October 2021
Term 2 has started at great speed! We are delighted to welcome our pupils and their families back to school after the October break and look forward to working with you.
Staffing
Staffing in the main is fairly settled at the moment. Sadly we had to say good bye to Ms Jee who was working with both P5/4 and P3/2. Ms Jee was here as an additional member of staff, over and above our allocation from Glasgow City Council. Other schools within the council are having enormous challenges with staff absence and every available teacher has been allocated to cover these absences. We will miss Ms Jee…maybe she will come back one day!
We are also waiting on two new support staff being authorised to start work with us. Recruitment checks are being carried out to ensure safe practice and as soon as these are complete, our 2 new support staff will begin working in school…hopefully you’ll see some new faces soon!
COVID-19
We continue to work within the challenge of COVID-19. We had hoped that this term, restrictions placed upon us would be eased somewhat, however this is not to be the case. Safe Opening of Schools Guidance has not been changed since August 9th and so we continue to work within its confines.
In short, if your child has Covid 19 symptoms, please continue as before by keeping them off school and booking a PCR test. If the test is negative, they can return immediately. If the test is positive they must isolate for 10 days.
If a household member tests positive please self-isolate and book tests for others in the household. If your child’s test is negative they can return immediately to school, even although they may be living with a person testing positive.
If a child in your child’s class tests positive, there will now be no requirement to isolate a whole class or groups of class. Track and trace will coordinate who would require to isolate with any positive case based on very close contact.
If you are in any doubt about the regulations please do get in touch.
Parental Views Term 1
I would like to thank all 43 parents who responded to the most recent survey. 43 parental responses is approx..50% of parents which is excellent.
Our general theme for the survey was around inclusion, respect and attainment. These will be general themes throughout all parental surveys. We, as a whole staff, were delighted with the responses. Almost all parents who responded feel their child is happy in school most of the time. Almost all parents are satisfied with the service we provide and feel their child’s needs are met well in school. Almost all parents feel that staff are approachable and helpful and think their child is working to their potential. In addition, there were some very positive comments made about the questions asked. It is very reassuring to hear from you whether it be positive or something we need to improve upon. As a bunch of teachers we are always looking for improvements to make!! It’s just in our nature!!
Parental engagement
I am disappointed to say that we will not be allowed to have parental appointments face to face as we normally have in November. The opportunity to discuss your child’s learning with you is invaluable and we don’t like being restricted in the face to face contact we are allowed to have. During week beginning 15th November we will engage in telephone appointments with you to discuss your child’s progress. Prior to this you will have received your child’s interim report card. Your telephone appointment time will give you the opportunity to ask any questions or raise any concerns with the class teachers. There may be occasional unique situations where we must meet in person and we will arrange this as necessary. Unfortunately, we are working within government and council restrictions and must follow the rules as set out by them.
Halloween
This year we will be having a ‘dress up/dress down’ day on Friday 29th October! There will be no charge for this event. Pupils can dress up in Halloween costumes or dress down clothes if they wish. Each class will have a wee party in the afternoon – playing some party games, winning prizes and having a small unhealthy snack as a treat! We are not calling it a ‘halloween party’ as some pupils may not wish to dress up in costumes. No matter what they wear I’m sure it’ll be a fun afternoon with games, music and dancing!
The Smarty Challenge!
Each child will come home on Monday 25th October with a tube of smarties! They (or you!) can eat the smarties! Once the tube is empty, each pupil has a challenge…to see how many coins they can squeeze in! It might be pennies, 20p, 5p’s…whichever coin you wish! Once the tube is full, they can bring it back to school and their name will be entered into a prize draw to win a fun kids hamper! Closing date for returning tubes will be Wednesday 17th November and prize draw will be on Friday 19th.
Obviously this is a school fund raising exercise and you do not need to take part if you would prefer not to. Or you might wish to simply put a £5 in the tube as a contribution instead of finding all the coins! Anything is acceptable!
