We’ve had such a busy start to our new school year, here’s a sneak peak of just some of what we have been up to!
We hope everyone has a healthy October break and we look forward to seeing you all soon.
Team Ochiltree
Category Archives: Ochiltree
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
Welcome back from Ochiltree!!
It’s been lovely to welcome everyone back after the holidays, all our Ochiltree pupils have settled in brilliantly and have been enjoying getting to know their new peers and staff. We’ll be sharing lots of our learning with you soon but for now we wanted to say welcome back and introduce you to the team!
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.
Ochiltree 2024
Ochiltree have had a fabulous year! I for one have loved every minute of it and will miss them very much!
It has been a year of fun and laughter, skills and attainment and the children have done themselves and you proud!
Alex and Fletcher have achieved their Asdan Transition Challenge and move onto their senior phase after the summer.
Mollie also moves into the senior phase class with one more year of her Asdan to go.
Brendan, Liam and Stanley will continue on their Asdan journey in Ochiltree with new friends joining them after the summer.
I hope you have all kept up to date on their journey this year through their Learners Journal and have enjoyed all the photos and videos of how fantastic they have been participating in all the wonderful activities we have had this year.
A special thanks to all who have supported all the youngsters in Ochiltree this year goes to: Madge, Alison, Tracy, Kerri, Ashley and Susan.
Have a fantastic holiday and look forward to seeing you at some of our school getharings next year. x
Ochiltree Term 3
Spring is here!
Still cannot believe we have worked through another term – time has flown by with all the activities we have been up to this term.
Ochiltree have been out and about enjoying horseriding, swimming and creating at Potter Around and the Ochiltree team have loved every minute of it!
We have also been travelling around the World with Susan visiting an array of countries and experiencing the different cultures through sensory experiences, arts and crafts building well known tourist attractions and cooking snacks and meals to get a taste of where we visit – even snails!
The team have also been building on their skills using TD Snap for communication, rebound and PE cross class for their physical wellbeing as well as their favourites such as going out on the bike, drive deck or choosing from the choice box.
It has been fun participating in whole school events and seeing everyone at our cafe as well as learning for sustainability through litter picking and our Spring Clean.
Next term we look forward to getting outside more to participate in walking month, our topic of Forest Trails, Teddy Bear Picnic and of course Sports Day.
Thank you to everyone for another fantastic term!
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.
Ochiltree Term 2
Another year and another term over just like that!
What another wonderful term with the children of Ochiltree. We have been a busy bunch being involved with whole school events, Asdan challenges, Learning for Sustainability activities and having lots of fun!
We are so glad we invited our friends to join us for our St Andrews Day Ceilidh and we had a blast! We have continued to go outside in all weathers to make use of the Drive Deck, the playground and also the environment – nothing puts this lot off!
We are continuing to develop our independent skills during cooking activities, class jobs and our communication challenges throughout our school day and we have been lucky to add horseriding to the list too!
From all in Ochiltree have a fantastic Christmas and New Year and we look forward to seeing you all again next year!
Alice in Wonderland
World Food Day
This week in Beatlie we recognised World Food Day by making sensory bottles with the focus ‘Water is Life, Water is Food. Leave No One Behind’
World Food Day takes place annually on 16 October and promotes awareness of hunger and action for the future of food, people, and the planet.
Take a look at how much fun we all had making the bottles and how great they all look now they are finished.
#WorldFoodDay
#ZeroHunger
#FoodSecurity
#SustainableAgriculture
#EndHunger
#NutritionForAll
#GlobalFoodChallenge
