Calderwood – Page 14 – Calderwood Primary and Nursery

Rookie Rockstars Concert

The countdown is on for our Rookie Rockstars Concerts on Wednesday 7th and Thursday 8th July! This week, our pupils have enjoyed having Rookie Rockstars in school. They have learned songs, been involved in challenges and had a rock melody!

Please find important information about the concerts below:

Pupils performing in the concert should arrive between 6:00-6:15pm through the school office. They will be directed to a clan as their backstage room.
Doors for the audience will open at 6:00pm. Please enter through the office and show your ticket to the champion at the front door. The concert will take place in the school arena and will start at 6:30pm.
Pupils have been encouraged to dress up as a rockstar for the evening!
The Rookie Rockstars team will be selling raffle tickets which gives you the chance of winning an electric guitar. Tickets cost £1.00 and payments can be made by card.
Rookie Rockstars merchandise will also be sold on the night. This will be sold at the amphitheatre as you exit from the concert. All pupils and adults should exit the playground from the Glencoe gate.
No photos or videos should be taken of the performance.

Collecting your child at the end of the event

After the concert, pupils will go back to their backstage clan. All adults will be directed to the playground through the STEM door to collect their child. Pupils should be collected from the following areas:

Pupils in Mull and Orkney will exit from their original playground door.
Pupils in Shetland and Skye will come out of the P2/P3 playground door.
Pupils in Leven and Linlithgow will be collected at the pergola.
Pupils in Rannoch, Tay and Tummel to be collected at the green benches.
Pupils in Bluebell, Bramble, Thistle, Ben Lomond and Ben Lawers will exit from the Ben Lomond/Ben Lawers playground door.

Into Primary 1 at Calderwood Primary 2023/2024

Below is everything you need to know about your child starting Primary 1 at Calderwood.

Welcome & Induction Pack

Welcome to Calderwood Primary 1

Parent Information Evening

P1 info evening

Play in Primary 1

Play in Primary 1 at Calderwood

Transition Plan

Meet the champion

16th June: 12:30pm-1:00pm

One parent/carer can come along with your child to meet your child’s new champion and see the learning space they will play and learn in.

We’re Going on a Buddy Bear Hunt : Transition Project

Weekly Home Transition Challenges

Free School Meals & Clothing Grant

APPLICATIONS OPEN FOR NEXT SESSION 2023/2024 FREE SCHOOL MEALS & CLOTHING GRANT.

If you are entitled, completing this application will provide your child with lunch every day, school milk and access to support services, clothing grant & extra support if required in school.

Calderwood Chatter is open from 11-12pm every FRIDAY for a cuppa and a friendly chat if you need any advice, support or just a listening ear.

www.westlothian.gov.uk/mealsandclothing

Primary Engineering – If You Were an Engineer What Would You Do?

Way back in March Calderwood was abuzz with Engineering…

IDL Topics, Calderwood Connects, Dragon’s Dens and Clan Presentations all led to our children taking part in a National Engineering Competition. The children were posed the question: If You Were an Engineer What Would You Do? My goodness we could’ve powered the inventions they dreamed up with the creativity, thinking and work which went into all the competition entries!

We want to give a special mention to the following people, who were recognised by the competition judges:

Ella – Highly Commended – Top Shelf Grabber

Mason – Highly Commended – See in the Dark Goggles

Lochie – Winner – Flying Shoes

Lucy – Highly Commended – Things to help us

Kiera – Highly Commended – The On Time Roller Skates

Charlotte – Winner – Solar Plane

Mhairi – Highly Commended – The Secret School for Girls

Rachel – Winner – Flying Car

Anveeta – Highly Commended – The Plastic Rocket

Ananya – Highly Commended – The Invisible Cloak

The Champions, children and families attended the Awards Ceremony on Thursday 2nd June, in the Engineering building at the University of Edinburgh, to celebrate Highly Commended and Winning entries to the competition.

We can’t wait to celebrate with everyone at our next Calderwood Connects but for the meantime – keeping STEMing and always look for that engineering opportunity!

Cultivating Calderwood

We have a brilliant start to Term 4 and have had lots of opportunities to carry out experiments within our ‘Captivating Calderwood’ topic.

Water Cycle Experiment

We carried out a water cycle experiment where we drew the process on Polly bags, added water and placed onto our windows to see what happens to the water. We also made predictions and have been observing the experiment. We discovered that the evaporated water vapor usually goes into the atmosphere, but in our bag, it has nowhere to go, so it ends up sticking to the sides of the bag, turning back into a liquid as condensation.

Planting

We have planted our very own sunflowers and placed them onto the windowsill. We are watering them everyday and observing their growth by recording this onto a line graph. We have observed some plants have grown much faster than others and have discussed why that might be the case. We think some pupils have placed the seeds deeper than others and that may be a factor. We have discussed the life cycle of a sunflower and made posters to show this visually. In addition to this, we have recently dissected flowers and carried out research the purposes of each part. We were so interested in the different purposes of each part. This then led onto discussions on ‘pollination’ and why this is a vital process within the food chain.

Literacy

We have linked our topic with our reading and writing. Last week, we made notes on sunflowers based on where they are located, what they look like and how they behave. We are now working on creating an information report on sunflowers. We have discussed our writing targets in detail and pupils have loved the link between their topic and literacy!

Have a look on the following sway to see how much fun we have had on our ‘Cultivating Calderwood’ journey so far!

Go to this Sway

Our Improvement Journey 2022/2023

Calderwood has a commitment for improvement! We are continually evolving and ensuring we are getting even better.

Below you can see the journey of our Improvement Priority Groups this year.

Pipe Band Gala Day Celebration

As part of our East Calder Gala Celebrations, Housebuilder Robertson Homes has organised for the Glencorse Pipe Band to attend Calderwood Primary School. On Friday 19th May, the band will play a Beat Retreat in our school playground as the pupils are collected from school for the holiday weekend. A Beat Retreat denotes the end of the working day and marks the end of another week of hard work by all of our pupils. The band will begin to play at 11:55am and continue until 12:15pm.

Robertson Homes is sponsoring the pipe bands which will be playing at the East Calder Gala Day on 10^th June. Robertson wanted to give all our pupils, staff, parents and carers a sneak preview of what to expect by organising this special event for us. Calderwood Primary is thankful for this exciting opportunity.

Championing Coding: National Robotarium

The Bens had a phenomenal opportunity to take a trip to the newly-opened National Robotarium. Ben Lomond and Ben Lawers had the most amazing day being ambassadors for our school, showing off their robotics and coding knowledge, and exploring new AI technologies.

Please see the Sway created by Ben Lomond all about their trip:

Go to this Sway

Calderwood Can Certificates- 21.04.23

Well done to all of our learners who received a Calderwood Can Certificate this week. It was great to see lots of success in Calderwood Counts and lots of empathy and respect being displayed across the school. We are so proud of your achievements!