Health and Wellbeing – Royston Primary School

28 February, 2024

February Newsletter

January/February 2024

This session is flying past and Term 3 is no exception…Christmas seems like such a long time ago! Please read on to find out what is going on in Royston Primary.

Staffing

Our staffing situation has been quite fluid this session and continues to be moving forward. Miss Kelly and Miss Johnstone have both had beautiful baby girls! We wish them lots of love and laughter with their little ones! (We don’t tell them about the sleepless nights!!)

Mr Darren has now started in post as support for learning worker. Mr Darren is very familiar with the school and the pupils. He has been a great addition to our staffing and pupils relate very well to him.

Miss Armstrong is now the teacher in P6/5 whilst Miss Johnstone is on maternity leave. She has settled well and is working extremely hard with the pupils in her class.

In addition, both P7/6 and P6/5 have teaching students on their final placements. Miss Slaven and Miss Barton are working hard to bring the pupils exciting and engaging lessons.

We continue to work in partnership with Re:Hope Royston, who provide volunteer reading partners on a Tuesday and Wednesday. Some pupils have been selected to have their own volunteer who will read with them and support their understanding.

Library Visits

All pupils in school are taken to the library once per fortnight. Almost all pupils have library membership now and can chose books to take home to read. Pupils can use the library ANYTIME. When the pupils go with school, the library staff work with our pupils to ensure they are familiar with the library set up. They support them with themes and do activities with them. However, pupils can go change their books at any time – maybe at the weekend! The purpose of this is to encourage pupils to utilise this fantastic resource frequently so please do encourage your child to go to the library sometimes.

After School and Lunch Clubs

At present we have a number of after school and lunch activities running, or about to begin. These are:

P6 EuroQuiz training – Monday lunchtime

P3-5 Art Club – Monday after school

P5-7 Football – Monday lunchtime

P5-7 Basketball – Tuesday lunchtime

P5-7 and P2-4 Dance – Tuesday after school

P2-4 and P5-7 Coding – Tuesday after school

P1-3 Mindfulness – Tuesday after school

Makaton – Wednesday lunchtime

P5-7 Football – Wednesday lunchtime

P5-7 Football – Wednesday after school

P3-5 Board Games – Wednesday after school

P2-4 Fun Sports Club – Thursday lunchtime

P2-4 Multi Sports – Thursday after school

P5-7 Athletics – Friday lunchtime

The majority of our activities are run by school staff and we are extremely grateful to them for doing this out with their contracted working time! Staff undertake activities they think pupils will enjoy and do so in their own time; this is not a requirement for any member of staff. We are so lucky to have the most amazing staff team who care deeply about the pupils and the opportunities they have in school!

If your child wants to join an activity and they haven’t already, please tell them to ask Mr Steer or me about it. There are still spaces in some of the clubs.

School Website

We have been spending some time updating our school website. Please go on and have a peek – there is information for most classes!

https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/gc/roystonprimary

Anti- Bullying Development work

Following on from last term activities, we have created an action plan to keep us moving forward on the right track. This month we will be launching a first draft of our anti-bullying policy. We will be seeking the views of parents/carers, pupils and staff. We will be looking for a small focus group of parents/carers willing to come and talk to us about it…what they like and what could be better! Please look out for further information on this – coming soon!

Parent Appointments

Parent appointments will be on Thursday 7^th March. This is an opportunity for you to speak with your class teacher and hear about your child’s progress in school. It is crucial for your child that you make every effort to attend – the most successful learners are those who’s parents engage in their learning. If you are unable to attend the scheduled day/time, please contact us; we will be happy to arrange an alternative for you, given the importance.

Primary 7 Residential Trip

Primary 7 pupils will soon be venturing off to Perthshire Dalguise Outdoor Education Centre for their residential experience! This experience will be from 15^th-18^th March. Mr Thomson and Mrs Atala will be the adults attending, and we are extremely grateful to them for giving up their own weekend to accompany our pupils! Pupils will be getting some further information and kit list very soon. There is a small contribution for each pupil to pay of £20; this can be paid any time. (A little heads up, each child needs to take a sleeping bag and pillow this year! If you are struggling with this, tell us and we can help!)

Accreditations!

We have great news to share! As you will know, Royston Primary were working towards gaining accreditation for being a language and communication friendly establishment; and we got it! Pupils and staff have worked tremendously hard on this development and should extremely proud of their efforts. We thank Mrs Steer for leading us successfully through this process. We will continue to sustain the work undertaken as it has made a real difference to consistency across the school.

