Together Everyone Achieves More (T.E.A.M.)
Newsletter - October2017
Welcome back!
I hope that you had a great holiday and that the weather didn’t put you off too much. It is most definitely time for winter clothing to be brought out. This term is always busy and we look forward to continuing to work in partnership with you to ensure that our school is a happy and positive place for our children to be.
Miss Gill Graham
So …what’s been happening?
Congratulations!
There are some exciting pieces of news that we wanted to share. Miss Clayton gave birth to a baby boy (Airyck) at the beginning of September and came for a visit on the last day of term. Both mum and baby are doing brilliantly and we look forward to having regular visits. The P2s from Miss Clayton’s class last year got an extra special visit. The other exciting piece of news is that over the holidays, Miss Hawthorn got married and became Mrs Brown. The pictures that have been seen show a very happy occasion and Mrs Brown looked stunning!
Transition Extreme Buddy Visits – Learning New Skills.
Every class has been to Transition Extreme and enjoyed the experience. They are learning new skills and challenging themselves to try something new. The older pupils have been delighted to be responsible for their younger buddies and have been setting an excellent example in terms of behaviour.
Golden Time – Good Choices, Great Learning!
Congratulations to the 129 pupils who earned a Bronze Award for having all their Golden Time at the end of the term. They have received a certificate, a golden lunch ticket (15 minutes extra lunch) and a session with Adventure Aberdeen on the bikes.
House Winners (Term 1)
Despite a closely fought battle, Dunnottar pipped the other houses to the post and won the first Termly House Reward, which is afternoons on the bikes as chosen by the House Captains. Next term the reward is a Christmas movie and hot chocolate for the winning house.
Charity Success:
We had a very successful Jeans for Genes Day which helped raise over £250 for charity.Thank you to Miss Young for organising the day and helping us all understand the difference it can make.
Halloween Disco!
Well done to all the members and volunteers from the Parent Council for a very successful and spooky Disco. It was great to see so many of our pupils dressed up and also having a lot of fun. Thanks to the members of staff who also supported the disco. Over £550 was raised for funds to support the work of the school.
Your ideas and opinions…
You said…
Thank you to those who took the time to fill in our different surveys last term. We really value your opinions.
- 132 people (100 yes and 32 maybe) feel that our communication is improving with 25 saying it had not improved. We will continue to try and improve this.
- 138 people responded to our voting chips for whether the school should get a Facebook page with 134 voting yes.
- In our written parent survey 64 returns came back and 37 people felt we were making positive steps forward and had improved considerably. 10 felt we had one improvement to make and 9 felt we had 2 improvements to make. This shows we are on the right road but we are aware that we still have some work to do!
We have set up a Facebook page following several requests for this as the preferred method for communication. 100 parents requested this in our recent survey at Parents’ Evening.
Before you will be friended on Facebook by us, we need you to read the Social Media Contract and sign it so that you understand the expectations in relation to our page. It is important that we can use this as a positive tool for communication.
Highlights of the Term ahead!
Imagining Manor Park – We need your help!
Over this term the pupils will be working with staff to create a vision of our school and what we want our school to be as we move forward together. This will support them to look at our school and community through different curricular areas, whilst also using their skills for learning in different contexts. We would like to form a parent group who would work with our Children’s Parliament Imagineer pupils and some community partners to feed into this project – can you help? Please get in touch if you can. We promise it will be informal discussions and involve maybe 1 or 2 meetings over the next term.
Film Festival Visits
Every child from Nursery to Primary 7 will be going to watch a film at the cinema. The film we have booked are Moana an Zootropolis as they look at positive role models who make good choices. Further information will come out once the children have voted for their choice.
ASG Work – Aspire to be Outstanding
We are currently working closely with the other schools in our area to create a shared community vision. This will be made into a poster and be used as the main focus of our joint work as part of Northfield Academy School Group.
School Suppers
Following on from our successful Pizza Night we will be having another school supper in November. This is a night for everyone to come together and chat. It also gives you a chance to meet with school staff and chat about the school and its work. More details will follow once we have worked out the logistics.
Children in Need Day
Primary 6 are busy organising Children In Need activities so that we can help
raise money for this charity. The day will include dressing up and more information is coming out next week.
Christmas Dates: We are just finalising arrangements for Christmas and then we will be sending out more information as soon as dates are finalised.
And finally…
Attendance
If your child is unwell can we please request that you phone the school office to let us know. Also if your child is late can you please make sure they report to the school office when they arrive in school.
Dates for the Diary
Date / Event/Information
Thursday 2nd November / Halloween Disco (PTA)
Thursday 2nd November / Transition Extreme P2,P6, P3 and Mr Allardyce’s Group.
Thursday 9th November / Transition Extreme P2/3, P6/7, P7 and P4
Tuesday 14th November / Cromdale Residential Trip Parent Information Session (3.15pm)
Tuesday 14th November / School Supper – more information to follow.
Wednesday 15th November / Cinema Trip to see Moana (Film Festival Event)
Thursday 16th November / Children in Need Day
Transition Extreme for P1s, P4/5 and P5.
Friday 17th November (all day) / School closed to pupils - Staff In-Service
Wednesday 22nd November / Cinema Trip to see Zootropolis (Film Festival Event)
Thursday 23rd November / Transition Extreme P2,P6, P3 and Mr Allardyce’s Group.
Friday 1st December / Curling for P7
Saturday 2nd December / School Christmas Fayre
Thursday 7th December / Christmas Discos
Friday 8th December / Curling for P7
Friday 15th December / Curling for P6
Monday 18th December / Curling for P6
Monday 18th December – Thursday 21st December / Christmas Parties – more details to follow.
Friday 22nd December / Christmas Jumper Day (Come as you please in Festive clothing)
Friday 22nd December – Monday 8th January / School closed for Christmas Holidays. School re-opens on Monday 8th January at 9am.
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