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As a Rights Respecting School, you will see that we match the Articles from the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child to activities and events which happen in school. RRS Committee members match news to the relevant article.

Staffing We are pleased to announce that Mrs Heather Morrison (below left) will be joining us as a part-time teacher in P5/6, replacing Mrs Mutch

who is currently on maternity leave. We also welcome Mrs Judith Robb (right) to our staff as a permanent part-time SFL teacher.

Global Citizenship Success !

• After all our hard work during Fairtrade Fortnight we have been awarded the FairActive Award and we are now going to continue our work for the final “FairAchiever” award.

We celebrated Fairtrade Fortnight in style with lots of work going on round the school (including 2 giant collages of Fairtrade bananas!), visitors from the local Fairtrade organisations plus two local Councillors and a whole-school assembly led by our Fairtrade Group at which each class presented their work. The highlight for many was the Hot Chocolate Café where everyone enjoyed a delicious cup of

Fairtrade hot chocolate with yummy toppings. Mmm! We will be sending a donation of £110 to the Fairtrade Foundation from the proceeds of the café and the remainder of the money raised will be used to purchase Fairtrade footballs for school. Thank you to all the parents who also supported the Fairtrade event by donating at our Open Afternoon.

Hill of Banchory School: Issue No. 74 – March 2015

Art 24: Richer countries must help poorer countries achieve the best possible health.

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• We marked UNICEF’s annual Day for Change with a “dress-down” day and sent off a cheque to UNICEF for £426.13 raised from donations on the day.

• We raised a total of £479 for the Red Nose Day appeal from the sale of red noses, fruit cups and funny face shortbread. The Government have announced that they will match any funds raised by schools and Comic Relief say that every £60 raised will send an African child to school. This means that HOB’s fundraising efforts will allow 16 children to access school. Great imagination was shown by some of the pupils who made their faces “funny” for the day !

Thanks to everyone who supported these events.

School News

• The Nursery classes marked Chinese New Year by making a pagoda, trying their hand at Chinese writing and also enjoyed tasty Chinese food. Gung Hay Fat Choy ! (Happy New Year)

• Primary 5 and 5/6 had a wonderful Malawi day. They saw photos, heard stories and saw lots of Malawian artefacts kindly brought in by Paula Glegg. They also had the chance to dress up in typical clothing (see below). The children were fascinated by the differences between a school day in Malawi and Scotland. They were all glad that their school day started at 9 am in Scotland as opposed to 7am in Malawi!

• The weather was much better than anticipated for the solar eclipse and the event was thoroughly enjoyed by the pupils who had the opportunity to view the eclipse through their special glasses, pinhole cameras and colanders!

Art 24: Every child has the right to an education. Richer countries must help poorer countries achieve this.

Art 31: Every child has the right to take part in artistic activities.

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• P4/5 have been busy learning about the Jacobites this term. They visited Aberdeen University for a special Jacobites workshop and learned about the Rout of Moy.

• P3S (below) were visited by Myles Edwards, Gideon Gathimba and Pastor John Murage. They represent the Gathimba Edwards foundation which supports under privileged children in Kenya. Myles comes from Aberdeen and runs for Scotland while Gideon is a Kenyan international middle distance runner. They told us about the children in Kenya and we now have pen pals at a school there. We wrote letters to the children and Myles is delivering them on his visit there this week. We are so excited about receiving replies in the near future.

• P4’s visit to Satrosphere was a hit with the pupils.

• Our annual Open Afternoon was enjoyed by our visitors who had the chance to see some of the work of the school and enjoy Fairtrade teas and coffees.

“We did ‘Science on the Spot’ with experiments about the body and then we also had time to play around Satrosphere” – Desirée “We went into the theatre and we learned about the digestive system – it was really fun” - Ella

Art 29: Education must encourage a child’s respect for their own and other cultures

“It was interesting that we got to see an archive letter written by Bonnie Prince Charlie” – Scarlett “It was great fun making costumes out of newspaper for our freeze frame” - Garrick

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• P3L’s great class assembly was all about World Book Day and why reading is important.

PTA News This year’s Talent Show was a great success. There were 17 acts performing – everything from gymnastics displays, solo musicians and singing. We even had a parent performance! In total we raised £380 which will be used to fund the little extras for school. This year we have managed to purchase new class cameras, green screens, sand and water trays and to fund the Active Schools membership as well as the Parentmail subscription. In all this amounts to over £2,000. Our Quiz Night raised a fantastic

£984 for funds – thank you to everyone who came along. The next fundraising event will be our Car Boot Sale on Saturday 9 May – more details will follow. Thanks for your support – from Karen Young (PTA Chairperson).

Quality Assurance at Hill of Banchory School We have many things to be proud of at Hill of Banchory School. It is important to hear the views of our school community as we work together to continue to provide the very best for our pupils. As part of our Quality Assurance procedures of reviewing and improving, it would be appreciated if you would take time to complete the parent/carer questionnaire attached and return it to school by Thursday 2 April. Similar questionnaires are also being given to all teaching and non-teaching staff, members of the community who know our school and to pupils in years P4 – P7. The results of these surveys will be shared with all parents/carers in due course.

“I enjoyed it because we all got a part to play” – Ruby “The songs were my favourite because we used well-known songs but we used our own words” - Jake

Art 29: Education must develop every child’s talents and abilities to the full.

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DIARY DATES MARCH Wed 25 P3S visit to Tesco’s (am) Thursday 26 Librarian visit to all P1 classes

P3L visit to Tesco’s (am) Friday 27 Young Engineers group visit to Shell, Woodbank.

Pupil reports issued to parents/carers. Monday 30 P2 and P3 pupils football festival at Tillybrake field (10:00 – 11:30am)

P6 Class assembly at 2:30pm. (rearranged date). Parents/carers of pupils in this class are welcome to come along and join us on this day.

Tuesday 31 P7 pupils judo event in school Parent/teacher meetings from 3:30 – 6:30pm

APRIL Wed 1 Parent/teacher meetings from 3:30 – 6:30pm Thursday 2 PTA Easter Bonnet competition. Please put entries into the Art Room first thing

in the morning. Judging will take place in the afternoon. Easter Service at 10:00am in Banchory East Church. All parents/carers welcome to join us at the service. Final day of Term 3

Monday 20 First day of Term 4 Thursday 23 SSPCA visitor to P4/5, P5, P5/6 and P6 classes Wed 29 SSPCA visitor to P4, P7T and P7G classes

MAY Monday 4 Bank Holiday – school closed Wed 6 Tempest class photos for all classes + staff photo 8:30am (rear hall in use all

day) PTA meeting 7:00pm in staffroom

Thursday 7 P7 pupils Science & Technology Day at Academy – details to follow P5/6 Forest Schools visit (all day)

Friday 8 P3S class assembly at 2:30pm. Parents/carers of pupils in this class are welcome to come along and join us on this day.

Sunday 10 Bonnie Banchory Spring Clean

Tuesday 12 Parent Council meeting at 7:00pm in staffroom Thursday 14 P5/6 Forest Schools visit (all day) Friday 15 P2T class assembly at 2:30pm. Parents/carers of pupils in this class are

welcome to come along and join us on this day. Friday 22 P1S class assembly at 2:30pm. Parents/carers of pupils in this class are

welcome to come along and join us on this day. Tuesday 26 P7 pupils to HOB church (S1 novel) - pm Wed 27 “Wonderful World of Water” event in hall all morning (all P5 – P7 pupils) Thursday 28 P5/6 Forest Schools visit (all day)

P7 parents’ evening at Banchory Academy Friday 29 PTA movie night