The planning is well underway to support our Primary 7 learners in the transition to secondary school. Over the next month, the pupils will write a letter to Calderglen High School introducing themselves, their interests both within and outwith school and identifying friends who they hope they will be grouped with next year. This is an important part of the transition process as we ensure each learner has the support required to ease the transition.
Residential Experience Feedback and Next Steps
- 81% think the school should continue to offer two residential experiences
- 60% felt the P6 residential experiences should be 3 days and 40% felt it should be 5 days
- 93% would like to know the projected costs in Primary 4
- 79% selected going at a time when it is mid-season
Parental Comments on Experience
- Residential trips are great for the children’s independence and maturity to limit it would be a shame. It is a great opportunity to build their confidence in different circumstances and surroundings.
- A P7 residential trip to Ardentinny/Lockerbie for 5 days would be my preference. Robinwood could be replaced by increasing events such as after school clubs, workshops etc in Calderglen to allow the P7 feeder school pupils to build relationships.
- I feel a residential experience is a wonderful way for children to grow and to learn. It gives them the experience of being away from family and seeing more of the out doors. It gives them their own experience they can share with family. I will always remember my residential experience in Primary 7. It was an excellent experience and I have fond memories from it. I learned several new skills and being away from famiy taught me to appreciate the world around me and everything my family done for me.
- Apparently high school offers a learning away experience in first year so this will allow pupils to get to know each other. So that along with the many induction events throughout P7 is enough to allow children to mix with those they will attend high school with.
- My older child participated in both residential trips when at HK He absolutely loved his trip to Ardentinny and came home happy, full of tales about his experiences and desperate to go to Robinwood the following year. I think Ardentinny built up his confidence in being away with the school so he went to Robinwood much more confident. I think it would be a shame to do away with both trips as it gives parents and children options to do one or both.
- Having had two children take part in these residential visits and seen first hand the positive effect it has had on them I would strongly advocate for keeping both if possible. I think the five day visit is a good length as when my daughter went a couple of years ago it coincided with a bank holiday weekend so they only got 3 nights and she came home wishing it had been longer. I do understand the cost implications of this though so I think the idea of giving people notice in P4 is a great idea. I should also add that, having some experience of the location, going around March or April means the kids avoid the midges which makes a huge difference.
Parental Comments on Cost & Fundraising
- Every year up until the residential trip year, I would like to be advised how much the trips are costing to allow time to budget for them. This can never be done too early.
- More details before hand would be helpful for both the children and the parents and a longer time to pay would be beneficial.
- I think the idea of starting to fundraise in primary 4 and 5 to offset the cost of the residential trip would be beneficial (alongside pointing out to parents, who maybe don’t know how much it costs, how much on average these trips cost with plenty of warning so they can start putting money away, using the school credit union perhaps?)
- The cost of residential trips for parents 2 years in a row is unaffordable for some families therefore pupils unfortunately are unable to attend.
- Giving parents notice in advance and different ways to save for it would help this E.g.paying instalments from p4. P5
- A school savings fund for school trips would be good, we could put a small amount away every week or month to pay for future trips, I think the trips are a great experience for kids and gives them more independence
Parental Comments on Scheduling
- I also am against the p6 trip being shortened to 3 days as I don’t think this would benefit the children as they would only have 1 full day at the centre.
- One residential is more than enough. Families struggle at the best of times. There wasn’t a 5 day option for the none in p6 but 5 days p7. Think that should have been one.
- March to May for P7 so there is the opportunity to connect with pupils you may be in class with and remember come S1 in August
- I think a 5 day visit is more beneficial than a 3day as you lose a lot of time with traveling.
- I don’t believe Ardentinny would be much cheaper if going for only 3 days and not as beneficial time wise. There are a few children that don’t go for different reasons so don’t feel children would be singled out if their parents couldn’t afford.
- A 5 day residential trip in P7 and opt out of the Robinwood would be my preferred choice. Pupils are more confident in P7 as some don’t attend in P6 trips as they aren’t ready for them.
- I believe when the p6 trip was previously shortened due to public holidays the feedback from most was that less than 5 days was not sufficient time to participate in all activities.
- Having just one trip (in P7) makes the final year at Primary school special.
- It would make sense to go when the weather is likely to be a bit better.
- As long as the kids are happy. March-May would be better as it’s less cold
Residential Experience Next Steps
We are now planning for our current Primary 4 and 5 pupils and are in the process of developing a progressive framework for this using the parent feedback, curriculum guidelines and examples of best practice.
It is likely that this will take the format of:
Primary 5 – Outdoor experience / camp craft activities within our local authority (no overnights). The costs for Primary 5 experience would mostly be met using school funds.
Primary 6 – 3 day experience at an outdoor resource centre. The cost for Primary 6 would be significantly reduced by selecting a low season date and a nearby centre.
Primary 7 – 5 day residential experience at an outdoor resource centre with the cost being available to parents in P4 and a savings scheme in place to provide the option for parents to make regular payments. This would mean we are not offering Robinwood alongside other local schools but we would set up other transition events regularly.
Christmas 2018 Feedback
- 86% rated the ‘Magical Christmas Jigsaw’ as a good or very good performance. 6% did not attend and 8% (3 people) rated it neutral
- 91% rated the Christmas show tickets reasonable in price
- 57% did not manage to buy as many tickets as they required
- 24% would like a morning performance to be added to the schedule
- 60% like to have the option to buy personalised Christmas cards including 11% who would like to design the card at home with their child. 40% would prefer this service was not offered.
