Newsletter – Page 3 – Royston Primary School

13 May, 2022

May Newsletter

May 2022

Oh my goodness, there is so much information to share with you this term!!! Lots of things going on in RPS…it’s hard to keep track!! Read on to find out more…

After school clubs

We have planned various exciting opportunities for P3-7 pupils after school. We have drama, rounders, coding and many more! Some people ask why we rarely offer clubs for our youngest pupils – this is very simple! Our P1 and P2 pupils are often extremely tired at the end of the school day, and being in school from 9-3pm is enough! Pupils in P3-7 are more able to manage a longer day happily. If your child has not signed up for a club and wishes to join something, please give us a call and we will try to accommodate your request.

Homework

We are starting to think ahead to next session and exploring what we offer as homework for pupils. We know that the benefit of some forms of homework is minimal or even non-existent, therefore we need to find the best way of ensuring purposeful and enjoyable activity out with school. We are hoping to get your help with this! We will shortly put out a survey on the subject of homework to our parents and carers. We will also be surveying pupils. We are keen to hear all views on this matter in order to provide the best service we can, meeting all our learners’ needs.

School trips

I am absolutely delighted that we have booked up for all pupils to go on a summer trip! Almost all pupils, when surveyed, say that one of the best things about school is going on trips! I’m pretty sure I loved trips as a child myself!

P1, P3/2 and P4/3 will be going to Briarlands Farm Park in Stirling on the 15^th June.

P5/4, P6/5 and P7 will be going to Heads of Ayr in Alloway by Ayr on the 9^th June.

Both locations are a fair distance away and in order to maximise the experience, buses will leave school sharp at 9am and not return until approx. 4pm (traffic permitting)

Pupils will need a packed lunch and we are asking each pupil to pay a small contribution of £3 for their trip. This can be paid any time. Specific consent forms will need to be completed as both locations are out with the Glasgow boundary.

Gardening

In partnership with North Glasgow Community Food Initiative all pupils will be engaging in outdoor gardening sessions. Our pupils do spend time learning outdoors and so I know you will be aware of dressing your child appropriately for all weather! This is very important right now as we can go from sunshine to rain in a matter of seconds! Please make sure your child has a waterproof jacket or similar, and sensible footwear every day.

Transition

Transition at both ends of the school is fully under way. Our nursery pupils getting ready for primary 1 have been visiting school this week to have a little tour and get a feel for what school is like. Next week and the week after, children will be visiting in groups to spend some time in the classroom with the teacher and some of our current P1 pupils. Parents and carers can remain in school to meet with senior staff who will be able to answer questions and discuss any matters arising. Thereafter we have some fun events for our nursery pupils to join with! We have sports day and a Teddy Bear picnic lined up – both of which will be supported by school staff.

Primary 7 pupils are gearing up for high school! Such an exciting time, anticipating what secondary school will bring! This year thankfully, all pupils will get the chance to visit their secondary schools for either a day or two days, as follows…

Smithycroft Transition Days – 17^th and 18^th May

St Roch’s Transition days – 24^th and 26^th May

Cleveden transition day – 24^th May

Springburn transition days – 15^th and 16^th June

On all occasions, pupils will make their way directly to secondary – individual school letters have been given out to pupils with specific information about the days above in addition to parent information sessions.

Reports

Teachers are working hard on completing their class reports and these will be sent home at the end of this month. I’m sure you will be very impressed with your child’s efforts! They have been working fantastically hard at school! We have no further scheduled parents’ appointments but if you would like to discuss anything in particular with the teacher, please just get in touch and we will arrange that. At any time of the school year we are happy to make arrangements to meet with parents about any queries or concerns.

Sports Day

We are very happy to be having a sports day this year where we can invite you all along to watch! (we might even invite you to participate so wear your running shoes!!) This will be held on Tuesday 31^st May 10-12noon for P1, P3/2 and P4/3 and 1-3pm for P5/4, P6/5 and P7. We are lucky again this year to be able to use St Roch’s secondary pitches and we pray for a beautiful sunny (but not too hot!) day! We will be ably supported by our CityWise mentors who work closely with our P7 pupils and we have invited our nursery pupils along too – the more the merrier! Please do come along if you have time – it’s always better when we have an audience to cheer everyone on!

