February Break 
We hope all our families had a wonderful February break with the children!
It was great to hear about all the lovely things our families had been doing during the break.
We have returned and are ready to learn with the rest of the term stretching before us.
7 weeks until the Spring break holidays and lots of learning and growing to take place in between. We look forward to the weeks ahead!
Maxwellton Blogs! 
Please remember to check your child’s classroom blog regularly. This is a wonderful opportunity to discuss the learning taking place in your child’s classroom with the photographs and visual prompts to aid discussions.
These blogs take a lot of work but we are committed as a staff to doing them so our parents can see and have a ‘feel’ for the learning taking place in classrooms. We will be looking to evaluate this shortly and how well they are being used. If you like them, please encourage us with positive feedback. Thank you!
Please see below all the links to our weekly blogs!
Every week there will be an updated HT blog just like this one with school news.
Each class will also have their own class blog and will post photographs and contents of what they are learning in their classrooms each week.
The link to each of our classroom blogs is below for you to click on. Please do view your child’s classroom blog and ask them about the photographs and all that they are learning each week. The children love showing the photographs and talking about their learning!
We hope you enjoy!
Ms Begg – CCC Blog
Ms Begg takes most of our classes for their CCC time. This is when class teachers are out of class for 2 1/2 hours a week for planning, preparation and development work. Ms Begg covers this time in most classes and teaches our children digital technologies and physical education.
Ms Begg has also been developing her blog and parents can view her blog using the link below. This will allow parents and children to discuss what they are learning in PE and digital technologies when they are with Ms Begg.
Enjoy!
We hope you find all of this helpful.
https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/sl/maxwelltonmsbegg/
Parents Evening 
We look forward to welcoming our parents to the school for parents evening on Tuesday 24th March and Wednesday 25th March. Parents evening runs from 3.30pm-6.30pm. Letters regarding this will be issued next week.
Scottish Assembly – Amazing Newspaper Coverage!
I would just like to say a huge thank you again to all children, staff and families for making our Scottish assembly such a huge success!
We received a lovely write up in the local press and this is always a wonderful celebration and promotion of our children.
Go team Maxi! It was great to read!
Please see the link below to the article
World Book Day 
Just a little prior warning, that we will as a school be celebrating World Book Day on Thursday 5th March. We will NOT however be asking pupils to dress up for this so there is no need to buy costumes for this event. This decision has been made to keep the focus on literacy and to minimise the cost to our families in line with the ‘Cost of The School Day’. We want our children to have as much fun as possible but at as little cost on this day.
We are asking however that where possible our children bring a potato to school on this day! We are going to have great fun as a whole school turning on potatoes into potato characters from our favourite books and novels. This activity will be completed in school but we ask that children bring a potato into school on this today to do this activity.
We will be celebrating in a variety of ways and posting lots of photographs on our blog.
Community Police Visits – P6/P7 Social Media 
PC Edwards one of our Community Police Officers will be coming to Maxwellton next week to speak to Primary 6 and Primary 7 classes regarding social media use. This is obviously a huge area in children’s lives now and we want to make sure that our senior pupils know the benefits, dangers and age limits surrounding use of social media. We look forward to hearing from the children on what they have learned after this event.
American Football 
Our P6 children had an amazing opportunity this week to take part and experience American Football!
Our Active Schools team organised this in partnership with EK Pirates American Football club and UK Dukes Flag Football
The event took place at John Wright Sport Centre on Friday 14th Feb. Our children had a great time and we would like to thank our partners for providing these experiences for our children.
Please see the link below and our Twitter page for photographs from today
Handball 
All our classes have also received Handball lessons from Michael the handball coach. This is organised through Active Schools and our fabulous partners. This is a wonderful experience for our children to receive specialist training and coaching in a sport. We would like to thank Michael and Active Schools for providing this experience and their work and commitment to our school through the years. We couldn’t provide these experiences without you so we are very grateful!
P7 Street Dance 
We look forward to welcoming Scott our street dancing coach to Maxwellton who will begin his work with P7 this week. Scott works with the P7’s from now until May to prepare a dance that they will perform for their end of year assembly. Look out for the dance moves coming home!
P1 Numeracy Workshop 
A huge thank you to all our parents that attended our P1 numeracy workshop last week. We received great feedback and thank you for your encouragement in our parent workshops. Below are a sample of some of the comments made..
Can I take this opportunity to thank Mrs McKenna for preparing this workshop and welcoming our families into her classroom. Partners together!
‘I think the way the kids are taught numeracy is excellent’
‘Great to hear the language and visual signs used to teach numeracy’
‘Loved the practical activities- great fun for homework!’
‘I loved the actions whilst doing sums’
‘I just loved seeing how they learn’
‘I found it helpful to know that its good to keep things simple at this stage and to keep it all fun whilst learning’
‘I found it useful to get ideas to use at home’
‘It was all good!’
‘Everything was great! Helps me to help him’
‘I found learning about the sticks on the monkey useful ‘
Beat The Street – Official Launch! 
Beat The Street East Kilbride will see its official launch this week! We are very excited about this!
Our school will be launching the event in the following ways…
- School assembly on Monday all about Beat the Street
- Parent letters, maps, leaflets and children’s fobs will all be issued to pupils on Monday and fully discussed in class. Please discuss these at home too.
- Maxwellton will attend official launch on Wednesday 19th February at 10am in Universal Connections. We will be sending 2 x P6 pupils to represent us at this official and important event.
- Beat The Street walks – We will be taking our children out to teach them how to use their fobs and to get the game started over the next two weeks.
