August 2016 Issue 1
Welcome Back!
A huge welcome back to everyone! I do hope you all had a great summer and enjoyed lots of family fun times…despite the weather! We are back with energy and enthusiasm to take on the new 2016-17 session. I am delighted to say that, at the moment, we are fully staffed with pupils and teachers transitioning smoothly into this new session. We welcome Mr Thomson in primary 4/3 who will teach 4 days with Miss White teaching class on a Wednesday. Aside from Mr Thomson all faces are familiar at present, with students planned to join us in November.
As always, I welcome parents and carers into the school to share views, questions or worries and I, along with the staff, will do everything possible to help with any situation.
Staff organisation is as follows:
Orchard teacher – Miss Laird
Primary 2/1 Mrs Young
Primary 3/2 Miss Bonner
Primary 4/3 Mr Thomson
Primary 5/4 Mr Doherty
Primary 6/5 Miss Fraser
Primary 7 Mrs Jamieson and Mr Steer
Mrs Jamieson will lead our improvement challenge work and Mr Steer will also drive forward our P.E. curriculum.
Evaluations
Thank you to all parents and carers who took the time to complete the numerous evaluations/questionnaires I sent out at the end of last session. I have read each and every one, and have shared these with staff. We have used these to plan for this new session, and have tried to discuss points raised as a team in order to support and refine our service. It is always difficult to decide on how to share the overall summary of this but we will be attempting to do this in a visual way in the main school entrance. This will happen next week, please do stop and take some time to read views of others.
School Improvement Planning
Leading on from this, an improvement plan has been created with the key areas for development being:
- Numeracy – We are part of Glasgow’s Improvement Challenge and will continue to update and modernise our teaching and resource use. Mrs Jamieson is a very experienced teacher and will be driving this forward.
- Literacy – Development of personalisation and choice across the school. Improving our use of the library, buying new and interesting books and ensuring the teaching of reading is clearly linked to individuals’ ability.
- Health and Well-Being – focusing on mental and emotional health and resilience. Upskilling and engaging with new materials supporting pupils’ ability to become more self-aware and understand/manage their feelings.
- Sustainability – Eco and Children’s Rights work will continue as we aim for Green Flag status and Acorn accreditation.
We welcome any thoughts you may have one any of these areas for improvement.
Curricular Workshops
We are offering curricular workshops for all parents. These will be led by your child’s class teacher. The purpose of this is to share with you a broad overview of your child’s year ahead in learning and development. Experiences and outcomes will be shared, and you will have the chance to ask any questions or clarify any issues you may be thinking about. Al workshops will be from 2-3pm on the following dates:
- 29th August – P3/2
- 30th August – P4/3
- 31st August – P7
- 1st September – P5/4
- 2nd September – P6/5
- 9th September – P1
Open Afternoon
We will be offering you an opportunity to join your child in their class on the 8th November from 2-3pm. You do not need to stay for the whole hour as can pop in and out if you have more than one child in the school. Your child’s class teacher will continue teaching during this hour and will not be able to stop. This is not an appropriate time to discuss your child’s progress, but you will get an insight into what happens during school time.
Parent Meetings
I realise this is ‘early’, however I aim to give as much notice of important dates as I possibly can. Parent meetings will be held on the 22nd November. All parents will be given an appointment time to discuss your child’s progress with the class teacher. Interim reports will have been issues the week before and so this will support discussion.
Uniform
I am delighted to see all pupils back at school with their school uniform. We still have a few items of uniform left in school to buy, however our main uniform supplier is now Tesco. This will take a little while to settle and so far, I have not heard any negative reports with regards to ordering.
In order to gain access to Royston Primary Uniform please enter www.clothingattesco/school-uniform. You then click on the uniform tab and you will see uniform embroidery – find your school. If you click on this you will be able to select Glasgow City Council Schools and Royston Primary from drop down menus.
North Glasgow Community Food Initiative
We are absolutely delighted to have been fully ‘fitted out’ with a brand new teaching kitchen. We have community nutritionist Karen Scott working in school full time now. We plan to offer cooking and food technology to older school pupils, parents and community members very soon…watch out for adult classes and courses starting soon. Once we have established good working with older pupils will look to extend this down the school.
