Kildrum Primary School

March 2016

Newsletter

Head Teacher’s Update What a busy term we’ve had! The children have taken part in a huge number of different activities and I’m delighted with the range of learning opportunities which we’ve been able to offer. This term all classes have shared some of their learning with the rest of the school at our whole school assemblies. This has given the children the opportunity to develop their presentation skills (and in some cases their singing and dancing skills too!). Over the last few weeks, as part of our ongoing monitoring programme, I’ve been visiting classes during one of their reading lessons. I’ve spoken to children about their work and it’s clear that most of them are enthusiastic about their learning and feel confident when talking about it. A variety of different types of assessments are being used in order to ensure that the children are making progress and to allocate additional support where necessary. These classroom visits will continue next term. The new “Our Week In School” approach to reporting to parents appears to have been a great success and we’ve received many very positive comments. We plan to repeat this in Term 4 and then we’ll review the pilot before making plans for next session. In Term 4 we will also start to gather information which will allow us to evaluate the progress which we’ve made in relation to school improvement and to plan which areas we would like to focus on next session. As part of this evaluation we will seek the views of parents/carers through a parental questionnaire. We would be very grateful if parents/carers would spend some time completing this so that we can obtain the opinions of as many people as possible. Once again I would like to thank parents/carers for their continued support of the school. I would also like to welcome the parents/carers of children who will be starting with us in August (who will be receiving this newsletter for the first time). I hope you find the information interesting and enjoy finding out more about what we’ve been doing.

Kate Watt Head Teacher

Keep up to date Follow us on Twitter @kildrum_ps. Visit our website at www.kildrum.n-lanark.sch.uk

Easy Fundraising We registered with Easy Fundraising in November and so far 24 people have registered. These 24 people have already raised £89.96 for the school, at absolutely no additional cost to themselves. Here’s how it is works once you’ve registered:

1. Start at Easy Fundraising Let's say you want to buy a jumper from the New Look website. Instead of going to newlook.com directly, you first go to easyfundraising.org.uk.

2. Make a purchase From the Easyfundraising website, click through to New Look to make your purchase. This tells New Look you came from Easyfundraising. The price of the jumper is exactly the same.

3. Get a donation After you buy your jumper, New Look will give you a cash reward which is turned into a donation for our school. Easyfundraising collect this and send it on at no extra cost.

4. Get the Easyfundraising Donation Reminder You can skip steps 1 and 2 with the Easyfundraising Donation Reminder. Just click the reminder when you shop to receive any eligible donations. You’ll never forget a free donation again!

Hundreds of retailers have joined the scheme. You can earn donations from shops like Amazon, Tesco, John Lewis, Asda, Next and Mothercare but also from Ticket Master, Groupon, The Sealife Centre, Thomas Cook and First Choice, all without spending any extra money yourself.

The money we raise will be used to boost school funds and so subsidise trips and buy new equipment for the children. Please visit www.easyfundraising/causes/kildrumprim for more information.

Website Updates You can subscribe to email alerts which will let you know when new posts have been added to our website. Just visit the school website at www.ki ldrum.n- lanark.sch.uk

and click on “Subscribe to Kildrum Primary School by Email” (just under the North Lanarkshire logo on the right hand side of our homepage) and follow the instructions. We’re using a programme called Feedburner to run this subscription, this is recommended by North Lanarkshire Council. Each day that we update the website people who have subscribed will receive an email so you’ll never miss anything that’s happening in school.  

School Clubs This term we’ve offered three after school clubs: badminton, dance and table top games. In addition to this there has been a playground leaders club and netball training at lunchtimes. Thank you to all the school staff who give up their own time in order to volunteer to run these clubs. Burns Supper In January, the P7 children participated in their Burns Supper. This was the culmination of many weeks of hard work where the pupils studied the life and works of Scotland’s national poet. The Burns Supper itself let the children recite poetry within the correct context. It also served as a chance for them to experience an important part of Scottish culture. Much haggis was eaten and a lot of Irn Bru was enjoyed! A special thank you goes out to our readers, our young piper, Liam, and all the people who helped make the afternoon so successful. To those who attended, thank you very much and we hope you enjoyed yourselves.

