Mrs N’s Notes, 21.5.21
Week 3 menus for next week…school above and nursery below.
HEALTH WEEK
Next week marks our annual Health Week…and what a programme of events Mr Sharp has planned for us all! As well as our normal Health Programme continuing, we have mindfulness sessions (both live and recorded), class competitions, Daily Mile, class sports days, Dogs’ Trust activities, daily exercises delivered live using Teams, a Dance Together event on Wednesday and a home learning grid that gives you masses of choice for the week! What makes it even more exciting is the fact that our P.7 classes have taken leadership roles here and are leading many of these sessions themselves over Teams. Thank you to them all…and to all our staff members, without whom this could not go ahead!
CHS VIRTUAL TRANSITION WEEK
P.7 are going to be particularly busy next week as it is also their virtual transition week, carrying out lessons prepared by Coatbridge High School staff. There will be input from one department each day, with each lesson delivered by our own P.7 teachers here in Kirkshaws. Many thanks to Mr Gall and Mrs Canning once again for their flexibility and ability to teach a full range of high school subjects in conjunction with our secondary colleagues this year!
SCHOOL OF DANCE, SCHOOL OF RUGBY, SCHOOL OF FOOTBALL
We were delighted to hear this week that two of our P.7 pupils have been accepted for the NLC School of Football. This is quite an achievement, with very competitive trials taking place involving pupils from across the authority. Well done to them both.
In addition, we have a number of other Sports Stars who have applied for the School of Rugby and School of Dance at Coatbridge High School. This week saw our prospective dancers take part in their auditions. Good luck, girls!
TRANSITION VISITS
On Monday the Scottish Government updated guidance to schools, which meant that this week all partner high schools were able to confirm details of planned transition visits. All our P.7 pupils now have that information.
We have also reviewed and updated our proposed plans in light of these latest guidelines and we will be sending out invitations and information packs to our new P.1 and new Nursery pupils early next week.
Please note that should there be a COVID-19 outbreak within a school these visits are liable to be changed or cancelled.
Virtual Classrooms are currently being created to allow our new pupils to visit the nursery playrooms and infant classrooms using digital platforms. These will be made available to you before the end of session. This means pupils can visit online in June, but also throughout the summer, if they need reassurance. Pupils in Kirkshaws Nursery also continue to have weekly lessons with our current P.1 class, using Teams to connect us with live video links.
SCHOOL APP
I received a message today from someone concerned that the school app wasn’t working. Please remember, as advised last month, the contract with the app provider has now expired and all communication with families will be made using text, email, website and Teams.
REPORTING
All school and nursery reports have now been written and will be ready to come home to you next week.
ASSESSMENTS
As always, teachers and Early Years staff continue to carry out regular assessments of progress on a daily basis. However, at this time of year some standardised assessments allow us to ensure pupils are on-track at a national level. P.1, P.4 and P.7 are the key stages where Scottish National Standardised Assessments are carried out. These are completed on line and give staff valuable information to support next steps in pupil progress.
LEAVING EVENTS
At this time, the instruction from the Scottish Government remains that parents should not be invited into the school grounds for special events. I know this impacts on our normal Nursery Graduation and P.7 Leavers’ Assembly. We will continue to constantly review the situation and will let you know if things change. As you will understand this could even change at the last minute, due to the national and local situation regarding COVID levels. Please be assured that these special events will still be marked in school. If we cannot invite you to join us in person, we will create an online alternative.
HOLIDAYS
And finally, we have two short weeks ahead of us now. School and nursery will both be on holiday on Friday 28th and Monday 31st May for the local holiday.
