Category Archives: Pentland

Pentland Term 3

It’s been another busy term, but our highlight has definitely been getting out and about in the local community visiting the library, café and shop. This has been a great opportunity to cover different areas of the curriculum and develop a variety of skills.
On the walk we have been developing our stamina, working on going up and down steps and developing awareness of personal safety when near roads. We have also experienced engineering in the world around us and loved making echoes under the bridges!
At the library we worked on literacy skills including handling books, enjoying different stories and choosing a story to take back to school to share with our friends.
At the café we have been developing our interaction and communication skills through ordering and asking for the bill. We have also experienced handling money which is part of numeracy and developed life skills of eating and intimate care in a different environment.
At the shop we again experienced using money to pay for an item, as well as selecting an item from a choice and waiting our turn in a queue.
Finally, we experienced computing devices in the local environment, such as automatic doors, book scan in the library and self-scan in the shop.

Most importantly it is has been lots of fun!!

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.

Pentland Term 2

It’s been another very busy and fast term in Pentland!

Our highlight was hosting the Children in Need café. We hope you agree that we did an amazing job, raising over £1000! On the day we all had important jobs to do from greeting all the guests to selling raffle tickets to manning our stalls and activities. We had lots of fun and it was great to see sooooooooo many people supporting us!!!

We also had fun celebrating Halloween through pumpkin sensory play and drama games, going on an adventure with Oily Cart, being silly with the Clown Doctors and getting messy in messy play!

Of course there has been some serious hard work too! Developing our cooking and art skills, working on our understanding of cause & effect, and practising our number and counting skills.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

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!

Pentland Term 1

Well that was certainly a VERY busy and fast first term in our new school!

We have some new pupil and adult faces in Team Pentland this year and have been enjoying making friends and getting to know each other better.

Team Pentland this year:

Class Teacher – Louise

Advanced Pupil Support Workers – Alison, Caroline, Julie, Linda & Louise (yes, 2 Louises!)

Our pupils

We also have Linda (yes, another one!) for art, Gordon for music and Catherine for drama

Here are some of our highlights…

We have also been busy creating our Class Charter and Global Goals displays…

Hope everyone has a fun and well deserved holiday.

Pentland Term 4

Well folks, it’s nearly the end of another term as well as the end of the school year and our time in the old Beatlie School campus!

It’s been another fun and busy term with lots of activities and we have put together a short video of our 2 favourites…

We would like to take this opportunity to wish you a happy summer 🌞, hopefully we’ll see lots of you at the Beatlie Bash on Friday 🥳 and then it’ll be time for lots of new adventures in our amazing new school! 😊

Team Pentland 💚

Pentland – Term 3

I think I say the same thing every time … but how is it the holidays again already?!?!

We’ve had another very busy term and especially enjoyed our families coming in to join us for a Clown Doctors session, Burns’ Ceilidh, Fairtrade cafe and Red Nose Day cafe!

Our current topic is Spring which we will be continuing next term. We have also taken part in Chinese New Year, Valentines, ECO and British Science Week activities.  Phew!!!

Two of our favourite activities were making Mr Nonsense (now our new class mascot) for the Red Nose Day cafe and throwing our wildflower seed bombs around the woodland to help the local wildlife…

The staff working hard too…

Think they enjoyed it as much as the children…

Our finished product…

Happy Easter from everyone in Pentland!

Pentland – Term 2

WOW! Who can believe Christmas is here already!

We’ve had another very busy term in Pentland with lots of new learning and fun celebrations including World Smile Day, Diwali, Halloween, Bonfire Night, Scottish Book Week, St Andrew’s Day and, of course, Christmas!

We have really enjoyed having our families back in school to take part in the Live Music Now café, watch our Christmas performance and see us meet Santa.

Our topic this term was ‘Day & Night’. We had fun creating day and night skies in art, bathing and dressing baby dolls for daytime and night time activities, and taking part in some day and night drama activities, including putting on our PJs and then snuggling up with a teddy for a bedtime story!  We also explored dancing to lively and calm music and played some time games including ‘What’s the time Mr Wolf’ and ‘Here we go round the mulberry bush’.  Some of our boys also explored day and night sequencing, sorting and opposites during our weekly maths group.

Here are a few photos of our topic work…

Bedtime!

Our completed art gallery…

Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year to all our families from Team Pentland.

Pentland – Term 1

Ahoy Me Hearties from the Pentland Pirates!

What a busy (and quick!) first term here in Pentland. We started the year with a Pirate theme which we explored through various activities including art, cooking, sensory play, stories, dressing-up and physical games and activities…

Pirates was also the theme for our Class Charter…

We had a visit from Cool Creatures…

We looked for signs of Autumn during an Autumn Scavenger Hunt and used our senses to explore autumnal objects…

But our highlight has definitely been horse riding…

Our art wall so far with boats, treasure maps, treasure chests, leaf hedgehogs and shaving foam art…

Hope everyone has a great holiday and we’ll see you next term for the countdown to Christmas!!

Music October 2021

Mr Macarella and a mission into space!

It was great to see everyone happy to return to music and to welcome some new faces joining us for musical fun too.

We began the term with some familiar songs and activities to help settle everyone in before focusing on silly Mr. Macarella. This clapping song tells us how he didn’t use his umbrella to keep dry and how 8 raindrops fell on him. Then we all count and clap while learning about the different parts of the body where the rain fell. We then moved onto playing the rain sounds and the 8 raindrops on different instruments as the rain drops fell on his musicians.  

This term we also have some smaller Music groups with Lammermuir and early Primary children focusing on musical play and exploration, intensive interaction, movement and nursery rhymes. 

Secondary had two cross-class music groups and some also have 1-1 sessions this term. One group began working on choosing and playing instruments that will help tell the story of a journey into space. This will help them work as a group with solo spots on their chosen instruments that will go towards their SQA awards. The other group are enjoying playing and moving along to music from different genres as they work towards their ASDAN awards. 

We will continue the fun into next term, adding in seasonal songs for Halloween and Christmas.  Have a great October break!