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ISSUE 70 FEBRUARY 2018 - keithprimary.co.uk · Email: [email protected] Web: ...

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Hello, everyone. February is, of course, the shortest month of the year. However, cold weather, and seasonal bugs have been conspiring against us, making it seem like one of the longest! Lengthening days and the promise of spring will keep us optimistic, in the month to come... Staffing This month has been one of the most challenging we’ve had in some time, in terms of ensuring that we have had enough teachers to work with classes. Mrs Hay has had a spell of absence and we’ve been pleased to see her back. Mrs Virdi and Miss Douglas continue to be absent and Mrs Raymond is now off. We are very grateful to those members of staff who have altered their normal working hours to step in and cover. We have, so far, avoided taking our Nursery teacher to cover in school, full time but this would be our next option, if we should have further teaching-staff absences. Having Mrs Michelle Tay- lor, Student Teacher, in P.7T, has helped by affording us a little flexibility with the deployment of teach- ers. Mrs Taylor finishes with us this week and we pass on our thanks as well as our good wishes, for her future career. Mrs Warrender, Pupil Support Assistant, has been absent for a few weeks. We hope she makes a speedy recovery. Pupil Equity Update Families, groups and individual pupils continue to benefit from the sup- port of our Family Support Worker, Pupil Support Assistant and Class- room Assistants. In addition, we have recently purchased a number of new resources to assist pupils in “closing the gap”. Reading, phonics, maths and writing schemes, which are designed to support children who are needing extra practice, will be arriving in school, very soon. A Selection of Learning Experiences: Eckhardt Bosch, from St Rufus church, joined us for two Assemblies, during February. On his most recent visit, he spoke about us all needing solid foundations and brought a brick from St Rufus’ Manse, to illustrate his point! Hopefully, that same brick will serve a dual purpose and form the foun- dation of some sound, imaginative play, in The Imagination Station! Catherine Ellwood, from Glenisla Home, visited P.6-7H to talk about dementia. All those present now have a much clearer understanding of this condition and the difficulties encountered by sufferers. Many parents and grandparents joined Nursery boys and girls for Rhyme Time. The event coincided with Pancake Day, so snack time was extra special. P.6 pupils from across the ASG, gathered at Keith Grammar School for the Scottish Opera advance workshop. This is the first opportunity that the pupils have had to work together at the Grammar School, giving them their first “transition” experience. On 1st March, they will meet again for a full- day workshop. The parents of those pupils involved are invited to a performance of “Dragon of the Western Sea” at 1:45 p.m., in Keith Grammar School. All sorts of learning takes place here, in school. We were joined, for two days by Sam Moggach, Student Nurse, who spent time in both The Beeches and Nursery, as part of his work experience.. Teachers are always learning, too! Teaching staff recently completed a second evening of training on the Heinemann Active Maths scheme and its associated web resources. I know that some classes are benefitting from use of the on-line games, already! Our German Assistant, Juri Krasko, is continuing to work with the older children, this term. What a boost to have a native German speaker to support the learning of the language. How lovely to see the Rainbows, Brownies, Guides and Scouts of Keith sporting their uniforms, with pride, on Thinking Day. The FEBRUARY 2018 ISSUE 70
Transcript

Hello, everyone.

February is, of course, the shortest month of the year. However, cold weather, and seasonal bugs have been conspiring against us, making it seem like one of the longest! Lengthening days and the promise of spring will keep us optimistic, in the month to come...

Staffing

This month has been one of the most challenging we’ve had in some time, in terms of ensuring that we have had enough teachers to work with classes. Mrs Hay has had a spell of absence and we’ve been pleased to see her back. Mrs Virdi and Miss Douglas continue to be absent and Mrs Raymond is now off. We are very grateful to those members of staff who have altered their normal working hours to step in and cover. We have, so far, avoided taking our Nursery teacher to cover in school, full time but this would be our next option, if we should have further teaching-staff absences. Having Mrs Michelle Tay-lor, Student Teacher, in P.7T, has helped by affording us a little flexibility with the deployment of teach-ers. Mrs Taylor finishes with us this week and we pass on our thanks as well as our good wishes, for her future career.

Mrs Warrender, Pupil Support Assistant, has been absent for a few weeks. We hope she makes a speedy recovery.

