Primary 3 5.9.16
Primary 3 were writing instructions for playground games last week. We played three games and decided which one we wanted to write our instructions for. The children were able to write them in the correct order and use a variety of different openers. After all the instructions were written we put them do the test. They all worked out brilliantly!
Primary 3 were very active in maths this week, working around stations, playing board games, on the smartboard and used the ipads. We even managed some mental maths using our number fans. We were very impressed with their addition and subtraction skills.
We finished our work on the Active section of the SHANARRI wheel. We put our bodies to the test by raising our heart rates and describing/drawing what happens to our bodies when we exercise. All the children did very well identifying the changes.
Reminders:
P.E: Tuesday and Thursday (P3R)
Tuesday and Wednesday (P3S)
Homework will be handed out this week along with the new academic diary.
Miss Rafferty and Mrs Smith
Nursery 29 August – 2nd September
What a busy week we have had in our Nursery! We have welcomed lots of new children and their families and our Pre-school children have been helping the little ones find out about Nursery life. On Monday our Pre-school children attended the Early Years school assembly where we got a certificate for being ‘Responsible Citizens’. This reflected how well the children were managing to move from Nursery to the main school building, particularly as the building works make this a little tricky at the moment. On Tuesday we held our Nursery Open Afternoon, only a very few families managed to attend this event, we would welcome your feedback about how we could change things in the future to make it possible for more families to attend. On Wednesday we dug up some of our Nursery vegetables and with the help of Mrs Murphy the children made some delicious soup which they had for snack the following day.
The children have been learning our Nursery welcome song and have been interested in the change of month from August to September as well as a change of season.
We have been working on our big poster for the main school hall – our focus is on ‘Being Safe’ and the children have been painting pictures about how they stay safe and who keeps them safe. This has linked with our GIRFEC focus on ‘Being Safe’.
Please see our weekly bulletin below:
Carmondean Nursery: Weekly Bulletin 05/09/16
Our learning focus this week will be centred around learning the nursery Golden Rules, settling in and meeting new friends. We are linking this work to our GIRFEC focus (Getting it right for every child) and our emphasis this week is on SAFE. Our assessment focus this week will be about children’s level of engagement in all areas of the Nursery.
We will introduce the children to the following:
How to self-register, secure areas of the nursery, supervision (what happens when I need to go to the toilet?), building work and travelling to the school, as well as safety in the garden. For the home link focus this week we would very much appreciate if you could talk to your child about being safe within your home setting and travelling to Nursery.
We continue to have new children arriving in Nursery this week and we are looking forward to meeting them and their families.
Gym for morning children will be on Friday and afternoon children on a Tuesday.
Notices
- The Nursery have our own page on the school blog, please go to the Carmondean Primary blog where you will be able to navigate your way to the Nursery page and find out what we did in Nursery last week. This will be updated on a Friday.
- If you have not already done so please sent your child into Nursery with a box of tissues and any junk material you may have. Thank you.
- We are looking for anyone who would be interested in joining our new Nursery Parents/Carers Association to let one of the Nursery Team know.
- We are currently putting children’s names on shoes, if your child has not got their name on their gym shoes please hand them to the member of staff on the door.
- Snack money is now due, please either pay via parent pay or put the money in an envelope with your child’s name on the front and clearly labelled ‘Snack Money’ (£12 from now to October holidays).
- Any parent/carer who would like to be a Nursery Helper please speak to Mrs Fletcher who will organise the necessary paper work.
- A Parent/Carer meeting to roll out the new Learner’s Journey web site will be held on Thursday 29thSeptember at 6pm in the Nursery.Carmondean Nursery: Weekly Bulletin 05/09/16
29 August – 2nd September
What a busy week we have had in our Nursery! We have welcomed lots of new children and their families and our Pre-school children have been helping the little ones find out about Nursery life. On Monday our Pre-school children attended the Early Years school assembly where we got a certificate for being ‘Responsible Citizens’. This reflected how well the children were managing to move from Nursery to the main school building, particularly as the building works make this a little tricky at the moment. On Tuesday we held our Nursery Open Afternoon, only a very few families managed to attend this event, we would welcome your feedback about how we could change things in the future to make it possible for more families to attend. On Wednesday we dug up some of our Nursery vegetables and with the help of Mrs Murphy the children made some delicious soup which they had for snack the following day.
