attends and the other feeds back to them. If one face to face meeting doesn’t work for your family, please get in touch with me to discuss.

With thanks for your support,

Lucy Jess lucy.jess@fife.gov.uk

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 Currie (Rector) and Mr Wishart (DHT) today.

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.

P4-7 will have the House Quiz on Tuesday – the questions will all be based on the theme Life of Land.

Thank you to everyone who came to the open afternoons this week. It was lovely to see you in school. We will be in touch soon about booking Parent Teacher meetings in March and we’ll look forward to seeing you again then.

P7 Transition to S1

P7 parents – please remember there is the final open evening at Madras on 23rd February from 6-7pm. If you haven’t yet visited the school with your child, I recommend you attend this meeting. In the early part of February we will have a meeting from Mr Currie (HT) and Mr Wishart (DHT) who will meet with all of the children. We have already begun to share information to support transition and in May, the guidance team will visit school to meet with us to ensure they have all the final necessary details. In the summer term, all children will make transition visits to Madras. The main three day visits are on 13th, 14th and 15th June and there is an open evening for parents and P7s on the evening of 15th. Some children will benefit from additional visits over and above that and this will be arranged according to need. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or concerns about your child’s transition to Madras.

Carpark

Please remember there is no pedestrian or cycle access through the carpark. There are moving vehicles at all times. Please don’t let your child walk or cycle through the carpark even if you are with them and anyone arriving on a bike should dismount at the pedestrian gate and push their bike through the grounds. Thank you for your support in this.

Nursery Contribution

Nursery children have been enjoying a range of foods at snack again this week – this is only possible with the help of contributions to Nursery fund. If you haven’t made a contribution yet and are able to do so, please refer back to the email about doing so or speak to Lisa in the office for help.

Office Hours

Nicola Bates has joined Lisa in the school office in the post vacated by Tracy when she moved to Balmerino. Nicola is here on a Thursday and Friday morning. If you need to speak to someone in the office, please note the office is open between 8.15 and 1.15 and 1.45 and 3.15. If you call outwith these hours you will get the answer phone – please leave a message and it will get picked up when the office reopens. If you call during these hours and get the answer machine, leave a message and it will get picked up as quickly as possible – we will call you back if needed.

Message from Active School

Message from the Foodbank

The foodbank would like to thank everyone for their kind donations last term.  We are here to support the community should anyone require our help. We have an emergency mobile number 07840957039 where you can speak to someone at any time, or you can visit our website www.taybridgefoodbank.org.uk

Open Afternoons

All parents are welcome to drop in to school to visit the P1-7 areas and see the displays of work following our ‘Life on Land’ themed work. You can drop in from 3.15 – 4.15 on Wednesday 25th and Thursday 26th January. Please bring your child with you so you can discuss the work and please come to the front door where I will meet you and direct you. Nursery parents are also welcome to come along – it is a lovely chance to have a first look at your child’s P1 area. Please do introduce yourself to me at the door – I am still putting names to faces after so long working virtually due to Covid.

Happy New Year to all out families and welcome back to school.

P1-7 Open Afternoons

All children in P1-7 are busy working on a ‘Life on Land’ theme during the first two weeks of term. Their work will be displayed and P1-7 parents are invited to come into school on 25^th and 26^th January between 3.15-4.15 to look at the displays. Please came to the front door of the school and you will be able to go upstairs with your child to visit their classroom and see the displays. You are welcome to visit all the classrooms in the school, not just your child’s! This is not an opportunity to look at jotters or meet with your child’s teacher (there will be parents evenings later in the term to do that) it is an opportunity to look at your child’s learning environment and the displayed work with them and we are greatly looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible in school on those days.

Nursery Enrolments

Nursery enrolments for session 2023-24 are now open. If your child is due to start nursery at any point during the next academic year, you should apply for their place now. This applies to children who turn 3 before the end of February 2024. If your child is currently nearly 2 or is already 2, it is time to apply! Click here for details. If your child is already in our nursery and does not start school in August, you don’t need to reapply unless you want to make changes to their current placement. If your child is of school age in August but won’t have yet turned 5 and you are considering deferring them in Nursery for an additional year, you should speak to me as soon as possible as the deferment paperwork needs to be completed by 31st January 2023.

P1 Enrolment will open soon.

Dates

Click here to access dates for the whole school year. Please note that there is a change to the previously advertised P1-7 Sports Day date.

Please remember that, as per the letter from Carrie Lindsay last term, our school and nursery will be closed on 10th and 18th January due to Teachers’ strikes. We will let you know in a timely fashion if the strikes should be cancelled and school and nursery be open as usual.

Items for the Office

If you need to hand something into the office, you can place it in the plastic box which is now outside the door. This will save you needing to ring the bell and wait for an answer or join a queue if it is a busy time. If you need to speak to someone, still ring the door and we will help. The box is for those dropping something off. It will be monitored and brought in regularly.

Christmas Dates

The Christmas Lunch will be on 15th December – your child does not need to wear uniform that day, they can come in a Christmas Jumper (or another favourite jumper).

Click here for all other dates – please check you know when your child’s performances and party are.

Thank you to everyone who has been in touch this week to let us know how much their child enjoyed the panto – it was a wonderful day and I am grateful to all the staff for their hard work in making it happen.

The whole school is going to the panto on 7th December. The show is Cinderella at the Rothes Hall. The performance is at 10am.

