St. Clare’s Primary

October2017

Newsletter

OUR VERY FIRST HALLOWEEN DISCOS,A GREAT SUCCESS!

Thank you so much to the Parent Council for planning, organising and providing such a great evening for your children to enjoy. The children were entertained with music, traditional party games and lots of dancing. Thank you to everyone who supported this event as we raised an impressive £500.00. This once again highlights the wonderful community spirit and family ethos we are all working so hardto promote and nurture within our school. Our next big event is our Christmas Fayre and the PC has issued a letter giving details of how everyone can get involved. You can access the letter through the latest news section of our website.

Building on the success from our newly established Parent Council, we look forward to our next meeting which will be held on Wednesday 8th November 2018 @7pm in the Staff Social Base. We look forward to seeing you then.

P6 Leadership Team

If you are a Primary Six parent you will probably already know how very proud and impressed I have been with your child but, I thought it was important to recognise this through our monthly newsletter. Currently we do not have any Primary Seven pupils and so it has fallen on the shoulders of our Primary Six pupils to lead by example and be consistently strong role models for all pupils within our school. They have shown confidence when meeting and greeting parents at our Parents’ Evening. They show love and concern when monitoring and helping younger children in the lunch hall and in the playground. As a year group they continue to work hard to move our school forward in establishing our Vision, Values and Aims. To progress this work they visited our friends in Mearns Primary to gather ideas on the approach they used when forming their school values and so through our newsletter Primary Six would like to say to you…

“A huge thank you to everyone who contributed to our Family Homework task. It was a resounding success.

We had over 100 returns and this will definitely help us to create a vision for St Clare’s that belongs, not just to some, but to all of us.

We are currently analysing the data and will soon be able to share the most popular values, chosen by you, for our fabulous new school.

We are really enjoying this task - we are learning to be very organised; seeking advice when needed; meeting deadlines and improving our presentation skills.

We are very proud of ourselves and hope you are proud of us too.”Mrs Rook & P6

We will continue to update you onthis work and next month will be in a position to share the results with you once they are collated.

PROMOTING POSITIVE BEHAVIOUR

Our motto “ Love God, Serve God” is the foundation on which we will build the ethos of our school. We all recognise the importance of loving God and showing love to others but we are also aware that there are times when children,depending on the situation, canfind this tricky and that can often be in the playground.

In St Clare’s we are all working together to ensure that every child is aware of the importance of looking after each other and when things go wrong we talk things through and do not use our hands or feet to intentionally hurt others. Mrs Callaghan and I visit classes on a regular basis and during our weekly assembly discuss this with all of our children and so we would be grateful if parents could also reinforce this message withyour child at home.

During a recent assembly we addressed the promotion of positive behaviour through the context of “Bucket Fillers and Bucket Dippers.” This simple yet powerful analogy is one which encourages children and adults to focus on fostering positive relationships across our school by sharing positive thoughts and actions with each other in order to keep our own invisible, emotional bucket topped up full of happiness. Alternatively when something does go wrongand unkind words or actionsare used then someone has “dipped into your bucket” and so we would encourage this to be rectified by asking the child to change the behaviour/ situation by saying sorry and sharing a positive message in return. In order to support parents in understanding this concept I have included a link below that will provide further information about this simple but powerful approach.

In addition during our in-service day staff have also started to create our Anti-bullying Policy. The main themes from this will be shared with the Pupil Council who will then be tasked with the job of creating a pupil friendly version of the policy, with a view to parents being involved in this consultation process too. More details to follow.

