Welcome back! We hope you had a fabulous Festive Break. Click on the link below to view our January 2023 Newsletter.
Merry Christmas from P4!
Miss Gordon and Primary 4 want to wish all our families a very merry Christmas! Hope you all have a lovely holiday and we look forward to seeing the children back in the New Year x
A Festive Head Teacher Message – December 2022
Dear Families,
The weather outside may be frightful, but our Christmas celebrations have been delightful! Our Nativity was a fabulous show and we have also had a little snow!
Our festive celebrations have been spectacular this year. Our Christmas Fair was a huge success, raising over £1700 for School Funds. A huge thank you to everyone who donated items and / or came along. There was a great atmosphere and it was lovely to see everyone in such festive spirits!
This years Nativity ‘It’s A Baby’ was a huge hit and gave Broadway a run for its money. Well done to our Primary 1 and 2 pupils who worked tirelessly alongside their teachers and Support for Learning Workers to put on such a fantastic show. Well done everyone!
As you will be aware we had some very special visitors in our school last week – Our HMI Inspectors. The team very much enjoyed their time with us and provided lots of positive feedback in relation to our school journey and how we support our young people and their families. A full report of our inspection will follow in due course. I would like to take this opportunity to thank our pupils, staff, families and partners who contributed in many different ways to our inspection. We really are a fantastic team here at Camstradden!
Late-coming – In our last newsletter, I reminded you about our school day, but lateness remains a huge concern. Please remember, our school day runs from 9am until 3pm. The start of the school day is vitally important, as routines, expectations, learning intentions and news are shared at this time. The expectation is that everyone lines up outside at 9am and we look forward to welcoming all of our pupils back to school on time each day following the Festive Break. We also respectfully ask that pupils are collected on time at 3pm.
Free Bus Travel Reminder- All young people in Scotland aged 5 – 21 are now entitled to free bus travel using a valid National Entitlement Card. The website freebus.scot has lots of information about free bus travel, how it works, how to apply, the benefits and some tips for travelling safely too.
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all our staff team for their continued hard work and dedication to our wonderful school. Each member of staff works tirelessly to ensure we are getting it right for the young people we work with. I am sure you will join me in wishing them all a well-deserved, restful holiday.
School starts back on Wednesday the 4th of December 2022 at 9am and we look forward to seeing our fabulous pupils then. I would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and all the best for the New Year. I look forward to continuing to work with you all in 2023.
Yours
Miss L Davidson
Acting Head Teacher
Letter to Families Regarding Ongoing Industrial Action – 10, 11 & 16 January 2023
Potential school closures due to ongoing industrial action – 10, 11 & 16 January 2023
Dear Parent/Carer,
I wanted to write to you ahead of the Christmas and New Year holidays to let you know about
planned strikes by several teacher unions.
Since the dates are at the beginning of the new term, it does not give us much time when the
schools return to let you know about potential disruption. However, the unions have notified the Council of their intention to take part in industrial action on the following dates affecting primary and secondary schools on different days.
The planned strike days are as follows:
Tuesday 10 January 2023: All Primary schools, including ASL primary schools
Wednesday 11 January 2023: All secondary schools, including ASL secondary schools
Monday 16 January 2023 – Primary and Secondary schools, including ASL schools.
If nothing changes in the next few weeks, it is likely that our schools will be closed to pupils on the above dates, as we have no way of knowing in advance how many staff will be reporting for work. In addition, different unions have coordinated their action this time to take place on the same days.
Our intention is that nursery classes and standalone nurseries will open as normal.
I know that this uncertainty is far from ideal and will mean that you may need to make alternative arrangements at short notice once again.
I apologise once again for a situation that is beyond the Council’s control, since pay negotiations
take place at a national level. Thank you for your understanding during this difficult period.
As always, we will continue to keep you informed as soon as we have any new information and will update the Council’s normal communication channels.
Yours sincerely
DOUGLAS HUTCHISON
Executive Director of Education
Pupil Of The Day in P4
Each class selects a pupil randomly every day to be ‘pupil of the day’. The pupil of the day receives compliments all day. Primary 4 love receiving compliments and say it makes them feel happy. All children get a shot of being pupil of the day and when it is your child’s turn you will get a message on Seesaw with some of their favourite compliments from that day. Look out for a post with this attached to it!
Office Opening Times Update
CONTACT US:
0141 944 2971
If there is no one available to take your call please leave a message and we will get back to you as soon as possible or email the school – headteacher@camstradden-pri.glasgow.sch.uk
OFFICE OPENING TIMES:
Monday – Thursday 8.30am to 4pm
Closed from 12.15pm until 1pm for lunch.
Friday 8.30am to 3.30pm
Closed from 12.15pm until 1pm for lunch.
What We’ve Been Up To In The Acorn Room…
Our morning groups have been developing their listening and talking skills. We have been learning to use our words to communicate how we are feeling and to ask for support. We have also had opportunities to play with our peers and share resources positively. We are developing our literacy and numeracy skills in a small group before applying what we have learned in our main class. Our core groups are growing in confidence and like to support one another which is so lovely to see!
