We celebrated World Down Syndrome Day at Beatlie by joining a live link to a giant clubbercise. Lots of fun, dancing, disco lights and of course odd socks! Thank you to everyone who sent in a £1 donation. We raised £45 to send to Down Syndrome Scotland. Well done.
Another term has flown by!
It’s been so lovely to be outdoors more often again, appreciating our amazing school grounds and enjoying sunny outdoor play times, gardening, and community walks and outings.
As ever, we have been super busy completing our ASDAN and SQA awards. Our ASDAN pupils have been enjoying lots of community experiences and finding out about the jobs people do here at Beatlie – completing work experience, and assisting our much loved nurses, janitors, the Lorraines at reception, and Angela and Lynne with the lunches and keeping our school clean and tidy. They’ve also enjoyed cross class play sessions with their friends from Ochiltree and shared their interests together. Our SQA senior students have been exploring Healthy Eating, their individual Appearance and what makes them unique, and working towards their award in Sensory Perception. All pupils have been having lots of fun exploring drama and music, and working towards their awards here too.
We were very lucky to experience some Live Music Now sessions this term which went down a treat, and which pupils came away from very relaxed and happy indeed.
As the senior end of the school, we continue to access our community groups and experiences, and in addition to these, many of us have also had the chance to experience bowling and golf at the driving range with Louise. These have been amazing and very enjoyable sessions! Most recently, some of our pupils represented Beatlie at a dance festival, and others took part in the Classrooms for Malawi Unicef Outright Campaign. Such a variety of worthwhile and memorable opportunities!
We look forward to our experiences and achievements in the coming term.
We wish everyone a lovely, restful Easter break,
Team Duntarvie x
What a busy term we have had in Hopetoun. We have enjoyed some of our regular activities like messy play when we have had lots of chances to get messy and taste some new foods. We have been learning how to look after babies and we had a visit from Baby Koa. We have been going to the local library to choose some books and we can check them out ourselves. We also had great fun doing some science experiments and we made some bang bag monsters and watched them explode then we made some giant bubbles in the garden. Some of us have been horse riding
For St Patrick’s day we went on a shamrock treasure hunt to find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. We had to follow the clues to find the next shamrock all the way to the pot of gold (chocolate) coins at the end .
This week we have made some Easter bonnets and had an Easter egg hunt as well as making some cakes. Have a lovely holiday everyone and we look forward to seeing how much fun we can have next term.
Part of our UNICEF Outright Campaign this year is about raising awareness of international aid particularly in relation to climate change and education and today we were thrilled to have a visit from Tina and Maureen from the charity ‘Classrooms for Malawi’. We really enjoyed learning about some of their projects and we loved exploring the items they brought along which included materials, tools, artwork and toys. We learned about the gift bags that the charity give to children in Malawi which typically contain a small tennis ball, a woolly hat, and some toiletries and we watched some video clips of some of the songs and games the children enjoy.
We’re really excited to start planning a special gift that we are going to make for them to take to Malawi in June when they go to start building their next classroom.
Drama has been up and running since after the February break and it’s been lots of fun. Some children have been exploring sea life sensory under the sea. Another group have been taking turns to drive a bus to the harbour, then hopping on boats across the sea on adventures. Other children have been swimming in the sea, riding dolphins and being chased by sharks. A lot of fun, craziness and laughter.
Beatlie choir have been working hard this school year. The children have been enjoying new songs with props to encourage engagement. They have also been working on vocalising into a microphone. We have been having so much fun with our new pancake song.
Well, this term has definitely danced past us in a wintery whirlwind – filled with learning, achievement and most importantly – fun 🥰!
Our days have been extremely busy both in school and out in the local community, with assemblies and learning on a range of topics such as Remembrance, Fireworks, World Children’s Day, St Andrew’s Day, Winter and Advent, immersing ourselves in various wintery sensory stories, sensology, and story massages and keeping our bodies active at hydro, rebound, dance namaste and music therapy, to name just a few of our many, many activities, not forgetting our range of community outings and groups!
A particularly fun day, was when our clown doctor friends visited to take part in our learning experiences, and caused creative chaos – as they do so well – which led to some beautiful and very funny interactions. It is so lovely to see these little moments where confidence and communication begin to blossom through fun.