In order to ensure we get our ethos right from the very beginning it is crucial that as well as building on our firm faith foundation, that the UN convention on the Rights of the Child underpins our practice. I am delighted to report that this work is already underway through the formation of our…

RIGHTS RESPECTING SCHOOL COMMITTEE

The Rights Respecting School Committee is proud and pleased to announce that our journey towards becoming a Rights Respecting School has begun. The school has registered and Miss Morgan and Mrs Rook are currently undergoing online training to help them support the children with this process. Each class is currently developing a class charter linked to the rights of the child and this will be shared with you very soon. A family homework task will also be set to enable all children to display and share their knowledge about children’s rights.Mrs Rook

ECO COMMITTEE

As part of their learning on conservation and sustainability, Primary 2 and 3 have been working with their friends in Calderwood Lodge to help improve our school environment. They had great fun planting in their welly boots to create our ‘Welly Boot Eco Garden.’ Many thanks to Charlie Adams and Audry Martin for their help and advice and to everyone who donated the welly boots to make this possible. We had lots of fun and are well on our way to creating a beautiful garden. Mrs Sullivan

ENTERPRISE COMMITTEE

Our Enterprise Committee have already been very busy working with their classmates to create a business plan which they had to present to representatives from our Parent Council. Their pitch was to help them secure funding for the product and activity their class will sell during our Christmas Fayre. During the month of November the children will enhance their business skills when they work in teams to manage funds, design and make products, find ways to market their products and be ready to sell at our very first Christmas Fayre.

RELIGIOUS AND MORAL -

Monsignor Monaghan will celebrate All Saint’s Day Mass on Wednesday 1st November in our school hall at 2.15pm. Parents are welcome to attend.

Reminder: P4 Sacramental Meeting in St Cadoc’s Church 7pm on Monday 20th November

UNIFORM – Dressing for Excellence

As you can see and feel the days are now becoming colder and so I would urge parents to ensure your child comes to school wrapped up to stay warm. To help with this it is acceptable that a warm, black waterproof jacket may replace your child’s blazer during the winter months. Just a reminder that all pupils are expected to wear shirts and ties every day apart from Primary One who are allowed to wear their polo shirt on gym days. Please, please remember to label all items of clothing and encourage your child to take responsibility for looking after their belongings.

Parent’s Evening and Jotters Home

I trust that you found this event valuable and supportive in helping you understand the progress your child is making.Thank you to all of those who attended and provided feedback. Overall, the feedback was positive and we are currently collating this information which I plan to share in next month’s newsletter. During the year we will send home samples of your child’s work through their jotters. Please remember due to the variety of ways children learn, not everything is recorded in written format. The focus is very much in enhancing your child’s ability to reflect and discuss their learning which will help them become familiar with their strengths and areas for improvement. Therefore to support this dialogue we have provided a prompt sheet highlighting questions that you may find useful. Literacy

Jotters will be sent home on Wednesday 8th November to be returned by Friday 10th November.

In St Clare’s we will work hard to ensure we support, nurture and encourage your child to “reach for the stars” and achieve their ambitions. Please do not hesitate to contact your child’s teacher if you have any concerns or worries as it’s important that we address your concerns early.

MEDICATION

If your child requires any prescribedmedicine during the course of the school day you must visit the school office and complete a consent/request pro-forma which will ensure that all medicines are administered safely. No child should be given medicine to take without the school been informed. If for any reason you feel your child requires to stay in during the school day please firstly consider whether they are actually well enough to be at school and if so please communicate this in writing to the class teacher, who will share this information with the school office and Mrs Callaghan.

ADMINISTRATION

It is essential that we have up to date information on addresses, phone numbers and emergency co

In St. Clare’s our aim is to ensure your children have the best possible educational experience. We want them to be happy, “reach for the stars” and achieve their ambitions. If you have any concerns please do not hesitate to firstly speak to your child’s class teacher and we will do all we can to address them. If you have any thoughts or ideas you would like to share with us in order for us to work together to improve our school. Please complete the slip below and return to the school office.

Meanwhile, please remember to visit our website on

or you can e-mail me directly at

Kind regards

Anne Marie Absolom

Head Teacher

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St. Clare’s Primary

We value your views!

Have your say in how to improve the school. If you have any comments or ideas, please use this tear off slip and return to the school office.

Signed…………………………………….. Pupil’s name…………………………………….. Class ………………