Prize Giving

Our prize giving this session will be on the afternoon of 17^th June, times TBC. We have not been able to have a proper prize giving since 2019 so this will be very exciting…and a new experience for many of our pupils and parents. We invite you along to see our Star and Worker of the Year for each class, in addition to our other awards. More information to follow.

Leavers

We have planned a leavers event/party for the afternoon of 10^th June. Primary 7 pupils and families will come together for some fun, award, prizes, gifts and much more! Bring some tissues, it might be a little emotional! We are planning out the theme and detail of this event right now so more information will come to you soon.

Parent Council

I would like to formally thank our parent council for all the work they have undertaken in our playground. The parent council, supported by Rosemount Development Trust, organised and facilitated the installation of our ‘Living Wall’. If you have not seen this yet, please do pop down to the front playground and have a look. The Living Wall helps to improve the air quality for our pupils and families as it helps to reduce the impact air pollution has in the environment. I’m so glad the parent council have stuck by us throughout the pandemic – they have had to re-think how they can offer support to the school and what a great job they have done! If you are interested in joining the parent council to help the school, please do get in touch and we can help make this happen.

Outdoor Learning

At the end of last session parental surveys told us that parents and carers want us to encourage outdoor learning and improve the environment the pupils have to use. We have taken this on board. In addition to the installation of the Living Wall, plans are set for an outdoor classroom – installation of this has been delayed due to covid and is now expected to be built during the summer holidays. We will also be fitting out a section of the playground with grass in addition to having high quality basketball nets concreted into the playground. I am very hopeful that when pupils return in August, everything will be fully fitted and ready for use. I’m sorry primary 7 pupils, you can come back and have a wee play when you have time!

Classes and Staff

I have no definite plans to share at this time regarding classification and staffing, although I am fairly certain that almost all of our staff will remain with us in August. The only certain change at present is that Mrs Mair will be leaving her role as nurture teacher and return to primary 1 class. Mr Thomson has completed his additional nurture training and assessment and will be taking over the nurture teacher role come August. As soon as I have my staffing in order from the council I will share that information with you.

Congratulations!

I would like to formally congratulate Mr and Mrs Steer on their marriage! Mrs Steer (Miss Fraser) and Mr Steer had a beautiful wedding day during the Easter break and are now happily married! This feels very special for our school community as Mr and Mrs Steer have been in RPS since almost the beginning of their teaching career. I’m sure you will join me in wishing this wonderful couple a long and happy marriage!

Parent Pay and Parent Portal

Yet another new system to get our heads round!! Parent Pay is the system to pay for school meals if pupils do not receive either registered or government free school meals. However it is now also the system for pupils to order their meal choice for each day they have a school dinner. To help your child do this you need to register an account – activation codes have been sent out on various occasions to help you do this. If your child does not pre-select their meal choice at home, they are able to do this in class. Parent portal has been set up for you to manage all data relevant to your child. Come August when we undertake data checks (names, emergency contacts etc), you will dp this via parent portal. Information on setting up your portal has been sent out. If you require support with this, please do contact the office.

Holiday Dates

This term has a number of holidays as follows…

Friday 27^th May – May holiday

Thursday 2^nd June – Queen’s Jubilee holiday

Friday 3^rd June – Queen’s Jubilee holiday

Friday 24^th June – school closes 1pm for the summer holidays

Partners

As this will likely be the last ‘normal’ newsletter of the session, I would like to thank some of our regular partners for all their hard work and effort over the session…

CityWise – our P7 mentors from University of Glasgow

NGCFI – leading our gardening and cookery sessions

Beverley from ‘With Kids’ – therapy sessions and transition work

SAMh – transition sessions with our P7 pupils

Re:Hope Church group – volunteer readers and chess expert!

RYA – have engaged with us in so many different things! Boys Health group, girls health activities, play sessions etc. Amazing organisation!

Jane McShane

headteacher@royston-pri.glasgow.sch.uk

0141 552 2872

24 February, 2022

February Newsletter

February 2022

Term 3 has come with a bang! This newsletter is a bit late as we have been so busy trying to plan and deliver new and exciting experiences for your children! Read on for up to date information on events and points of interest.

