partnerships – St Ninian's Primary School

First Minister’s Reading Challenge

What is the First Minister’s Reading Challenge?

The First Minister’s Reading Challenge is a programme for Primary 1 – 7 pupils in Scotland, providing opportunities and resources to help them develop a love of reading.

There are a range of challenges to encourage children to go on their own reading journeys, explore different types of books and celebrate personal reading achievements. The Reading Challenge aims to support schools and communities to develop reading cultures and for these to be embedded and go on to benefit your children in the long-term.

The First Minister’s Reading Challenge will run from September 2017 until May 2018 and there will be a celebration event in June 2018, where good practice from across the country will be showcased and prizes awarded.

Why is it Important?

The importance of developing a life-long love for reading cannot be underestimated for children and the impact it has on all aspects of education – the curriculum and beyond – is immeasurable. Allowing children to enjoy the fun and pleasure of reading by developing a reading culture in schools, communities and families is therefore incredibly worth-while and something which lies at the heart of the First Minister’s Reading Challenge.

What can you do to help?

Your child has now received a Reading Passport (P1-P3 have a class poster) where they will be able to record books they have read throughout the Challenge and what they think of them. Talk to them about the books and reading materials they enjoyed and the ones they didn’t. You might want to discuss challenges they and you face as readers, and that it’s ok to start a book and realise it’s not for them. They could also take their Reading Passport along to their local library and record recommendations inside.

One of the most important things you can do with your children is make time to talk about books, stories, and words. Let them develop their own interests and, above all, help them to value reading and the world it opens up to them

https://www.readingchallenge.scot/

Mrs Roy

Principal Teacher

UN Ambassador’s update

Today we had some visitors from St Margaret’s Academy to speak to us about the ‘St Margaret’s for Malawi’ project.

We learned about a school in Malawi and how cramped some of the classrooms are. They are not brightly decorated like ours and rely on natural light as there is no electricity. The children are fed one bowl of porridge and for many of the children this is their only meal for the day, often eaten outside on the dirty ground. There can be over 90 children in a P2 classroom with only one teacher compared to our P2 classroom of 25 pupils and one teacher.

St Margaret’s staff and pupils have been working on the Malawi project to support these children in their lives and education. They are going over in July to help build a classroom and are planning on raising funds and taking over bags for every child that they visit. We are going to support them with this project during Lent. Watch out for more information on the weekly updates, dojo and Facebook.

A huge thank you to our visitors for taking time in their busy prelim week to come down and speak to us!

Sailing on the seven seas…

What a hardworking crew we have in P1R, it’s been another busy week!

At the beginning of the week we had a visit from our local librarian, Mrs Campbell to read us a story, we all had to vote for a book which she then read to us. We’re hoping to visit the library shortly to have a look at all the other books they have.

In maths we started a new topic learning all about shapes, we spent lots of time exploring 2D shapes. We used the feely bag to try and feel the shapes then describe them to our partners. We sorted shapes using the smartboard and flashcards, Mrs Roy was amazed at how quickly we could sort them! Our challenge of the week was to think of other 2D shapes and where we might see them in the environment.

We received another letter from Captain Pete this week who was delighted with the applications we had completed for homework to join his crew. He asked us to build our very own ship to use on our Pirate Adventure which we were really excited about. We had to learn about the different parts of a ship and try to recreate this in our design. Our crew have had great fun using the ship for pirate play. We also learned about Pirate life and spent an afternoon trying out some activities which pirates would do in their spare time – playing music, dancing, making things out of wood, playing cards, reading, etc.

The Olympics are beckoning for some of our budding gymnasts, we were are getting really good now at using the large apparatus. This week we focused on being responsible, leadership and core strength.

We ended the week with Ninian’s Natter where every child had a learning conversation to discuss their goals and progress. I will send a photograph to the parents who were unable to make it today of your child with their goal. You can use this as a tool for discussion at home.