Paper copy being issued this afternoon to pupils.

https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/wl/Balbardie/

Christmas Countdown 2017

Dear Parents, Carers and friends,

It is so hard to believe that we are at this time of year already! The recent cold snap has certainly helped with the wintry feeling! Christmas is now firmly upon us, and we have lots of events coming up you need to know about: they are all in this newsletter and  will be further detailed in our usual SWAY online newsletter which should be available by Friday 8^th December detailing lots of exciting news about learning and the various opportunities our children will have the chance to experience.  Please do take a note of these dates.

Our Christmas events always begin with our annual Christmas Fayre which took place on Saturday 25^th of November. This was an outstanding success, raising lots of money for our school (total to be announced soon!) There is absolutely no doubt that the success of our Christmas Fayre was down to the phenomenal hard work of our Parent Council and staff members! I would also like to thank the pupils and staff who worked so hard on their Christmas items, many of which sold out! Thank you also if you were a stall holder: your attendance has contributed to the success of our Fair and developed our community links. Thank you to Santa, for giving up his own time to be with us: we hope that we didn’t hold up toy production for too long! And finally, thank you to all those who came along on the day, or donated prizes or baking: each and every one of you contributed to our efforts to be a very special community, working to ensure our pupils can access a learning environment that is vibrant, challenging and engaging! I’d like to wish you all a very peaceful and joyful Christmas and wonderful New Year.  

 L Miglis

Head Teacher (Seconded)

Christmas Post

Our Christmas Post will start on Wednesday 6th December.  Please remind your children that they must have the name and class on the envelope before posting any Christmas cards.  The Post Box will be located outside the front office.  Our Primary 7 and ARB pupils will be responsible for mail sorting and delivery at a convenient time on a daily basis.

Christmas Parties

Our Christmas Parties are taking place soon.  Decorations are up and there is a lovely Christmas tree casting a warm glow over the room.  All we need now are the party goers in their glad rags!.  All parties will begin at 1.30 pm and run until 3 pm.  Parents may bring a change of clothes for their child at 12.45 if required or send in their party clothes in a separate bag, support staff will assist children in getting ready.  Children will be given a bag with goodies at the end of party to enjoy!

Stage Parties in date order –

Wednesday 6^th December ~ Primary 4 + Class Moon

Monday 11^th December ~ Primary 5

Thursday 14^th December ~ Primary 3

Monday 18^th December ~ Primary 6

Tuesday 19^th December ~ Primary 2 + Class Sun

Wednesday 20^th December ~ Primary 1 am

Wednesday 20^th December ~ Primary 7 pm

Class Star pupils will integrate with either P6 or P7 or mainstream school

Breakfast Club Santa

This year Breakfast with Santa will be on Thursday 14^th December.  Children will be offered pancakes, syrup and cereal.  A separate letter has been issued for completion if you would like your child(ren) to take part!

Christmas Lunch

On Tuesday 12^th December – P4, P5, P7+ ARB  will enjoy their Christmas Lunch and on Wednesday 13^th December – P1 + P2 +3 + P6 will enjoy theirs.  Children can wear a Christmas jumper or a hat to lunch.  As usual packed lunches will be eaten in class and the children will have the opportunity to enjoy some  Christmas music and will have a Christmas experience.

School Nativity

Our P1 performance of “The Sleepy Shepherd” will be held on Tuesday 12^th December in the afternoon and on Wednesday 13^th of December in the morning.  Tickets are on sale and cost £1.50 ( a separate letter has been issued).  This will be held in the upper hall and entrance will be via the main door.

 Christmas Choir

 On Thursday 14^th December P5b will go to Tesco from 10 am – 11 am to perform there and on Monday 18^th December P5a will go to Morrisons from 10.30 a.m. – 11.30 a.m. Miss Davidson will accompany the children.

Pantomime

This year a performance of “Cinderella” will be performed on Thursday 21st of December at 1.45 pm.  All pupils may attend this and this will cost £2.50 –if there are any issues regarding payment could you please contact the school to discuss so that we can offer support to ensure that all children can enjoy a wonderful Christmas experience.

Church Service

Finally our church service will take place on Friday 22^nd December at 9.30 am in Bathgate High Church and we would love if parents could join us there.  The church collection will be for Lady Haig Poppy Factory.

On behalf of the staff I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year.

Staff resume on Monday 8^th and pupils resume on Tuesday

January 2018.

Please find attached an activity document for use should our school be closed due to inclement weather.

Regards,

Mrs Murdoch and Miss Bollen

Snow Learning p7

This week has been very exciting as we have been preparing for our Rookie Rockstars concerts next week. We have learnt some songs to perform. The songs are about preventing and stopping bullying in our school. They are trying to help us to remember to believe in ourselves, have confidence and to move on from situations which we find difficult.
These are some of our thoughts about the experience:
Brooke – I enjoyed the pop rock because I liked the ending.
Florence – I enjoyed the challenge time.
Aaron – I enjoyed challenge time too!
Shaun – I enjoyed the pop rock because the songs were really good.
Alfie L – I enjoyed the challenge time.
Ellie-Rose – I enjoyed the songs we learnt.
Rory – I thought it was awesome!
Kyle – I’m a big fan.
Noami – It was fantastic.
Olivia – I loved the challenge time.
Jackie – I liked the chubby bunny.
Alfie B – I loved the challenge time.
Charlotte – the penguin dance was really funny
Annie – I lived everything!
Alistair – I liked challenge time.
Eva – I liked question time.
Dylan – I liked challenge time.
Jay –
Bryce – I liked challenge time.
Ellie – I loved the singing.
Kaycee – It was COOL!
Jamie – I liked the challenge time.
Ruby – I liked the challenge time because I liked the rap battle.
Max – I thought it was EPIC!
Brandon – I enjoyed the singing.
Holly – I enjoyed the rap battle.
Owen – I enjoyed question time.
Lewis – I enjoyed question time.
Liam – I liked challenge time.
Orla – I enjoyed challenge time and the chubby bunny and the rap battle!
We really hope that as many of our children can attend the concerts as possible and look forward to sharing the children’s learning on Wednesday and Thursday next week.