Primary 2 David from Bug Life visited P.2 on Wednesday 16th March. He explained about how important bees, butterflies, ladybirds and other creatures are in helping grow the plants and foods that keep us alive. We showed him around our school and he suggested what we could plant in our garden beds to encourage wildlife. As part of our school Eco work, P.2 are responsible for the gardens in our school grounds so David’s advice has helped us write our action plan. We can’t wait to get started when we return after Easter.

Non-uniform Day The last day of term, 1st April, will be a non-uniform day (suggested donation of £1 will go to school funds). Kids’ Easter Clubs For information about clubs run by NL Leisure during the Spring holiday please visit www.nlleisure.co.uk/holiday-programmes/easter-clubs Racket Sports Anyone whose child is interested is getting involved in racket sports should contact the NLC co-ordinator, Grant Shearer Tel. 07572133852.

Fairtrade Week Fairtrade week took place within Kildrum Primary school from Monday 29th February until Friday 4th March. The Kildrum Primary School Fairtrade Committee members are the pupils in Primary 7b. The Fairtrade Committee began Fairtrade Week by explaining, at a whole school assembly, what Fairtrade is, why it is so important and where Fairtrade produce can be

North Lanarkshire Euro Quiz We took part in the Euro Quiz in January. There were 22 schools taking part. We came third. We had to do a tie breaker question. Our question was really hard so the other team got into the final. We had a great day. We studied really hard for the quiz and got lots of the questions correct. 'Billy the Piper' was our teddy mascot. The quiz was split into 4 categories. There were 4 of us in our team.

Kyle Pender, Keir Roberts, Megan King and McKenzee Geddes.

Primary 2/3 P.2/3 have been learning all about the Ancient Egyptians. We used iPads to research some of the Egyptian Gods and why these Gods were worshiped. We used online interactive games to learn about the process of mummification and later made a Death Mask similar to Tutankhamun's. We used our mapping skills to locate temples, pyramids etc. on an ordnance survey map. To demonstrate all we have learned in our topic, we wrote fantastic information leaflets and reports and read them to other classes.

purchased. Throughout Fairtrade Week the whole school participated in lots of exciting cross-curricular activities from designing their own Fairtrade board games in Primary 7b, creating and reciting their own poetry in Primary 5/6 to designing Fairtrade pop art in Primary 6. All classes baked and enjoyed various cakes using Fairtrade products. A whole school challenge was set where pupils were asked to decorate a Fairtrade banana and complete a Fairtrade shopping list. The Fairtrade Committee organised a Fairtrade Coffee Morning for parents and carers where they presented information on Fairtrade and Fairtrade coffee, tea and biscuits were served. This was a very busy and exciting week where pupils throughout the school developed a variety of skills through learning about Fairtrade and its importance throughout the world.  

Parent Counci l Kildrum Primary School Parent Council would like to say hello to all parents and carers. The Parent Council consists of volunteer parent and carers that meet with the following objectives:

• To promote partnership between the school, its pupils and all its parents/carers of children at this school.

• To develop and engage in activities which support the education and welfare of the pupils.

• To identify and represent the views of parents on the education provided by the school and other matters affecting the education and welfare of the pupils.

Advance Notice, European Union Referendum – 23rd June It has not yet been confirmed that the 23rd of June will be an in-service day (permission for this is required from the Scottish Government). However, it has been confirmed that the school will be used as a polling station. We will issue more information as soon as we have it.

Our recent raffle raised over £200. The winners were drawn at our last meeting and we’re delighted to announce the winners were: Signed Scotland football top – Scott McLean, Primary 1a Nando’s voucher – Kayleigh Mills, Primary 6 Railway Inn voucher – Ryan Masterson, Primary 5 Railway Inn voucher – Ms Kirsty Bush Whisky – Mrs. Ann Davis Our next fundraising event will be the summer disco which will take place on Thursday 9th June, more details will be issued nearer the time. For more information about the work of the Parent Council please visit the Parent Council page on the school website where you’ll find agendas, minutes and shortly our revised constitution. We would love to hear from you and welcome any contributions or feedback. You can contact us on email - KildrumPPC@hotmail.com alternately you can follow us on Facebook – Kildrum Primary Parent Council.  

500 Miles A huge “Well done!!” to everyone who took part in our 500 miles sponsored walk in aid of Sport Relief. Together we walked, ran, hopped, skipped and jumped 530 miles and so far we’ve raised £630!! This is a fantastic amount of money (and we think there is still a bit to come) and it shows the generosity of our school community which is full of people who are willing to work together to help others around the world who are living extraordinarily difficult lives. Thank you.