Pupil Equity Update

Families, groups and individual pupils continue to benefit from the sup-port of our Family Support Worker, Pupil Support Assistant and Class-room Assistants. In addition, we have recently purchased a number of new resources to assist pupils in “closing the gap”. Reading, phonics, maths and writing schemes, which are designed to support children who are needing extra practice, will be arriving in school, very soon.

A Selection of Learning Experiences:

Eckhardt Bosch, from St Rufus church, joined us for two Assemblies, during February. On his most recent visit, he spoke about us all needing solid foundations and brought a brick from St Rufus’ Manse, to illustrate his point! Hopefully, that same brick will serve a dual purpose and form the foun-dation of some sound, imaginative play, in The Imagination Station!

Catherine Ellwood, from Glenisla Home, visited P.6-7H to talk about dementia. All those present now have a much clearer understanding of this condition and the difficulties encountered by sufferers.

Many parents and grandparents joined Nursery boys and girls for Rhyme Time. The event coincided

with Pancake Day, so snack time was extra special.

P.6 pupils from across the ASG, gathered at Keith Grammar School for the Scottish Opera advance workshop. This is the first opportunity that the pupils have had to work together at the Grammar School, giving them their first “transition” experience. On 1st March, they will meet again for a full-day workshop. The parents of those pupils involved are invited to a performance of “Dragon of the Western Sea” at 1:45 p.m., in Keith Grammar School.

All sorts of learning takes place here, in school. We were joined, for two days by Sam Moggach,

Student Nurse, who spent time in both The Beeches and Nursery, as part of his work experience..

Teachers are always learning, too! Teaching staff recently completed a second evening of training on the Heinemann Active Maths scheme and its associated web resources. I know that some classes are benefitting from use of the on-line games, already!

Our German Assistant, Juri Krasko, is continuing to work with the older children, this term. What a boost to have a native German speaker to support the learning of the language.

How lovely to see the Rainbows, Brownies, Guides and Scouts of Keith sporting their uniforms, with pride, on Thinking Day. The

FEBRUARY 2018 ISSUE 70

Page 2

variety of badges on show gave us the opportunity to open conversa-tions with individuals about their talents and interests, outside school.

P.2MR not only entertained us, at Assembly on 23rd February, they were able to share some interesting facts about life, “Under the Sea”. We all thoroughly enjoyed the action songs and the role play about the marine food chain.

P.4R are continuing to visit Keith Grammar School, weekly, in order to work with the Sports Lead-

ers.

Eco-Group

The Eco-group are meeting, this Friday afternoon, when they will carry out a litter audit, in the play-ground. Their last efforts were hampered by snow. Watch this space!!

Playground Developments

Mrs Ross has now set up our Playground Action Group, comprising pupils, from across the school and members of staff. They plan to meet regularly, in order to make continuous improvements, in the play-ground. Their starting point has been to compile a questionnaire, which will be distributed to pupils, this week..

Links with Glenisla Nursing Home

Due to illness, the planned visits had to be postponed, but we will re-sume these, in due course.

“The Frog Squad” School Support Group

£495 was raised at the “Mr & Mrs“ competition, which was won by Mr & Mrs Jock McKay. Thank you to all who organised, took part, attended and donated raffles, for the evening. The annual Tombola is due to take place on Wednesday, 14th March, at

The British Legion Club. Please do come along and join in what is always an enjoyable evening. The next Meeting will be on Monday on 19th March, at 6:30 p.m. Everyone is welcome to join us, in the Community Lounge.

CPR Training

Mrs Fiona Baldwin, from the Scottish Ambulance Service, has organised a group from the ambulance and rescue services to deliver CPR training to all pupils on Monday 5th March. Nursery children will learn how to make a 999 call and will see around the emergency vehicles. P.1-3 pu-pils should bring a teddy for practising their CPR.

Parents' Meetings

Teachers really look forward to the meetings with parents and children where the focus is sharing the child's experiences, progress and learning styles. But with every year that passes, there are more and more parents who either don't return slips requesting appointments, don't turn up, take their children out of school on holiday, or simply just request an appointment on another evening, which they'd pre-fer. Whilst parents have every right to choose not to attend, the problem, for us, arises when we get requests for alternative appointments. The evenings we set aside for these appointments form part of the teachers' Working Time Agreement and are decided at the start of the year. By requesting that the meetings are held outside these eve-nings means that teachers are having to give up their own time. Whilst most are happy to do this, for one or two exceptional cases, the volume is becoming unmanageable and unreasonable. Therefore, unless there are exceptional circumstances, an alternative appointment will be not be offered.

