Dear Parents / Carers,
What an exciting but extremely busy term ahead for everyone involved with Mid Calder Primary School.
Primary 7 have begun the countdown for transition to High School and the nursery children have started transition arrangements for moving up to P1. It is an exciting but nervous time for them and I am sure as parents you will experience the same feelings.
Last week in our JRSO Junior Leadership Team, we entered the Global Road Safety Week Poster Competition. This poster had to highlight the dangers of speeding as well as being eye-catching and colourful. The results were released today, and out of 616 children in the whole of Scotland that entered, Kaylie Preston in P4B was awarded runner up!
Congratulations Kaylie and the rest of our JRSOs for their fantastic entries!
On Friday, Charlie and Louis organised a Disney themed party to celebrate Almondell’s term 3 victory. They played a range of Disney themed games and organised food. A big congratulations to Almondell and thank you to the P7s who helped with the party.
Last Friday Primary 3 presented an assembly all about our Baby Gym Challenge. We had to work really hard when designing, building and selling our baby gyms so we couldn’t wait to share our learning with everyone.
Ignatius: “I was so excited to go on stage and hold up my ‘nose’ picture!”
Lewis C: “When I was doing the Boss Baby Rap I was really nervous but I enjoyed it!”
Carla: “I enjoyed doing the Boss Baby Rap because I got to do some funny dance moves.”
Ben: “At first I didn’t want to be a Boss Baby. But once I had done it I wasn’t so nervous and enjoyed it after all!”
Today, representatives from Eastertoun Primary visited our school to find out some of the ways that we use digital technologies to enhance our learning. Primary 5B showed our guests how we share our achievements on our iAchieve blog, as well as how we have used some of the Glow tools to support and challenge us across the curriculum. We shared how Bring Your Own Device works in Mid Calder, and also gave them a tour of our class Yammer pages, explaining the different ways in which we have used these.
Next, pupils from P6 and P7 who were involved in the process of MCPS becoming a Bring Your Own Device school shared this journey with our visitors. This offered an excellent opportunity for questions to be asked and answered by pupils from both schools. Our guests also popped into Primary 4B who shared their new knowledge of the language of coding with them.
The visit ended with a chat with some of our Technical Troopers who explained some of their roles and responsibilities and how they have helped to support digital learning across the school.
We hope that our guests found their visit valuable and we look forward to hearing how they progress in their own journey using our new collaborative Yammer page.
Movie Night £253.41
Dress Up Day £197.23
Bingo Night £428.69
Easter Egg Competition £73.76
Easy Fundraising Website £24.13
Dress Down Day £212.60
A huge thank you to everyone who came to our first Bingo night and I hope everyone enjoyed playing. It was a learning experience for the PSA – none of who had played bingo, but fun seems to have been had by all!
Well done everyone for raising so much for the school. The money raised from these events will be held by the PSA to ensure that next year our commitments, such as subsidising school trips, the Halloween parties etc will be met.
However, money raised from the Spring Fair will be going towards the playground fund and, with your help, we should reach the £10,000 total by the end of May.
This morning we welcomed parents and friends along to our Celebration Celebration so that pupils could receive their STEM Super Star and Remarkable Reader Awards. We also announced the Top Scorers for each house and a big well done to Almondell who won the House Cup for last term.
Miss Sherlow presented those pupils who came in the top 50 of the West Lothain SumDog Competition with a certificate.
Lewis and Ross, both past pupils from our school who now attend West Calder High shared their achievements with us. They reminded us it was important to achievement academically and in other areas of life, and also to have fund along the way. A big thank you to Lewis and Ross for joining us.
Wednesday 19th April: 7-8pm
Agenda
1. Welcome
2. Apologies
3. Minutes
4. Financial Report
5. Correspondence
6. Update on Calendars
7. Spring Fair (Friday 12thMay)
8. Sports day / nursery
9. School Request
10. AOB
11. Date time of next meeting
This week, as part of our IDL STEM Topic, Primary 1 went to visit the Robertson Homes Building Site.
We set off from school and walked all the way down to the building site. Although it was a long way, everyone did very well. At last, we saw our destination up ahead, and our excitement grew. On reaching the site, we climbed up into a cabin and gathered in the meeting room where we met some representatives from the site. They were to be our guides for the morning.
First of all, they spoke to us about the kind of things we might expect to see and hear on a building site. They asked us about possible dangers too, and talked about the kind of things we would have to look out for as we walked around. Mrs Smith was very impressed with the answers we gave, and with the questions we asked too!
Next, we put on our orange hi-vis vests and hard hats, and set off to have a look round. We correctly identified a number of different vehicles and machines as we walked over to see the digger digging out some foundations. Then we looked across to see a house that was a little bit further on in the building process. It was surrounded by scaffolding, and we discussed how the scaffolding helped the builders work at higher levels.
Finally, we went inside a house that was almost finished. Here, we learnt about insulation-what it is and why it is important. We also talked about the materials that were being used for different parts of the building. Again, we were able to make lots of connections between our learning in the classroom, and what we could actually see around us.
Looking around, we could see that the skills of plumbers, electricians and painters would all be very important over the next few weeks too.
All too soon, it was time to leave and head back to school. We would like to say a huge thank you to the Robertson Homes staff, who gave us such an interesting and informative tour of the site. Thanks also to the adult helpers who kindly came along to help and encourage us during the visit.
