Well done
The focus of our September whole school assembly was to be Responsible Citizenship through learning about Rights and Responsibilities. Well done to the following pupils who received the ACE award for September:
Primary 1 – Savahanna Wright
Primary 2 – Amara Saqib
Primary 3 – Rachael Thomson
Primary 4 – Joel Hamill
Primary 5 – Ross Kitchen
Primary 6 – Morven Taggart
Primary 7 – Alistair Eagle
Flu Immunisation Programme
You will be aware that pupils in Thornliebank Primary School will be receiving a flu immunisation. Consents were sent home a few weeks ago. Returned consents have now been screened by the School Nursing Team. If you have not yet returned your consent, it is now too late to do so. Pupils who returned consents will receive this immunisation on Tuesday, 4 November 2014, starting shortly after 9.00 am. If you have any questions regarding this, please do not hesitate to contact the school office.
Parental Appointments
Our first Parents’ Meetings will take place on Thursday, 9 October, 2014. You will by now have received a letter asking you to select an appointment slot.
School Closure
I would like to remind you that the school will be closed on Friday, 26 and Monday, 29 September, 2014 for the September Weekend. Friday, 10 October 2014 is an In-ServiceDay and the school will be closed. It will re-open on Monday 20 October, 2014 after the October Week break.
Kind regards
Siobhan McColgan
Head Teacher
THORNLIEBANK
PRIMARY SCHOOL
SEPTEMBER 2014
NEWSLETTER
Nurturing Growth in our School Community
Excellent Education
Happy and Healthy
Respectful and Responsible
Caring and Considerate Community
Everyone is Equal
Inclusive and Integrated
Motivated
Supportive and Safe
Dear Parent/Carer
Welcome to our September Newsletter. It is hard to believe that we are approaching the September Weekend as this first term of the session is passing very quickly. We have had a busy start to the new session. Pupils have settled in well to their new classes and are working hard. We have been very lucky with the weather and pupils are enjoying getting out into the sunshine during playtime and lunchtime.
I am delighted to say we had an excellent turnout to our first Parent Council AGM and Meeting, with a number of new parents joining. I would like to extend a massive thank you and a warm welcome to our new members. I look forward to working with each and every one of you.
At the AGM, Veronica Koehn stood down as chair of the Parent Council and is now Vice Chair. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Veronica for all her hard work and dedication to the school. Phemia McCarthy was elected as the new Chair Person. Jenny Hamill was voted in as the Secretary and Jenny Robinson as the Treasurer.
The next meeting of the Parent Council will be on Wednesday 1 October 2014 at 1.00 pm, in Thornliebank Primary School. Initially the Parent Council had arranged a few of the meetings to be during the school day in the hope it would encourage more parents to attend. However, the feedback is that most parents would prefer evening meetings. As a result, they have arranged CPD for this meeting. A representative from the Scottish Parent Teacher Council Association is coming along to share information about the role of the Parent Council. If you would like to learn more about the Parent Council, please feel free to come along. Everyone is welcome.
The Parent Council are organising a Halloween Disco for Thursday, 30 October, 2014. More information will follow shortly.
Harvest Assembly
Last session we had each class lead an assembly or service which we invited parents of that class along to. Parents, pupils and staff gave very positive feedback to this initiative and as a result we are doing this again this session. Primary 2 will lead our Harvest Assembly at 1.30pm on Friday, 3 October 2014. Parents from Primary 2 are most welcome to attend this assembly. Donations are coming in steadily to the school which will then be donated to Trust Sheltered Housing.
If you wish to donate some food for the harvest collection, we will be taking donations up until the day of the assembly.
Thank you for your continued support with this event.
Punctuality and Attendance
When your child is absent from school a learning opportunity is lost. Research highlights attainment is directly linked to attendance so we need our pupils to be at school to ensure they achieve their full potential. Likewise, if your child is late for school, they are missing valuable learning and teaching opportunities.
At Thornliebank we work in partnership with parents to ensure that all pupils regularly attend school with high attendance and punctuality. Where there are issues with attendance or punctuality parents will be informed promptly. In order to encourage attendance and punctuality we have 2 initiatives, Reach for the Stars and Right on Time.
I am pleased to say the results for our first audit of attendance and punctuality are good and I would like to thank you for your continued support with this.
Right on Time - PunctualityReach for the Stars Attendance
P1 – 95.74%P1 – 99.7%
P2 – 91.04%P2 – 97.4%
P3 – 95.52%P3 – 97.6%
P4 – 98.75%P4 – 98.1%
P5 – 96.60%P5 – 94.7%
P6 – 100%P6 – 97.9%
P7 - 100%P7 – 97.9%
Whole School – 96.8%Whole School – 97.6%
Rights Respecting School
We are working as a cluster to develop a shared understanding of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of a Child (UNCRC). As part of this we are working with UNICEF to become a Rights Respecting School. I have set up a Rights Respecting School Steering Group and I am looking for some parents to volunteer to be a member of this group. The group will meet monthly during the school day. If you are interested in joining this group, please contact the school office.