The children have been learning our Nursery welcome song and have been interested in the change of month from August to September as well as a change of season.
We have been working on our big poster for the main school hall – our focus is on ‘Being Safe’ and the children have been painting pictures about how they stay safe and who keeps them safe. This has linked with our GIRFEC focus on ‘Being Safe’.
Please see our weekly bulletin below:
Carmondean Nursery: Weekly Bulletin 05/09/16
Our learning focus this week will be centred around learning the nursery Golden Rules, settling in and meeting new friends. We are linking this work to our GIRFEC focus (Getting it right for every child) and our emphasis this week is on SAFE. Our assessment focus this week will be about children’s level of engagement in all areas of the Nursery.
We will introduce the children to the following:
How to self-register, secure areas of the nursery, supervision (what happens when I need to go to the toilet?), building work and travelling to the school, as well as safety in the garden. For the home link focus this week we would very much appreciate if you could talk to your child about being safe within your home setting and travelling to Nursery.
We continue to have new children arriving in Nursery this week and we are looking forward to meeting them and their families.
Gym for morning children will be on Friday and afternoon children on a Tuesday.
Notices
- The Nursery have our own page on the school blog, please go to the Carmondean Primary blog where you will be able to navigate your way to the Nursery page and find out what we did in Nursery last week. This will be updated on a Friday.
- If you have not already done so please sent your child into Nursery with a box of tissues and any junk material you may have. Thank you.
- We are looking for anyone who would be interested in joining our new Nursery Parents/Carers Association to let one of the Nursery Team know.
- We are currently putting children’s names on shoes, if your child has not got their name on their gym shoes please hand them to the member of staff on the door.
- Snack money is now due, please either pay via parent pay or put the money in an envelope with your child’s name on the front and clearly labelled ‘Snack Money’ (£12 from now to October holidays).
- Any parent/carer who would like to be a Nursery Helper please speak to Mrs Fletcher who will organise the necessary paper work.
- A Parent/Carer meeting to roll out the new Learner’s Journey web site will be held on Thursday 29thSeptember at 6pm in the Nursery.Carmondean Nursery: Weekly Bulletin 05/09/16Our learning focus this week will be centred around learning the nursery Golden Rules, settling in and meeting new friends. We are linking this work to our GIRFEC focus (Getting it right for every child) and our emphasis this week is on SAFE. Our assessment focus this week will be about children’s level of engagement in all areas of the Nursery.We will introduce the children to the following:
How to self-register, secure areas of the nursery, supervision (what happens when I need to go to the toilet?), building work and travelling to the school, as well as safety in the garden. For the home link focus this week we would very much appreciate if you could talk to your child about being safe within your home setting and travelling to Nursery.
We continue to have new children arriving in Nursery this week and we are looking forward to meeting them and their families.
Gym for morning children will be on Friday and afternoon children on a Tuesday.
Notices
- The Nursery have our own page on the school blog, please go to the Carmondean Primary blog where you will be able to navigate your way to the Nursery page and find out what we did in Nursery last week. This will be updated on a Friday.
- If you have not already done so please sent your child into Nursery with a box of tissues and any junk material you may have. Thank you.
- We are looking for anyone who would be interested in joining our new Nursery Parents/Carers Association to let one of the Nursery Team know.
- We are currently putting children’s names on shoes, if your child has not got their name on their gym shoes please hand them to the member of staff on the door.
- Snack money is now due, please either pay via parent pay or put the money in an envelope with your child’s name on the front and clearly labelled ‘Snack Money’ (£12 from now to October holidays).
- Any parent/carer who would like to be a Nursery Helper please speak to Mrs Fletcher who will organise the necessary paper work.
- A Parent/Carer meeting to roll out the new Learner’s Journey web site will be held on Thursday 29th September at 6pm in the Nursery.
