Category Archives: Ochiltree

A Busy and Joyful Term in Music

🎶 A Busy and Joyful Term in Music

This term has been a wonderfully busy one for Music, filled with creativity, participation, and plenty of joyful noise. We’ve been fortunate to continue our partnership with Live Music Now, whose visits always bring excitement, inspiration, and high-quality live performance experiences for our pupils. Alongside them, our Music Therapists have continued their invaluable work, supporting children through personalised, expressive sessions that foster communication, confidence, and emotional wellbeing.

🌈 Early Years Musical Adventures

Our younger learners have also enjoyed a rich musical experience this term. Caterpillar Music visited Hopetoun class, with Lammermuir joining in for a series of lively themed sessions full of songs, actions, instruments, and sensory play. Early Years music has also included further activities focused on movement, choosing favourite nursery rhymes, and opportunities for gentle musical relaxation. These sessions have supported early communication, turn‑taking, and joy in shared musical experiences.

😌 Dance Therapy: Movement, Music, and Mindfulness

Our Dance Therapy sessions with Charan have also been a highlight. In addition to regular groups, a special Thursday lunchtime session has been running, where Charan collaborates with Gordon, who provides flute accompaniment.

The combination of gentle melodies, soft percussion, and expressive movement has created a calm and relaxing space for the children. It’s been lovely to see pupils engaging in this soothing environment, with singing and vocalisation in response to the calm movement and sounds.

🎧 Making Musical Choices: ASDAN Awards

Several of our secondary pupils have been working hard toward their ASDAN awards, focusing on skills such as making choices and expressing preferences in Music. Using switches, students have been selecting pieces of music and choosing which songs they’d like to hear in full.

The range of musical tastes has been fantastic—from rock classics and ABBA favourites to Gigglebellies, Louis Armstrong, and more. The sessions have often been full of energy, with pupils showing good attention and engagement. Scarves and ribbons have added extra fun as the children move, sway, and dance along to the music they’ve chosen.


It’s been a term full of creativity, expression, and meaningful musical moments. We can’t wait to see what next term brings!

Ochiltree Term 3

We’ve had another super busy term in Ochiltree and have been working hard to complete lots of our ASDAN challenges. One of our favourite challenges was learning about jobs that people do in school and we think we did a fantastic job of helping out with them all. We also enjoyed our latest challenges which were all about being out in the community and we had lots of fun visiting the shopping centre, the Lanthorn library and the café at Excite. We got very creative when designing our own tartan sashes for the ceilidh and when making and painting our fruit bowls with the help of Potter Around. We’re loving the arrival of the better weather and are looking forward to more fun and adventures!

Happy Easter from Team Ochiltree!

 

Secondary Sport & Fitness Activities

On Wednesday afternoons our Secondary pupils have been trying out some different sport and fitness activities…

Golf at American Golf Driving Range

Bootcamp with Mel from FoxFit

Bowls at West Lothian Indoor Bowling Club

Gentle seated exercise class with Heidi from Heidi Macdonald Fitness

Term 2 Secondary PE

Athletes in Ochiltree and Duntarvie have continued to come together on Monday afternoons to develop their physical activity and motor skills.

This term we have focused on:

Mobility activities (based on the Special Olympics Motor Activity Training Programme) with Louise

Stretching and body awareness with Jill

Golf and Croquet with Rachael

Merry Christmas from Ochiltree

We have had another busy term in Ochiltree and we can’t believe we’re already at the Christmas holidays!

This term we have been busy working towards some of our ASDAN challenges. The first was through our weekly health group where we really enjoyed our sessions with Childsmile. We explored healthy food through games and we practiced using the big mirror and toothbrush to brush Monty the puppet’s teeth. We completed our second challenge by learning about the festival of Diwali through music, dance, art and sensory activities.

We’ve also had a busy couple of weeks getting into the festive spirit, we had a lovely Christmas lunch, a fun packed singalong and enjoyed games and dancing at our Christmas party, we topped this all off with a trip to the shopping centre to see all the lights.

Team Ochiltree wish you all a happy and healthy Christmas and New Year!

Secondary Christmas Party 🎄🎁

We had lots of fun at our Christmas Party this afternoon – dancing 🕺 playing games ☃️ and then relaxing with a short festive film🎬and some treats 🍰

Our winners were…

  • Funky hat corners – Megan
  • Pin the nose on Santa – Alex
  • Best decorated biscuit – Cole
  • Reindeer toss – Ruaridh
  • Best dancer – Ethan
  • Best actions in Port & Starboard Christmas version – Stanley

The adults had fun too 😂

Term 2 Secondary PE

And that’s a wrap on our first block of activities. All athletes in Ochiltree and Duntarvie have now completed striking & kicking activities with Louise, music & movement with Jill and Boccia & New Age Kurling with Rachael.

Here are our athletes taking part in their final activity…

Striking & Kicking

Music & Movement

Boccia & New Age Kurling

We will be continuing with our Secondary PE groups next term, so check back to see what new skills and activities we have been working on! 👀

Ochiltree Term 1

What a busy first term we have had in Ochiltree, we’ve really enjoyed making the most of the last of the sunny weather!

We particularly enjoyed our beach themed sensory sessions out in the garden which has now been swapped for a lovely cosy Autumn sensory session which we’re enjoying just as much. We’ve been busy focusing on our health and wellbeing through our weekly health group looking after our bodies and we have been keeping fit and healthy through our cross class PE groups where we have been exploring music and movement, team games and ball skills.

We’re looking forward to next term where will begin working on our ASDAN challenges so we’ve got lots more exciting things to come!

Team Ochiltree wish you all a healthy October break.

Term 1 Secondary PE

On Monday afternoons athletes in Ochiltree and Duntarvie have been coming together to develop their physical activity and motor skills.

After a fun warm-up altogether, we split into 3 groups:
  • Striking & kicking activities (based on the Special Olympics Motor Activity Training Programme) with Louise
  • Music & movement (using activities from Physiobods and the MOVE programme) with Jill
  • Boccia & New Age Kurling (focusing on teamwork) with Rachael

Then we finish off with a whole group cool down and relax.

Striking & Kicking Activities

Music & Movement Activities

Boccia & New Age Kurling

Ochiltree

We have had another super busy term in Ochiltree, it’s absolutely flown in and we can’t believe it’s already the end of another school year. We’ve had lots of fun this term, some of our favourite activities were completing our mini marathon and getting stuck into our gardening project. We went for a visit to Dobbies to choose some plants and we loved looking at the fish in the aquarium. We’ve also been really enjoying exploring all the different recreation opportunities out in the community such as golf, yoga, bowling, shopping and art and we had a super end of term trip to the farm where we enjoyed seeing all the animals and having fun in the outdoor play areas.

Team Ochiltree wish you all a safe and healthy summer!