Tag Archives: Article 29: My education helps me to develop my abilities to the full.

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.
Hopetoun

Hopetoun News

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What a busy busy term this has been in Hopetoun!! We’ve been enjoying lots of fun activities and events such as music, swimming, drama and cooking, raised lots of money for Children in Need and have been getting well and truly into the Christmas spirit. We all loved the Snow White pantomime and all did amazing in our Christmas performance which we hope you all enjoyed. Have a look at our video to see how much we’ve managed to fit in, it’s no wonder the time has been flying in!!

We hope you all have a lovely Christmas and New Year and we look forward to seeing everyone after the holidays.

Ochiltree

Ochiltree Term 2

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Another year and another term over just like that!

What another wonderful term with the children of Ochiltree. We have been a busy bunch being involved with whole school events, Asdan challenges, Learning for Sustainability activities and having lots of fun!

We are so glad we invited our friends to join us for our St Andrews Day Ceilidh and we had a blast! We have continued to go outside in all weathers to make use of the Drive Deck, the playground and also the environment – nothing puts this lot off!

We are continuing to develop our independent skills during cooking activities, class jobs and our communication challenges throughout our school day and we have been lucky to add horseriding to the list too!

From all in Ochiltree have a fantastic Christmas and New Year and we look forward to seeing you all again next year!

 

 

 

 

Pentland

Pentland Term 2

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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!

Whole School

Debbie Green (Acting HT)

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Progress so far!

As you will be able to tell we are delighted with our new school and the amazing resources that we have access to.  As part of our school, improvement plan this year we are working to maximise the use of these different  areas and resources ensuring all pupils are safe, included and achieving.  The outdoor space is fantastic and we have been making great use of all areas to learn through play and exploration.   Staff have been trained in the use of our new Drive Deck which allows our wheelchair pupils to independently travel round the garden using a switch.  We plan to explore how to make use of this within the school next.  The multi-sensory room is being used to great effect, with pupils being immersed in different exciting stories and able to explore the images and lights with their bodies and through switch use.  Pupils are also enjoying regular rebound sessions supported by trained staff and attending regular art, cooking and messy play sessions in our new art and cooking space. Staff are  working hard to develop new and innovative ways to use the life skills technology to allow our children to control their environment.

After the October week’s break, we will be starting up with our swimming and horse riding sessions.  We will also be starting to use our hydrotherapy pool which is very exciting. We are working alongside one of our physiotherapists to ensure the benefits of this therapy can be maximised for each individual.

We have started working on the communication section of our new life skills framework.  We asked our teachers  to describe their thoughts (in three words) on this new curricular framework:

 

I will keep you informed of further progress  throughout the rest of this year.  It was lovely to see those of you who were able to make it along to the café this morning and look forward to seeing you at events across the year.

Have a lovely October week.

 

Debbie Green

Acting HT