Category: Ben Lawers
The Ben’s Book Covers
The Ben’s have been inspired by their favourite books to create book covers that are now displayed in the discovery den. They have been creative with their work, some using free hand painting and colouring, others tracing, and some clan members used technology to design their covers. They have used their own ideas of what it means to be successful as a means to set a standard at this task, all students have completed it above and beyond these expectations. At home, you could discuss what your favourite book is and why you have chosen this – you could even have another read of that book to remember why you love it so much.
P5-7 Basketball Team
Speak Out, Stay Safe
NSPCC’s Speak out. Stay safe. online programme
This term we participated in the NSPCC’s Speak out. Stay safe. online programme. This consists of an online assembly and supporting classroom based activities. Speak out. Stay safe. is a safeguarding programme available to all primary schools in the UK and Channel Islands. It aims to help children understand abuse in all its forms and to recognise the signs of abuse in a child friendly way. Children are taught to speak out if they are worried, either to a trusted adult or Childline.
In the online assembly, the Speak out. Stay safe. messages were delivered in a fun and interactive way with the help of their mascot Buddy as well as special guest appearances from Ant and Dec.
We studied the content of the materials and are extremely confident that they are appropriate for primary-school-aged children. By the end of the programme, the aim is that children feel empowered – knowing how they can speak out and stay safe.
If you would like to know more about the Speak out. Stay safe. programme you can find information on the NSPCC website www.nspcc.org.uk/speakout
Additional resources
Adapted assembly for home use
The NSPCC has also developed an adapted version of their assembly for parents/carers to use at home with their children. This can be found here: www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/support-for-parents/safety. With the help of celebrities, the film focuses on how a child can get support if they have any worries or concerns.
To complement the assembly, there are some resources that can be used to enable further discussion whilst doing activities with your children. These are hosted on the NSPCC website www.nspcc.org.uk/activities.
Online safety hub
You may also like to visit the NSPCC Online Safety Hub where you will find advice and information on a range of different online safety topics including gaming, social media, sharing nudes, parental controls and more.
You will also find online safety information for families of children with additional needs and disabilities. We have worked with Ambitious about Autism and parents and carers who have children with additional needs and disabilities to create activities to help talk about online safety which you can find at www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/online-safety/online-safety-families-children-with-send.
Childline Under 12’s Website
Childline also have a website with age appropriate advice for primary school children on topics such as bullying. It also has games and other interactive tools. Your child can visit it at www.childline.org.uk/kids.
If you’d like to know more about the NSPCC’s work, or take a look at the wide range of information and advice which is available for parents and carers, please visit their website www.nspcc.org.uk/parents.
Talking PANTS with your children
Talk PANTS is a simple conversation to help keep your child safe from sexual abuse. From P through to S, each letter of PANTS provides a simple but valuable rule that can help keep your child safe. You can find out more and download the free resources at www.nspcc.org.uk/pants.
Penguin and Ladybird have partnered with the NSPCC to create a brand new Pantosaurus book aimed at children ages 4 – 8. You can find copies of the new book on sale, either in Matalan’s selected stores and online, selected SPAR stores or at https://shop.nspcc.org.uk/. All profits from the sale of this book will support the NSPCC.
Support the NSPCC
You may be interested in the NSPCC’s new selection of BUDDY goodies available from the NSPCC shop at https://shop.nspcc.org.uk/collections/buddy which make perfect gifts for children – and all profits go to help keep children safe.
Home Learning Choice Boards
Please find below a copy of the home learning choice boards for Term 1. Our approach to home learning is flexible to ensure we met the needs of our families and children’s extra curricular activities, therefore the amount of tasks you complete are up to you as a family. The tasks are a mixture of online and discussion/ paper tasks. If children choose to share any of their home learning with their clan they can do this via their champion.
The tasks are also uploaded to Seesaw/ Teams. Children will bring home their log in cards this week, please ensure you keep these in a safe place.
You can find further information here:
Our Parent Council are currently setting up a working group to consult on our approaches to home learning to ensure we meet the needs of our families.
P1 Home Learning Choice Board T1
P2 Home Learning Board- Term 1
Primary 3 Home Learning Board– Term 1
P4 Home Learning Choice Board_Term 1
P5 Home Learning Choice Board_Term 1
Primary 5-7: BYOD
Champion Conversations – P5-7 Helpers
STEM in The Bens
STEM is a huge part of who we are at Calderwood.
Recently, the Bens have been exploring the area of chemistry and chemical reactions.
We started by giving the pupils the chance to experience first hand a basic chemical reaction – water, oil and an effervescent tablet! – They were given the instructions but no adult support to carry it out.
This encouraged independent and collaborative learning & problem solving skills.
Next, we watched and observed the magic that took place! The comments, questions and curiosity from them was fantastic.
-“why is mine fizzing so much?”
-“why does the oil sit on top of the water?”
-What makes it do that?”
With our curiosity activated, we learned all about the chemical reaction & creation of carbon dioxide.
The following week, we conducted a fair test and began to explore how scientists set up testing by ensuring variables & conditions were all the same, only making one change at a time.
Children worked amazingly together to investigate their own scientific enquiry questions such as:
“what happens to the amount of fizz if I change the amount of tablets?”
“what happens to the oil bubbles if I use milk instead of water?”- (warning, it smelled awful!)
“what happens to the amount of fizzing time if I use less water?”
Well done, Bens – it was fantastic to watch you experience the wonders of STEM on your own.
NSPCC Online Safety Workshops for P5-7 Families
Primary session 1 – Social Media, Parental Controls, Modelling Good Behaviour, Screen Time vs Screen Use
Tuesday 11th October @ 7pm
Microsoft Teams meeting
Join on your computer or mobile app
Click here to join the meeting
Meeting ID: 360 183 895 563Passcode: nLTnf4
Primary session 2 – Grooming, Online bullying, Online friendships
Monday 7th November @ 7pm
Microsoft Teams meeting
Join on your computer or mobile app
Click here to join the meeting
Meeting ID: 358 089 273 611Passcode: FDU7tm
The Ben’s Values
The Ben’s have been learning about values that are important to them. In class they were given a big list of values in which they were to narrow these down to their top 15, then their top 10. Once these values were narrowed down, pupils put them into a core value matrix. These top 10 values were drawn against one another to decide which one was more favourable. The values were narrowed down to their top 6. The Ben’s then had the creative freedom to decide how to represent these 6 core values. Some of the ideas include; poster, paintings, videos, PowerPoints and poems. This then led to creating their class charter in which they decided between them the top 6 values for the class. Pupils had the opportunity to see each others work and look at the creative ideas in the clan. Pupil’s have the opportunity to discuss their ideas at home.