More great news! Last week we had Glasgow City Council Nurture quality assurance team visit to assess our nurture practice; both in the Orchard and across the school as a whole. This was extremely successful and the team visiting were very impressed with all that they saw. Excellent work staff and pupils; and especially Mr Thomson for leading the way in Royston Primary in Nurture!

Parental Engagement

We have some parental engagement sessions approaching that I would like to share with you:

P3/2 parents are invited into school on 20^th February at 2.30pm. Miss Gilyeat and Mrs Steer have some resources to share with you and are keen to support parents helping their child at home with literacy.

P2/1 parents’ are invited into school on 26^th February at 2.45pm. Mrs Steer has resources and strategies to share with you for literacy.

Mr Thomson is planning for STEM parent and child workshops for Term 4 April-May time. Please look out for further details.

We will soon share with you further details (involving all classes) on parental engagement for week beginning 11^th March – please look out for more information!

Congratulations to those P1-3 parents who completed the Families connect programme over the last few months. They completed a range of activities around maths, languages and well-being that will help them support their child well at home. This programme will run again next year so speak to Mr Thomson if you would be interested.

Breakfast club

Just a wee reminder for parents. Breakfast club is open from 8am every morning in the dining hall. We have very small numbers just now and I wonder whether parents/carers know this service is available. Pupils who are in receipt of free meals are entitled to a free breakfast. Otherwise the standard cost is £2.

LGBT Inclusive Education

Primary 7 pupils will be attending a half day workshop at City Chambers on 22^nd February about LGBT Inclusive Education. This is an ALLIES (Action and Learning for LGBT Inclusive Education in Schools) workshop delivered in partnership with TIE – Time for Inclusive Education.

Inclusion, in its widest sense, it a thread that runs through all aspects of school learning; it does not stand alone. It is important that when we use the term LGBT Inclusive education, that we remember this is about educating our children to be INCLUSIVE. It is NOT about encouraging children to make choices about their sexuality, it is simply teaching children that we do not exclude others based on aspects of their personality or who they are, e.g. gender, age, colour, ethnicity etc.

I’m sure you will agree that teaching about equality is important in our world today, and for the future.

Mother Tongue Groups

We have started a new initiative in school to encourage children to speak their home/family language, and celebrate that they can do this confidently! We have approx. 18 languages spoken amongst our pupils and families and this is something we should all be really proud of. What an excellent learning environment where pupils are surrounded by such diversity and culture.

Every second Thursday we invite pupils who speak a different language to English to join with others and engage in activities whilst speaking their family language. The pupils seem to be enjoying these sessions, as are the adults who are in awe of our pupils’ language skills!

We will soon open this out for some parents to get involved. If you speak a different language to English and you would like to get involved, please do let me know!

School Uniform

I have been noticing recently that our standards in uniform have slipped a little. I’m keen to get this back on track and ask for your support in doing so.

We want pupils to be comfortable and ready to learn and so we do not insist on shirt and tie, as some schools do. Pupils can wear shirt and tie or school polo shirt, along with school jumper or cardigan. If you do not have uniform items, please do let us know and we can help.

Pupils wear uniform to represent their school. They wear it to demonstrate their sense of belonging, in addition to safety and security reasons. We want our pupils to be proud of Royston Primary and what it stands for. We want them to wear their uniform to show this. Please support us with this.

We ask that pupils do not wear branded clothing, e.g. Nike, Hugo Boss etc. This clothing is very expensive and could get easily damaged during school activities. It also creates a divide between children who have branded clothing, and those who do not. We simply ask that all pupils wear our school uniform as it creates an ethos of equality for all pupils. Thank you for your support with this.

Jane McShane

headteacher@royston-pri.glasgow.sch.uk

0141 552 2872

30 November, 2023

Royston Primary Countdown to Christmas Newsletter

It’s beginning to looking a lot like Christmas!! Santa’s busy elves are hard at work preparing for a magical festive season in Royston Primary! See below for things happening!

Christmas Choir

The choir are practising like crazy…and they sound amazing! We have lots of locations for them to sing at…and shake their bucket! See below…

1^st December – Tesco St Rollox 10.30-11.30am
1^st December – Glasgow Fort 1-2pm
7^th December – Glasgow Fort 3-4.30pm
8^th December – Costco Springburn 12-2pm
12^th December – Forge Retail Park 12-1pm
12^th December – Forge Asda 1-2pm
15^th December – Forge Shopping Centre 11.30-12.30 and 1-2pm

Please feel free to pop along to any of the locations to watch our enthusiastic choir perform! (Dress warm for singing outside!!)

