Tag: Head Teacher’s Blog

It’s hard to believe that it’s the 1st of March already – where have the weeks gone?  I am pleased to see the beginning of lighter nights and the signs of Spring as shoots of daffodils begin to pop through.  However, the weather is still chilly so I would recommend that pupils still come to school drested for winter weather.

Wednesday is our Celebrating Success Assembly day where we share the achievements of the children in and out of school.  Today we were celebrating the children who had achieved Green, Silver or Gold for excellent behaviour or hard work.  The class teachers announced the children who earned the ‘Stane Superstar’ trophy, the 100% attendance for February letters were issued to pupils and we celebrated P7s achievement in reaching level 3 of HeartStart training.  I also taught the children a new song – ‘When Seeds Grow’ in preparation for our Easter Service at the end of the month.  At the end of assembly, I revealed who had earned the ‘Secret Student’ prize by being a super audience member during assembly.

We had a short section during assembly about World Book Day today.  While we aren’t  dressing up this year as it’s been such a busy period in school, we will still mark the occasion by having some lessons in class – the children will all get a £1 World Book Day voucher to take home tomorrow too.

I enjoyed being with the children at interval time today and chatted to lots of children about their favourite book following our assembly.  It would seem the most popular remains Roald Dahl!

After interval, it was time for Tea with Mr. Clark.  It’s been a couple of weeks since the last one due to Health Week and the holidays, so there was quite a few children attending.  We had a picnic in the hall and the children enjoyed a snack and drink while chilling out on the blankets and cushions.  This is the reward for pupils who have been Stane Superstars

After lunchtime, I was working with three children from each class for a ‘Head Teacher’s Learning Conversation’ looking at Maths work.    The children brought their maths work for me to look at – I was very impressed with the quality of the children’s work and the standard of their discussion .  The children could reflect really well on what they were learning and how they liked to work.  I will feed this back to the teachers to allow them to ensure their maths lessons meet the children’s needs as much as possible.

Our new football team played in the Cluster Friendly today at Calderhead High School against Alexander Peden Primary.  Our children had a great first half, with the  coach from the other team commenting on how well the team played together.  Unfortunalty we didn’t win, but the children played their best and displayed excellent sportsman behaviour.  Thank you to Mr. McKenna, our janitor, for accompanying the children and coaching the team.

The Parent Council met this evening and we had a very full discussion about the upcoming fundraising events, including the Bingo Night at  the end of the month.  We also spent time discussing the Pupil Equity fund and how this money could be best used to ensure excellence and equity for all children.  We also started to discuss the school roll for next year and some of the options that we may have for different class formations in August.

A reminder for Cross Country children to bring their kit for tomorrow’s after school club.  Mrs. Scott will be taking the club tomorrow as I have to attend a meeting after school.

I was out of school all day on Monday to attend the Pupil Equity Fund Seminar organised by the Scottish Government and Education Scotland.

You will be aware from coverage in the local media, that the Scottish Government is allocating additional funding to schools to help close the attainment gap for those children living in poverty.

This seminar allowed Head Teachers from different local authorities to find out more about how this funding will work and how we can plan for it when it is received in August 2017.

The next step for Stane Primary will be consulting with parents via the Parent Council, pupils and staff to consider how this will be best spent to ensure excellence and equity for our pupils.

It was nice to be back in school today – especially because I had a queue of children who had achieved Gold on our Promoting Positive Behaviour system.  This is a very high level to achieve and take excellent, consistent effort and behaviour. It was a pleasure to give these children their certificates.

I also had the lovely job of escorting some of our P6 Enterprise Pupils to the local Cash and Carry so that they could stock up on sweeties for their Pick’n’mix stall.  They were spending some of their profits on more stock – real ‘Apprentice’ style planning!  The sweets will be on sale every day for the next few weeks.  All money raised will go towards the children’s outing to Edinburgh.

Later on in the day, some of the P6 Enterprise children came to my office to pitch for further assistance with their fundraising.  Their pitch was excellent and I was very impressed with the quality of their work and the enthusiasm.

Primary 1/2 and Primary 2/3 had a very interesting morning with visitors from Warburton’s as they learned all about Healthy Eating by making a healthy sandwich.  Thank you very much to the ladies for a great morning – and for leaving lots of healthy brown loaves for the boys and girls (and staff) to take home.

The day ended with our after school Multi-sports club for Primary 1-3 pupils.  The children had a great time playing all sorts of active games with Ryan, the coach from Active school.

Tomorrow, our new football team will be playing at Calderhead High in the first of four matches in the Sportsman League and we will have our Celebrating Success Assembly where, among lots of other things, 50 children will be presented with 100% attendance for February letters and the children who’ve completed at least one active journey to school each week will be given their February badge.

Don’t forget that the next meeting of the Parent Council takes place on Wednesday 1st March 2017 in Shotts EU Congregational Church Hall.  All parents/carers are welcome to attend.

Storm Doris well and truly hit Shotts today but all members of staff managed to make it in to school despite a few challenging journeys.

We had great fun sledging and playing in the snow at lunchtime – I had a wee shot on the sledges too and so did the janitor.  It was lovely to see the children enjoying themselves in the snow.

Unfortunately some of the children hadn’t come dressed for outdoors – can I ask everyone to ensure that children have suitable outdoor shoes and a change of clothes when the weather is like this. We will always try to get the children out to play in the snow!

We’re nearly at the end of our Health Week and the children have all had an opportunity to take part in a wide range of activities with different specialists.  The plan had been for Rugby sessions to take place outdoors today and Tae-Kwan Do to happen in the hall, but we made a quick change to have Rugby in hall and Tae-Kwan Do in classrooms instead.

