It was great to see everyone return after mid-term break feeling refreshed and ready to learn. After a brief chat about activities in the holiday week, all classes were full steam ahead with learning across the curriculum.
Christmas
Whilst it is very early to mention the ‘C’ word … pupils have been designing Christmas cards to bring home for you to consider placing an order with the print room to have them professionally produced. It is only 6 weeks now until our whole school Christmas show and classes will be beginning to prepare for this over the next couple of weeks. You should have received an information sheet via pupil post this week and in January we will ask you to provide feedback on our Christmas arrangements to help us prepare for next year. I am very mindful that it is an expensive time of year and we have tried to be careful about the cost of school events. Rather than a pantomime this year, South Lanarkshire Council libraries have organised a performance of ‘The Big Story’ and the cost of this will be covered by school fund.
Celebrating Wider Achievements
Our pupils are always learning and we are delighted to be able to celebrate their success with them both within and outwith school. Our board in the waiting area is being redesigned to give visitors a flavour of the wider achievements and successes of pupils. Pupils have been invited to bring in a photograph of something they are proud to have achieved. It may be a photograph of a hobby or a personal target such as learning to ride their bike.
Attendance
As a school, our target attendance rate for this session is 95% and we are currently achieving 93%. A high levels of attendance at school is important for achievement and social development and many of the pupils have 100% attendance so far. If your child is going to be absent from school, please call and let us know why so that we can record the reason for absence. If we don’t hear from you then the office staff will text and telephone to check everything is ok.
Validated Self Evaluation (VSE)
On Wednesday and Thursday last week, a VSE team visited the school. The purpose of a VSE is to provide feedback on the school’s improvement journey. We asked the team to visit all classes and provide feedback on pupil learning and engagement. The team visited each class twice to observe learning. In the next couple of weeks we will have the report and will be able to start planning the next step in the school’s journey.
Residential Experiences
The school has offered a residential experience to Primary 6 pupils (normally Ardentinny) for a number of years. There is also an option of attending Robinwood in Primary 7. These are both excellent experiences for pupils and develop team work and friendship in the senior stages.
The experiences be expensive and we are beginning to think about how we could support families to plan in advance for this. We are considering class fundraising at Primary 4 and 5 through enterprise activities which would then reduce the cost for all pupils who would like to attend the Primary 6 residential experience.
Another option is to extend the payment plan using the school’s credit union system. Small payments throughout Primary 4 and 5 would be saved in the pupil’s individual credit union account to pay for the experience in Primary 6. If your child changed school or decided they did not want to attend, the money can be withdrawn from the credit union and used for any other purpose.
I will be in touch with Primary 4 and 5 parents over the next few weeks to provide more details of the ways we can support families plan for the experience
What’s on next week?
- The anti-bullying steering group will meet on 30th October.
- On 31st October, the first group of staff will participate in training on Managing Aggression and Potential Aggression (MAPA) as part of the work we are doing on promoting positive relationships and behaviour.
- Electives take on a halloween theme … please remember no masks in school.
- I will visit St Cuthbert’s to discuss curriculum planning and data analysis.
- The Halloween disco takes place on the 1st November.
- On Friday 2nd November, I will provide an interim report to the Council on the impact of the Pupil Equity Fund at Heathery Knowe PS.
Thank you for your continued support.
Kind regards
Kirsty Duff