Staffing

Staffing is very good just now and remains stable. Since January we have had a little flurry of COVID cases – both pupils and staff, and we remain mindful of all mitigations in place to help protect everyone. You will receive a standard letter reminding you of mitigations and self-protection each time we have a positive case in school.

We offer a warm welcome to our 2 new support for learning workers – Miss Cullen and Mrs McIntyre. They are such a great addition to our staff team and have settled well to the Royston way! Pupils have started to build lovely positive relationships with both of them.

Regular partners

Following on from staffing information I thought it might be useful for you to know about some of our school partners. These people come to school regularly to work with various children at different stages.

Citywise – this is a voluntary organisation linked to Glasgow University. University students apply and train to become mentors for selected P7 pupils. The mentors work with pupils to develop their confidence and self-esteem, in addition to planning a vision for their future. In the process the pupils also gain a little insight into further education and learning beyond school. The mentors are all different nationalities and share their experiences of education with the pupils. It is an excellent opportunity.

Reading Partners – As some of you may know, the school building is used on a Sunday by Re:Hope church group. The members are very nice and like to support the school whenever they can. At present 3 of the members come to school on a Tuesday afternoon to read and play chess with some of our pupils. They do this on a voluntary basis. Pupils can read, play chess and chat with the volunteers, all under careful supervision by authorised school staff. It allows pupils the opportunity to read and gain from other people’s experiences in life, learning about developing a friendship with a new person. Excellent opportunity to develop life skills.

Royston Youth Action Boys Health Group – The health groups have been a successful venture at RYA for some time and, because of their success, we invited RYA staff into school to work with some of our boys. Mark and Mark from RYA come along to school on a Wednesday afternoon to work with 7 P6 boys. They address aspects of self-care, self-image, gender stigma and solution focusing. The boys are really enjoying this opportunity and we are grateful to RYA for supporting us in this way.

North Glasgow Community Food Initiative – We continue to work closely with NGCFI who deliver cookery and gardening sessions for our pupils and families. Pupils absolutely love the opportunity to learn how to cook in the teaching kitchen and Maggie, our sessional cook, works very hard to deliver interesting and exciting sessions. Maggie is starting work with P6 pupils this week and the new block of family cooking has just started too. Gardening will be due to begin again after the Easter break with the sessional gardener. In addition to these sessions being simply good fun, there are a vast amount of learning opportunities involved. The curriculum is divided into 8 core aspects – literacy, numeracy, health and wellbeing, social studies, technology, science, expressive arts and RME. Within the cooking and gardening sessions pupils are always engaging in talking and listening, in addition to reading recipes and writing evaluations (literacy). Pupils are weighing and measuring (numeracy). Pupils are engaging in health and wellbeing by learning about food groups, growing and harvesting and healthy eating. Pupils are engaging in social studies, technology and science also by learning about cultural aspects of food/celebrations, understanding the science behind cooking and growing and using technology in the processes.

Play therapy – we work closely with Beverley from ‘With Kids’ who engages with individuals and groups in therapeutic interventions. This is to support and enhance self-esteem, confidence, understanding relationships and friendships. Beverley is also supporting transition preparation for some of our P7 pupils.

As you can see there is significant focus on pupil wellbeing in order to ensure our pupils come here to school ready to learn and engage. If they are struggling with aspects of mental and emotional health, their capacity to learn will reduce, which dictates the importance of focusing on wellbeing.

Parent Appointments

Continuing to work within the confines of COVID restrictions, we will again be offering telephone consultations for parents regarding pupil progress in place of ‘in person’ meetings. We would much prefer to meet you face to face but this is not allowed at present – we are ever hopeful that we can do this again soon!

Parent consultations will take place next week as follows:

Mr Thomson, Miss Johnstone and Miss Carmichael (P1, P3/2 and P4/3) will make their phone calls on Monday 28^th February between 1 and 3pm.

Miss Bonner, Miss Kelly and Miss Fraser (P5/4, P6/5 and P7) will make their phone calls on Tuesday 1^st March between 1 and 3pm.

Any parent that we know requires an interpreter will get a phone call between Tuesday 1^st March and Thursday 3^rd March from an interpreter who will ask questions as requested by school. These questions will allow you the opportunity to ask questions of us and share any concerns you have. We will follow these up when we receive your responses from interpreter services.

Please do ensure we have the correct phone numbers for you – if you have changed your number and not let us know yet, please contact us to have it updated on our system.

