Dear Parents,
Welcome to a new session at Stoneyhill. I hope, that despite the weather, you have managed to have a relaxing break.
This session, as detailed in our Development Plan (available from our website), we will be focussing on updating our Expressive Arts and Behaviour Policies alongside developing work with charities. In all of these projects, we would be delighted to hear the views of parents and carers and to benefit from any expertise you may have.
PAYMENTS TO SCHOOL
All payments made to the school should be sent in with the pupils in an envelope, with the pupils name and class and the reason for payment clearly marked on the envelope, to be handed to the class teacher. Payments will not be accepted at the reception desk
as this increases the chances of money going missing or being misplaced.This applies to all payments made to the school, including all payments, queries etc for the PFG.
SCHOOL COUNCIL
The first meeting of the new session takes place in the GP room at 7.00 pm on Wednesday 14th September. All parents/carers are welcome to attend – the more the merrier.
HOLIDAY
The school will be closed to all pupils on Monday 19th September. It will re-open as normal on Tuesday 20th September.
See our website for this session’s holiday dates.
CHILDREN’S ABSENCE
Should your child be off sick please inform the school office by telephone, preferably between 8.30am and 9.15am. Failure to inform us of your child’s absence will initiate a text/phone call home to you so that we can check on your child’s safety. Planned absence eg holidays, should be requested as far in advance as possible, preferably two weeks before.
Please ensure that, if you are unable to collect your child from school at the appropriate time, you inform the office of your expected time of arrival. It can be very distressing for a child to be sitting in school when their friends have gone home.
LIBRARY BOOKS
We are extremely grateful to the PFG for having raised the funds to buy books for our library. We would like to be able to continue to offer a variety to all pupils however this depends upon all pupils returning the books that they have borrowed. All books are loaned on a weekly basis and should be returned as such. If a child has not finished reading a book they simply have to return it and then get it signed out again. Children who do not return books on time will not be allowed to take out another and a letter will be sent home. Parents/carers will be charged for books that are not returned after a month of being missing. In order to continue to provide a valuable service, we would really appreciate your cooperation with this.
PE EQUIPMENT
Please ensure that your child has a full kit, including gym shoes/indoor trainers, shorts and a t-shirt (this should cover your child’s midriff), with them at all times. Please note: In the interests of health and safety no jewellery should be worn on gym days.
LUNCHES
Please note that, school lunches cost £1.90 per day. If you would like your child to have a school lunch you should make sure that they have the correct money with them every day. You will find copies of the menu on our website.
We are still noticing that some children are not eating all of their packed lunch and are throwing away perfectly good food or swapping it with their friends. You might like to discuss this with your child.
Remember – There is a tray in the foyer for parents to leave packed lunch boxes for children who have come to school without them.
NUTS
As we have a number of pupils in school with nut allergies, snacks or foodstuffs containing nuts are not allowed in school. Please note that this also applies to food packaging sent in for junk e.g. no Crunchy Nut Cornflake packets.
SCOOTERS
It is really good to see the number of children who are taking the healthy option and walking, cycling or ‘scooting’ to school. Unfortunately, although we have bike racks, we do not have secure storage for scooters. As with all equipment that children bring to school without a specific request from a member of staff, we cannot take any responsibility for these and we certainly cannot store them inside.
LOST PROPERTY
We are still very concerned about the amount of clothing that is left behind in school at the end of a day, week, term etc. Much of this goes unclaimed and must involve parents in a great deal of unnecessary expense to replace. In order to make this problem more manageable, we will only keep lost property for a week. Anything unclaimed after a week will be donated to charity.
RAG BAG COLLECTION
As part of our eco-school status and our continued fund-raising efforts, we will once again be accepting donations of clothing, shoes, bags, hats, belts etc. Collection bags will come home on Friday 9th September and should be returned no later than Wednesday 14th September.
MACMILLAN CANCER SUPPORT
WORLD’S BIGGEST COFFEE MORNING
As many of you will be aware, Macmillan Cancer Support raises funds that help to support vital cancer services. On Friday 30th the whole school is taking part in the World’s Biggest Coffee Morning. Classes will be involved in making something for the event and then sitting down together to enjoy the fruits of their labours. We would like to ask for a minimum donation of £1 from each child.
HEALTH PROMOTION GROUP
We hope you have enjoyed a healthy summer holiday, everyone seems happy to be back in school! We would like to remind the parents of primary 1 and 2 that fruit is provided by East Lothian Council on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays and it is not necessary to bring a snack from home that day. If you would like to let your child have more pleasegive themsomething easy to eat - 15 minutes in the playground isn't very long when you havenew friends to make and play with as well as eat your snack! The healthy tuck shop is also available daily with home baking and healthy snacks and fruit juices for 50p. Once again this session we shall be holding Smoothie Fridays. These are usually on the last Friday of the monthbut our first one shall be on Friday 16th September to ease us into the long weekend! Smoothies cost 20p each. We shall soon be appointing new Health Promotion representatives for each class. If your child would like to be considered, please ask them to collect an application form from their class teacher.
Wendy Shiells, Health Promotion Co-ordinator
PARENT HELPERS
As always, if you have any time that you could spare to help in class or with school outings, we would be delighted to hear from you. Please contact your child’s teacher or the school office.
