Calderwood Primary Chronicle: 30/10/26

Calderwood Chronicle_30_10_26

 

Every fortnight we will issue our chronicle to families via email and our blog.

All other information about Calderwood is on our blog and website.

 

Calderwood Commitments: 

 

Calderwood Calendar: 

  • Family Calendar: Link is here. A huge thank you to Mike (one of our parents) who created a digital calendar for families to use: https://calderwoodcalendar.co.uk/
  • 03/11/26: Parent Council Meeting: In the Arena or Teams – you can find the agenda and Teams link here.
  • 10/11/26: 2:00pm – 3:00pm: Sharing the Learning: P3: A visit to the clan room to find out about their learning and to look at your child’s jotters. One adult per child please. This this is drop in opportunity and adults are not required to stay for the full hour. Children will be collected in the playground at the normal time of 3:15pm
  • 10/11/26: 2:00pm – 3:00pm: Sharing the Learning: P5: A visit to the Arena to find out about their learning and to look at your child’s jotters. One adult per child please. This this is drop in opportunity and adults are not required to stay for the full hour. Children will leave at the normal time of 3:15pm
  • 11/11/26: Dress Down Day for House Meetings: Wear your house colours on top and normal uniform on bottom. Red: Red, Sika: Blue, Fallow: Green, Roe: Yellow
  • 12/11/26: 2:00-3:00pm: Clan Connects: Tummel: Doors Open 2pm: Starts 2:10pm: An opportunity for your children to share on stage their learning in the Arena and then you can look at their jotters in the café. 2 adults per child.

 

Calderwood Communication:

  • Parking: A reminder that the bays labelled between the school and nursery are for car users who have a blue badge only.
  • Communication: Our communication approaches are here. The fortnightly Chronicle is our main method of communication, which includes deadlines, updates, calendar dates, information and news. It provides links to the blog for those families who would like more information on a specific context. The purpose of the Chronicle is to try and prevent numerous emails. We are grateful to our Parent Council Communication team who reshare reminders and key information from the chronicle. Outwith the chronicle, we may email key messages for specific stages, any last minute changes to plans or important deadlines. We will review our communication approaches at next week’s parent council.
  • Positive Relationship Policy: You can find our most up to date document here, including our anti bullying processes.
  • Profiling: Profiling means that learners will be engaged in regular, on-going discussions with staff about their This is a continuous process for all learners from 3 to 18. You can find out more about how we record and share learning in this document and how Primary 1-3 use Seesaw to support this process here. will be engaged in regular, on-going discussions
  • Term 2 P.E Days: You can find the link to your child’s PE Days here. We are aware that parents have requested that PE days say the same all year round, unfortunately this is not always possible. Teachers are entitled to 2 and ½ hours non contact time each week, which is rotated each term due to the Monday holidays. This is turn effects the non contact timetable, which impacts on the PE timetable, hence the change in days. This term we have also had the additional change of non access to the field, therefore meaning a change to outdoor PE times.

 

 

  • Home Learning: 

Reading: In Primary 1, we continue to build on the strong foundations established at the start of the year through daily phonics activities, storytelling, songs, rhymes and language-rich learning experiences. Pupils have made excellent progress in developing their awareness of sounds and letters and are now beginning to apply these skills independently through reading. Reading books have now been introduced and are sent home regularly, allowing children to practise and share their learning with their families. As part of their reading journey, pupils are learning digraphs, building their knowledge of common tricky words, and reading decodable texts that match the phonics skills they have learned in clan. This approach continues to support confidence, independence and a positive relationship with reading. Primary 2-4 Clans will take their reading book home, please ensure they have their reading book in the bag every day so they can access to it in clan. Primary 5-7 reading homework is a personal reader from the clan library or home. They should complete their reading log with the books they read.  

Home Learning Choice Grids: The home learning grids issued each term, linked to learning in clan and are optional tasks for children to complete at home. The blue boxes are to help you to prioritise which tasks to complete. Primary 1-3 should share their tasks on Seesaw, Primary 4-7 on Teams, if you would prefer a jotter to share tasks please ask your child’s champion.

  • School Improvement Plan: You can find our school improvement plan for the session here. The family friendly version is here.
  • Love to Ride Challenge Comes to Calderwood! This November, Calderwood Primary School is excited to be taking part in the Love to Ride Travel Tracker and Light Your Move Challenge.The challenge aims to encourage active travel and help pupils think about healthy, sustainable ways of getting to school. Walking, cycling, scooting, wheeling, skating and using Park and Stride are all great ways for children and families to build activity into their daily routines while reducing traffic around the school. You can find out more here.
  • Getting it Right for Every Child: You can find out more here about the different types of processes and meetings we use at Calderwood to ensure we follow local and national policy in meeting learners needs.

