Dear families,
Hopefully you will enjoy reading our Standards and Quality report for the past school session which also includes our ‘next steps’ for the 2017-18 session.
Abbeyhill Standards and Quality Report for Families June 2017
Our full School Improvement Plan for the year ahead is available on request from the school office (0131 661 3054 / admin@abbeyhill.edin.sch.uk)
Kind regards,
Sally Ketchin
Head Teacher
Primary 4 and Primary 5 teamed up to host a bake sale to raise money for Comic Relief. Both classes worked really hard and there were some amazing treats on offer to buy. Together we mananged to raise £138.53 to add to our whole school fundraising total for Comic Relief!
Primary 4 have been learning all about eating a healthy, balanced diet and also about the nutritional value of food. We have been learning to read food labels and have been thinking about the content of sugar, fat and salt in the foods that we eat. As part of our learning, we have been thinking about how home made food is often healthier than ready made meals. In our class, pizza is defintiely a favourite food so we took a trip to Pizza Express at Victoria Terrace to find out how to make fresh, home cooked pizza. We learned about the importance of using fresh ingredients and herbs to make our food tasty. It was a great trip where we enjoyed going on the bus and eating our pizza when we got back to school!
After a recent enjoyable trip to Calton Hill, P4 had a follow up visit from local artist Tessa Lynch to work on an activity that focused on sketching the Edinburgh City sky line. The pupils worked together to draw their favourite buildings of the skyline using lines and shapes to create their images. A lot of team work and communication was needed to create the charcoal skyline pictures which are now proudly displayed in our classroom.
We’ve been very busy at Abbeyhill so far this term, as always. We’ve started to build on the experience we had helping to launch the Edinburgh Adapts plan in November and small groups of children have been working with me to develop ideas for a few themes for the City Vision 2050. It’s a bit of a brain bender to think that far into the future but we’ve had some good ideas around ‘Community Safety’ and ‘Digital and Technology’. We’re hoping to make them into a video!
We’ve had our most successful Walking Bus yet with 30 children and parents taking part at the end of January; the theme was ‘tartan’ to coincide with Burns’ Day. It’s a lovely, sociable way to start the day and encourages sustainable travel to school so we will keep running them regularly. Less children do now travel to school by car which we’re pleased about and is hopefully down to a combination of factors such as our focus on sustainability and the environmental impact of various types of travel, road safety and of course the fact that Abbey Street is closed to non-permit holders before and after school as part of the School Streets/Safer Routes to School initiative. Our P7s had a ‘Bikeability’ session this week which saw them take to the roads and increase their confidence about doing so. Lots more bikes have been seen in the bike shed since!
Our Artists in Residence programme is also flourishing with other schools now showing interest in what we do. We’re continuing to work with the Talbot Rice and Collective Galleries and it’s easy to see the benefits that the children get from working with professional artists both in school and in formal gallery spaces. We’ve also struck up a new partnership with the Edinburgh Art Festival and look forward to developing it over the next few years. Of course, all the work the children are doing will be exhibited at the Colony of Artists festival on 23rd/24th September – put the dates in your diary!
Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what’s been happening in school so remember to check our website regularly and follow us on Twitter @AbbeyhillPS to keep up with all things Abbeyhill!
Sally Ketchin, Head Teacher