Primary 6 – End of week 2
Hello everyone
Thank you to everyone who came to the Meet the Teacher event on Tuesday evening. It was lovely to meet you all.
On Monday we begin our normal timetable and homework schedule. PE will take place on a Monday (outdoor) and a Wednesday (indoor with Miss Inglis). Due to cross country training children may also participate in PE outdoors on a Wednesday too. Please remind your child to bring appropriate kit & footwear on these days so that they can take part in PE lessons fully.
Spelling homework will begin this week. We would like to ask that spelling jotters be covered in paper as soon as possible please. Both reading & maths homework will begin next week (wb. 12th September). Thank you for your support with this.
*Special note for Miss Clark’s class* – This week can you please bring into school your favourite fiction story book. We will begin work on your books in class next week. Thank you!
Last week we started our new topic “The Industrial Revolution”. The children have shared what they already know and what they want to learn through this topic. The children also listened carefully to a story about a small 19th century village and how it functioned before the impact of the Industrial Revolution. The children listened extremely carefully in order to draw their version of The Village based entirely on hearing the story. We can’t wait to display the children’s work in the classroom.
This week in maths we will begin work on place value and shape. Please ask your child what they have been learning.
Last week Mr Shanks came into our classes to use a new online discussion tool called spiral. This enabled the children to discuss answers to questions related to the Rio 2016 Olympics, type their own response into a netbook computer and have them all show up on the Smartboard! We were all very impressed by this use of technology. This week, Miss Clark & Mrs Wylie will attempt to use this technology too during our first lesson on Internet Safety – wish us luck!
Thank you for your support.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
Miss Clark, Mrs Wylie & Mrs Kelly.
Primary 4 1.9.16
It was lovely to see so many parents on Tuesday night, thank you for coming along to see us. If you couldn’t manage, don’t worry, we have put a class newsletter into your child’s bag as well as a spelling homework exemplar to see the kinds of things we will be doing in the first term of Primary 4.
We have had a busy week this week settling into our new class properly. We have discussed and created our class charter based on the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child. We have used this charter to decide upon our classroom rules. The whole school focus has been on SHANARRI, and within this acronym, Primary 4 have focused on Inclusion. We discussed and gave examples of how we were all included in Carmondean Primary School and then illustrated these ideas using pens and coloured paper. We have sent home the charter we decided on to allow you to see what rules we shall be following this year. These are in the children’s words and what they found important to them. Please could you return the tear off slip at the bottom of the rules letter to show your support and understanding of the importance of following these.
We have been learning about colour as one of the visual elements of Art, and even did a science experiment investigating colour!
We have started planning our Viking topic this week and look forward to learning more about it this term. We have had some fantastic ideas from the children such as making Viking food, creating a small viking village and even creating our very own life sized viking! We also thought of a lot of questions we would like to have answered by the end of the topic which has given Miss Donaldson, Miss Miller and myself lots of food for thought when planning the topic.
Children have been given letters home relating to their achievements and interests. We would be extremely grateful if these could be completed and handed back into school.
Reminders:
Letters to be returned to office: personal information, achievements, agreement of rules.
Please could we ask all items of clothing to have the children’s initials on them for ease of identifying the owners. We have had a few items lost and thankfully found this week, but it would be made easier with names on them somewhere.
Tuesday – outdoor PE kit (warm, appropriate clothing and shoes.)
Thursday – Indoor PE kit (dark coloured shorts and white t-shirt if possible)
Homework
Due Friday 9th
– Spelling homework: see newsletter for further information, 4 days of spelling words completed in homework jotter.
– Reading homework: read with a parent / guardian at least 10 pages of personal choice reading book.
– Learn computer login details. These will be in the front of homework diaries.
Due Monday 12th
– Use of water grid – one night of the week (once home from school) children should place tally marks every time family members use water for any activity. This could be making a cup of tea, washing up, wetting a cloth, running a bath, having a shower. Grids will be made in class and put into spelling homework jotters.
Thank you for your continued support,
Miss Smith and Miss Donaldson.
