Dear parents, carers
It has been lovely to see our new P1 children come in and make such a positive start to the school. We of course also welcome new children at other stages and new children into the nursery.
Sharing Learning and Progress
It was great so many of you at the P1 curriculum evening and P2-P7 welcome to my new class event. These are both opportunities for you to see and hear about the learning that is planned to take place over the course of the year. Further opportunities for sharing of learning and the children to showcase their talents are through productions such as the nativity.. Obviously you will be interested to hear individually from the teachers on your child’s progress and these are consultations will be held in November and May. At these discussions we welcome the children to be involved – there should be no surprises for them, yourselves or the teacher.
Parent Council
I would express my huge thanks to Lindsay Blakemore for the last four years of chairing the parent council. This is a voluntary position and Lindsay as worked incredibly hard in her capacity – she has worked tirelessly in achieving the best possible outcomes for the whole school community.
I would also like to thank Nichola Pearce and the fundraising committee who again give up their own time to organise a range of events which are great community events as well as raising significant funds for the children and school. In the last year we have been able to update dictionaries, atlases, develop outdoor learning, purchase ipads, pay for the pantomime and support the various after school activities. Thank you!!
School Priorities
In May I met with the Parental Engagement Group to discuss school priorities and along with a range of self-evaluation approaches have identified the following as strategic priorities for the school.
There are key ‘drivers’ which have been identified to support school improvement. The Primary Drivers come from Scottish Government with the additional driver related to “accessibility and equalities” coming from City of Edinburgh Council guidance. The secondary drivers are the related priorities from the school.
More details of this are available from http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0049/00491748.PDF
Examples of how this relates In practice are …
For those of you who were able to be at the “Welcome to my class” evening you will have seen our learning power posters with characters designed by the children.
We have also been discussing “Values” with the children at assemblies, using the context of the Olympic Games. Once the children have come up with their ideas we will seek your views on these. These will then be used to update the vision, values and aims for Bonaly Primary School. They will also support an updated “Better behaviour, Better Learning” Policy.
Sustainability – outdoor learning training for staff and parents will allow us to develop this part of the curriculum over the course of the year.
Safe Travel to School
It is great that we have children coming to school by bike and scooter. The children were reminded at assembly that there should be no scooting or cycling in the playground. For those of you dropping off children to the lines in the playground could I ask you to leave a reasonable space between where you wait and with where the children line up. We have had a couple of instances of younger children finding it difficult to find their line . Also a reminder regarding dogs – for obvious reasons they are not allowed in the playground but can I also ask you to be careful about leaving them unattended tied to railings / fences – unfortunately a child was bitten last week. Sorry to continue with a slightly negative theme but if dropping children off at school could you also show due regard to pupil safety and consideration for local residents.
parent_review-of-school-crossing-patrol-service
Health and Well-Being
“It’s thought that up to one in three children in the UK may get head lice at some point during the year. A head lice infestation isn’t the result of dirty hair or poor hygiene. All types of hair can be affected, regardless of its length and condition.” (NHS)
As a school we follow Scottish Government / Local authority guidance regarding head lice.
I would therefore appreciate if you were able to follow the detection / treatment (if appropriate) advice from NHS (http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Head-lice/Pages/Introduction.aspx )
Detection combing is the best way of finding head lice. It involves using a special fine-toothed head lice comb with a tooth spacing of 0.2-0.3mm to comb through the hair.
The comb can trap even the smallest lice. It works better on wet hair but can also be used on dry hair.
Read more about detection combing at www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Head-lice/Pages/Diagnosis.aspx
Charity
This year it is 100 years since the birth of Roald Dahl and it’s going to be the biggest worldwide celebration of Roald Dahl Day ever! Bonaly Primary participated in “Dahlicious Dress Up Day”. We took great delight in seeing a range of characters from his books and poems or children with a yellow theme. Thank you for the donations to this. For more information on the charity see http://www.roalddahl.com/charity
We will also be holding our Harvest Service on the afternoon of the 5th October at Colinton Church. We will ask for long lasting food donations of tins and jars of beans, spaghetti, soup, vegetables, meat, fish , cooking sauces, pasta, rice, cereal, porridge, biscuits, tea bags, instant coffee and UHT milk. These items will go towards the Fresh Start charity.
Many thanks for taking the time to read this eNews.
Peter Gorrie