Please remember we are going to call and answer the phone if you possibly can. If you are unable to take a call on the set date, please contact us in advance and we can re-arrange. Teachers will attempt to call each parent up to 3 times during their consultation session.

Trips and Outings

Thank goodness we are in a position where we can start to think about getting the pupils out and about! We have the privilege of being a fairly small school and as such, we love to get our pupils out into the community and beyond to experience learning in a different and exciting environment.

P7 will be attending a ‘non-residential’ activity week beginning 21^st March. We felt that a residential type of experience wasn’t the safest thing to do right now and were concerned that this could potentially be cancelled, leaving us with nothing. Our P7 pupils will be travelling to Luss each day Monday-Thursday during their week, and working with highly skilled and qualified instructors from ‘Adventure West’. They will engage in a variety of activities from paddle boarding to rock climbing and abseiling. The cost per pupil is almost £200 but this has been significantly reduced through funding and very generous anonymous donations! The cost per pupils is now £10. This can be paid at any time. More detail to follow.

P1-7 summer outings are being organised just now. We are looking into different options, transport providers and costings. More details to follow soon!

Transition

Transition activity for P7 pupils is on-going. The situation in Royston Primary is somewhat unique as almost all pupils opt to make placing requests away from the catchment secondary – Springburn Academy. This presents some challenge in that we cannot formally engage with the secondary school staff receiving until we know the outcome of the request made by parents – late April. However, we do invite secondary staff in from Smithycroft, Springburn and St Roch’s to visit and get to know our pupils. We have also been working very closely with SAMh who have been delivering transition sessions for our pupils. Our play therapist has been working with a small group of P7 pupils on some transition activities and pupils all have the opportunity to discuss their worries and ask questions to school staff.

We have a healthy list of new entrants for P1 and staff are beginning to arrange visits to nurseries to meet with our new pupils. In May we will have planned school visits for all new entrants – this may be on an individual basis our as a class group – this will depend on COVID restrictions nearer the time.

Rosemount Development Trust Bikes

We were very lucky to be included in the new cycle initiative facilitated by RDT. Any child who does not have a bike were being offered one! It sounds like there should be a catch – but there wasn’t! All pupils were asked if they had a working bicycle. If they did not have one, they were offered one. All bicycles offered were brand new and correctly sized to individual pupils. Pupils were also given helmets and information on cycle repair.

If you feel you missed out on that and your child does not have a working bicycle, please just get in touch – there are still bikes available.

Curriculum Rationale

We are looking at refreshing our curriculum rationale and updating our school values. Our current values have been in place for 5 years and they might be getting a bit stale! The curriculum rationale is simply a document which states how Royston Primary will deliver the curriculum as set by the government, in its’ own unique way and incorporating meaningful learning for the pupils of the Royston community. In order to progress with this, we need some help from our service users – yourselves and your children! We have started discussions and surveys with pupils and this will continue into term 4. Mrs Young who is leading this initiative is looking for some parents to be involved in supporting this. She is contacting parents at present to bring together a small focus group to consider different options and share their views. In addition, a parental survey has gone to everyone to seek views.

Social Media

We are becoming more aware of inappropriate use of social media for pupils across the school. The legal age to engage in snapchat, facebook, tiktok etc is 13yrs. Pupils are engaging in online intimidation, singing and dancing to completely inappropriate songs and being exposed to disturbing content. Pupils do not have any access to any of these things in school and therefore it is frustrating when significant amounts of time have to be taken up by my staff team on dealing with the aftermath of such activity. Please simply do not allow your child access these media platforms – supervised or not. There is a very important reason for there being an age restriction – the content is not suitable. This is a parental responsibility and we would be so grateful if you could consider this as a priority within your household.

LGBT awareness raising

In line with council priority we will be engaging in some awareness raising of aspects of LGBT. At present staff are gaining their training accreditations so as to ensure appropriate and sensitive management of this aspect. The awareness raising will be around demystifying some of the information that pupils have limited knowledge on and increasing their understanding about ‘everyone is different and unique’.

School Holiday Dates

School will close on Friday 1^st April 2.30pm for Easter break. We will re-open on Tuesday 19^th April.

School will be closed on Monday 2^nd May for May day.