Primary Five 29.8.16
We are glad to be back at school after the long and relaxing summer break and excited to see so many happy faces in Primary 5! The first two weeks of the school term will be spent settling back in to the rules and routines of the classroom, getting to know each other and revisiting and amending the class charter to form the class rules. We will also be spending some time looking at the SHANARRI indicators and how we can make sure we are meeting these for every child. Primary 5 will then be looking in more detail at how we can achieve and discussing some of our personal achievements.
Some reminders for this week
Tuesday- Meet the teacher- come and meet the P5 teachers discuss any questions and queries you may have about the coming year.
Thursday- Indoor PE kit.
Friday- Outdoor PE kit.
There is no Spelling/Reading/Maths homework this week but your child will bring home a spelling homework jotter which we would be grateful if you could cover with some spare wrapping/brown paper and return for Friday. We also ask that your child chooses a novel that they will use as a basis for their Reading homework this term and bring it in for Wednesday so we can discuss our choices as a class.
Thank you for your support,
Mrs Steel and Mr Greig
Primary 3 29.8.16
Welcome back!
It was fantastic meeting all the new Primary 3 boys and girls last week! Everyone looked very smart in their uniforms and were very excited to come back to school.
We have been very busy getting to know each other, getting used to our new classroom and seats. Primary 3 have been working hard, showing us quality lines and fantastic manners.
Primary 3 have been focusing on what it means to be active by taking part in active activities, describing what happens to our bodies when we are active and how it can help us develop into healthy adults. We walked down to the local forest to explore, challenged ourselves on the trim track and practised our fine motor skills in class.
This week we are going to continue with activities and lessons about being active which will help us with our wonderful wall display in the hall.
We are looking forward to meeting everyone at Meet the Teacher on Tuesday! We will also be handing out our newsletter with some information about what will be happening in Primary 3 this term.
Homework will be issued next weekend.
P.E for Miss Rafferty:
-Outdoor P.E on a Tuesday
-Indoor P.E on a Thursday
P.E for Mrs Smith:
-Outdoor P.E on a Tuesday
-Indoor P.E on a Wednesday
Miss Rafferty and Mrs Smith
Primary 4 26.8.16
Welcome back everyone!
It has been so nice seeing everyone back at school and getting to know everyone in our new class. We have been very busy this week settling in, for some of us into a new classroom, and to others having new classmates! Welcome also to three students who are new to our stage, two in Miss Smith’s class and one in Miss Donaldson’s, and to Miss Miller, who will be helping in Primary 4 up until the end of February. I have to say, I have been very impressed so far with the way we have been following routines and getting used to being a Primary 4 in the upper school!
If anyone has any questions or queries, please do not hesitate to contact me. I look forward to meeting some of the parents next Tuesday 30th August at Meet the Teacher. This will help us put names to faces and to pick up the class newsletter to find out what is happening this term in Primary 4.
Reminders:
Tuesday 30th 4:30 – 5:30 – Meet the Teacher. Feel free to drop in between these times.
Outdoor PE kit (outdoor shoes and warm active-wear) every Tuesday
Indoor PE kit (shorts and T-shirt) every Thursday
Homework:
Due Monday 29th August – Please cover both spelling homework jotters and homework diaries with paper. If you do not have paper at home, please let me know as we can provide this without a problem.
Miss Smith and Miss Donaldson
Weekly Bulletin Week Beginning 29 August 2016
Carmondean Nursery: Weekly Bulletin 29/8/16
Monday 29 August
- New Ante-preschool children start Nursery.
Tuesday 30 August
- New Ante-preschool children start Nursery.
- 4:30 – 5:30, Meet the teacher evening held in the Nursery building (Please note the change from 31/8 to today)
Wednesday 31 August
- New Ante-preschool children start Nursery.
- Children making soup with Mrs Murphy, using vegetables from our Nursery Garden.
Thursday 1st September
- New Ante-preschool children start Nursery.
