All posts by Mr Hardy

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Welcome Back!

Welcome back! We all hope you had a good break over Easter with the lovely weather that we have been having. It looks like we will be continuing with our virtual school life for a while longer. All the teachers have been busy preparing for this week back and have uploaded work into Teams. This week will be Miss Lynch’s last week and Mrs Davies and Mrs Bate will take care of the P2 Team site in the meantime. We would like to thank Miss Lynch for all her hard work and we wish her well for the future.

We fully appreciate how challenging learning and working from home can be so please make sure that you look after yourselves and do not put additional pressure on your families at the difficult time. Do what works for your situation. When we get back, we have an excellent team of staff that will fill in any gaps in learning – this is what they are fantatstic at doing. Try to keep reading, share books, cook or do PE with Joe. I have now mastered the art of Tik-Tok!

The BBC have started a series of programmes that can be accessed online or through the red button on your remote to support learning – not only do they have over 200 teachers delivering lessons but the presenters also include Brian Cox teaching key science topics and Manchester City footballer, Sergio Aguero teaching Spanish.

We would like all our pupils to be on Teams so if you haven’t been on yet please try to do this. If you need any help please email into the Holmston mail account.

We will keep you updated regularly so please check back and follow us on Twitter for further ideas.

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Easter Update

What a term it has been but we have made it to the Easter break! I would like you thank all the staff. They have worked so hard to learn new skills and suppport each other to ensure that the learning continues at home.  They are an amazing team. Thank you for your patience and co-operation too at this very challenging time. I know the holidays this year will be different but there are lots of links on the home learning section of the website and work on the teams sites to help you keep occupied. Emails will still be monitored over the holiday period although teachers will not be uploading new material onto teams during this time.

As we missed our Spring Serice here are a couple of our Easter songs you can join in with.
Spring Chicken Song
The Chocolate Song

…and we are missing our friends from Southcraig too!
You Will Be Found – Southcraig Choir  #wecanchangetheworld!

We all hope you have a safe break  – try not to eat too much chocolate – and we will be back in touch soon.

 

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Fairtrade Update

What a fantastic way to start Tuesday – due to the hard work of our Fairtrade committee and the committment of Mrs Bate and Miss Johnston. We have achieved the FairActive award which builds on our FairAware award from last year. Thank you if you also helped by coming along to our recent coffee afternoon.

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Monday 30.3.2020 Update

Good Morning everyone. I hope that you are settling into a routine and adjusting to this new way of life! If you haven’t logged onto glow yet please do and join in with your class on Teams and say ‘Hi’ Parents please can you email into school with your child’s name so that we can continue to improve our communication systems – unfortunately the text messaging only allows 121 characters – that’s why they are short!

We will be trying to contact you all over the coming weeks so if you have recently changed your phone number – please let the school know by emailing us at Holmston.mail@south-ayrshire.gov.uk.

If we can do anything to further support you or if you have any ideas – please let us know. Remember to follow us on twitter too.

Home Learning

Teachers are setting home learning tasks on GLOW teams and there is work on the website.  These are proposed tasks only and we encourage parents to use their judgement.  Teachers follow the Curriculum for Excellence and South Ayrshire Curriculum Frameworks so the tasks set will be appropriate for the age of your child and will guide you around the concepts covered.  Every child is different and works in a different way.  Teachers constantly change and adapt the task to suit the needs of the child.  A daily routine might look like this but this is only a suggestion:

Before 9.00am Wake Up Get Up, have breakfast, brush your teeth, make your bed
9.00am – 10.00am Exercise Join Joe Wicks @ 9am, Cosmic Yoga, go outside and play

Oti Mabuse – dance class
10.00am – 10.20am Snack
10.20am – 11.00am Learning Time Complete some tasks set by your teacher
11.00am – 11.20am Break
11.20am – 12.00am Creative Time Lego, drawing, mindfulness colouring, crafting, singing, music, cooking/ baking together. Add your own ideas!

Youtube:Daily draw with the Little Art School (live at 11).
12.00pm – 1.00pm Lunch
1.00pm – 1.20pm Reading Read a book or magazine.  Log on and listen to an audio book.  If you have Readingwise or Accelerated reader log on.
1.20pm – 2.00pm Chill time
2.00pm – 2.45pm Learning Time Complete some tasks set by your teacher
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Friday 27th Update

Well we have reached the end of a very unusual week – well done to all the parents and pupils, hopefully you have settled into a bit of a routine. Please don’t try to do all of the tasks that the teachers have set in a short space of time.  Do what you think you can manage and don’t worry about trying to complete everything.  This is very new territory that we are in and it will take a little bit of time to get used to! We will keep updating the website and the Teams pages. Please also follow us on Twitter. We will hopefully get to contact you all over the coming week just to check you are all fine.

The staff are amazing and have worked really hard behind the scenes to learn new ICT skills and provide learning opportunities – a big thank-you goes out to them. They are an incedible team.

Please get in touch through holmston.mail@south-ayrshire.gov.uk  if you need to ask anything.

Have a safe and enjoyable weekend.

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URGENT: Pupils entitled to free school meals

If your child is entitled to free school meals and you would like a packed lunch delivered daily to your doorstep from next week, could you please email holmston.mail@south-ayrshire.gov.uk today and provide your child’s name and stage. Free school meals will be delivered by a central team. We will pass on your address that we have on the system.

Please also see post below about accessing free school meals from Grammar Primary for this week.