Christmas Trips!

This year we are trying out something completely different! We have dodged the whole school panto trips in favour of a Christmas day out for every pupil!

P1-2 will be visiting the Winter Wonderland at Goulding Centre Carluke on 14^th December. Bus will leave school at 11am and return at around 3.30pm – depending on traffic of course! Pupils will enjoy walking the gorgeous Winter wonderland, a visit to Santa’s grotto (where there might be a special gift for them) and lots of fun in the Winter fun fair with fairground rides!

P3-7 will be visiting New Lanark Christmas Spectacular on 6^th December. Buses are leaving sharp at 9am – DO NOT MISS THE BUS! Pupils will enjoy festive ice skating, a visit to Santa’s Grotto, a Christmas show and a ‘Christmas Through the Years’ ride! Buses are expected to return by 3pm – depending on traffic!

Pupils need a packed lunch on their trip day. Pupils should wear school uniform for security reasons. School trips this year are costing around £22 per pupil. We are asking for a small contribution of £4 per pupil to be paid as soon as possible. Many people have paid already – thank you!

Roystonhill Community Hub Christmas Fun Day 12^th December

Whilst the choir are out performing, P1-4 will be visiting the community fun day at Spireview. This is always a great event and is completely free!

Christmas Lunch

This will be on the 13^th December. Pupils can enjoy a three course lunch with crackers and music…all served to them at their table by the staff! Order forms were sent out last week – please return this if your child wishes their lunch that day.

Christmas Grotto

Our Grotto is back again this year…bigger and better! Pupils are in for a treat on 12^th/13^th/14^th December with Christmas crafts, stalls, a Christmas movie and hot chocolate! The grotto is decorated beautifully for the pupils…always the WOW factor!

Pupils can bring some money to buy some lovely Christmas gifts if they wish!

Infant Christmas Nativity!

Our primary 1 and P3/2 pupils will be performing their very own Christmas Nativity. There is always a fun theme to this and pupils give a huge effort with singing, dancing and narrating. The nativity will be held on 15^th December at 9.30am and we invite parents, family and friends along as our audience. I do hope you can manage along; it always proves to be a memorable event! Tea/coffee and cakes for all adults!

Christmas Parent Hamper

Tickets for this year’s parent hamper will go on sale 4^th December and draw will take place 15^th December. Tickets for parents are £1 and can be bought from the school office. If you are sending money with your child please tell them to go to the school office to get tickets.

Christmas Jumper Day

Christmas jumper day this year is on the 15^th December! No money needed – a free event!

Christmas Parties

P3-5 party is on 18^th December 1.15-2.45pm

P6-7 party is on 19^th December 1.15-2.45pm

P1-2 party is on 20^th December 1.15-2.45pm

Pupils can come to school dressed for their party in the afternoon. If you would prefer to take your child home at lunch time to get them dressed please let us know by calling the school office beforehand. We can let you know collection and drop off arrangements when you call.

School Christmas Fayre 2023

Back by popular demand our school Christmas Fayre on 1^st December! Our Parent Council are working very hard in preparation for this extravagant event linking in with the Royston Christmas Light Switch on! Christmas Fayre will be from 4.30-6.30pm, with the lights going on at 5.30pm. There will be lots of games, things to buy and prizes to be won! Please do come along and bring friends, family and neighbours!

Guess the birthday of BIG TED will run from Monday 27^th November…50p a chance!

Kids raffle with excellent prizes will start next week…50p a strip!

Christmas Holidays

Pupils will finish school at 2.30pm on 22^nd December 2023

Pupils will return to school at the usual timings on 8^th January 2024

30 November, 2023

November Newsletter

November/December 2023

We had an incredibly busy term 1, with term 2 is shaping up much the same! How can we be nearly in December already! Please do read on as I share some current information and dates that you will want to know about.

Staffing

Miss Kelly has now started her maternity leave so is no longer in school. We wish her lots of luck as she embarks on the new and exciting adventure of being a parent!

Mrs Mair has now returned from maternity leave. She works three days each week; Monday-Wednesday, and is teaching mainly in P7/6 and P6/5 (with a little bit of work in P4/3 also) We are delighted to see her back in the Royston team!