PEEK and Go2play
We have been selected to work with the above organisations in order to develop play for pupils. Positive Experiences for East End Kids (PEEK) have been funded through Glasgow’s Improvement Challenge and are working alongside Go2play and Strathclyde University to provide an 8 week programme of play for all P4 pupils and some P6 pupils. The purpose of this is ultimately to increase their learning capacity by developing skills in motivation, self-regulation, problem solving, team working and communication. We will start the programme next week.
Impact Arts
We have been selected to work alongside Impact Arts on creating and developing an art project which will then be formally presented in their galleries. More detail about this will follow shortly, however the project is set to commence next week in P3/2.
1+2 Languages
You may have heard about ‘1+2’ languages. By the year 2020 all primary pupils will require to speak their own ‘home’ language and 2 more. At present all P5-7 pupils have French lessons each week but we require to upskill and increase this across the school. All our teachers this year will be training in speaking French conversationally with pupils. This will develop onto language 3 next year! Don’t be surprised if your child wants to practice their new language on you!
A few of the regular items…
- Pupils are only allowed to have water at school. I have explained this to pupils as anything that is colourless. Pupils are free to drink plain water in class as this increases brain function, and may have flavoured water at play or lunch time.
- Your child should not bring a phone, or any other electronic devise to school. This is for a number of reasons. If these items are broken, damaged or lost, school are not responsible. Also, we cannot allow pupils to take photographs or video of any events in school as this would breach Glasgow City Council policy. If your child must bring a phone to school for a safety reason regarding school travel, them at school this must be switched off and handed into the office. Pupils would then collect it at 3pm.
- Gym Kit consists of indoor shoes, shorts, leggings or jogging bottoms and a T-shirt. I was so disappointed last session with the number of pupils not coming prepared for PE. This is a compulsory aspect of the curriculum and is not an ‘opt out’. On the very rare occasions where your child cannot take part in PE, you must write a note or telephone school to let us know what the difficulty is.
In the event that your child has forgotten their PE kit, we will contact you and request that a PE kit is brought for them.
- Lining up – P2/1, P3/2 and P4/3 should line up in the front playground at 9am. These pupils will also come out these doors at 3pm. P5/4, P6/5 and P7 should line up in the back playground at 9am. Pupils will also come out of these doors at 3pm.
- Non-Uniform Day will continue to be on the last Friday of each month. We will attempt to send a text reminder about this the day before. The cost of this is 50p and I am pleased that most pupils remembered to bring this in last session. This money goes into our school fund and is used directly to support trips, events and visiting experts for your child. These experiences are not possible without a gradually increasing school fund.
- School lunches – Price increase this session to £1.90. All pupils in P1-3 are entitled to government funded meals. If you require a school meals/clothing grant form, please collect one from the school office.
- Breakfast club – The cost is £2. Breakfast club is open from 8am and pupils will be offered toast, cereal and fruit juice. They are supervised by Cordia staff until 8.45am, when they are let out to the playground.
- Credit Union – will resume next Wednesday. We will take the pupils to Spireview Housing Offices in the morning to deposit their money. If your child has not yet joined, please pop into the school office for a form to complete. We will ensure pupils who are attending swimming on a Wednesday morning will also get the opportunity to go.
NHS treatments
- Flouride Varnishing for P1-4 will take place in school on the 9th
- Flu vaccine will be offered to all pupils on 18th November – you will receive permission forms to complete very soon. Please hand these back into school as soon as possible.
School Security
Just a little reminder for all parents. Please ensure whenever you enter the building, no matter for what reason, you report directly to the office on the first floor. There have been several occasions this week that parents and carers have gone straight to classes and in order to ensure the highest levels we cannot allow this. During the hours of 9-3pm your child’s teacher is teaching class and any disruption to this should be avoided. Any query, question etc must be directed to the office where admin staff will direct this appropriately, either to management staff, or teachers after school.
Primary 1
New pupils in primary 1 have had a fabulous start to their school career. The class have settled very well and are responding to initial stages in learning and development. Pupils are getting used to the classroom, the building and some of the routines. We look forward to getting to know the pupils and their families much better over the coming months.
Starting on the 5th September, primary 1 pupils will come to school all day. Pupils should arrive in the playground before 9am and will be brought back out to the playground at 3pm for collection. Pupils will not be able to leave the school until someone collects them.
This has been a lengthy newsletter and as always, we expect a very busy and exciting session ahead. I look forward to working with your children and you in the coming months.
