It’s hard to believe we are at the September weekend holiday already and we’ve already packed so much in at school! Firstly I would like to mention our new House and Vice Captains who have taken on their roles very conscientiously and have shown great responsibility. I look forward to working with them throughout the year.

Our daily mile continues and the children and staff are clocking up the miles! Teachers have reported that they have noticed a difference in the focus and concentration of pupils and the children themselves have told me that they feel ‘alert’, ‘refreshed‘, ‘energised‘ and ‘awake‘,  which shows the positive impact of this initiative.

On Wednesday of this week we had a visit from our new Quality Improvement Officer, Mrs Anne Jessimer. She spoke to me about our Standards and Quality report and we discussed the school’s plans for further improvement. She then had a tour of the school and was very impressed with our polite, well-mannered pupils and commented on the high standard of uniform throughout the school.

On Thursday we welcomed parents and carers to the our Meet the Teacher morning. Everyone had the opportunity to chat to the class teachers about the curriculum and look at the resources used to support and enhance the learning and teaching in the school. Leaflets explaining the new approaches to the teaching of spelling were also available to take home. If you were unable to attend the morning or haven’t received a copy of the leaflet please contact the school.

We also had a celebration of learning for Maths Week. Throughout that week, children had the opportunity to take part in the Sumdog interschool Maths challenge and explored how we use Maths in various areas of the curriculum including Art & Design, Food Technologies, Physical Education and Technologies. Children were able to explain how Maths is used in our everyday lives and why it is such an important part of learning. I was also delighted with the response to our Maths week competition, the standard of entry was very good and it was an extremely difficult job to choose a winner from each class. Our winners were Valentina Carbray from P1/2, Gracie McCall from P3/4 and Noah McLean from P5/6/7. A huge congratulations to them!

In the classes:

P1/2

In Numeracy & Mathematics the P1 pupils have been learning to write and count in numbers to 5, while P2 have been working with numbers to 100.. The children have been learning about a variety of woodland animals and their habitats as part of their Parks and Woodlands topic.

P3/4

In Numeracy & Mathematics P3 have been counting, ordering numbers to 100, with P4 working with numbers to 1000. The boys and girls have also been looking at the properties of 2D shapes and which ones are able to tile. The y have been looking at regular and irregular pentagons, hexagons and octagons. In Literacy the P3 children have been using the spelling strategies from our Active Literacy programme to learn their common words with P3 developing their spelling skills using their magnetic boards.

P5/6/7

In Numeracy & Mathematics, P5 have been learning about decimals to tenths with P6/7 working on rounding and estimating , including decimals up to 3 decimal places. In their Interdisciplinary topic, the class have been looking at the structure of the Scottish and UK Parliaments as well as some high profile political figures including the First Minister and the Prime Minister.

Finally we also welcomed a new member to our school support staff, Ms Heather Brown. We look forward to working with her and hope she enjoys working in our school.

Also, please look out for a letter in your child’s bag next week about our forthcoming Parents’ Evening on the 12th of October.

Thank you for reading my Blog.

 

Yvonne McCart

Head Teacher