- School PSA/PC AGM, held in school 3:30pm
Friday 2nd September
Notices
- The Nursery have our own page on the school blog, please go to the Carmondean Primary blog where you will be able to navigate your way to the Nursery page and find out what we did in Nursery last week. This will be updated on a Friday.
- Annual update letter will be sent home this week, please look out for this in your child’s bag it contains important information including email addresses etc so you can receive our newsletter and bulletin information.
- If you have not already done so please sent your child into Nursery with a box of tissues and any junk material you may have. Thank you.
- We are looking for anyone who would be interested in joining our new Nursery Parents/Carers Association to let one of the Nursery Team know.
- We are currently putting children’s names on shoes, if your child has not got their name on their gym shoes please hand them to the member of staff on the door.
- Snack money is now due, please either pay via parent pay or put the money in an envelope with your child’s name on the front and clearly labelled ‘Snack Money’ (£12 from now to October holidays).
August Newsletter
The August School Newsletter can be accessed by clicking the link below:
Welcome back to Carmondean Nursery
It was lovely to see the boys and girls back at Nursery this week. Staff went out on home visits to meet all our ante-preschool children and we are looking forward to welcoming them into Nursery over the next few weeks. We enjoyed learning about what our friends were up to during the summer holidays. Some of the children’s brothers and sisters started school on Tuesday and off course this was very exciting! In some more exciting news we wish to congratulate Keaghan McQuade and his family on the safe arrival of baby Oli, we are looking forward to meeting him.
The start of the Nursery School year has seen the children enjoying playing in the garden and finding out how the vegetables we planted before the summer holidays have been growing. However, there has been a problem!! Some little creatures have been nibbling away on our lovely cabbages so some of the children decided to investigate! We found worms, snails and slugs and we gave them a firm telling off!! Next week we will make some vegetable soup with vegetables from our garden and will look forward to tasting it at snack time with some crusty bread.
We have been revising our Nursery rules and routines and linking this in with our curriculum focus over the next few weeks which is based around the GIRFEC principals. This ties in with some work the whole school are focusing on at the moment and we as a Nursery will be contributing to a whole school display by doing some art work for the school hall. Children have settled well and the pre-school children are excited about being the ‘big’ boys and girls when our little ones start next week.
Building works is ongoing and we very much appreciate your understanding as the main entrance to the Nursery is still via the bottom gate and the cloak room is in the big room. We have been watching the builders working when out playing in the garden and are really looking forward to using our new gym hall.
Newsletters were handed out and emailed this week. Please see one of the Nursery team if you did not receive one. Annual updates will be sent home with the children next week. Please ensure you complete and return these as they contain important information including email addresses etc for us to send home newsletters and bulletins etc. Each week I will post on the blog a weekly bulletin (I will print some paper copies for those without email) which will contain important information about the week ahead, I hope this helps keep you informed about what is happening in Nursery the following week.
It has been an exciting week at our Nursery everybody is happy to be back and we are looking forward to next week when more boys and girls will join us for the very first time.
Best wishes
Mrs Fletcher and the Nursery Team
Hello from Primary 6!
Hello everyone!
We hope you have all had a lovely, relaxing summer holidays. We have had a very busy first week back in Primary 6 and we are thoroughly enjoying getting to know all of the children. Luckily, we seem to have so many hard working, confident & responsible individuals in Primary 6 so Mrs Kelly, Mrs Wylie and I are sure that this will be a great year.
This week we have been discussing in detail what kind of classrooms, classmates and teachers we would like to have. We have created our own class charters which show us how to respect our rights and the rights of others. We have also been exploring the SHANARRI wheel. SHANARRI stands for Safe, Healthy, Active, Nurturing, Achieving, Respected, Responsible & Included. We explored what we can do and what adults in Carmondean can do to help us to feel respected and included.
PE Days
Both classes will have Indoor PE on a Wednesday with Miss Inglis this term. The children will be taking part in cross country runs and related activities. Sometimes the children will be working outside in the playground so please send your child to school with appropriate footwear for this. Miss Clark’s class should try to come to school in their PE kit on a Wednesday if possible as they have PE at 9am.