The GP room is available for parents to meet, have a coffee and a chat at the following times:
Monday 11.15 am – 12.15 pm Wednesday 2.15 – 3.15 pm
Thursday 9.00 – 9.45 am Friday 10.45 am – 12.25 pm
What is it?
Get Going is a new family healthy lifestyle programme, which aims to encourage children to get active, eat well and work towards a healthy weight.
Who is it for?
The programme is delivered in partnership between NHS Lothian, East Lothian Council and enjoyleisure and is available free of charge to all East Lothian families. It’s aimed at children aged 5 -18, who are overweight or obese, and their parents or carers.
Why is a healthy weight important for children?
Children who are overweight tend to grow into overweight adults. A healthy weight reduces the risk of coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, osteoarthritis and some cancers.
What happens at Get Going?
Get Going is an 8 week programme. It takes place once a week at an enjoyleisure or community venue and is run by specially trained coaches, with the emphasis on fun, feeling good and making small realistic changes towards a healthier lifestyle.
The programme includes:
· An introductory one-to-one appointment between the family and coach
· Six sessions, involving a small number of families, covering healthy eating, physical activity and making positive lifestyle choices
· A one-to-one appointment at the end of the programme to plan ahead
· An optional follow up appointment at 3 & 6 months.
How do I register?
Children who are above a healthy weight can be referred to Get Going by their GP, Health Visitor, school nurse/teacher or a professional. Parents can also register their child for the programme by contacting:
Caroline Kaye, Child Healthy Lifestyle Coordinator
Tel: 01620 828 760
Mobile: 07530 311 852
Email:
or
Get Going Administrator
Telephone: 0131 536 0302
Email:
Online registration forms are available at: www.nhslothian.scot.nhs.uk/getgoing
DATES FOR THE DIARY
· Friday 2nd: Primary 7 return from week at Benmore Outdoor Education Centre.
· Monday 19th: HOLIDAY
· Wednesday 7th, 14th and 28th: P6/7 and P7 rugby taster sessions.
· Wednesday 21st: P6 and P6/7 hockey taster session.
· Wednesday 28th: Individual and Family photographs.
· Friday 30th: McMillan Coffee Morning
· Friday 30th: Primary 6 Hockey Festival
AROUND THE CLASSES
The nursery children are settling in well and everyone is becoming familiar with the new routines. We havestarted the session by creating and learning our own nursery rules. The children had many good ideas for how to keep our nursery happy and safe.
The children are enjoying participating in regular outdoor sessions. On Tuesdays, the pre-school children are enjoying PE in the gym with our PE specialist, Mrs Jones. The ante pre-school children have gym on Fridays. Thank you for helping your child change into their gym shoes on these days.
Our first main IDEA is ‘The Jungle’ and over the next term we will be reading jungle stories, creating jungle art-work and exploring the jungle environment. If your child has an important event coming up or is particularly interested in something please let us know and we will try to incorporate this into our planning. Weekly plans will be on display in the nursery foyer.
Thank you very much to parents who have supplied boxes of tissues. We would also appreciate donations of junk materials for art. If you would like to help out in the nursery this term, or have a special skill you would like to share, this would be warmly welcomed. Please add your name to the form on our notice board.
P1a are settling in well. We are enjoying getting to know each other and have had funcreating self portraitsand talking about what we are most looking forward to learning. Our first IDEA (topic)will be Jungle Explorers. Our Listening and Talking, Writing, Social Studies and Science work will be covered through this theme. The children will soon be creating a class jungle and using non-fiction and fiction books to learn about animals that live there. If you are able to support this topic in any way or have any resources that the children would like to bring in, please let me know.
In Literacy, we are continuing to meet the characters from the Oxford Reading Tree programme and learning to read key words. We will also be starting our school phonics programme. P1a will be visiting the school library every Thursday. Children will be able to choose a book to take home for one week. Please ensure that library books are brought into schoolevery Thursday.
In Numeracy and Mathematics, we are learning to recognise number names and order and form numbers through a variety of songs, games and activities. The children particularly enjoyed learning the monkey song. I hope you have heard your child singing it! We have also been learning about colour and pattern through the story of Elmer.
The children are highly motivated by the interactive whiteboard in the classroom. They will developing their laptop skills during our ICT time on Tuesday afternoons.
We have P.E on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. The children should have a full P.E. kit in school and it would be really helpful if they came to schoolin informal uniformon these days.
I look forward to working with you and your child throughout the year. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask. Thank you for all your support!
Look out for our class photo in the Musselburgh News on Friday 7th October.
P1b are settling inbrilliantly into school life and we have been having great fun getting to know each other! The children have been enjoying exploring the classroom and familiarising themselves with school routines. We have also been very lucky to work alongside P7 who have been buddying the children in the playground and teaching them some playground games.
We have a very busy first term ahead of us and are very excited to be starting our first IDEA- Jungle Explorers. Through this IDEA we will be focussingon the following curriculum areas: Writing, Listening and Talking, Sciences, Social Studies and Art. We look forward to learning about jungle animals and their habitat, writing and sharing stories about jungle adventures and exploration and creating our very own Jungle in the classroom! If you have any resources or items that you would like to share for this topic we would greatly appreciate them.