Mr Doherty has increased his work pattern from three days to four. His working week is now Tuesday-Friday and he is class teacher for P7/6. Mr Doherty is a valued member of staff and we are pleased that he has increased his working days!

Miss Gorrell has now left her post as support for learning worker. We currently have a vacancy which is advertised, and we hope to interview and fill this post as soon as possible.

In addition, we have a number of ongoing students working with pupils. Strathclyde University teaching students provide a literacy and numeracy clinic for individuals across our school and give pupils some extra intensive teaching time to support their development.

Our main priority is that our pupils know who the trusted adults are in school and what their purpose is. This is very important to us; pupils need to know why they may be working with individuals and what the expected goal is. Please do let us know if you have any questions or concerns regarding staffing, I am happy to talk this through with you.

Gardening

Currently our gardening work in partnership with North Glasgow Community Food Initiative has currently paused.

Class teachers are still engaging pupils in outdoor learning, so please continue to ensure your child has appropriate clothing for learning outside.

Parent Portal

Thank you to all parents who have successfully managed to sign up for parent portal. It is really important that we get everyone signed on as soon as possible. Any future consent forms will be completed via parent portal due to GDPR restrictions, and any updating of parental information needs to be done through the portal. We will soon have outings for ALL children in school; please get signed up asap so that you don’t miss their consent form for this. We well also soon be adding various school communications to the portal such as newsletters, letters etc.

If you are having difficulty or are unable to do this successfully, please do pop into the school office or speak to me – we can help!

Head lice

We appear to be having a little flair up of head-lice at the present time. Please do check your child’s head (boys and girls) regularly for the eggs or creatures and go straight to the pharmacy for advice if you spot anything. It is absolutely impossible to keep head-lice completely out of primary school, especially for small children, but quick treatment helps to keep instances to a minimum.

Bullying Development Work

As per our school improvement priorities this session, and listening to our parent voice, we are undertaking development work around anti-bullying. Staff have undergone intensive training on anti-bullying in order to ensure consistency in knowledge and understanding school wide. All staff have completed various e-modules with organisation ‘RESPECT ME’. We continue to deepen our knowledge and progress with our research around this theme.

Anti-Bullying week is coming up (13^th-17^th November) and we will be launching our anti-bullying theme in all classes. Pupils will be learning about bullying; what this looks like, how it can make people feel, what to do if they feel they are being bullied etc. Class teachers have a week full of excellent activities in line with this year’s Anti-Bullying 2023 Focus ‘Listen up: Respect our Rights’. Pupils will share their thinking and opinions on Bullying in school and be actively involved in designing suitable strategies to manage incidents as they occur. We will also be seeking the views of parents. It is incredibly valuable to hear your thoughts on this important matter. Staff only see things from school perspective, but you see things much more fully! Pupils only spend 15% of their time in school, they spend 85% under your care outwith school! We need to work together to combat bullying for our Royston pupils!

Parental Engagement

In relation to above, we would like to invite all parents into school on Friday 17^th November from 10.30am – 12.15pm. This is to go into your child’s class and see some of the anti-bullying work they are doing. Your child can explain what they are working on and share their learning; all pupils love it when their parent/carer is able to come along!

Once you have spent some time in class, we will then gather all our parents together for a short presentation based on the work we have done around anti-bullying. We are also hoping to create a parent focus group to support this development and we will discuss this at our presentation. We really hope to have a great turn out for this event as I know you will be keen to engage in such crucial work.

Breakfast Club

Secondary Transition

Parents of pupils in primary 7 should now be thinking about transition to secondary school! I know it can be difficult to come to terms with your child moving on from primary, but we need to start making plans now.

ALL P7 pupils are currently in the Springburn Academy catchment. All pupils have been allocated a place at Springburn. If you wish your child to attend a different secondary school, you are required to complete a placing request form online. Many of you have done this already and we have helped some people to do this. If you are finding it difficult to complete the online form, please do let us know, we can help. If you do not complete a form for your child, they will automatically attend Springburn Academy.

School Communication

I just wanted to give a wee reminder that most communication from school will come via email. We have email contacts for every pupil’s parent/carer and we regular send out communication this way. We also get a notification if an email cannot be delivered to a particular address. Recently we can see that all emails are being received by all contacts. I would urge you to open and read the contents of the communication, as there is often very important information contained. If you wish to change your email contact, please just let us know.