We are loving our Rookie Rockstars experience in school this week.  A reminder that our performance concerts are at 6.30pm on Wednesday 6^th December for Bruce & Hardy and Thursday 7^th December for Strachan & Macpherson. Tickets costing £5.00 are available from the school office. CDs costing £5.00 will be available to pre-order at the concerts, printed with a winning pupil’s design. Other items of Rookie Rockstars merchandise like wrist bands, t-shirts and badges will be available to buy also.

Children should come to school ready to rock dressed for the concert wearing shades or fancy dress like their favourite rock or pop star. Pupils should report to staff in the upper hall for no later than 6.15pm to check-in. All pupils should be collected by parents/carers at the end of the concert from our gym hall.

We are looking forward to performing!

In case of a school closure due to adverse weather conditions please refer to the P1 Snow Learning poster for ideas to use with your child 🙂

P1 snow learning

Last week we made fossils. We found out how fossils are formed and then we made our own. We pressed clay into a small pot, smoothed it down and then pushed a plastic toy or shell into the clay to may an impression. Then we made some plaster of Paris and tipped it onto the clay. This week we drew our fossils and thought some more about how palaeontologists can use fossils to find out about things which lived many years ago. We also made some dinosaur fossils this week.

With Mrs Mackenzie, we have been learning about ‘friendly ten’ where we add to the nearest ten and then add up to 100. It’s making our mental addition much easier!
Kyle won the Christmas Fayre drawing competition and has made his design for our games stall. We hope you will all be able to come and support us on Saturday.
As it is getting colder, please can we ask that the children have appropriate outdoor gym kit for Wednesdays. Tracksuit bottoms or leggings, jumpers and trainers are required to ensure that they can play outside safely.

Table of the week – yellow with 400 points

This week we have been busy with  preparations for the Christmas Fayre this Saturday and thought we’d share a couple of photos of this. We have been creating, measuring and writing linked to our festive activities this week.

Say hello at the P1 stall and have a closer look at what we’ve been creating.

We hope to see you there and please remember to bring some spending money!

This week we revised what we wear in French – we remembered and learnt lots of new words.

In maths, we have been learning to use different strategies to add and we have also been learning about data frequency tables and how to find information from it. We understand the information given but found the written questions a lot more tricky.

We made hurricanes for our art lesson with Miss Lee – they look great!

We are practising writing using cursive writing and it is quite tricky as we have to focus on getting the letters the same size.

In writing, we learnt how to write freestyle poems. They sound easy but can be a little tricky!

Enjoy your weekend!

This week has been anti-bullying week and we have been very busy thinking about ways in which we can be a great friend to our classmates.  We made super helping hands in class and discussed ways in which we could show kindness towards others.  Next week we will be looking at finishing off our anti-bullying posters.

We have had a very busy week practising the Nativity and we now have our words home if you have a speaking part in the show.  Please continue to practise your words at home as it is sounding fantastic already! 🙂 Nativity tickets will be coming your way soon!

Rookie Rockstar tickets are now on sale…£5 if you would like to see your child performing in this show-Bruce & Hardy-6th December at 6.30pm and Macpherson&Strachan-7th December at 6.30pm. Please note under 5’s are free.

The school football team took part in the second cluster festival on Wednesday evening at Creamery Park and continued their good form of festival 1.

In what were slippery and wet conditions the team played some very good football. With Murray and Charlie defending excellently and Jack and Callum showing good touches in midfield. Balbardie managed two victories and two narrow losses which leaves them near the top of the table going into festival 3 in March. Again a big thank you to all the players for their continued dedication to training and in games which is starting to show, and to Mr Drysdale who has been a massive help to having school football at Balbardie.

Balbardie vs Boghall: W – 2-0

Balbardie vs St Mary’s: L 0-1

Simpson vs Balbardie: W 3-1

Windyknowe vs Balbardie: L 1-0

The P7 children took to the court for the first time this season against tough opposition from Boghall, Simpsons and St Mary’s. Despite their relative inexperience, the children all played really well with Rowan and Naomi finding the net with ease and Lewis and Jennie providing excellent feeding into the circle. Katie, Emma and Lucie defended valiantly against (often) enormous opposition and fought hard for every ball, especially rebounds. We came third overall but will be back for more in February, with increased awareness of the rules and how the game is played.
Any additional players are welcome to attend training on a Wednesday evening from 3.30 – 4.30. Please see Mr Cunnigham for a letter if Mrs Collings isn’t in school.

Dear all,

Please find a link attached to our November Newsletter. As always, if there are any questions or concerns then please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Kind regards.

Balbardie Primary School Session 2017-18

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