Mrs N’s Notes – 16 May 2020

How are you this week?

Hopefully you’ve managed to get out as a family a wee bit, making the most of this lovely weather. Sometimes it’s hard, but we need to keep looking for the positives in every day, don’t we.

I can’t thank Kirkshaws staff enough for the mountain of work they continue to do behind the scenes to support us all this term, as well as planning for our return to school. Everyone is working from home or in Hubs to keep Kirkshaws functioning: teachers, nursery staff, office staff, support staff, catering and janitorial staff – all of them!

We continue to look for ways to keep connected. Many people enjoy using Twitter to keep in touch and we love seeing all of your photos and messages. If you would rather send a more private message, please make use of the email addresses on your child’s weekly home learning sheet. More children are logging onto Glow Teams now and this is going to be one of the best ways we have to keep in touch with each child. If you’ve not done so already, please encourage your child to log on. I know some people went onto Glow at the beginning and found it quite boring, but now that Teams is up and running it is MUCH BETTER. Don’t take my word for it – try it out yourself. If I’ve not been in touch with you for a wee while, expect a phone call; I’m trying to phone around families to catch up. As you can imagine, this is taking quite a while. If you want to speak to me at any point, please drop me an email and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.

As a bit of fun, we are joining with most other schools in the Coatbridge Cluster to have a Uniform Day on Thursday 21 May. We are inviting children to wear their school uniforms that day as they work at home – just to remind them they are part of the Kirkshaws family. We are ONE SCHOOL although we are working in hundreds of different locations right now. We are inviting you to post your photos on Twitter or in Teams to give us all another reason to smile!

Looking ahead to the following week; Friday 29 May is our Sports Day. What can you plan for that day? Once again we would love to see your photos or videos. Will you hold an old fashioned egg and spoon race out the back, or will you set up a Ninja Warrior course around your living room? Get your thinking caps on…I’m sure you’ll come up with plenty of fun ideas.

Transition work continues for our current P.7 and new P.1. I hope you all saw the amazing videos Mr Sharp created and posted last Monday. Well, he’s been at it again! Look out for two more videos appearing on Monday at midday. I am sure our current P.1 pupils will be just as excited to see them as our new intake. Happy memories! The receiving high schools are all working to provide similar experiences for our P.7 pupils, which I know is very much appreciated by us all.

Our Parent Council continues to operate, even through these difficult times. They are also thinking about transition. Normally at this time of year they would provide a range of treats for our P.7 pupils. It has now become clear that none of these can go ahead in the foreseeable future, so they have decided to organise Leavers Hoodies as a gift for all! What a lovely thought! Please look out for more information over the coming days.

It is not exactly business as usual, but Team Kirkshaws will not be beaten!