May 2024
Summer term is in full swing! Read on to find out what we have planned…in addition to some of the usual information we like to share!
Staffing
Staffing at this present time seems fairly settled as we progress towards the summer break.
Mrs Steer has gone on maternity leave and we have now have Miss Jenner join us for this term. Miss Jenner is working across 3 different classes and has made a great start to her time in Royston. I’m sure you will join me in welcoming Miss Jenner to the Royston team! Miss Jenner is working with P7/6, P6/5 and P4/3 and is a popular teacher already!
I’m sure you will all be sad to hear that Mrs Young is retiring at the end of this term. Mrs Young has been in Royston Primary for 9 years and has worked hard for our children and families. We will miss Mrs Young, but wish her well in the next chapter of her life!
I am delighted to share the news that, in Mrs Steers maternity absence, Mr Thomson will take on the acting principal teacher role. Mr Thomson is a valued and excellent member of our staff team, and I’m sure you will join me in congratulating him in his new role!
As always in June, I will make every effort to tell you and your child who their next teacher for August will be. This helps to ease any anxiety and stress for pupils, so that they can enjoy their summer holidays without ‘fear of the unknown’. This session it might be a little difficult. Due to budget cuts and significant staffing changes within Glasgow City Council, I may not know the teachers I will have before August. Budget cuts across the council estate mean that our staffing quota is reduced, which will impact on the supports we are able to offer pupils. We will however continue to do the very best that we can for our pupils and families.
RSHP
All pupils P1-7 will be engaging in learning on RSHP (relationships, sexual health and parenthood). All lessons are in line with our Scottish curriculum expectation – Curriculum for Excellence – Health and wellbeing benchmarks. Lessons are age and stage appropriate and are delivered in class by the teacher. ALL resources we use can be viewed online RSPH.Scot, where you can see each lesson content and learn a little more about why these are important. There is useful information for parents/carers in order to promote some of the learning at home too. Primary 1 lessons are at early level, primary 2-4 lessons are at first level and P5-7 lessons are at second level. Please do have a browse on the website yourself and get in touch if you have any questions or concerns.
Antibullying development work this session
We have concluded the work on our policy statement on antibullying; having taken all views into consideration. This will be emailed out to you soon. We continue to share the key crucial messages with children in school, and aim to manage incidents as consistently as possible. All incidents are recorded on our central recording system, records of which are passed to secondary school at time of transition.
Thank you to all parents/carers who took the time to feedback on our initial draft policy statement version. We appreciate your voice and value all comments made.
I will also be emailing out parent antibullying information which has been created by Glasgow’s Parent Forum. It is an excellent one page information guide which, as a parent, I would find extremely useful. This information, along with the final policy statement will be emailed out soon.
As a celebration of our pupils hard work in learning and understanding this theme, we have a special treat! Rookie Rockstars will be delivering sessions for all pupils in school week beginning 20th May. Pupils will be learning fantastic rock songs based around the themes of bullying, kindness and respect. The whole week will be filled with loud guitars and drums…and I expect our pupils will love it!
To conclude, Rookie Rockstars and all pupils will be presenting a special rock concert in school on 29th May 6.30pm. Tickets priced at £3 each will go on sale the week before. Due to space limitations, there will be an allocation of 2 tickets per child…if we have any left over after initial sales, we will offer them out to families. Look out for information on this nearer the time!
Transition
‘Tis the season of transition, falalalala lalalala!!! This is a super busy term for transition work, especially for our P7’s and new entrants!
Most of our primary 7 pupils now know which secondary school they will be attending. If you do not know, or your placement request has been refused, please do let us know and we will guide you on your next steps.
St Roch’s secondary school P7 visits are on 4th and 5th June.
Springburn Academy P7 visits are on 18th and 19th June.
Staff from Springburn and St Roch’s are planning to visit our pupils soon to share information and answer any questions/discuss any concerns, they may have.
We are very grateful to Royston Youth Action who are in the midst of delivering a comprehensive transition programme for our pupils. These sessions are enjoyable, informative and respectful. Pupils seem to be enjoying sessions and finding them useful.
We have a very good number of pupils planning on attending Royston Primary Primary 1 for August; around 23 at present. We have a number of events planned for our wee ones!
All new entrants and parents are invited in 16th May 1.30-2.30pm for their induction event.
Week beginning 20th May, we will meet all our new pupils and their parents individually, so that we pay special attention to each family joining us.
All new entrants are invited to join in with school sports day on the 28th May at 10am.
New entrants invited to the Teddy Bears Picnic on 4th June!
Letters to new entrant parents have been posted out with this information.
Sports Day
School sports day will be on 28th May at St Roch’s Secondary playing fields. All parents, family and friends welcome to spectate…and get involved!! Fingers crossed for a sunny (but not too hot!!) day!
Fun Fit Bike
We will be visited by the fun fit bike on the 10th May! The fun fit bike is a bicycle that makes smoothies! Pupils will cycle the bike to make themselves a drink…and there will be good learning about healthy eating too!
Pupils reports
Teachers are currently in the process of preparing your child’s final school report for this session. We plan to issue reports to parents on the 27th May. As we have no further parent appointments planned for this session, please do get in touch if you would like to discuss anything of concern in the report. There should be nothing surprising in a pupil report, ever! If we are doing our job in keeping you informed and working in partnership, you will know and understand everything written.
End of session summer trips
Firstly can I just say that many schools in Glasgow do not ‘do’ summer trips! Every year it becomes more and more difficult to plan and fund school trips, but we are proud to say (apart from COVID years), we have always had summer trips! This is thanks to funding and donations from various places…too many to mention! We do always ask for a small contribution from parents which helps ‘make ends meet’ with increased ticket prices and transport.
P1-2 will be going to Clyde Valley Farm Park on the 11th June.
P3-6 will be going to Five Sisters Zoo on the 5th June.
P7 will have a surprise outing in June! I’m saying no more than that for now!!
P7 Leavers Event
We have a PROVISIONAL date for our leavers event of 5th June. This is an after-school event and pupils can invite 2 guests along. We plan to have this in the Community Hub, but just need to finalise catering before confirming the date. More information nearer the time!
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.
School Uniform
This section was in the last newsletter – but I’ve not seen a huge improvement.
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. Eg 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.
School Holiday dates
School will be closed to pupils on 24th and 27th May for May bank holiday.
School will close for the summer break on 26th June at 1pm.
School will re-open to pupils on 14th August.
Jane McShane
headteacher@royston-pri.glasgow.sch.uk
0141 552 2872
