Category Archives: Hopetoun

Harvest Cafe and Foodbank

Last week we celebrated harvest time by hosting a cafe for all our friends and families.  There were lots of visitors. The pupils made some delicious autumn treats to share with everyone. There was also a collection for the foodbank and a raffle. In total we made £134 and also had lots of donations of tins and packets of food. The secondary pupils are looking forward to visiting the shops to spend the money buying other essential items for the foodbank. Great work everyone!

Global Goal 3: Good Health and Wellbeing

Global Goal 12: Responsible Consumption and Production

Summer Music

It has been a busy Summer term in Music. In particular, secondary classes have focused on the culmination of a year-long project, with some of our young people working towards SQA National 1 Producing a Sound (alternative context).

For this, we have been choosing instruments and playing them correctly, then using our skills to tell a musical story. The story was a traditional tale from the Borders, that of Tam Lin and how Janet saved him from the Queen of the Fairies in the enchanted forest.

Ochiltree and Duntarvie had been working separately on the skills, but this term they came together  to create the sounds. We had a star guest as Carol Robbie came back to narrate the story.

It was a great success and has opened up options for other musical stories together and with others. We will certainly we doing this again, hopefully at a time that will be easier for friends and families to participate.

Meanwhile, primary classes have been having fun continuing to choose favourite songs to sing and play.

 

 

Hopetoun Roundup!

We can hardly believe that this time last year we were packing up the old school ready for our move and now here we are settled and thriving in our amazing new environment. We have enjoyed so many new experiences and opportunities and are looking forward to many more as we all move on. This term has been so busy and we hope you enjoy our video which highlights some of what we’ve been up to better than any words can!

Hopetoun News

This term has been absolutely jam packed with fun, it’s been lovely to welcome so many family and friends into school to celebrate different events with us and we’ve been enjoying lots of opportunities to get out and about. Some of our favourites events this term have been the Burn’s ceilidh,  Science week and Storytelling week where we’ve had the best time joining all our friends from across the whole school to take part in lots of different activities, anything that involves music and dance is a definite hit for Hopetoun!! We’ve also been doing lots of work exploring and promoting our Rights Respecting and Global Goals work, here’s just a small selection of what we’ve been up to!

Hope you all have a lovely Easter break, none of us can quite believe that we’ve reached this time of year already!!

 

 

Music Autumn 2023

This term we have focused on making choices in Music. Lammermuir joined Hopetoun for some fun for Hairy Scary Castle, first choosing spooky sounds from switches for Halloween and then using symbols to select animals to sing about for Old McDonald’s Farm. Pentland also made musical choices with instruments and symbols and appreciated movement and relaxation.

In Lomond the children greatly enjoyed coming together, singing nursery rhymes and  playing along with instruments. Sometimes this could be up tempo or more relaxed, depending on the needs of the day.
Glendevon focused on our regular routines, structure, and exploring instruments, including playing along on wooden instruments and dancing to a percussion track by Moondog – an American improvisational composer and performer.
Duntarvie worked towards their SQAs by playing different ranges of instruments for different moods and textures, such as tuned instruments in A minor or wooden instruments. This is to work towards a project in 2024 with Ochiltree, who followed similar lessons.
All the classes enjoyed some Song Massage with All the Leaves and then All the Snow as we got to December. The children had a great time moving to some Christmas songs and playing along to Jingle Bells. In case things felt too busy, we also had some sensory music time, taking some time to relax while exploring instruments to gentle music with subdued lighting and festive lights.

Hopetoun News

What a busy busy term this has been in Hopetoun!! We’ve been enjoying lots of fun activities and events such as music, swimming, drama and cooking, raised lots of money for Children in Need and have been getting well and truly into the Christmas spirit. We all loved the Snow White pantomime and all did amazing in our Christmas performance which we hope you all enjoyed. Have a look at our video to see how much we’ve managed to fit in, it’s no wonder the time has been flying in!!

We hope you all have a lovely Christmas and New Year and we look forward to seeing everyone after the holidays.

Music Term 1

This term we have had fun settling into our new space in Music. Some of the lessons, the1-1  and small group sessions have taken place in the new GP room while other lessons have been taking place in the classrooms.

Lammermuir have sociably been joining Hopetoun in their classroom and have had fun choosing nursery rhymes to sing together. Lomond and Glendevon had more relaxed afternoon lessons to meet the children’s needs at that time of the day.

Pentland used the giant scrunchie to sing about The Great Big Turnip at the Bottom of the field and it became a big favourite. Tommy and Matthew found it hilarious when the different characters shouted for help and that the mouse had the biggest muscles.

All of the Primary classes also enjoyed the The Wheels on the Bus. This turned into something bigger, with everyone taking turns choosing  the different things that are on the bus from a range of choices on cards. The result was like a different remix of the song each time as the order kept changing.

As we approached Scarecrow Festival time, all of the Primary classes of course enjoyed singing the old favourite Dingle Dangle Scarecrow.

In Secondary, the groups focused on playing tuned percussion instruments to rock backing tracks and there has been lots of interaction and engagement, which bodes well as we head into a musical project together. More will be revealed in due course!

Term 1 in Hopetoun

What a fabulous first term we have had in Hopetoun! We’ve been so busy exploring our amazing new school and have especially enjoyed being out in our incredible garden where there is so much to do. We’ve also had lots of lovely new experiences indoors using our new sensory room, soft play, the drama/music room and the art room. It was lovely having you all come to visit and am sure you all think it’s as amazing as we do!

Team Hopetoun wish you all a lovely October break and look forward to all the exciting things that are to come next term. We hope you enjoy our video showing some of the fun we have been having…..

Term 4 in Hopetoun

We can’t quite believe that we already find ourselves approaching the end of the school year, how time flies when you’re having fun!! It’s been a year full of adventures, experiences and fun in Hopetoun and there’s lots more in store for when we move into to our fabulous new campus after the holidays.

This term we’ve been lucky enough to enjoy lots of outdoor experiences in the sunshine including taking on a whole school walking challenge for the month of May which we smashed! We’ve been practicing lots of useful skills so hopefully there are some helping hands with jobs around the house and we rounded off the term with a trip to 5 Sisters Zoo.

We hope you enjoy looking at our photos and we wish everyone a happy and healthy summer.

Team Hopetoun 💙

Term 3 in Hopetoun

This term has absolutely flown by and we’re so excited to finally see the beginnings of Spring outside!!

We’ve had another busy term getting involved in our school Eco work, Fairtrade activities, Comic Relief and had the best time at our Burns Ceilidh. We’ve also been busy starting our new topic all about people who help us in school and have had fun taking photo’s of people we find who help us as well as getting involved in some of the jobs that they do and we’ll be continuing this topic after the Easter holidays.

We hope you all have a lovely Easter.

Team Hopetoun