Longniddry Primary School s1

September 2015

Dear Parents

Welcome to our latest school newsletter.

The children and staff have all settled back into the school routine and we hope you found our Meet the Teacher/Curriculum Evening informative.

We aim over the course of the year to invite you in to share the learning in our classes either by being a parent helper, during our open mornings or to see a class assembly. We also have 2 formal parent consultations in October and March.

If you have a query/concern about your child’s learning can we please ask in the first instance that you address this with the class teacher. Sometimes the start/end of the day can be busy so making an appointment via the office is often helpful. If you wish to pass on a piece of information about your child this can be emailed to the office and Mrs Mitchell will pass this on the teacher.

Your feedback is always important to us and we thank those of you who responded to the Parental Engagement Survey issued before the summer. The results of this have been shared at Parent Council and we will look at ways of continuing to improve how we work and communicate with you.

Health Issues

Can we remind parents/carers that if you require school staff to administer medication during the day you must complete a medication request form. These are available from the office. If your child has asthma and requires an inhaler please ensure we have one in school and you have signed the appropriate consent form.

If your child is sick or has had diarrhoea they should be kept at home for 48hrs following the last bout of illness to prevent the spread of infection.

Can we please also remind everyone that we are a NUT & KIWI Free school due to children with severe allergies.

School Uniform

We still have a very good selection on 2nd Hand/ Recycled School uniform. If you would like to see what we have please come to the school office.

What’s Been Happening This Term?

We have already had a busy sporting start to the term with football input from Active Schools for P2 & 3 and rugby tasters for P6. There will also be rugby and badminton tasters to come for P4’s.

P6 have also been busy with their bikeability training and we thank Mr Whillans and those parents who have been into school to support us with this. We are in the process of ordering more scooter and bike racks thanks to money from the Parent Council.

We all enjoyed cheering on the cyclists at the Tour of Britain event last week and some classes have entered a design a cycle shirt competition

The Railway Children

We had a very successful visit from M&M Productions for P1-7 at the start of the month. The whole school studied the story of The Railway Children as our first topic of the term and then enjoyed a performance in the hall. We also had a visit from PC Derek Jackson from the Transport Police who talked to us about railway safety. P7 also presented some interesting railway safety facts to us in assembly on Monday.

House Captains

Following frantic campaigning over the last few weeks the following pupils have been elected as our P7 House Captains and Vice House Captains for 2015/16:

Douglas – Lewis Allan-Brown (Captain)

Ciara Torrance (Vice)

Charteris – Lily Devine (Captain)

Will McNeill (Vice)

Weymss – Thomas Chatwin (Captain)

Lewis Robertson (Vice)

We will shortly commence voting for our Pupil Councillors and other pupil groups.

Dynamic Earth Golden Ticket

We were very lucky to have been awarded a Dynamic Earth Golden Ticket this year which allows us free entry into Dynamic Earth for all our classes. Every class will make a trip between October and April and we are also able to claim back travel costs from the Scottish Government which is a great saving. We’ll keep you posted about when your child’s class is going and we look forward to welcoming some of you along as Parent Helpers.

Autumn Fayre

Following on from a very successful Autumn Fayre last year we are once again running this event on Saturday 7th November from 11am – 1pm in the school. Please put the date in your diary and come along and support our Parent Council.

If you can help in anyway either by manning and organising a stall or helping set up please contact a member of the Parent Council. This is our main fundraising event of the year and funds raised go to benefit the whole school.

Parent Council

Each class has a Parent Council Rep:

Nursery (am) Lynn Kemp

Nursery (pm) vacancy

P1 Joan Fairfull

P1/2 vacancy

P2/3 Ross Boyce

P3 Wendy Craig

P4/5 Claire McNaughton

P5 Alan McNeill

P6 Jim Duffy

P7 Lorraine Towers

As you can see we have vacancies for a P1/2 and Nursery pm rep – all volunteers welcome! If you have an issue you would like raised at the Parent Council speak to your class rep or please come along to a meeting. Our meetings are open to all parents/carers.

Staffing Update

Following successful interview we welcome Mrs Susan Wotton to our team to teach in Primary 1 this year following the departure of Miss Seago on her secondment to Stenton. Mrs Wotton will teach on a Mon/Tue/Wed and Mrs Alison Mackinnon will teach in class on a Thursday/Friday.

We are delighted to announce the happy news that Mrs Boog is expecting her second baby in the springtime. We will keep you posted nearer the time about cover for P7 on a Monday and Tuesday.

Diary Dates

Monday 5th & Thursday 8th October Parent Consultations – times to follow

Friday 9th October – Holidays

Friday 9th October – Christmas Card Orders due back to the school office

Monday 19th October – In Service Day

Tuesday 20th October – Pupils Back

As always, please don’t hesitate to contact school if you have any questions or queries.

Kind regards

Sheona Skinner

Headteacher