Parental Involvement – Page 10 – St Ninian's Primary School

Nursery News

It was lovely to welcome back all the children on Monday and we are looking forward to a very busy but exciting last term. As part of Creative Industries week the children had a visit from Andrew a musician who worked with the boys and girls on their favourite Nursery rhymes. They all did a fantastic job with their singing and dancing.

Nursery rhymes was also the focus in our transition programme as the children had to pick their favourite rhyme and perform it for the Primary 1 children who in turn showed us their fantastic work and learning in their rhymes. We carried on this learning in our water tray when the children decided to put a long tube round the top of the tray and see how the water moved up and down it just like Incy Wincy Spider moved up and down the water spout!

AM children decided on Humpty Dumpty and PM children chose Incy Wincy Spider as their favourite rhymes. As well as singing their rhymes the children also made props and puppets. They all did an amazing job! A big thank you goes to Mrs Roy , Miss Diamond and all the Primary 1 children for working with us on this project. There will be lots of further opportunities to work with Primary 1 as part of our transition programme. A booklet explaining all the planned activities will be issued to parents next week.

Wednesday was a very busy day for baking birthday cakes as Leon in AM and Klaudia in PM celebrated their birthdays. They both did a great job of making delicious cakes.

Also next week as part of our consultative planning we will be asking the children for their ideas on what they would like their next topic to be. Watch this space!

Next Thursday Nursery Natter takes place at 2.00 pm for our PM children and on Friday between 10.30 and 11.00 for our AM children. This gives you an opportunity to come along and read your child’s Learner Journey and discusss with them all they are learning at Nursery.

Also on Thursday during the Natter there will be a Bake Sale . This will be the first time Nursery has been involved with this. Our PM children along with P1D and P2B are asked to bake some cakes which can then be bought during the natter. Half of the money made at the sale will be split between the three classes and the other half goes to the Parent Council. The children can then decide what they would like to buy for Nursery with their share. We would really appreciate any donations of home baking which can be handed in at the beginning of the PM Nursery session on Thursday. The AM children will be involved in a Bake Sale later on in the term.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend.

The Nursery Team.

1 + 2 resources

Following our Curriculum evening I have been asked to list some resources which would support your child’s learning in French and Spanish.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primarylanguages/spanish/

http://www.spanish-games.net/spanishlessons

https://rockalingua.com/videos Spanish songs

http://www.lajolieronde.co.uk/ French and Spanish

Apps

Spanish school bus

Learn Spanish for kids – bilingual child

Fun Spanish – language learning for kids

Learn French by Mindsnacks

GIRFEC Resources for Parents / Pupils

Following our Curriculum Evening I have posted a note of some resources which will support you and your child when discussing GIRFEC.

“Wellbeing for young Scots” website -http://www.wellbeingforyoungscots.org
Scottish Government website – Q and A for parents
Education Scotland http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/parentzone/mychild/entitlements/girfec.asp

Your school – newsletters, weekly updates, blog

https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/wl/stninian sps/

The learning cafe

http://healthy.thelearningcentre.org/

Nursery News

This week in Nursery we have been learning about Chinese New Year which is celebrated on Monday 8th February. We listened to a story about how the years are named after different animals and had the opportunity to make Chinese drums. Our Chinese restaurant has also been busy with lots of cooking and writing down food orders. More exciting things are planned for Monday so watch this space.

In our Outdoor learning we have been using our new gardening tools to dig up the soil and see what we can discover. No treasure yet unfortunately! We are planning on buying all in one suits for the children to enable them to go outside regularly to experience all the benefits of learning outdoors.

Some of our AM children used their artistic skills to paint or colour in self portraits. Our responsive planning took on rockets too this week when some children decided they wanted to make their own rockets and then continued on to construct a super big one so they could travel to the moon wearing their moon boots and masks. They then watched a clip of Tim Peake on the Smartboard. Perhaps we may have a future astronaut in our Nursery!

We had a special treat at story time on Thursday afternoon when the children listened to the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff in both English and Polish read by our Polish student Miss Suszko. The children loved this experience and we plan to read this to our morning children next week.

Today at our Achievement assembly Kerr got a special certificate for being a reflective learner as he was excellent this week at talking about how we are Active in Nursery which is one of our GIRFEC indicators. Well done Kerr. We will be continuing to discuss each of the indicators in the GiRFEC wheel with the children and make a children’s display of this. We will post pictures of these as we complete them. We have also been recording the childrens’ views in our Talking Book.

Next week is Technology week across the school and Nursery and we are planning on working with Primary 1 classes on apps that can be used on the iPads as well as building some exciting things!

Our Breakfast Blether is on Tuesday 9th February at 845 all parents and carers are welcome to come along for an informal chat with some of the Nursery Team. If you are free to come along please add your name to the sign up sheet in the Nursery. Thank you to everyone who has put their name down so far. Remember breakfast is included! We look forward to seeing as many as possible at this event.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend.

The Nursery Team.

Skills Academy for Parents

Thursday 25th February

6.30-8.00pm

Education is forever changing and it is important that you know the approaches we are currently using in school. Come along and see ‘first hand’ how lessons are delivered. Please remember to return your slip by Friday 5th February to choose the workshops you would like to attend.

This space can also be used for questions, suggestions or your thoughts on our curriculum at St Ninian’s.

Parental Involvement Survey

Please find below, a link to a survey for parents and carers regarding levels of parental involvement.

https://www.esurveycreator.co.uk/s/PIStrategySurvey

The survey contains only five statements to rate strongly disagree to strongly agree – there is also space to add comments if you wish.

West Lothian Council are gathering this evidence purely to help inform an updated West Lothian Parental Involvement Strategy.

The closing date is 11th December.

Parents from every school in West Lothian will be invited to take part in the survey but there is a drop down box to select St Ninian’s. It would be great to have a high uptake from our school!

Thank you.