Whole School

Update on School Developments

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I can’t believe that we are approaching the last term in our brand new Beatlie building.  This year has been a whirlwind!

I want to thank our amazing staff who have embraced all sorts of new training and different ways of working in order to ensure we are maximising the use of all the new resources and learning environments we have available to us.

In terms of using all the technology we have, there has been a great deal of work and collaboration with trying to get this all up and running.   What we have achieved so far:

  • Drive deck – pupils are enjoying using this outside in all weathers. We have now started trialling this indoors and if all goes well, intend to have a path inside the school for pupils to use after Easter.
  • Immersive multi-sensory room – this is being utilised by all classes for a number of purposes including storytelling, mindfulness, drama. Training is ongoing and most staff now have a good understanding of how to make use of the technology within the room.
  • Life skills area in the secondary department – pupils have the opportunity to control coloured lights and blinds and Hazel has grand plans to create an xbox league for switch users!
  • Promethean panels – we are making great use of these in all classrooms to make learning fun and motivating for all pupils either through interacting with the touch screen or through switch access.

We also had a visit this week from an inspector as we were selected to be part of the national thematic inspection by Education Scotland looking at provision of mathematics.  This went well and the lead inspector cited very positive relationships between staff and pupils that is leading to high quality, motivating learning opportunities for all pupils across the setting from ELC to senior phase.

I would like to wish you all a very happy Easter and look forward to the summer term when we can really make use of our fabulous outdoor spaces.

Debbie Green(Head Teacher)

Lomond

Spring term in Lomond

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What a busy term we have had! some of our highlights have been swimming for some of our children as well as continuing to explore our new school and gardens. The new willow sculptures are very exciting.

We have continued to enjoy activities like visiting the multi-sensory room and some of us are getting very good at activating the interactive floor.  We have enjoyed activities like our Burns day ceilidh and having two cafes this term has meant plenty of opportunities for cooking and baking as well as seeing lots of people coming into the school.

We continue to enjoy a weekly visit from the clown doctors and our cross class PE groups have been a big success. It’s always nice to be able to see friends from other classes.

We are looking forward to the summer term when hopefully the weather will be a bit nicer and we will be able to get out a bit more.

Have a lovely Easter holiday and we look forward to seeing you in a couple of weeks.

Hopetoun

Hopetoun News

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This term has been absolutely jam packed with fun, it’s been lovely to welcome so many family and friends into school to celebrate different events with us and we’ve been enjoying lots of opportunities to get out and about. Some of our favourites events this term have been the Burn’s ceilidh,  Science week and Storytelling week where we’ve had the best time joining all our friends from across the whole school to take part in lots of different activities, anything that involves music and dance is a definite hit for Hopetoun!! We’ve also been doing lots of work exploring and promoting our Rights Respecting and Global Goals work, here’s just a small selection of what we’ve been up to!

Hope you all have a lovely Easter break, none of us can quite believe that we’ve reached this time of year already!!

 

 

Ochiltree

Ochiltree Term 3

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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!

Pentland

Pentland Term 3

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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!!

Duntarvie, Whole School

Unique Fundraising Café

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Thank you again for the wonderful support you all gave our S6 pupil in fundraising for the charity Unique and helping him to progress on his Bronze Duke of Edinburgh journey.

These are just some of the photos from the event and thank you again to all the children, staff, parents, carers, family members, friends of Beatlie and community groups who attended or donated for such a great cause.

Craig (Chief Operating Officer) at Unique also thanked Luca ‘Goodness me Luca, that’s absolutely amazing! £900 is incredible and we are so grateful to you all for your wonderful support. Unique is a small charity and we can only exist because of fundraising like yours… it means we can be there to help and support families when they need us most.’ 

Duntarvie, Glendevon, Hopetoun, Lammermuir, Lomond, Ochiltree, Pentland

Music Autumn 2023

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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.
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December Update (From Debbie Green – Acting HT)

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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

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