Primary 1a and 1b P.1 have really enjoyed learning about Chinese Culture. They have learned lots of interesting facts about Chinese New Year. They created their own Chinese dances which involved using fans, ribbons and lion heads to entertain the whole school at their latest school assembly. They also learned how to say numbers to 10 as well as basic phrases in Mandarin. Dragonfruit, noodles and dried fruits were also some of the Chinese foods the children tasted in class.

School Uni form Most of you will be aware that our official uniform supplier is a company called Baru. During Term 4 we will send home order forms so parents/carers can order uniforms for next session. These orders are usually in school before the end of the term and we’ll let you know about all the arrangements nearer the time. This year we will also include Tesco as an official supplier of our school uniform. In Term 4 we’ll send you more information about this. Parents/carers will be able to order uniforms from www.clothingattesco.com and arrange to have the items sent directly to their home address or collected from a Tesco store. We’d like to remind parents/carers that our school uniform consists of a royal blue sweatshirt , jumper or cardigan, a white polo shirt or shirt and t ie and black or grey school trousers, skirt or pinafore. Parents/carers are asked to ensure their children come to school wearing uniform.

At the end of the school day We’d be grateful if parents and carers who are waiting for children to leave at the end of the school day would stand back from the gates. Having a large number of adults crowding round the exits can be a little scary for some of the children and can make it difficult for them to find their own parents. Adults with dogs should stand well back as some of the children find dogs frightening. We’ve also had a request to ask parents/carers to think about where they are parking cars around the school and to ensure that they are not preventing other parents/carers or residents from parking or moving their cars. We are aware that parking is not easy around the school but would ask everyone to be considerate to one and other.

 Pupil Council Our Pupil Council is made up of one pupil from every class in the school. This term the children have discussed ways to improve their time in the hall at lunchtimes. They came up with the idea of the “Top Table”. Children who are helpful, kind, polite or eat all their lunch can be nominated to sit at the Top Table for their lunch on a Friday. Next the Pupil Council are starting to think of ways which could make their time in the playground better.

 New Intake Transition Our communication with local nurseries takes place throughout the year but in Term 3 our transition programme really begins. Primary 6 pupils have started their Buddy programme and groups now visit Kildrum Family Learning Centre twice a week to allow the nursery children to get to know those pupils who will help support them when they start in August. Mrs. McBride (Depute Head Teacher) has also started to visit each of our new Primary 1s while they are in nursery.

 

Toothbrushing Charise O’Neill, our Dental Health Nurse, has been very impressed with the implementation of our new toothbrushing programme. We’ve also been receiving very positive comments from pupils and parents/carers.

 

Dates for your Diary

Non-uniform Day – 1st April 2016 (school closes at 2.30pm)

Spring Holiday – 4th to 15th April 2016

Primary 7 trip to Ki lbowie – 18th to 22nd April 2016

May Day – 2nd May 2016

May In-service – 5th May 2016 (school closed to pupils)

Health Week – 16th to 20th May 2016

P7 Cumbernauld Academy Transit ion Days – 16th to 18th May 2016

Sports Day – 19th May 2016

May Weekend –27th and 30th May 2016

Disco – 9th June 2016

Primary 7 Prom – 16rd June 2016

European Union Referendum – 23rd June 2016

Primary 7 Leavers ’ Ceremony – 28th June 2016

End of Sess ion, Non-uniform Day –29th June 2016 (school closes at 1pm)

2016/2017 In-service Day – 15th August 2016

In-service Day – 16th August 2016

Pupi ls Return – 17th August 2016

September Weekend – 23rd and 26th September 2016

October Week – 17th to 21st October 2016

In-service Day – 21st November 2016 (school closed to pupils)

Christmas and New Year – 26th December 2016 to 6th January 2017

February Weekend –13th and 14th February 2017

In-service Day –15th February 2017 (school closed to pupils)

Spring Holiday – 3rd to 17th April 2017

May Day – 1st May 2017

In-service –4th May 2017 (school closed to pupils)

May Weekend –26th and 29th May 2017

End of Sess ion –28th June 2017 (school closes at 1pm)