Sponsored Sports Day

I wish to formally thank all parents, carers, families and friends for supporting our event with great enthusiasm! The pupils had such a fun day, enjoying a range of activities from yoga to obstacle courses! Your sponsor money goes a long way in supporting our up and coming festive events! Thank you so much!!

Parental Surveys

Thank you very much to all those who took the time to complete our parental survey at the end of term 1. We really appreciate all the comments made and aim to work on these to make the improvements you and your children would like to see.

Toy Sale

We will be hosting our annual Toy Sale on the 23^rd November. If you have any pre-loved/new/used toys that you want to clear out, please bring them our way! In addition, if you have any carrier bags that you want to clear out, we will take these too! We are always struggling at these events to have enough bags for pupils – any donations gratefully received!

Pupils can bring money on that day and all pupils will get a chance to go and buy some things! It is always a little crazy, but pupils appear to love it!!

Christmas

We are planning out a month of fun for pupils, with various different activities for each class.

We have booked whole day outings for every pupil as follows:

P3-7 will be visiting New Lanark Christmas Experience 2023 on 6^th December. Pupils will leave sharp in the morning and travel by coach. They will be involved with the singing elves, trying out some ice skating, visiting Santa’s grotto, and watching a show in the festive room! Sounds like a great day ahead!

P1-2 will be visiting Goulding Winter Wonderland 2023 on 14^th December. The buses will leave sharp in order to maximise the day. Pupils will walk through the wonderland trail and visit the singing penguins. They will have a visit to Santa’s toyshop and have unlimited rides on the fun fair rides. They will also get to visit Rudolph and the donkeys!

The cost per pupil is around £30 – most of which we can use sponsor money, dress down money and other contributions. However, we do still ask that each child pays a contribution of £4 for the day.

We have many other Christmas plans which are not yet finalised…we will share these with you soon!

Jane McShane

headteacher@royston-pri.glasgow.sch.uk

0141 552 287

1 December, 20221 December, 2022

November Newsletter

October/November 2022

Here we go with term 2! All sorts of things have been happening and more planned for the upcoming few weeks! Read on to find out more…

Sponsored Skip

I just want to say a huge THANK YOU for all efforts in this sponsor. A massive £1025 was raised in sponsorship…this is the largest total we have ever raised! As I continually say, every penny put into the school fund goes back to the children in some way or other. This money will be used to support all of our December activities for the children…we have big plans this term!

Staff and Staffing

I would like to congratulate almost all of our teachers who have recently completed level 2 accredited Makaton training! They are an amazing bunch who have worked very hard for this accreditation! All classes are learning Makaton now as an inclusive approach to communicating with all learners. Pupils are learning that we are all different and we ALL have our own needs, but just because we may be ‘different’, we shouldn’t be excluded.

I have happy/sad new also! I am absolutely delighted to say that Mrs Mair is expecting a baby! Baby is due in a few weeks and Mrs Mair will finish for maternity leave on 21^st November. We can’t wait to see Mrs Mair come back for a visit to have some baby cuddles! Primary 1 will get a new teacher – the new teacher will be confirmed as soon as I know.

We will be having a new administration person joining Mrs Spence in the school office. Her name is Ms Morrison and she will be with us every Tuesday and Wednesday. We look forward to her starting with us next week.

Halloween

Pupils had a fantastic afternoon at their Halloween party! It was great to have everyone back together dress up and ready to party again! Thanks to the parent council for their amazing tuck shop efforts!

Billy Jean King Tournament

All primary 6 and 7 pupils will be attending the tournament at the Emirates Arena next Wednesday. I think they will really enjoy the experience. Pupils will be transported there and back by bus and will need to take a packed lunch. We are hoping a couple of parents will be able to come along and help to supervise in this busy venue – please get in touch with Mr Steer if you would be willing to help.

New P1 enrolment

Next week is enrolment week for new entrants for August 2023. Enrolments forms should be completed online. If you have any issue with this, please let us know and we will try to help. I can’t believe we are talking about the new session already!!

P7 Transition

I have been talking to many of our primary 7 parents about transition to secondary school. It cannot be assumed that our P7 pupils will automatically transfer to St Roch’s Secondary, although this is the popular choice amongst parents. Our catchment secondary school is Springburn Academy. If you do not wish your child to transfer to Springburn, you must complete an online placement request form. The link to the form has been sent to P7 parents already. You should complete this asap to give your child the best chance of success. St Roch’s will only be able to accept placement requests if they have the space and teachers to accommodate them. If you do decide to put in a placement request form for an alternative to Springburn, you will not hear a decision until April/May time. This means that in order to give our pupils some kind of transition experience, we will do some activities with Springburn Academy. This makes no difference to which secondary school your child will eventually attend.

