A warm welcome back to all our pupils in Duntarvie.
We hope you have had a wonderful holiday and we were blessed with some brilliant weather.
We are looking forward to some new ASDAN and SQA challenges this year and hopefully being able to get out and about in the wider community too in 2022.
Duntarvie team look forward to meeting you all through the course of the year at events and gatherings.
We are also looking forward to working with some of the pupils and staff in Ochiltree too this year in our senior phase and ASDAN groups.
After several months of delivering music lessons live and online via Teams and YouTube, it was good to swap the living room for the classroom again this term. While the children were mostly engaged during lessons shown on the smartboard, there was a pleasing positive response to us being back in the same classroom again. The music and activities are more immediate and alive and there is more scope to adapt activities, depending on responses and interests.Â
This term we began by consolidating some of the songs and action activities from before that had become familiar over the smartboard. We then added new ones focusing on steady beats (Sugarplum Fairy), on fast and slow (Hare and Tortoise) and then on high and low (Five Little Froggies). We ended the term by improvising music together using some of the recently acquired instruments such as bass bars (wooden bass chime bars) and wooden tongue drums. We have also had more 1-1 music sessions that complement the work of Aisling, our music therapist.Â
The newer instruments were ordered in conjunction with Aisling, and due to not being able to be in the school, some are only now getting used by us. We look forward to being able to use them more next term. Â
Despite all the restrictions and changes over the past year we have managed to survive and cope tremendously well with a new way of life in Beatlie.
The children in Ochiltree adapted so well and have shown a great determination to develop and build on their skills as well as have fun in all the different activities new and old.
The Ochiltree team has had lots to deal with and we came together and enjoyed supporting the children to work on their independence skills and communication. Over the year you have witnessed how impressive they have been.
We have also had lots to do with Learning for Sustainability and helping out in the community which has been vitally important in this climate. The children all helped to start and maintain a vegetable garden producing vegetables used in our recipe book and cooking the different dishes as part of our Connectng Classrooms project with schools in Africa. We have also planted lots of flowers to encourage diversification and they are beginning to bloom with the summer sun.
There are so many moments I would love to share with you but I don’t know where I would stop. Please have a look at our video which gives just a short peek into life in Ochiltree.
Myself, Anna, Gina, Jacqueline, Shonet & Catherine would like to wish you all a fantastic summer and look forward to seeing you all again soon x
There was lots of fun, excitement and competitive spirit in the air last week during our Health and Sports Week.
We kicked of the week with each class designing their team name, strip and mascot and each class prepared a delicious Euro themed healthy snack which was judged by Carol and Debbie, they definitely had a tricky job choosing their favourite!
In preparation for the big day we spent our week taking part in lots of healthy exercise and practising our ball skills and there was plenty of boogie practice too! Thankfully we had some lovely sunny weather when it came to getting out and completing our challenge which each class kicked off by singing their class chants, we don’t think there could have been a single person in Craigshill who couldn’t hear us!
We had so much fun and as well as completing our own class challenge we also enjoyed cheering on all our friends in true Beatlie spirit.
Duntarvie Dynamos were crowned very worthy winners!!