Afternoon Groups
Monday Multi-Sports Group 
We have been learning about different sports including tennis, hockey, football and team games. Children are encouraged to listen carefully and follow instructions. We support children to have a growth mindset when facing a challenge and to give every activity their best try. Children also have some calm play time in the Acorn Room where they have opportunities to build their communication skills in a small group.
Tuesday PEEK Group
In this group we have been developing our art skills and outdoor learning experiences. We are lucky to welcome children and staff from Antonine Primary at this time. It has been great to build positive relationships with children and adults from another school. Children particularly enjoy outdoor cooking sessions and getting involved in some messy art! Jenifer from PEEK loves to gather the children’s views and create fabulous lessons that grab their interest!
Wednesday Football Group 
Our coach Sharon is so impressed with the progress this group are making! We are seeing some great, supportive interactions between our pupils. Chldren are developing their football knowledge and also their positive communication skills. Sharon loves to encourage the pupils to share what they have learned and support their friends.
Thursday PEEK – Playground Buddies 
With support and training from our PEEK partners, a selection of our Primary 5’s have been learning to be playground buddies. This involves the children taking on a leadership role in supporting younger pupils to play games positively. This has been a big challenge for our P5’s. They have been working hard to build their confidence and communication skills and have led some play for our Primary 4 pupils. Keep up the great work P5 Playground Buddies!
Friday PE and Sensory Play Group 
For some of our pupils, being in the gym hall in a large group can be challenging. This session gives those pupils the opportunity to participate in physical activity while in a small group; this is then followed by some lovely, calm sensory time. We hope to build the children’s confidence and provide some positive routines in the gym hall that our pupils can transfer when using the space with their main class. Our current focus is following safety rules in the gym hall and children are making steady progress.
Invitation to Primary 1 & 2 Christmas Nativity – ‘It’s a Baby’
Dear Parents/Carers,
We would like to invite you to our Christmas Nativity performance of ‘It’s a Baby’ on Tuesday 20th December 2022 at 2pm. The performance will last approximately 45 minutes and will take place in our school dinner hall. Our Primary 1 children have main parts in this year’s Nativity and our Primary 2 children will perform as the choir.
We look forward to seeing you at our performance!
Term 2 in Primary 2
The children in Primary 2 have all settled well into their classes and we have been working hard in all areas of the curriculum.
Health and Wellbeing:
In P.E this term we have been further developing our ball skills. We have learned different ways to throw a ball and to catch with more accuracy. We are exploring different ways to keep our body and mind healthy, celebrating our skills and achievements, and setting targets to gain new skills.
Science:
We are learning about our 5 senses and their functions in Science. We have investigated our sense of smell, sight and hearing so far. We are looking forward to continuing to explore taste and touch!
IDL/Topic:
We have explored our local environment and compared this to the past as we learn about dinosaurs and their habitats. We have been busy searching for and creating our own dinosaur fossils from salt dough. We have also learned about individual dinosaurs and their unique characteristics. We are looking forward to investigating volcanoes as the term continues.
Technologies:
We are learning to program the BeeBots to move from one place to another using directional language.
Literacy:
Our focus this term is to continue to increase our knowledge of common words, to enable the children to read more fluently.
We are learning to develop our descriptive language and are using to write about settings.
We are also learning about procedural writing and writing instructions.
Numeracy
We are continuing our work on adding and subtracting skills within numbers to 50. We are expanding our knowledge of counting in 2’s, 5’s and 10’s to 100. We are investigating place value and learning to identify tens and ones. We are exploring making totals and giving change up to the value of £1.
Expressive Arts:
P2 are very lucky and have music specialists working with us on Fridays. The emphasis is on singing, concentrating on pitch and rhythm. We will also be helping as the choir in the Nativity Play. In Art our focus is creating sculptures using clay and junk. We are also learning some Scottish Country dances!
RME:
We have been learning about the Hindu celebration of Diwali. We have learned the story of Rama and Sita and about DIwali traditions. We will also be learning about Christmas traditions around the world. We will learn how Christians celebrate Christmas and about the Christmas story.
Stars of the Week:
Primary 2a’s star is Jayden
Primary 2b’s star is Rhys
Star Writer:
Primary 2a’s star writer is Laylah
Primary 2b’s star writer is Robert B
Congratulations!!
Miss Gibb, Mrs Juttla and Miss Fraser
P5’s term so far
Reading
We have continued to consolidate a range of reading strategies throughout this term including predicting, clarifying, and questioning; with the new skill of concluding being introduced in the coming weeks. Each group has made progression within their book bandings and the pupils have continued to enjoy our class novel of “The Firework Maker’s Daughter”.
Writing
This term we have completed our block of writing around setting, experiencing many successes within this genre and enjoying some opportunities for group idea generation. We have now moved onto 1st person recount and will be focussing on how to express their emotions throughout their piece.
Numeracy
In numeracy, we have consistently revisited strategies from term 1 to ensure they remain fresh in our minds. Additionally, we have explored the use of fractions in relation to both shape and quantity. Our primary numeracy focus has been on multiplication and division strategies, and improving our times table fluency.
Social Subjects
Within our Energy and Sustainability topic we have investigated our carbon footprints and how to reduce them, the sources and importance of renewable energy, line drawings and social dance. Additionally, we have been practising our conversational French skills and learning how to describe the weather.