Homework

New homework grids are ready to come to you and your child on Monday 7^th November – first Monday of the month. These will be given to pupils and emailed to you, thus meaning that everyone has a copy of the tasks to be undertaken.

Attendance

I’m becoming a little concerned by our number of absences across the school. I totally appreciate there are times when pupils are not well enough to come to school and need to be at home being looked after. However, we have lots of absence for minor colds, coughs, aches and pains, and we have a number of absences that are not explained at all. It is in your child’s best interests to be in school every day. It is much harder for pupils to settle to a routine when it is continually broken by the odd day absence here and there. When we look at each individual pupil’s progress tracker in literacy and numeracy, it is very clear to see how progress and learning is negatively impacted for pupils who’s attendance is under 90%. Please do send your child to school every day possible. If they are unwell in school be assured, we will call you.

Pupil Interim Report

Interim Report cards will come out to you next week. These are fairly short and will give you an idea of how pupils have settled into the new school year.

Parent Appointments

We are literally over the moon to be able to welcome all parents back into school for formal parent appointments! For 2 and a half years we have spent a lot of time talking to parents on the phone due to virus restrictions…and this isn’t great for you or us!! We look forward to welcoming parents to appointments on Thursday 17^th November. Appointments will run from 3.30pm-7.30pm. All parents will be allocated an appointment time. If you are unable to make it to your time, please contact the office and we will make an alternative arrangement. Our appointments for parents requiring an interpreter will be on Wednesday 23^rd November. I look forward to seeing you very soon.

Toy Sale

We will be holding our annual Toy Sale on the 25^th November. We hope this might give you the opportunity to have a clear our prior to Christmas! Please bring any unwanted toys to the school – any time between now and 25^th November!

Winter jackets and shoes

Just a little reminder to ensure your child has appropriate footwear and jacket for wet weather. We don’t stay inside when it rains! Apparently there is no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing!! As I say to pupils, we live in Scotland – it rains A LOT! If pupils are well dressed, there is no reason for them not to go outside for exercise and fresh air when the weather is rainy! We will only keep pupils inside during breaktimes if there is a weather risk…eg high winds, weather warnings etc.

Photographer

School photographs will be taken on 18^th November. We will be taking individuals, family groups and class groups. I encourage you to dress your child smartly in shirt and tie if you have that.

City wise

CityWise mentors will be re-commencing with us again on Monday 7^th November for P7 pupils. CityWise mentors support our pupils to explore themselves – their strengths, what makes them unique, friendships etc. and will also have conversations about future plans. Our mentors are from Glasgow University and come to Glasgow to study from all over the world. It is such a great opportunity for pupils to learn and have time to self-reflect.

Committees and Houses

We are soon to re-commence our committees in school…these have been refreshed to increase pupil interest and motivation. We have the following committees…

Pupil Council

Sport Captains

Eco

Equalities

Health and wellbeing

SNAG – School Nutrition Action Group

RRS – Rights Respecting Schools

Digital Leaders

We have decided to change things a little by involving ALL pupils in a committee. Previously it has been a small group per committee but this session we want to involve all our pupils in one committee each. Our first meeting is 11^th November – ask your child about it after school that day!

All pupils are also in a House group – Ruby, Emerald, Sapphire or Diamond. Our house groups P1-7 meet on the last Friday of every month and take part in collaborative activities to give them a sense of House belonging!

Parental Engagement Sessions

Week beginning 21^st November all classes will be welcoming parents into class! I don’t know exact days and times for this but these will come out very soon. Classes will decide whether they want their parents to come see some work they have been doing or whether they would simply like you to come and work alongside them! Pupils and teachers are thinking about this just now. Look out for more details soon.

Christmas Fayre

Parent council have their thinking caps on just now – hoping to make this Christmas Fayre bigger and better than ever! It is great to be in a position where we can plan our events again – we have been so restricted for so long. Watch out for more details coming soon.

Christmas

Eek – Christmas is fast approaching and we have lots of exciting things lined up! Many of our activities are things we have done before but not been able to do for a while now…it’s nice to get back to the fun stuff again!!

Mr Doherty will soon be looking for choir members. We have a number of gigs lined up for the group to sing their heart out and shake their bucket! Rehearsals will be starting soon! As soon as we have a finalised list of dates we will share this with you.