School will be closed on Thursday 5^th May to pupils only for elections.

School will be closed on Friday 27^th May for half term.

School will be closed Thursday 2^nd and Friday 3^rd June for Queens Jubilee.

School will close for summer break on Friday 24^th June 1pm. School will re-open for pupils on Wednesday 17^th August.

Lots of dates to remember – just thought I would do a wee update!

Jane McShane

headteacher@royston-pri.glasgow.sch.uk

0141 552 2872

1 December, 2021

Christmas Newsletter 2021

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

Unlike last year, the choir are able to get out and about to do some singing and fundraising! They are practising hard at present and looking forward to all their bookings! Due to COVID restrictions our bookings are limited in order to ensure our pupils are safe when out in the community. See below…

1^st December – Buchanan Galleries 1.30-2.30pm
3^rd December – Fort Retail Park 1-2.15pm
9^th December – Fort Retail Park 3-4.30pm
10^th December – Asda Robroyston 1-2pm
17^th December – Forge Shopping Centre 11.30-12.30pm and 1-2pm

Please feel free to pop along to any of the locations to watch our enthusiastic choir perform! (Dress warm for the Fort – outdoor only!)

Christmas Panto – Oh yes we are!!

Hooray! Our booking for panto in 2020 was re-scheduled to December 2021 and at the moment, it is still going ahead! I’m sure they will enjoy every moment…

All pupils will be attending SECC Armadillo to see Aladdin. Pupils will leave school at 12.15pm and return at approx. 4pm (traffic dependant!) Pupils will have lunch prior to departure and can take a small (pocket size) snack with them to the theatre.

The total cost of this event is approx. £1700. Our amazing parent council have contributed to this in addition to Rosemount Development Trust but we are also asking parents for a small contribution too. There is a cost of £3 per pupil attending and this can be paid from now until 10^th December. See below for panto dates…

P1, P3/2 and P4/3 – 14^th December 2021

P5/4, P6/5 and P7 – 15^th December 2021

Roystonhill Community Hub Christmas Fun Day 15^th December

Whilst the upper school are attending panto our younger pupils will be going along to the above community event. There will be real reindeer, Santa and hot chocolate to be enjoyed!

Christmas Lunch

This will be on the 16^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.

Santa’s Christmas Workshop

Back again for year 2! This was an amazing event last year and pupils absolutely loved their time in Santa’s Workshop! All classes will get a chance to attend Santa’s workshop where they will decorate cakes, make cards, play festive games, have some time for Christmas shopping at the stall and then, of course, a wee visit into Santa’s grotto…I wonder if there might be a little something under the tree for each pupil!!

Dates for the Santa’s workshop and Grotto are as follows…

P4/3 and P7 – Wednesday 8^th December

P3/2 and P6/5 – Thursday 9^th December

P1 and P5/4 – Friday 10^th December

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

Infant Christmas Show!

Usually we would have a Christmas Nativity but not this year! This year our P1 and P3/ 2 are performing in the ‘Midwife Crisis’!! They are working so hard and really enjoying getting to know all the songs and acting parts!

Due to COVID restrictions we are unable to invite an audience during school hours however, the parent council have kindly agreed to host the event out with school hours so that we can invite some family members in to watch. At present this is only provisional and we will confirm as soon as possible. Each pupil in P1 and P3/2 will be given 2 tickets for family members to come and see their hard work and confidence on the stage. Tickets are free! As we must still adhere to restrictions, seating will be socially distanced and adults will be expected to wear a mask for the duration. Please see below for dates and times…

P1 tickets will be for the 15^th December 3.15-4pm

P3/2 tickets will be for the 16^th December 3.15-4pm

All pupils in P1 and P3/2 will perform both days (they are all part of the cast!) so pupils will not finish school those days until 4pm. If this causes a difficulty, please do contact school office and let us know – we will adapt the script and cast to suit.

Christmas Parent Hamper

Tickets for this year’s parent hamper will go on sale 3^rd December and draw will take place 20^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 17^th December! No money needed – a free event!

Christmas Parties

Parties will be on the 20^th December p.m. 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.

Christmas Holidays

Pupils will finish school at 2.30pm on 22^nd December 2021

Pupils will return to school at the usual timings on 5^th January 2022

Mrs J McShane

Head Teacher