Please click on the link for read more information about the North Ayrshire Carers Appreciation card.

Carers Leaflet

Tonight we joined with colleagues from Elderbank and a representative from James McFarlane school to embark on a series of sessions focusing on communication for severe and complex needs. This is part of our school improvement plan work and will cover the different stages of communication from pre-intentional to using words and phrases.  The course is practical based delivered by myself and Katrina Walker, speech and language therapist. Staff will complete an e-portfolio of their work and be accredited for their work in January.

Click on the link below for the latest update.

Parent Reference Group Meeting Note 25 August 2017

Two of our Senior Phase pupils set off to Arran on a wet Monday morning. I am sure that the damp weather will not deter them from having a fantastic time!! Keep an eye on the blog for photographs.

The ASN Reference Group met on Friday 25th August regarding our new school build. The group is made up of officers from North Ayrshire Council’s design team, parent council members, senior managers and elected members. The vision for the new school build is:

Nurture, Equity and Achievement

As well as a new school, a proposal for a respite/residential facility has been put forward for approval. This has not yet been approved but if it is not approved the new school design will incorporate it as the funding may well be secured at a later stage.

The design is very much still in the early stages with planned visits to new builds continuing to help us identify what we want and what we do not want in our school build. Robin Knox shared some information about 3 visits that were carried out prior to the holidays to Hazelwood school, Kilpatrick school and Riverbrae school in Johnstone. As well as discussing progress made to date, it was agreed that there would also have to be a focussed piece of work planned regarding the design of the external space. The representative parents are very keen that we get this aspect right as well as the building itself.

To keep our parents and partners informed we will add a category onto our school website to upload the most up-to-date information about how plans are progressing. Meantime, if you require any information, please do not hesitate to contact myself, Dawn Mair or Lesley Ward.

Mrs Mair led our first whole school assembly based on the theme ‘Friends’. New friends in Primary 1 were introduced and given the Haysholm welcome of 3 cheers. Mrs Mair had some lovely goodies in a box relating to the theme and some of our children were very good at naming their favourite Disney characters including those from Toy Story.  Well done to our certificate winners for the first week back.  Most certificates were awarded to those pupils who have settled quickly and smoothly into their new classes following transition in June, well done.

A very warm welcome back to our whole school community, we hope you have enjoyed the long summer holidays. A special welcome to our 2 new primary 1 pupils who looked very handsome in their school uniform. Check out Skye class blog to see the little ones. Already the children have been active and busy outdoors exploring and discovering! Mrs Ward has managed to get us £400 so we can add to our stock of scooters for outdoors.

As well as the children being busy the staff and a couple of the parents were busy too during the in-service day learning more about the use of intensive interaction. We had training delivered by Nind and Hewitt associates where the approach originated from. Evaluations of the day demonstrate that staff feel more confident and knowledgeable about taking this day forward.

The Summer Newsletter has now been uploaded to the Newsletter tab. We are no longer sending a hard copy of the newsletter home to save on printing costs and to ensure we are environmentally friendly. Positive feedback was provided about the new format last term.  Remember to keep an eye on the blogs to catch all of the latest school news.

Happy holidays

Yvonne