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December Update (From Debbie Green – Acting HT)

I just want to take this chance to give another little update on all the great work that has been happening to develop our school.

Since my last update in October, we have continued to work together to develop different aspects of the school.  All of our Advanced Pupil Support Workers are part of working groups looking at different activities and sharing ideas and resources to promote high levels of engagement for all pupils.  These include PE, effective use of the promethean panel, cooking, singing and messy play groups.

We are continuing to develop hydrotherapy and are starting to widen out the use of rebound therapy to more pupils across the ELC and school.

We have also been continuing to develop activities and resources to promote children’s rights and are planning to apply to sustain our Gold Award status later next year.  Some pupils attend a regular Learning for Sustainability group where they have fun and look after the environment at the same time!  We have had lots of donations for the West Lothian food bank and toy appeal this year so thank you to everyone who donated.  We have also celebrated a number of national days including World Food Day, Children in Need, World Children’s Day and International Day of People with Disabilities (see blog posts for more info).

We had our first curriculum evening in November.  Although we didn’t have lots of parents who managed to make it along this time, those who did gave great feedback and really enjoyed the opportunity to speak to staff about different areas of our curriculum.  We plan to continue developing our life-skills framework next term focussing on strategies to develop functional communication and cognitive (including earl numeracy) skills for our pupils.

Our Christmas show was very well attended and I think those who made it along will agree that the pupils and staff were fantastic!  Everyone had a great time.  The feedback so far seems to be that people liked the new lay out and format although possibly cakes and drinks at the start next time!!

Next term we plan to develop further opportunities for PE, and are planning to introduce an activity afternoon where pupils will split into different cross class groups focussing on developing physical skills.  We are also continuing to develop consistent use of all the  facilities and technology that we have in our new building.

I would like to wish you all a fantastic Christmas and happy New Year and look forward to seeing you at our parents’ evening in January 2024 (Wednesday 17th Jan 3-6 and Thursday 18th Jan 6-8).

Merry Christmas Images - Free Download on Freepik

Debbie

Oily Cart!

What an amazing experience we all had last week when we welcomed Oily Cart back into Beatlie.  The performance team engaged our children and young people in a fully immersive sensory spectacular with ‘When the World Turns’.  We had some very posiitve feedback form our staff and parents throughout the week and the reactions form our pupils just had to be shared!

Glendevon Term 1

What a great first term we have had in our amazing new school.  We  have all settled in so well into our new environment and have been so excited to use all of the wonderful areas of our new school.  In Glendevon we LOVE our outdoor area – we would spend all day out there if we could!   We have also loved exploring our new sensory room and soft play areas.

In class we have been busy with a variety of art, messy play and cooking experiences and we have all rolled our sleeves up and got involved in all the mess!

We hope you enjoy having a wee look at our video of all the different things we have been up to this term.  We hope you all have a great holiday and we are looking forward to our next term of fun in Glendevon.

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.

Exploratory Art Sessions

We have had some great fun during our exploratory art sessions.  Lots of classes have been coming along each week to try out different ways to mark make on paper.  This term we have focused on paint! We have explored various methods of mark making using paint.

The first week we used stampers in paint, we had all different kinds of stamps and made different marks and patterns.  Some children enjoyed using their hands to mark make too.

On week two we used a salad spinner to spin the paint around and make lovely patterns. We also did some splat painting, which was messy but fun!

The third week we made the first letter of our name using masking tape and then used various colours of paint and paintbrushes to paint all around it.  It looked really cool when we peeled of the tape when they were dry to reveal the letter!

Week four we used string to dip into paint and drag along the paper. Everyone’s picture looked different and really effective.

Last week we used cars and animal toys to make tracks and prints on paper and everyone really enjoyed it.

Well done to all the boys and girls who came along and participated so well in the sessions. Some fabulous art work was created in the process!

 

Linda

Hello from Hopetoun

Hello Everyone.

I’m so happy to tell everyone how well our new primary one children have settled into their school routine. Hafsa, Angel, Tommy, Pete and Matthew all moved from Lammermuir nursery and Madison joined us from Harburn nursery. Natalie and Annmarie also moved from Lammermuir. Caroline and Jacki have also joined us to make up the Hopetoun team.

We’ve all been getting to know each other and we’re so lucky to have such happy children who are enjoying lots of different activities.

Our topic this term is People Who Help Us in School.

Jungle drama

All the primary classes plus Ochiltree in the secondary have been taking part in some drama focussing on the jungle.

They have been explorers in a journey through the jungle, walking through the vines, experiencing the warm wet conditions, picking bananas to feed the monkeys and fruit bats., chased and sprayed by the head of the elephant herd. They have even been pretending to be a rhino and charging at a tree, discovering jumping frogs under a rock and swimming in a river whilst being chased by a crocodile!!! Such adventures and everyone enjoyed something from this.

Looking forward to more exciting adventures ahead.

Ochiltree Class of 22/23

Ochiltree Class of 22/23 have had a very busy, fun and challenging year and all the children have given it their all to be confident individuals, responsible citizens, effective contributors and successful learners.

For our last term we continued the theme of working hard and playing hard. For the walking month of May we went on our daily walks enjoying different sensory experiences of the different areas we visited. We also physically challenged ourselves to walk in/on different areas we would have avoided!

We were able to complete our Asdan, SQA and Duke of Edinburgh work of which I am sure we will get positive feedback for.

Our cross class activities were brilliant this year and all enjoyed each others company and interacting with each other for all the different activities such as assembly or outdoor play.

We have had lots of health and wellbeing activities from bike riding to mindfulness, gardening to rebound and boys/girls group for personal care. Some of the pupils also participated in a health group which was amazing! showing their resilience and bravery for accepting medical routines.

We have continued to have an effective whole school and community approach to Learning for Sustainability weaving together global citizenship, sustainable development education and outdoor learning to create coherent, rewarding and transformative learning experiences such as Earth Day, Fairtrade Tuck, gardening, outdoor numeracy activities, forest trails, walks and Eco activities.

We will be saying goodbye to our friend Duncan who will be moving on with best wishes from us all. We will all be saying goodbye to our building but look forward to new beginnings.

Have a fantastic holiday and see you all again for 2023/24!