Both classes will have Outdoor PE on a Monday. Please ensure your child comes prepared for PE on both days.
Meet the Teacher is next Tuesday 30th August from 4:30-5:30pm. We look forward to meeting as many parents as possible. Meet the Teacher is a chance to chat informally with your child’s class teacher, see your child’s classroom and view some of the work we have completed in the first week of term.
More information about this term will be provided in the P6 Termly Newsletter which will be handed out next week.
Have a lovely weekend!
Miss Clark, Mrs Wylie & Mrs Kelly
First Pupil Ethos Network on the BLOG
Our Pupil Ethos Network can now be viewed on the BLOG. We aim to update the Ethos Presentation each week to keep everyone updated on in-school events and latest information affecting classes. Enjoy!
Welcome Back
Well, after seven long weeks off, it’s back to school this coming week. We look forward to welcoming our new Nursery and Primary 1 children, as well as those older children who are returning to us after, what we hope has been, a great holiday. You will notice lots of changes around the school as the new hall continues to be built around us. The front entrance of the school, as we know it, no longer exists, so we have had to use the ‘art room’ to build a temporary office and parent/carer entrance. By the time you read this, the route to the temporary office and entrance should be sign-posted.
At the moment, we are without telephones at school. We don’t know what the problem is, but we are hoping it will be fixed soon. In the meantime, if you need to contact the school and can’t drop in in person, please email or leave a comment to this post on the Blog. We’ll get back to you ASAP.
Please remember that you can order and pay for your child’s school lunch online at iPay Impact. More and more of you are using this system and it is making the process much easier.
We are all looking forward to the new term, so staff, we’ll see you on Monday, and children, we’ll see you on Tuesday for the start of what will definitely be an interesting and exciting school year.
Guinness World Record Djembe Performance
You may recall just before the end of term, a large group of our Primary 7 children took part in the Guinness World Record Attempt to have the largest Djembe Ensemble. We are very proud to report that the attempt was successful and many school children in West Lothian, including Carmondean PS, are now officially world record holders for this event. You can watch the You Tube video of the attempt by clicking the link below.
Goodbye to Primary 7
It was quite an emotional time in school today as our Primary 7s engaged in some traditional Carmondean leaving rituals. First, there was the polo-shirt signing – so much ink! Then there was the Summer Assembly at Church, which was very much targeted at the P7s and the journey they will be making when they go on to high school. Of course, there was the traditional Conga Line around the school, which is always a lot of fun. And, yes, there were tears, as it dawned on our young people that they have now finished another chaper of their lives and are ready to move on. We have enjoyed having you, we will miss you, but we wish you every success in the future. The very best of luck to you all.
Primary 6
We can’t believe the end is almost here! What a year! Thank you for all of your support, the children are so ready to move on to Primary 7 and we just know that they will shine!
Particular highlights for us this year have been:
*Watching the children work with their future P1 Buddies
*Dalguise
*Sport Relief where the children raised just under £600!
*The enthusiasm for all of our topics, particularly the Titanic
*The sporting opportunities such as Futsal, Cross Country, Rugby and Handball
*Transition to High School
There is so much more for them to look forward to in the next academic year but until then have a fantastic summer break! Lets hope the sun shines and we all get a good rest!
Warmest Wishes,
Mrs Smith, Mrs Muir & Mrs Kelly
Open Morning Mobbed
The Carmondean PS Open Morning, which showcased some of the work we have been (and will be doing) to improve the school through children leading their learning, work on the Technologies and the progress of our Erasmus+ project, was attended by well over 100 visitors today. Responses were overwhelmingly positive and suggested that almost all people who completed the questionnaire felt that the work being done in school in these areas spanned the spectrum from Good to Excellent. A big ‘Thank You’ to all visitors and to all children, their teachers and our marvellous support staff for all the efforts they put in to make today’s Open Day such an outstanding success.
Teachers at the Talent Show
Carmondean PS Talent Show took place today and it was a star-studded affair. Our House Captains organised the show and all went well with many of the acts winning prizes. There was, however, a ‘sting in the tail’… To see what it was, click below.
