Category Archives: News

Nursery March Newsletter

Dear Parent/Carer,

February and March have been very busy months in the nursery. Most of the children participated in a nature walk to the wildlife area adjacent to the school field. They learned about molehills, moss and studied the birds living there. They collected sticks and used these to create stick models such as wind chimes.

A group of morning children visited the lovely Park View café to prepare for our pop in and play visits. We looked closely at the menus, the table decorations and the buntings around the walls. Some of the afternoon children visited the local Post Office to post invitations to our Pop In and Play sessions. The resulting Pop In and Play sessions were very well attended. Thank you very much to all who visited us and spent time playing with their children.

Thank you to all parents/carers who attended our Maths Curriculum Evening. You can find our presentation on how you can develop early maths skills on the school blog.

Our children are blogging about their learning on a weekly basis with Mrs Findlay. This allows your children to reflect on their learning and consider the skills and knowledge they have been developing as well as thinking about their next steps in their learning.  You can read their posts on: https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/wl/mcps/category/learning-stories/nursery-am/

As you know we had our Care Inspectorate inspection in January 2016 and the report has now been published. You can find a copy in the nursery entrance or on the Care Inspectorate website. The nursery was assessed against four care indicators:

  • Quality of care and support – Very good
  • Quality of environment – Good
  • Quality of staffing – Very good
  • Quality of Management and Leadership – Very good

The report recognised that staff worked hard to improve the aesthetics and create a pleasant environment in the nursery and that there are plans in place to build a new nursery building. On that note I have received an update that work on  our nursery building will start at the summer.

 

Fiona Barber

Nursery Teacher

March 2016 newsletter

Responsible Roles: Magical Mediator Training

There was a lot of excitement in the upper area this morning as the Primary 6s found out their Responsible Roles which they will start in term 4 of P6 and into P7. Each Primary 6 pupil completed a job application form, which were of a very high standard and were then allocated an appropriate role dependent on their skills, qualities and experiences.

The Primary 7 pupils with the support of Miss Burton put together a training session for the new P6 Magical mediators. They started with a job description and an overview of what the job required. We then took part in a selection of community builders which helped us to focus on the skills and qualities needed to be a mediator, and which also put us in the role of the disputants. Following this we went through the 5 stages of a mediation and the Primary 7s showed us a mediation scenario, then we had time to try out our own scenarios with the Primary 7s supporting us. Finally we ended with a question and answer session, the Primary 7 pupils offered a lot of very useful advice.

Thank you so much to the Primary 7s for training us and we are looking forward to our work experience shadowing opportunity in the new term.

Here is the Magical Mediators training video that the P7s made:

WL Library Services: e-books

eBooks

Download eBooks to a wide variety of devices for free

How do I register?

Simply register on the site with your library barcode and PIN (usually the last four digits of the phone number we have on record for you), then login and start searching.

What can I borrow?

You can borrow or reserve up to six ebooks for free from the West Lothian eBooks(Opens in a new window) site, and download them to a wide variety of devices.

There are hundreds of books to choose from on this site, and thousands more copyright free titles on sites like Project Gutenberg(Opens in a new window) and Obooko(Opens in a new window)

New eBook Collections

We have created several new collections of ebooks: Tartan Crime, Modern Women, Nordic Noir,Family Sagas, Most Popular and Just Returned, so click on the Collections Tab(Opens in a new window) to see what’s available.

How long can I borrow them for?

You can borrow ebooks from between 1 and 21 days. You select the loan period once you have chosen the titles you want to download, and the ebooks expire from your device at the end of the selected loan period.

eBooks can be download to an ebook reader, tablet, smart phone, computer and laptop,. They cannot be downloaded to the Kindle reader due to Amazon’s policy, but can be downloaded to a Kindle Fire.

Find out more at: http://www.westlothian.gov.uk/ebooks 

British Heart Foundation sponsored skip

Please remember to be collecting sponsors for our skipping challenge  taking place next week. The school is taking part during PE classes throughout next week.  Bring in your form and money to school from Monday. The school receives 20 per cent of the sponsorships with the British Heart Foundation receiving the rest.  Sponsor forms have already been taken home, collect another from Miss Gordon if needed!

P4 Benchball Festival East Calder Sports Centre 9th March 2016

IMG_2598IMG_2600IMG_2593IMG_2594IMG_2595IMG_2596IMG_2565 IMG_2566 IMG_2567 IMG_2568 IMG_2573 - Copy IMG_2569 - Copy IMG_2570 - Copy The IMG_2571 - Copy

All the P4s in Mid Calder Primary had an amazing time today at the West Lothian Schools Benchball Festival. We had six different teams who played children from Kirknewton Primary and Woodmuir Primary as well as teams from our own school.

Everyone showed great team working skills as well as super throwing and passing.

A great time was had by everyone!

Top Tips for Primary 1 parents/carers

As part of our transition arrangements we are compiling a Top Ten list of information for parents/carers for our Primary 1 children starting in August. This list will be compiled by parents/carers for parent/carers. Please can you comment below of some suggestions of things you found useful/ wish you knew prior to your child(ren) starting school.

You can also send you suggestions to the school office by Wednesday 16th March 2016.

Many thanks in advance.

The Great Mid Calder Bake Off

This week, the whole school community got their baking hats on to take part in the first Mid Calder Bake Off. A group of invited judges had a very tough job on their hands choosing the winners and runners up in each category, as the standard was exceptionally high. A huge well done to all who took part and supported this event, and a big thank you to our guest judges. We certainly have some talented bakers in our midst. The Great British Bake Off, here we come…

Our worthy winners were:

image

P6 attend EUROQUIZ

On Friday 4th March, four Primary Six children visited Howden Park Centre, along with 18 other schools from across West Lothian, to participate in the annual Euroquiz.

There were lots of very tricky questions focused on the EU, history, sport and culture of countries within the EU and a variety of flag and country questions.

We participated really well and thoroughly enjoyed our morning.  A big thanks to Cole, Ayla, Jamie and Sean for doing so much preparation and studying for this event.  You did a great job!

http://youtu.be/NJTV7myS3_c