P4/3-P7/6 will be attending the King’s Theatre Pantomime on 13^th December in the afternoon, to see Beauty and the Beast. Pupils will return to school approximately 4pm.

P3/2 and P1 will be attending Platform Theatre on 14^th December to see Sleeping Beauty. This is an afternoon performance but pupils will arrive back to school for 3pm school finish.

The cost for all pupils is £3. This is a heavily subsidised cost for the outing and can be paid any time between now and the panto date as above.

We will be having a refreshed version of our Christmas Grotto this year! Pupils will embark on the journey through Christmas with lots of exciting and interesting activities to take part in! I don’t want to spoil any surprises so I can’t share any more information with you! Grotto dates are 8^th and 9^th December and are in school.

P1 and P3/2 will be performing in the Christmas Nativity this year! This will be in the morning of the 16^th December. More details to follow. 16^th December will also be Christmas jumper day!

All Christmas parties will be during week beginning 19^th December – more details to follow when we have them!

Jane McShane

headteacher@royston-pri.glasgow.sch.uk

7 September, 2022

September Newsletter

August/September 2022

Welcome back all families P2-7 and a warm welcome to our P1 families just starting out on their primary career! It has been lovely to be back into routine again and pupils have had a smooth start in their new classes…although there are a few tired faces just now! Only to be expected! Please have a read at important information below and, as always, please do get in touch if you have any questions or concerns.

Classes

This session we have 5 classes…

P1 with Mrs Mair (and Mr Thomson on a Friday)

P3/2 with Miss Bonner

P4/3 with Miss Kelly

P6/5 with Mrs Young and Mr Doherty

P7/6 with Miss Johnstone (and Mrs Steer on a Wednesday)

Mr Thomson is working in the Orchard this year

Mr Steer is supporting numeracy across the school.

Mrs Steer is supporting literacy across the school.

As you will see below, our attainment figures are healthy and we continue to seek our new and exciting strategies to keep pupils fully engaged in learning.

Attainment across the school

We are very proud to share our attainment information with you – it demonstrates just how hard our pupils and staff are working every day to achieve the best!

In reading achievement is 76%

In writing achievement is 73%

In listening and talking achievement is 84%

In numeracy our achievement is 80%

Almost all percentages have increased and there is a steady upwards trend…good news!!

Attendance

As we embark on another school session it is important to follow up on the above percentages by addressing attendance. If pupils do not attend school with great regularity, they will not achieve to their full potential. We spend a lot of time in school talking about why learning is important and the purpose of aspects of learning. I cannot stress enough that evidence tells us that our pupils who have the highest attendance in school also have the best achievement. At present our school attendance is around 95% – this is very good and tells us that we do not generally have an attendance issue. This is more great news!

Please do try to get your child to school every single day! I know some mornings can be difficult with tired grumpy children, but once they are here, almost all of the time, they are absolutely fine! Please also be assured that we will contact you if your child is unwell – we do care about the pupils and their health and wellbeing is of utmost importance.

Meet the teacher

Yesterday all parents (apart from P4/3 parents) were invited into school for an informal chat with the teacher, a look at some resources and a wee slice of pizza! This event was very well attended – thank you for taking the time to come along! The food looked good but was all gone when I went for a slice!!

I hope you found it useful. Parental partnership is absolutely crucial in your child’s learning journey. Children who have parents willing to engage with school (as much as they can) will achieve more. Your knowledge of your child is the best and we utilise that to best support your child in their learning. Parents have so much to contribute to the learning process! Pupils only spend approximately 15% of their life per school year in school. This means that they spend 85% of their life per school year out of school. We squeeze in as much learning as possible, but the majority of a child’s learning happens out of school! Parents, you are the main educator – steer your child to be the best person they can be!

Communication

In keeping with our environmentally friendly processes, we are trying to increase our email communication with families. Instead of having paper copies of letters and information, we will regularly email these out. Please check your emails every day if possible as we do always have lots of information to share! We have email contacts for almost all families, please let us know if your address changes.

North Glasgow Community Food Initiative

We work in close partnership with NGCFI. Their gardener Charlotte has already started fortnightly sessions with every class. Charlotte plans and leads each session with the support of class teacher where pupils will learn about food technology and science, in addition to literacy and numeracy. We continue to try to ensure pupils are learning outdoor as much as possible. It is fun, healthy and provides an exciting stimulus for learning.