Calderwood Community:

Calderwood Compliments:

  • Our Calderwood football team put in an outstanding performance at their recent football festival, finishing the evening with three wins and one draw. Find out more about the event here.
  • Perth clan have enjoyed some fantastic lessons about travelling safely using scooters around our wonderful Calderwood community. We had a brilliant time at our last session on Thursday 15th October and would like to give a massive thank you to everyone involved in organising it. You can find out more here.

Getting it Right for Me Processes at Calderwood

Getting it Right for Every Child: You can find out more about the different types of processes and meetings we use at Calderwood to ensure we follow local and national policy in meeting learners needs.

 

Calderwood Primary GIRFEC Supports- Families

Love to Ride Challenge Comes to Calderwood!

This November, Calderwood Primary School is excited to be taking part in the Love to Ride Travel Tracker and Light Your Move Challenge.

The challenge aims to encourage active travel and help pupils think about healthy, sustainable ways of getting to school. Walking, cycling, scooting, wheeling, skating and using Park and Stride are all great ways for children and families to build activity into their daily routines while reducing traffic around the school.

Travel Snapshot Week

From 2nd to 6th November, classes will take part in a Travel Snapshot Week. Each morning, pupils will be asked how they travelled to school and staff will record the results. This provides baseline information about travel habits across the school before the main challenge begins.

Light Your Move Challenge

From 9th to 20th November, we will take part in the Light Your Move Challenge. During this period, classes will complete a quick daily hands-up survey and submit their travel data online. Pupils who travel actively will also receive high-visibility stickers as part of the challenge.

How Families Can Get Involved

We would love families to support the challenge by encouraging active travel wherever possible. Even walking part of the journey, parking a little further away and using a Park and Stride approach can make a positive difference.

Every active journey helps our school work towards creating healthier habits, safer journeys and a more sustainable future.

Thank you for your support. We look forward to seeing how our Calderwood community gets moving this November!

Gaelic Workshops

Please come along to some fun, hands on Gaelic workshops.

You can choose to immerse yourself in a simple Gaelic song with Yvonne Drummond (Music teacher at Bankton Primary), drum alongside Andrew Findlater (drummer from Trailwest)) and learn some common greetings and phrases by being in the cafe with Elaine MacArthur (ex French and German Teacher – now doing a degree in Gaelic at Sal Mor Ostaig).  It will be a culturally rich experience and will offer something new!    It is on Saturday 7th November at Deans Community High School, Livingston from 10-12pm and is free.  The event is open to everyone within our West Lothian community (teachers, parents, pupils and family members).  Please sign up by scanning the QR code or clicking on the link on the poster.

 

Gaelic family fun day flyer (1) (1)

Fantastic Football Festival Performance!

Our Calderwood football team put in an outstanding performance at their recent football festival, finishing the evening with three wins and one draw.

The team showed great determination and skill throughout their matches, but what impressed us most was the way they supported one another. Every player was encouraged to get involved, and the team demonstrated excellent sportsmanship from start to finish.

Their positive attitude, teamwork and resilience were on display in every game, and they represented Calderwood extremely well both on and off the pitch.

A huge thank you to our staff who supported and coached the team, making opportunities like this possible for our pupils.

Well done to all of our players. We are incredibly proud of your efforts and the way you represented our school. Keep up the fantastic work!

Netball Opportunity for Calderwood Pupils

We’re excited to share a fantastic new sporting opportunity for our pupils!

Active Schools will be launching a FREE Netball Cluster Club for pupils in P4-P7 after the October holidays. The club will take place at Deans Community High School and is open to pupils from schools across the Livingston and West Calder clusters.

The sessions will run on Fridays from 30 October until 11 December:

  • P4-P5: 1.15pm-2.00pm
  • P6-P7: 2.00pm-2.45pm

This is a great opportunity for children to develop their netball skills, stay active, build confidence and make new friends while enjoying the sport in a fun and supportive environment. Whether your child is new to netball or already enjoys playing, everyone is welcome to get involved.

Bookings open at 6.00pm on Monday 12 October, and places can be reserved via the Active Schools booking link.

We would like to thank Mr Young and the Active Schools team for providing this opportunity for our pupils.

We hope to see lots of Calderwood pupils taking part!

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