- 79% felt a £1.50 contribution towards the ‘Big Story’ performance and party was reasonable
- 63% felt the donation requests during December were reasonable
Parental Comments on Organisation
- A clear timetable with event and costs would be really useful.
- It was good to get the letter listing most of the events and prices for all classes in advance. This would be good throughout the school year maybe monthly/termly. Including after school clubs etc.
- Too much to ask all kids to be at school 6pm for a 7pm show where I was left hanging about having come straight from work.
- Consider tea and coffee in dinner hall rather than leaving us in the cold.
- Please insist on buggies being parked in dinner hall for health and safety.
- Can the photographs be moved to the start of term like all other primary schools do? It’s a huge expense right at Christmas.
- I felt that the Christmas events were all well organised and reasonable. I am happy to contribute to the cost of extra treats for the children and I appreciate the extra effort that the staff put into providing fun opportunities for the children.
Parental Comments on Ticket Availability and Show Times
- The school was jam-packed so Wed pm show sold out and large groups hogging seats plus buggies blocking entry. I had to attend solo, his Dad the day before (also solo). We would have liked to of brought a relative for company.
- As a working parent, I was pleased there was only one play and only had to take one half day off work.
- Ticketing for Christmas Show: suddenly there was a ballot for additional tickets when I didn’t even have the opportunity to purchase tickets the first time. Judging by responses on app I wasn’t the only one affected by this. As a result we only received the minimum 2 tickets. Perhaps a record of who is purchasing tickets would be a good idea ie a child with a speaking part (and who returns any other letters and monies to school promptly ordinarily) doesn’t order tickets, surely this would appear strange to class teacher and school office and could be checked before tickets ho to ballot. I appreciate there is a lot going on at that time of year but felt a bit let down by this process. Nevertheless the show was great and we’ll done to all staff involved.
Parental Comments on Costs
- I felt we were giving the girls a lot of money over the festive period for various activities at the school and overall it turned into a quite expensive time
- It’s not so much the individual prices of tickets etc, it’s the cost of everything together. In the space of a month I spent over £100 purely on tickets, photos, Christmas tops, hamper gift, Tombola prize etc. It would have been closer to £150 had I also have bought nursery photos
- I thought with having a child in school and one in nursery it was very expensive this year including school and nursery pictures (I think should be taken much earlier) I counted not including donations that I’d given £174 to the school from November to the end of December this is way too much to expect from parents at this time of year!
- If u have more than one child at the school it can be expensive for that time of yr
- Donation items could be spread throughout the year and kept until Christmas. In September, October and November an item could be asked for each month and set aside until needed easing the financial cost of December. Also the cost of Christmas parties in relation to what the children receive is quite expensive.
- Additionally with children being more commercially aware, the school Christmas gift shop is very over priced for the gifts the children to buy. I would prefer a hand made craft rather than a wrapped up poundstore gift that has no sentimental meaning.
- December is a costly month. With the cost of the show plus the big story and the hampers and the tombola etc. Maybe the hampers should be arranged sooner so it’s not a costly in on month.
- The Christmas cards were great , a really nice touch , however it would be nice that a much smaller , cheaper pack was available , so a parent could buy one or two for themselves and not feel guilty of not been able to buy their childs card if funds are not available . I think a weekly scheme of paying x amount per week into the.school to pay for all these things , concerts , discos might be a good option for some parents , so for example paying a pound ? per week on school weeks , so I would have events pre paid for . However saying that , I think the events etc are reasonably priced
- I think the amount of things over Christmas was just right and felt the money asked for was very reasonable. I feel like if we did any less my children would be missing out.
Parental Comments on Involvement
- The Christmas Concert was one of the best I’ve seen
- I would like to see the lower primary classes do more in the plays, etc as it always seems to focus on the p6 and p7s.
- I would rather be up close on performances to see my children as was too far away and never got to see them put right at back it not fair
- Full school in a performance is too much… You see your kid for one song in 90 mins. Much preferred junior school performance separate to senior school for ticketing and enjoying your child’s performance
- My daughter loved the Christmas show/panto that came in to the school at Christmas
- Having an evening performance of the Christmas show and making it mandatory that to take part you have to b able to appear in both shows, excluded children who have out of school activities. This is ironic as on one hand the school reward system encourages out of school activity participation… I would have liked to see the school choir sing carols, or even the class, this is usually a fun session for all parents and children. But didn’t happen this year?
- Additionally with children being more commercially aware, the school Christmas gift shop is very over priced for the gifts the children to buy. I would prefer a hand made craft rather than a wrapped up poundstore gift that has no sentimental meaning.
Planning for Christmas 2019 Next Steps
- Photographs have been booked for September 2019 to ensure this cost is not around Christmas Time
- Donations for hampers will be collected around the October week with perishable food bought nearer the time
- We will consider a third (morning) performance ensuring an extra 200 tickets are available
- We will consider a single contribution pupil christmas ticket so that one ticket covers all events in school and make this available in November.
Parental Engagement Group
We are planning to establish a Parental Engagement Group (PEG) to develop family learning activities, improve communication between home and school and contribute to developing our family engagement annual calendar for next session (open afternoons, showcase events, jotters home, assemblies etc). If you would like to be part of this development group, please let the office know. Mrs French will be leading this group and will be scheduling meetings over the next few months as we plan for Session 2019/2020.
Whats on next week?
Wednesday – All staff are participating in professional learning focused on Active Reading Strategies
Thursday – P6 Champions for Change
Thursday – Valentine’s Disco
Thank you for your continued support
Kind regards
Kirsty Duff
