Welcome back to the new session! We have all been in since Tuesday making sure the new classes are up and running in time for the pupils returning to school on Friday.
Please remember that due to our move into the additional rooms upstairs pupils do not return until FRIDAY 17TH August, not Thursday like other schools.
We are proud to say that in addition to our Makaton Friendly Establishment award we achieved last month we are adding to that a NLC Bronze Communication Award. This award is in recognition of the great work done by our Communication Working Party, led by Mrs Connell-Beaton, in the creation and maintenance of the Total Communication Environment within the school. Thanks not only go to the communication group but also Aileen, our Speech and Language Therapist, and the entire staff for their hard work at maintaining this environment to allow all our young people access to the best level of communication available! Watch this space……….Silver Award here we come!
A group of five S5 and S6 pupils have had a great week at Badaguish near Inverness this week. The weather could not have been more perfect and they have loved every minute of it. Here are a selection of photos they have sent back to school, no doubt they will post many more themselves next week once they are back at school.
As you may be aware next year we are increasing our intake and creating two new classes within the school. To accommodate this we are adapting some classrooms from OLHS to become part of Bothwellpark, both as classrooms and as additional multi-functional areas. Work is being carried out on these rooms over the summer holidays to allow the classes to be ready for us in August. In order for us to be able to move into the rooms and be fully operational by the first day the pupils return Bothwellpark pupils will return one day later than other schools. This means that Bothwellpark pupils will return to school for their first day on Friday 17th August.
I would also like to take this opportunity to let you all know that Mrs Jane Minelly has been appointed as our new Head Teacher and is looking forward to meeting you all when she takes up her new position in August.
In addition to Jane we also welcome Amanda McLeod as a new class teacher. Amanda has been volunteering with us since April and is looking forward to starting her position proper in August. To complete our staffing for the school expansion we are currently also recruiting one more new class teacher and a number of ASNA staff who should all be in place by August.
I look forward to seeing as many of you at our Sports Day ( Tues 12th June 13.30) and Assembly (Tues 26th June 13.30) as possible.
School closes for the summer holidays at 13.00 on Thursday 28th June.
We are delighted to announce that we are the first school in North Lanarkshire to be accredited as “Makaton Friendly” by The Makaton Charity. This accreditation recognises the hard work all our staff and pupils put in to creating the total communication environment we operate within Bothwellpark. You can read more about the scheme here.
We can’t believe it is the summer term already…. we only have about fifty school days left before the holidays and we have so much happening between now and then. We will put out a calendar of events for everyone soon as there is so much happening! Also lots of changes are happening this week as Mrs Neil leaves us for her new school on Friday so there will be lots of celebrations and farewells throughout the week.
We had a busy week last week working with Our Lady’s High School promoting Autism Awareness Week. We finished the week by releasing balloons to celebrate.
The first week of our Trampolining Club was a great success. All of the pupils who took part had a great time and we were very impressed with how well they listened to Hannah and the other staff who were helping out. This is the first time an afterschool club has run at Bothwellpark and we really want to thank all the staff who are making it possible. As you can see from the photos below everyone did really well on the trampolines…even Mrs Neil!
It is great to see everyone back and hear all the stories of snowmen and snowball fights!