The buses will need to leave as soon as possible after 9am to get us there on time. Please bring your child to school from 8.45 onwards – the doors will be open and the staff will start toileting and registering from 8.45. Your child MUST be here by 9am or they risk missing the trip.

If your child is in P1-7, please send then with a snack for the interval – it should fit in their coat pocket as they won’t be taking a bag. We recommend something filling as we are having a late lunch. We aren’t taking water bottles because we don’t want them to get lost but we will give every child a carton of juice in the interval.

If your child is in nursery, the staff will provide a mid-morning snack as they usually do so you don’t need to send anything. The children will also have a drink there.

Lunch will be a packed lunch as we will be late back.

P1-7 parents – if you have already ordered your child’s choice on iPayImpact, they will get a school packed lunch. If you haven’t, please send them with a packed lunch from home.

Nursery will also have a cold lunch – this has already been ordered for them so parents don’t need to do anything.

With thanks for your support to make the trip run smoothly.

Lucy Jess

As previous advertised, the Christmas Shows are taking place at these times:

Your child will bring home a letter today with a tear off slip for ordering tickets and an explanation of how to do this. Every child will bring a letter home but your ticket order and allocation is per family not per child – all families with one or more children in P1-3 will be able to order 2 tickets for the P1-3 show (either performance). All families with one or more children in P4-7 will be able to order 2 tickets for the P4-7 show (either performance). This is explained in the letter. I anticipate the evening performances will be more popular than the afternoon performances. If at all possible, please order 1 ticket for the afternoon and 1 for the evening. This will help every parent in the school get to see the show. There is not capacity in the hall for every family to have two tickets for the same show which is why we are doing two performances.

We are supporting the Wormit Foodbank through our shows this Christmas. All profits will be donated to the food bank and we invite you to bring a food donation with you when you come to see the performance.

All children have a part in their show. I am hopeful that all children will be able to return to school for the 6pm performance but if you have a diary clash and can’t bring your child back to school, please let us know as soon as possible so that we can make sure all parts are covered on the night. Teachers will send home requests for items for costumes – please don’t but anything especially for the show, we can help if needbe.

The 1.45 performances are happening during the school day. If you purchase tickets for that performance please arrive no sooner than 1.35 to begin to take your seats in the hall. We will need to get the hall set up after lunch so won’t be able to open the doors earlier than that. Once the show ends, the children will return to class and be let out by their teacher at 3.05pm as usual.

For the 6pm performance, please bring your child to the front door between 5.30 and 5.40 – they will go up to class to get changed into their costume and you can take your seats in the hall (if you have tickets) or leave them with us if you don’t. After the show, the children will go back up to class. We will ask the audience to wait in the hall for about 10 mins while they get changed and then you can go up to collect your child. If you haven’t stayed to see the show, you should return to school at 7.15 for P4-7 (on the 14th) and 6.45 for P1-3 (on the 15th). As it will be dark, all children will need to be collected from class by an adult. We won’t let anyone walk home on their own.

We are greatly looking forward to having you back in school for Christmas Shows after so long.

Family Learning Pages

It has been lovely to invite so many parents into school this week – I hope those of you who have already had your appointment found it helpful to meet your child’s teacher and see the classroom. We are looking forward to the appointments still to come. I also wanted to remind you about the family learning pages on the school website (click here). These provide lots of ideas for learning from home for Nursery-P7 pupils.

Don’t Forget School and Nursery are closed to pupils on Friday 18th November for an inset day. Our Pupil Support Assistants will be taking part in Child Protection Training, our Early Years Officers are taking part in training relating to Personal Learning Planning and our Teachers are attending a moderation session with colleagues from across the Madras Cluster as well as an input on French from Madras colleagues.

Flu Vaccine Message from NHS

Dear parent/carer,

All children aged 2 to 5 years and Primary and Secondary school children are eligible for a flu vaccine this winter (children must be aged 2 years or above on 1 September 2022 to be eligible). If your child has missed their flu vaccination appointment and you want to rearrange this, please call the number on their invitation letter or call 0800 030 8013.  There is still time for your child to have the flu vaccine this winter. It’s not too late.

The flu vaccine is an easy, painless and safe way to help protect your child this winter. Children aged 2 years and older are usually given the flu vaccine as a quick nasal spray into each nostril. The vaccine offers protection against the most common types of flu virus that are around each winter. Even healthy children can become seriously ill from flu.

For more information visit www.nhsinform.scot/childflu or call 0800 030 8013.

from PHS Vaccine Confidence, Informed Consent and Equity team

Remembrance

We respected a two minutes silence in school today and we discussed Remembrance in classes and at Assembly.

Don’t Forget…

…Friday 18th is an inservice day and school and Nursery will be closed to pupils.

Message from Active Schools

Madras Rugby are once again offering pupils within our cluster the opportunity to take part in community rugby sessions. Here is the information about the sessions:

Madrascals NEW PLAYERS 2223 (1)

P1-7 Parent-Teacher Meetings

All children will bring home examples of their work today and we ask that you return the jotters on Monday (14th). If you haven’t booked an appointment yet it is too late for a routine appointment in this set of Parent-Teacher appointments but if you have issues you want to discuss for your child you should feel free to contact me at any time or you can contact the school office and ask to speak to your child’s teacher.

Panto

There is still plenty of time to pay the £10 contribution towards the cost of the panto – you can make pay via iPayImpact and please contact the office if you need help with this.