The weeks are passing so quickly now and this was another very busy week at Heathery Knowe PS. We heard presentations from Primary 7 pupils standing for election as house captains and the voting will take place on Monday. A team of 16 Primary 6 pupils participated in sports leader training and will complete this training next week. Once they are trained, our young sports leaders will be organised into teams to offer sport experiences to our younger pupils in Primary 1-4. Our youngest pupils in the school now know their first six sounds and have revised them this week. It’s amazing to see how quickly they have settled and how confident they are with their learning.
Lunch Update
We have been planning ways to ensure lunch is a calm time for all pupils. Mr Scott has been working with the pupils to improve the lunch system and the revised system launched this week. Packed lunch box trolleys are now under the stairs or near classrooms so that pupils can drop off and pick up their lunch box at the same time as lining up. We hope this will help to make sure all lunch boxes go home every day. Primary 1 and 7 are first sitting for lunch and come straight in. Primary 7 are then able to undertake leadership roles they have over lunch. Primary 2-3 are second sitting and line up outside straight away and come in as soon as Primary 1 and 7 are served. Primary 4-6 are third sitting so play first and line up when the bell rings at 12.45. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mr Scott and the pupils involved in the review. It all worked very smoothly this week.
Playground Update
We have now been operating a staggered morning interval for two weeks and are in a position to seek feedback from pupils, parents and staff about how well this is working. I supervise break time for older pupils and Mr Scott supervises the younger pupils. We have found the staggered break to be very helpful in ensuring there is time to speak with pupils and find out about their play activities along with being able to support and supervise pupils who find break times difficult. This minimises conflict in the playground as adults are able to intervene quickly to support young people to stay on track. I am not quite ready to play ‘buildy tig’ yet but I definitely understand the rules now!
Harvest
Room 10 have organised our harvest celebrations for Friday 12th October. Pupils are invited to wear autumn colours and bring a donation of a food item for our harvest table. All donations received will go to the East Kilbride Foodbank. This is a great opportunity for us to work with our pupils to raise awareness of local issues and to encourage our pupils to help others. This ties in with the wider themes of the school regarding citizenship and always ‘choosing kindness and respect’ for others.
School Improvement
The Senior Leadership Team have had a very busy week evaluating the school’s strengths and planning for improvement. We have had an opportunity to read each teacher’s forward plans, visit classes and analyse the attainment data available to use using Scottish National Standardised Assessments.
On the 24th and 25th October, the school will participate in Validated Self Evaluation (VSE). A VSE visit involves a team of people visiting our school to help us improve in a specific area. We have decided to focus on the theme of learning and teaching across the school. The VSE team is made up of two very experienced headteachers, our Quality Link Officer and me. Over the two days, we will visit each class at least once to evaluate the quality of teaching and learning. After the visit, we will have feedback and an action plan which will be used to improve teaching and learning. I will share the key messages with parents following the visit. We are looking forward to participating in this process.
Scottish Attainment Fund
This week I met with the Scottish Attainment Fund adviser for South Lanarkshire Council. Our school received £68, 000 to help us to close the attainment gap for pupils. The money we have received has been used to:
- Employ an additional teacher for the school. Miss Meek and Mr Loveday provide additional support to classes and individual pupils to improve attainment.
- Provide the Prince William award for Primary 7 pupils building wellbeing, teamwork, confidence and friendship
- Train two teachers as Tapestry leaders to improve approaches to teaching and learning across the school.
- Register for the nurturing school award, train two members of staff and develop nurturing areas in all classrooms and open areas as well as converting the meeting room to a nurture room.
- Purchase a wide range of maths resources to promote numeracy and mathematics across the school.
Over the course of the year I will set up a consultative committee to focus on the way Scottish Attainment Fund money is allocated to priorities across the school. There will be an opportunity for parents to participate in this. I will send more details after the October break.
Jotters Home
For a number of years the school has sent jotters home twice a year for parents to look at and comment on. The way pupils learn in school is changing with an increasing focus on collaboration, active learning and discussion. In turn the way we record evidence of learning and progress has moved from recording in jotters towards photos, videos, teacher observation and group displays / presentations. In light of this we will be reviewing how we share your child’s learning journey with you. We will seek parent views on this as we review our process for recording each child’s progress in learning.
What’s on next week?
- I will attend the Headteacher meeting on Monday. The focus is School Improvement and the Scottish Attainment Fund.
- Pupils will elect house captains to work alongside the Junior Leadership Team.
- Harvest assembly takes place on 12th October. Pupils are invited to wear autumn colours and bring a donation to the food bank.
- Parent Consultation Evenings take place on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Thank you for your continued support
Kind regards
Kirsty Duff
