Category Archives: Uncategorised
Read Write Inc.
Read Write Inc. is a reading intervention to help support learning within reading, aimed at P2-P5 children. Our Read Write Inc. programme provides a cohesive and creative approach to teaching children to read.
Here are some links for a little flavor of the teaching approaches if you want to have a browse at home…
How to teach sounds at home – this video will also help you check your pure sound pronunciation:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8m6YFr0gig
Parent Tutorial: Teaching Sound Blending
www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5BinxuGJXM
Fred talk blending:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEzfpod5w_Q
How to teach a ditty at home:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mhoa4oPkwbE
P7 end of year event – a message from the PSA
The Williamston PSA would like to let parents in P7A and B know that this year there will be a leavers event for the end of P7. The PSA are looking for volunteers to help arrange this. They are hoping to host the first meeting in December. A flier is due to go home later to let parents know more details. The budget is currently £10 per student but the PSA are looking to host a bake sale to raise further funds. If you are interested please contact the PSA by email. Thank you.
P5a’s First Fabulous Fortnight!
Hi, we are back! And we have had a fabulous fortnight in P5!
We are enjoying being back together in our classroom. We now have a V.I.P. table as a special reward plus we can earn class points every day.
We have been working on our class charter and cloakroom rules to make sure we are safe and happy in school. We have been looking at different UNCRC articles and relating our classroom rules to these. Our class charter has a minion theme this year. We have also been discussing in groups how we are Safe, Healthy, Active, Nurtured, Achieving, Respected, Responsible and Included (SHANARRI) at home, in school and in other places.
This year we will be working on improving reading experiences at school. We have enjoyed our first few DEAR sessions – Drop Everything And Read. We have been talking about our favourite books and made a display about this.
Our topic this term will be Incredible India and we will be learning about the country and culture. Luckily the children from our partner school in Mumbia (The Universal School) will be able to help us with this!
This term we will be having drama lessons with Mrs Thomson. Our lessons will be based on our class novel “Nina and the Travelling Spice Shed” and will involve us journeying around India! Mrs Poynter, the music specialist teacher, is looking for some new recruits for playing brass instruments. We will get the opportunity to try out for this if we wish.
We enjoyed our Fencing Taster Session with John (the coach). We got to wear the helmets and use the swords too. We have the opportunity to take part in a Fencing after-school club – so some us may wish to apply for this. This term we will have indoor P.E. on a Monday and outdoor P.E. on a Wednesday – we need to bring in appropriate kits for this as soon as possible.
Outdoor Learning will be a big focus for us this year and we are lucky to have Miss Allcoat twice a week for this. In one lesson she will be helping us develop our teamwork skills and in the other lesson we will have the opportunity to learn more maths outside. We need outdoor clothing for this – a waterproof jacket with a hood and appropriate footwear to change into (wellies, boots, trainers or similar). We need to bring this to school as soon as possible and keep it in school for outdoor learning activities.
In Art, we have practised drawing our portraits and these will be displayed in the entrance hall. Our colour is yellow – look out for them! The portraits of Mary Queen of Scots, that we painted at the end of P4, are now on display in our classroom.
That’s all for now!
Smalls for All – Pants Day
We have been learning more about the work of the charity Smalls for All and how it helps people in some African countries by providing new underwear and funding the education of some children. The Smalls for All group had the opportunity to interview Maria MacNamara MBE, the charity’s founder, recently and they were inspired to hear how her actions have made a difference to the lives of so many others. Classes have also been discussing whether clean pants are a “need” or a “want”, as well as finding out more about the lives of some of the children helped by the charity. This learning has been related to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and The Global Goals for Sustainable Development.
The Smalls for All group would like to thank everyone for making the “Pants Fun Day” such a success. We collected hundreds of pairs of pants – they filled 8 big bags! We have given them all to the charity and they will send them to children in Africa. They hope to give each child 3 pairs of pants for Christmas.