Our ASDAN pupils have been working really hard towards their awards, exploring the topics of healthy bodies and Diwali, and our senior school pupils have been trying really hard with their SQA fundraising project and using their communication skills amazingly well both in school and out in the community to help really worthy causes! Across all our learning, exploring the concept of exchange has been a focus, as well as self care skills.
Our festivities have been a definite highlight, and our pupils did so well, participating in events such as the Christmas Pantomime, Christmas Drama, Christmas Lunch, our whole school Christmas Singalong, as well as our secondary Christmas party, and our visit to see the Christmas lights at Livingston Shopping centre.
Lastly, before we sign off for the festive season, Duntarvie class would like to express our sincere gratitude, which we extend to our entire brilliant Beatlie community, for everyone’s support and kindness in our Sensory Shoebox Toy Appeal project.
We were genuinely very overwhelmed by the generosity, thought, and creativity that went into providing some very special boxes for children in our local area to enjoy waking up to this Christmas 💕.
We also raised a considerable amount of money, which local charity ‘River Kids’ will be able to use to purchase any specific items they are missing for children and young people, and we couldn’t have done any of this without your incredible support and this tremendous teamwork! Thank you for making a difference 💖🐝!
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✨ ✨Merry Christmas Everyone,
with lots of love from all in Duntarvie xxxxxxx✨✨
Hi everyone,
Just wanted to take the time to express our appreciation for everyone who contributed to the Poppy Appeal recently in school.
We raised an amazing amount which will go towards helping those in the military community who have given so much and continue to give so much for all of us.
I also wanted to celebrate our brilliant Beatlie pupils, who made the most beautiful wreath as part of their assembly on Monday and the senior school pupils who are working towards their fundraising award and have been collecting donations, as well as very respectfully laying their wreath at the war memorial at the civic centre yesterday, on Armistice Day.
Thank you to your amazing young people and to our Beatlie community,
Rachael
Wow – our first term together is almost complete!
The last few weeks have gone by in a flash, with so many fun and varied activities both in school and out in the community.
We’ve been working hard in class on our targets, and coming together for groups exploring our senses, enjoying music, story and song, and learning about looking after our bodies as we grow up too.
Keeping active has been very important both in and out of school as well as increasing our independence and developing skills in communication, and growing in confidence. Cross class PE groups have been lots of fun, working together with friends and adults from across the secondary school, and learning new skills. Some pupils have also been back on the Innowalk, and quite literally making great strides in progress here!
We’ve also contributed to whole school celebrations and events including Global Goals Week and Fairtrade Fortnight. We’ve been cooking up a range of healthy snacks, meals, and tasty treats in the pupil kitchen, and enjoying trying hard with some messy, bold art creations too.
Many of our pupils have been very happy to welcome back our clown doctor friends as well as our fabulous music therapists, Ellie and Sophie – who have led some really lovely sessions with our pupils – and our dance therapist, Charan.
We’ve definitely made good use of our busses this term, and have also enjoyed some lovely walks in this lovely Autumnal sunshine. We’ve enjoyed collecting items to explore as well as visiting local shops, cafes, the library, and attending a range of community groups including Musically Active Dudes, the Young Adults’ social group at Broxburn United Sports Club, and Gentle Exercise classes in Polbeth. These are brilliant opportunities to develop our life skills and meet new peers and adults too. One pupil has been particularly delighted to get back to his much loved gym visits too, and is working exceptionally hard!
I look forward to what’s in store in the times ahead with our fabulous Duntarvie stars!
Thanks to everyone for a brilliant start to the school year!
We have had a very busy term. We have been settling in and getting to know each other and getting into a routine with all our activities. We have been learning about night and day for our topic. We made some night time sensory bottles using food colouring, glitter and stars and also painted some day and night pictures using paint. All the children have enjoyed some stories about day and night and also some multisensory sessions with a day a night theme.
We have also been looking for signs of Autumn by going on local walks to collects leaves. We used our leaves to make a collage in art and we also enjoyed multisensory Autumn themes too. We have been getting into the Halloween spirit a little early with the upcoming break. We have had messy play with pumpkins and slime and also made pictures using Halloween stickers! We have some more Halloween fun when welcome back to look forward to as well.
What a busy start to the year! We are looking forward to a rest and reset, ready to start back for another action packed term!