- Community launch event is taking place on Saturday 22nd February 1pm-4pm at John wright Sports Centre. Families are invited to take their children along to this event and we will be promoting this within the school.
- Beat The Street communicated with parents and families through blog, letters and leaflets
Do you know about Beat The Street?
A brand new initiative is coming to East Kilbride called ‘Beat The Street’ . Our visitor Val and Craig from Active Schools told us all about how we can take part.
Please see some information below regarding it. We are all very excited and know that Maxwellton is going to do really well when it is launched in a few weeks time!
We can’t wait to get all the information delivered to our schools.
https://www.beatthestreet.me/eastkilbride/
What is Beat the Street?
Beat the Street is a fun, free initiative that will see East Kilbride transformed into a giant game!
See how far you can walk, cycle and run in just 6 weeks. There are great challenges to enjoy and prizes up for grabs.
Play the game from 19 February – 1 April 2020
Earn as many points as possible for you and your team by walking, running or cycling between Beat Boxes across East Kilbride Wednesday 19th February 2020 – Wednesday 1st April 2020.
Set Up
Children aged under 11 play with a Beat the Street fob, which they will receive from their school. Anyone aged 12 and above plays with a Beat the Street card. Soon you’ll be able to register online. Use the Beat Box map to plan your route.
The game in East Kilbride runs from 0.01am on Wednesday 19th February 2020 until 7pm on Wednesday 1st April 2020.
Playing the game
- Find Beat Boxes nearest to you on the map.
- Tap the Beat Box with your card until it beeps and flashes.
- Walk, cycle, run or scoot to a different Beat Box within an hour.
- Tap the Beat Box with your card and fob until it beeps and flashes to score 10 points.
- Now carry on your journey and score more points for each extra Beat Box you tap.
Win Beat the Street
The teams at the top of the leader board at the end of the game win hundreds of pounds worth of vouchers. There are leader boards for school & community teams. Highest average and highest points prizes are available.
Registered players can also win weekly Lucky Tap prizes such as vouchers and Beat the Street goodies for taking part.
Children can also complete challenges and receive stickers and certificates.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJbOghMQ5ZM
Engine Idling
I am afraid to say that the Council have still received a complaint regarding engine idling that is taking place around our school area. I communicated with parents regarding this issue in my last blog and through school emails. Can I continue to ask all parents to ensure that they are not engine idling. Engine idling is an offence and carries a fixed penalty fine. The children are also very passionate that this does not happen around their school for pollution and climate reasons and upper stage classes will be creating posters regarding this to raise awareness of this matter.
Nursery Admissions 2020
Just a reminder to all our family, friends and community that the closing date for nursery applications is Friday 28th February. 3 & 4 year olds will be entitled to 1140 hours of early learning and childcare from August 2020. Please contact our school office on 01355 222 521 to make an appointment to complete a nursery application with our nursery Team Leader. We look forward to welcoming you. Please spread the word to any one in our local community regarding the closing date so that no one is caught out.
Nursery Students 
We look forward to welcoming two students from the West of Scotland University for a 2 week placement in our nursery from week beginning 24th February. Pauline and Chloe have been with us before on placement and we look forward to welcoming them back
Loose Parts Play Parental Workshop 
Calling all who are interested to come along and attend our nursery ‘Loose Parts Play’ workshop on Wednesday 19th February at 2.30pm -3.30pm. Mrs Carlton , our nursery teacher will lead this workshop and will inform us all about ‘Loose Parts Play’ – what this is, what it looks like in the nursery and how it helps grow and develop your child in their learning. As always little ones will be involved and a cuppa will always be made availble. Look forward to seeing you if you can make it.
New Lunch Time Sports Club – P3 & P4 
Miss Hogg will be running a new sports club during lunch time for Primary 3 & Primary 4 Children. The club will run on a Friday and will start on Friday 21st February. Letters have been issued to P3 & P4 and if your child would like to take part we ask that they return their response slip as soon as possible as places will be allocated for this club. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Miss Hogg for providing this experience to our children.
After School Clubs
Please speak to your child so they are certain if they are going to the club on the day. Please also speak to your child about the highest standards of behaviour at all after school clubs to ensure everyone gets the best possible experience from our after school clubs.
- Monday Lego Club P2 & P3
- Monday Drama Club – P4 & P5
- Monday Netball Club – P5, P6 & P7
- Tuesday Athletics Club – P6 & P7
- Wednesday Team Sports – P5 & P6
- Thursday Boys Football – P5, P6, P7
Week Ahead
The Week Ahead…
- Monday 17th February – Mr Harris Guitar Teacher in
- Monday 17th February – Lego, Drama and Netball After School Club
- Tuesday 18th February– Athletics After School Clubs
- Tuesday 18th February – Mr MacDonald Drum and Percussion Teacher in
- Tuesday 18th February – P4 Handball session
- Wednesday 19th February – Beat The Street official Launch
- Wednesday 19th February – Team Sports After School
- Wednesday 19th February – Boys Football Tournament
- Wednesday 19th February – Loose Parts Play Parental workshop 2.30pm
- Thursday 20th February – Boys Football After School Club
- Thursday 20th February – Netball festival
- Thursday 20th February – P7 Street Dance begins!
- Friday 21st February – PC Edwards – P6 & P7 Social Media Talks by Community Police
Menu for the Week beginning 17th February…
The Nursery menu for this week is Week Three from the Winter Menu . Please see link below.
CEN_PDF Go Fresh Nursery LUNCH winter 2019 parent flyer (A2924017)
The School menu for this week is Week Three from the Winter Menu also. Please see the link below.
CEN_GFC winter 19 parent leaflet_secured (A2930223)