Toy Fayre
We will be having a toy sale on 12th November! Pupils can bring some money to spend buying pre-loved toys…and we might even manage a wee tuck shop! We are now collecting donations for the fayre…please hand any toys, books, puzzles, activities…etc into the school between now and the 9th November – this will ensure everything sits in quarantine before being placed out for sale! It might be an opportunity for you to have a pre-Christmas clear out!! Pupils seem to love wee figures, action heroes and dolls…maybe a helpful hint!!
Transition
Pupils in primary 7 are now beginning to think about their transition to secondary school…with a bit of excitement and trepidation! This is perfectly normal and every primary 7 pupil feels this way at this point! We will be engaging in some useful transition work with Springburn secondary staff, in addition to working with RYA and SAMh (mental health) on preparation activities. This will help settle their mind a little and continue to focus on the task of completing primary 7!
I have spoken to several parents this week regarding placement requests. I have also spoken to all P7 pupils about this. Your child’s catchment secondary is dependent solely on your post code. I have no control over what your secondary catchment school is. If you don’t know where it should be then I can let you know. If you do not want your child to attend the catchment school for your address, you must complete a placement request prior to Christmas. Your child has the link to this on the ipad under the homework tab – please ask them for it.
Your placement request will go the GCC Hub who will look at numbers, staffing and accommodation for your request – it may be accepted or refused, but you will not know until end of April 2022.
I am happy to assist anyone with forms or understanding the process but I have no control over decisions and outcomes…I wish I did!
Nursery enrolment for primary in August 2022 will take place during week beginning 8th November. We will be giving some enrolment information to our local nurseries and we can support people in completing paperwork if necessary. If you have a child due to come to us in August 2022, we look forward to welcoming them into school and will do what we can to make transition from nursery smooth! Talk to us if there is anything we can assist with.
Entry Doors
Starting on Monday 25th October only one door will be for entry in the morning. The entry door will be the side door on Gadshill Street and will open at the usual time 8.45-9.15am. The janitor front entrance will not be open. This is simply due to staff availability to open the door and welcome the pupils in…we always like to have more than one member of staff to do this.
STEM P3/2 and P1 challenge!
Mr Thomson and Miss Johnstone want to work with parents and pupils together! Given the current situation, this is challenging…but we will try to think creatively on how to do this. Mr Thomson and Miss Johnstone are in the process of planning out a few sessions OUTSIDE…working on STEM challenges. STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths. It sounds like the challenges might be hard…but I promise, they are not too hard and lots of fun! We are hoping to do these parent and child sessions before Christmas so look out for more detailed information.
ParentPay
You may or may not know that GCC have engaged with a long term payment method, making schools effectively ‘cashless’. I’m not sure we will be entirely cashless but the system will be set up initially for school meals – for those pupils who pay for meals. You will shortly receive an activation code to set yourself up on ParentPay App. You should set up asap and let us know if you have any difficulties…we may or may not be able to help! We are trying to learn the system as fast as we can!
It is important to note that even if your child is in receipt of free meals, you should still set up the app as this will be used to collect any trip money etc in the future.
Our ‘Go Live’ date is November 1st and everyone should be set up by then. Activation letters will come out early next week.
School House System
I just wanted to offer a wee refresher for our usual parents…and some new information for our new parents! We have a school house system…the houses are Ruby (red), Sapphire (blue) Emerald (green) and Diamond (yellow). Each child belongs to a house group. Pupils can be given house tokens for all sorts of great reasons…good work, lots of effort, good manners, being helpful, sharing, respect etc etc. Each house tries to get the most tokens each term to win the house treat at the end of every term. We usually try to take the winning house on an outing…or do something fun in school. Your child should have a house colour badge – this will tell you what house they are in. The pupils enjoy collecting tokens for their house – they have a great sense of belonging to a different group to their class and they get excited about winning the treat at the end of term!
Phew…another overload of information! I hope you find this useful to you but please do not hesitate to contact us for any reason – we are here to help!
Please do get in touch if you would like to discuss anything or ask any questions.
Jane McShane
headteacher@royston-pri.glasgow.sch.uk
0141 552 2872