School Improvement Plan

Every year we write a school improvement plan to keep us on track with the improvements we identify as part of our self-evaluation processes…surveys, questionnaires etc. Some of the work we will be doing…

Increasing our attainment in literacy and numeracy – what will we do next to keep this moving in the right direction.
LCFE – Language and Communication Friendly Establishment accreditation. This is to ensure effective communication for all learners throughout the school – no matter their level of need.
Continue to increase our skills around digital literacy – everything changes at such pace…I think we will always be working on this!
Continue good work on our LGBT journey with all pupils. Often with our primary pupils this focuses on ‘What makes Me Me!’ We celebrate our differences… eye colour, hair, hobbies etc.
Engage in some new research and development work around ‘Anti-bullying’. We will never be blasé about bullying in Royston Primary, and we seek out consistent knowledge and understanding around the theme.
Increase our parent/child working groups…as we now move away from lockdown and C-19 restrictions, we are able to welcome many of you back into school for all sorts of purposes! Look out for information on this! Lots of exciting opportunities for family learning.

Parental Partnership

In keeping with the above theme, I wish to thank those who participated in our parental partnership survey in June 2022. This information is really useful to us. We had 29 responses.

Everyone felt they had a trusting and respectful relationship with staff. The individual comments were very positive.

The majority (20 out of 29) felt they could contribute to their child’s learning. We wish to support parents in this more effectively by engaging in more parent and child learning activities. We hope to see an increase in this number over the coming session. There were a few comments about learning only being for ‘in school’ time. As suggested above, we all work together in the learning journey

Almost all (28 out of 29) felt that school are responsive to their child’s needs. This demonstrates that we have a good knowledge and understanding of your child and their learning style.

Almost all (28 out of 29) felt their child was happy and safe coming to school.

This is extremely positive feedback for us and helps us to strengthen the good work we have been engaging in. I would really like for more parents to engage in surveys. In this instance we had 29 responses out of a possible 88.

Homework

As a result of parental and pupil feedback, we are reviewing our homework procedures. There are aspects of our current homework plan that work well and others needing updated and refreshed. As a staff, we will be addressing this, using the information you shared via survey to help us. In the meantime you can expect reading and spelling homework to be coming out very soon. We will keep you updated on developments.

Sponsored Skip

We will be doing a bit of fundraising between now and Christmas! We have already booked some Christmas treats for the pupils and we need to up our school fund to support this!!

Pupils will take part in a sponsored skip on the 6^th October. Pupils will engage in a range of skipping type activities, learn some skipping games etc over the course of the day. It will be great fun and I hope we will raise a bit of money!! Sponsor forms will be handed out nearer the time!

Parent Council

Our parent council is beginning to grow! It is great to see some new members join…still room for more though! The parent council support school in all sorts of ways and we rely on their input.

The parent council will be holding the Annual General Meeting on the 21^st September at 9.15am in the school dining hall. All parents will be made very welcome. This is an excellent opportunity to strengthen parental partnerships. What better way to find out about your child’s learning in school than to be in the building and see!

A few usual items…

Please remember we are a nut free school. We cannot have any products containing nuts at school. We have people with severe allergies and cannot be in the vicinity of nuts.
Royston Primary promotes healthy lifestyles. We only allow water to drink in school – best for the body and best for the teeth. Pupils should not bring fruit shoots, fizzy drinks, capri suns etc into school – these things contain high levels of sugar. We also encourage pupils to bring healthy snacks – fruit or vegetable for example. Some pupils are shocked that we would ask this of them because they do not eat fruit and vegetables. It would be great if you could introduce your child to some healthy foods.
Dress down day is ALWAYS the last Friday of the month. If we are on holiday the last Friday of the month then we miss dress down day, it does not get carried over to the following week! Usually dress down day costs 50p per pupil – this money goes straight to school fund!
We have a soft entry system in Royston Primary. This means that pupils can arrive at school any time between 8.45 and 9.15am, and their teacher will be ready to welcome them. We do encourage pupils to aim for 9am though! This is good practice for having a time schedule and means that formal teaching input will begin a little quicker!
Jewellery is not permitted when taking part in PE. This is not a school rule but one imposed by council. In order to satisfy our school insurance, all jewellery must be removed. If your child is unable to remove their own jewellery, please remove it before they come to school on gym days. I also get a little concerned when pupils wear jewellery to school in case it gets lost. Some items of jewellery are very precious and should always be kept at home.

Jane McShane

headteacher@royston-pri.glasgow.sch.uk

0141 552 2872