The children really enjoyed their sessions – you can see the photographs on our Twitter feed.

Tomorrow is the final day of Health Week (NB there is no ‘Dress Down Day’ as children are in their sports clothes anyway.) Miss Tiffney will be leading P5/6 and P6/7 children throug their HeartStart Assessments and some of the children will get to take part in a Boot Camp fitness class.  P6/7 will be outdoors for this so don’t forget suitable clothing!

Let’s hope the journey to school is a bit less adventurous than today!

Two special visitors, Richard and Anne from NSPCC, visited the school today. They worked with Primary 1-3 and then P6-7 pupils talking about Children’s Rights and Responsibilities.  The visitors commented on how well our pupils engaged in the discussions and activities.  Well done boys and girls.

Pupils from P5-7 have been taking part in a Health and Wellbeing Questionnaire this week.  This is part of a project North Lanarkshire Council are involved in to help determine the best way to support communities and plan for future multi-agency work across the whole authority.  The children who were taking part answered some questions online and were provided with a pair of headphones to use.  The children were really pleased when they found out they could take the headphones home to keep!

In the afternoon, the children who had achieved Silver and Gold had their extra playtime.  There was lots of children who achieved this and we had great fun playing with the new outdoor toys.

Next week is our Health Week.  We hope as many parents/carers as possible can come along to our Family Fitness Fun sessions on Monday 20th and Tuesday 21st February at 3pm.  We’d love to see you there with your child/ren.

Have a lovely weekend everyone – remember children can wear sports clothes all week as we engage in lots of fun activities to promote Healthly lifestyles.

I hope everyone enjoyed their time off this week for the mid-term break.  It was lovely to have all of the boys and girls back in school today and it was lovely to hear their stories about the holiday.  Some children had been lucky enough to go away for a short holiday while others just enjoyed relaxing at home or spending time with their families.

Over the holiday, the workmen have been very busy in our school and the children returned to find a lovely new carpet fitted in our main entrance and foyer.  It looks lovey and fresh – some of the children seemed to be under the impression that I had fitted it!

I enjoyed visiting two classes this morning – I was with P6/7 in the morning to join in with a literacy lesson and I was in P1/2 to share in their Taught Writing lesson after interval.  I was impressed with the hard work and focus of both classes.  In P1/2, I was pleased to see that all children are writing independently and had been using their learning from IDL topic ‘Lost and Found’ to influence their writing.

We had an early lunch break today as M&M Productions were coming to perform ‘Treasure Island’ for all of the boys and girls in P1-7.  It was a wonderful afternoon and the cast entertained us with songs, action, amazing sets and costumes and a very exciting story.  P6/7 got a ‘backstage’ workshop afterwards – the teachers even had to do a bit of acting!

After school, I was leading the P5-7 Cross Country Club.  We did lots of different warm ups, timed trials, relay and interval training exercised to build up stamin and endurance.  I was impressed with the effort of all – don’t forget your kit next week everyone.

Tomorrow, P1-3 and P6-7 will take part in workshops delivered by NSPCC all about Child Safety.  Don’t forget our Health Week starts on Monday and pupils may wear casual clothes for the whole week.

Today was an amazing day at Stane Primary School and one I will remember for a long time.

After weeks of preparation, the children’s art work was finally ready to be showcased at our first ever ‘Art Exhibition’.

The children had worked so hard during #staneartfortnight to create canvases, framed work, pieces of writing, artist fact-files and even a trailer for a video.  Many members of staff worked late on Thursday to make sure the hall looked amazing – I was very grateful for everyone who pitched in.  The hall looked amazing – full of colour, pattern and design!

The atmosphere during the event was wonderful – thank you to all of our parents, families and visitors who came along and took the time to look closely at the pieces and read the information.

All of the classes got the chance to visit the gallery during the day too – they were so excited to spot a little sticker on their art work which let them know it had been sold.  If you didn’t get a chance to purchase your child’s work, don’t worry – you can send the money in next week!

The P6/7 guides did a great job of showing guests around and helping with the sales of the art work – many of our guests commented on their maturity, excellent behaviour and positive attitude.  I was very proud of them.

I was delighted that Ms. Cameron, Continuous Improvement Officer from NLC, was able to attend in the afternoon.  She commented on the impact of the exhibits as well as the creativity and hard work of the pupils.

I would like to say thank everyone who visited and to those who purchased some art work.  I’d also like to thank the parents and grandparents who donated home-baking or treats for the refreshment table. From the feedback we received, it’s safe to say the event was a huge success:

We had two events running today to involve parents/carers in the life of our school.  All of the schools and nurseries in Shotts and Allanton had worked together to host a ‘Transition to Primary 1’ workshop for parents/carers whose children will start school in August 2017.

Over the past months, Mrs. Linfoot has been liaising with staff from Dykehead, Allanton, St. Patrick’s and Shotts Family Learning Centre to plan and develop the workshop which took place at Calderhead High School.

Therese Henery, CIO for Early Learning and Childcare opened the event with some excellent remarks about the importance of getting transition right for our young people.  She also commented on the fact that our event was ‘Sector Leading’ and was a model that could be rolled out to other localities – praise indeed.

It was a wonderful event and a lovely opportunity for parents/carer across the community to come together to learn about Primary 1 in North Lanarkshire schools and hear from some of our partner agencies too.

Thank you to the staff and colleagued involved in the success of the day and also to the parents/carers and families who were able to attend.  The feedback for this event also showed how well it was received by the participants:

As I said, today has really been one to remember – two excellent examples of our community working together in partnership for the benefit of our children!

Don’t forget that Stane Primary and Nursery Class is closed to pupils on Monday 13th, Tuesday 14th and Wednesday 15th February 2017.  Enjoy the long weekend.