Of course, we are referring here to the annual Parent Meetings. Where there are concerns over individuals with specific problems, teachers will speak with parents to address concerns, at a suitable time.

Road Safety

This is an area of concern for which there seems to be no simple solution. Once again, can we ask that parents/carers please:

park in allocated bays, in the car park, rather than blocking the flow

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of traffic. We know that it’s difficult to exit a space once parked, due to the volume of cars, but if you find this a problem, why not “park and stride” i.e. park well away from school and walk the last bit. Older children can be encouraged to walk to meet you at a pre-arranged spot

note that parking in the Grammar School playground is not allowed. There are often one or two vehicles there, but they are there for legitimate reasons e.g. to support disabled pupils. Parents/carers must all park in the car park when

bringing vehicles inside the campus. The only exceptions are those with blue badges.

do not encourage small children to walk amongst the cars in the car park. Alight from your vehicle and meet them at the gate

respect the, “Give way to pedestrians,” sign at School Lane; it is very intim-idating for small children, in particular, to encounter large vehicles in such close proximity—even though the driver may find it acceptable!

encourage children to be alert and respectful, when crossing with the Crossing Patroller.

Crossing Patrollers

Please note that from August 2018, there will no longer be crossing patrollers on duty, at lunchtimes. The service will remain in the mornings and at the end of the school day.

Outfit Moray Minibus

Many thanks to all those who handed in the coupons from the newspapers, to help Outfit Moray in the draw for a replacement minibus. These have now been passed on to the group.

Supportive Comments

We’d like to thank those parents who have taken the time to drop us positive and supportive email messages. They are a much-appreciated boost.

Online Registration

Some of our existing parents will have registered younger children for Nursery or P.1 using the new on-line registration system. The group who set this up are keen to get feedback, so that the system can be improved. If you made use of this facility, please take a few moments to complete the survey, here: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/morayonlineschoolregistration

Burns Federation Competition

This will take place on Saturday, 3rd March, at Portlethan Academy. Thanks to Mrs Dawson, Mrs Stu-art and the loyal supporters. We look forward to hearing the results.

Keep Doric Alive

Here are some words and phrases related to position and movement:

Listen to find out if these words are being used by others, around school and in the community.

You might like to know…

P.7 pupils are being offered the chance to take part in another two days of adventurous activities with Outfit Moray. This time, they will cook their own food and spend the night in a tent—if they dare!

abeen— above afore— before

aawye— everywhere ahin— behind

ablow— under ootbye— outside

bye— past throwe— through

School Contact Details:

Address: Keith Primary School School Road Keith AB55 5GS

Phone: 01542 882802 THUS: 08700549999 PIN 031290 (Calls to this number will be charged a 2p per minute ser-vice charge plus your call provider’s access charge.)

Email: [email protected] Web: www.keithprimary.co.uk

Something to think about:

“Don't worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watch-ing you.

~ Robert Fulghum

Dates for your Diary (Please note that these may be amended and others may be added)

More details to follow, by letter, for some events. (TBC = to be confirmed)

1st March World Book Day. Please refer to notes on Homework sheets as some classes are cele-brating this on a different day, due to other events. Scottish Opera for P.6 pupils.

2nd March Assembly, led by Rev. Michael Last: 1:30 p.m.. All welcome.

5th March Whole School CPR Training. P.1-3, please bring a teddy bear.

9th March Assembly, led by P.2H: 9:30 a.m. All welcome.

(Celebrating birthdays 5th- 18th March, due to Poetry final, next week.)

13th March Orlaff the Dragon performance. 6 p.m. Tickets only.

15th March Vista photographs for Nursery and P.7 pupils.

16th March Scottish Poetry Final. 1:30 p.m. All welcome.

19th March Frog Squad Meeting, 6:30 p.m. All welcome.

21st March P.7 Outfit Moray Information Evening. 6:30 p.m.

22nd March Childsmile visiting Nursery.

23rd March Easter Assembly, led by local Ministers: 9:30 a.m. All Welcome.

(Celebrating birthdays 19th March—8th April, due to spring holiday.)

29th March Last day of term. Finishing on Thursday.

Looking ahead...

30th March—13th April

Spring Holiday

16th April First day of summer term.

Regards,

Head Teacher

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School LunchesSchool Lunches

w/b Menu 26/2/18 Week 1 5/3/18 Week 2 12/3/18 Week 3 19/3/18 Week 4 26/3/18 Week 5


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