Thank you for all your competition entries in the “Design a Pair of Pants” competition. There were so many wonderful designs and it was really hard to judge the competition. Pam from the charity helped us to pick the winners and runners-up: P1-3 Runner-Up – Ethan Lawson P3/2, P1-3 Winner – Calum Platt P3a, P4-7 Runner-Up – Emily Poskitt P5b, P4-7 Winner – Holly Bisset P6a. Well done to all!
Thank you to all the people that entered the “Guess the Monkey’s Birthday” competition. We asked Maria and Pam from Smalls for All to pick a date. The date they picked was the 10th of August as this was the day that the charity started. Unfortunately no-one picked this actual date but the nearest date to this that was picked was the 8th of August and it was picked by Alannah Charlesworth P3b. Congratulations! We raised £66.75 from the monkey competition and donations. This money will go to the charity to help fund education for children in other countries.
We would like to say a big thank you to all who supported our “Pants Fun Day”. You were PANTASTIC!
NURSERY SPORTS DAY
Due to the weather, the nursery sports day will be unable to take place using the planned, outdoor, format.
We will still have an activity day and welcome all children from both morning and afternoons sessions at 9.30 am as planned. We will unfortunately no longer be able to accommodate parents as spectators due to space limitations.
I understand than many of you will be disappointed not to see your child take part however photographs will be put onto the blog and posted on twitter (for those with permissions).
Parents and younger siblings are still welcome to attend the nursery graduation which will take place, as planned, at 10.30 am in the large hall. You are welcome to take photographs of your own child at this time.
All children should be collected from nursery no later than 11.15 unless booked into wraparound.
Thank you for your understanding.
Mrs Vince and the Nursery Team.
P5 drumming outside, making the most of summer weather…Happy children!
Toilet Twinning Success!
Thank you to everyone that supported our Toilet Twinning challenge. There were lots of bright colours worn on the day and lots of change was placed on our “Rainbow Toilet”! Our Target was to raise £60 so that we could twin with one toilet in another country and we are pleased to announce we raised a total of £206.94!!! This will be enough to twin with at least 3 toilets! Many thanks for helping us support this charity that helps to provide toilets, clean water and health education to people in other countries. This has supported us in working towards some of the Global Goals: Water and Sanitation, Good Health and Well-being and Quality Education.
P3a’s Assembly
We had a great time presenting the assembly to our parents, family and friends this morning. Our assembly was on the value of “wisdom”. There was singing, dancing, drama and lots of stories. We thoroughly enjoyed sharing our learning with everyone. We now know the difference between knowledge and wisdom and hopefully we will make wise choices in the future. Our teachers are very proud of us!
Come and find out about what we have been doing in P4a!
We are pleased to say that our show rehearsals are going well! We have learned all the songs and dances and we have practised each scene at least once. Next week our rehearsals will move to the big hall and we will start putting it altogether. We have begun making scenery – thanks to our parent helpers – and we have sent out a letter about tickets (get your order in fast!)
Our new health topic is medicines and drugs. We have started by thinking about different types of drugs, why people use them/take them and some of the dangers of drugs. In science, we have continued learning about electricity and this week we made electrical circuits including a bulb and a switch. We also learned how to draw these using symbols. In P.E. we continued practising our Kurling skills and we are now ready for a game. In art, we have been studying portraits of Mary Queen of Scots and we have begun working on our own portraits. We have started by drawing Mary’s face and part of her body and we will soon be painting her.
In maths, our fractions topic involved us learning about equivalent fractions and ordering fractions. For example, we know that a half is the same as 2 quarters and a fifth is bigger than a tenth. We enjoyed our “I love Maths” morning which had a focus on fractions, time and calculations. Thanks to the parents/carers that came along. In language, we presented our group “Big 5” talks about Scotland’s Big 5 animals: the otter, the red deer, the golden eagle, the harbour seal and the red squirrel. We also wrote Robin Hood stories inspired by our show.
Last week we enjoyed the taster Judo session as part of Health Fortnight. We also took part in a orienteering challenge to find different food types – some of us found the map-reading a little tricky and we had to run from one end of the playground to the other!