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Children Entitled to a Free School Meal

From tomorrow the Council will be moving to centrally preparing and distributing free school meals from specific primary schools.  A list of all the primary schools is also available on the Council and website.  Parents of primary, secondary and special school children who currently receive a free meal at school should go to their nearest primary school on the list, between 12:00pm and 2:00pm, where a nutritional meal will be available for you to collect for each of your eligible children.  Holmston is a hub school.

Copy of Foodhubs – Primary Schools

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Updates on School Closure and Information on Childcare for Key Workers

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Further information and advice from South Ayrshire Council on the school closures and childcare for key workers. Click here for the letter.

In order to give us an idea of numbers of pupils for next week could you email the school if all members of the family are key workers and are working any days next week (please indicate days).

This service is for children in families where ALL ADULTS in the household are designated as keyworkers identified in the list.

Care is available ONLY on the days you are working.

Children who have been sent home from school this week unwell should NOT attend.

Children who present as unwell/displaying symptons will be sent home without exception. Please ensure we have the best contact details for collection.

Registration Forms are required to be completed to apply for a place in one of the care providers after next week

Parents accessing this temporary service within the school should bring their child to the main entrance of the school at 9am. All children must be collected by 3.05pm. Pupils will not be supervised in the playground before 9.00am

Thanks for your support as we work through this together. If you have any further questions post below or email the school and we will do our very best to answer. Holmston.Mail@south-ayrshire.gov.uk

Thank you and stay safe.

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What support is there for pupils entitled to free school meals?

We recognise this a challenging time for many. The health and wellbeing of local families is our priority and we understand the concern these changes will cause.

While schools are closed all pupils entitled to a free school meal and clothing grant will continue to have access to food at lunchtime.

We are working on an alternative to free school meals that will support families during this period of school closures. Packed lunches will be available in every school in South Ayrshire between 12 and 1pm. The location for the availability of lunches will be reviewed as required.

Even though school is closed, there’s no need to go hungry at lunchtime. If you are entitled to a free school meal in South Ayrshire and are able to come along, make sure you pick up your free packed lunch.

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Childcare Provision for Key Workers

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Please see below the attached letter from Douglas explaining the arrangements for key workers and the explanation of a key worker. If your job is not included in this list please keep your child at home.

The most recent scientific advice on how to further limit the spread of COVID-19 is clear. If children can stay safely at home, they should, to limit the chance of the virus spreading.

That is why the government has asked parents to keep their children at home, wherever possible, and asked schools to remain open only for those children who absolutely need to attend. The fewer children making the journey to school, and the fewer children in educational settings, the lower the risk that the virus can spread and infect vulnerable individuals in wider society.

If it is at all possible for children to be at home, then they should be.

Where all adults in the family are key workers, please ensure that this is your only option before bringing your child into school on Monday and speaking with a member of the management team. Copies of the Registration Form for provision after next week will be available from the school.  It is an essential part of our national effort to combat this disease.

This service is only for children in families where all adults in the household are designated as keyworkers.

 Childcare provision for Key Workers – Letter from Douglas Hutchison

Registration form – key worker service

 

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Friday 20th March Update

Although the school will close today, we are still waiting to hear what options are available for children of key workers that have no other child care. Please ensure that you follow all government advice to keep youself and the community as safe as possible.

I would like to thank all the school staff for the amazing effort they have put in this week despite a lot of uncertainty and anxiety. They have gone above and beyond to make sure that the children have a ‘normal’ time as possible. The children have all been amazing too.

I hope all our parents have been able to access the ‘Home Learning’ section on the website. If you are having any issues around logging in to any of the websites please email the school.  This will be updated over the duration of the school closure and we will be setting up microsoft teams for each class. This can be accessed through GLOW. We will send out information about this when it is set up.

All microsoft office programmes are available to download free through GLOW. We will re-post how to do this.

If you have any comments about the Home Learning or ways in which we can support you. Please leave a comment or email in.

We will update you when we have further information. In the meantime, stay safe.

School email: Holmston.Mail@south-ayrshire.gov.uk

 

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Thursday Update

As you know schools will close tomorrow. As we get more information about this will be passed on. We will shortly be sending out the password for the Home Learning tab above through the text messaging service.

Staff in school have been amazing this week in spite of all the challenges have been busy organising for educational opportunities that will be available via the website.

Please make sure that your child’s GLOW, Sumdog and P4-P7 Accelerated Reader Log-ins work and you can access these.

We are looking to set up microsoft teams for each of the classes. If this goes ahead you will also receive a text message. Please make sure your contact details are up to date.

As you can imagine we are receiving a lot of phone calls, if you have a queries about usernames or passwords or anything non-urgent you can email the school account: Holmston.Mail@south-ayrshire.gov.uk

We will still be regularly accessing emails when the school is closed and get back to you asap.

Keep safe x

 

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Update

School is open today. Jotters have been given to the pupils. If you do not receive one please  arrange for someone who is not self-isolating to come and collect one or please use your own alternative.

We are continuing to take sensible precautions and preparing to support children who are at home with their learning. Staff are working together within and across schools in South Ayrshire with committment and heart warming support.

Your positivity and rational approach is, as always, greatly appreciated. If you have any further ideas on how we can support each other as a school community we would love to hear from you.

We will be using this blog as well as Twitter to keep you updated. The home learning section will be opened later on this week – we’re busy working on it. Keep safe and well.

Copy of changes to school events letter