Mrs Robertson’s School Round-up 12 (10.11.2023)

My word, another week comes to an end in Abbeyhill. It has been very busy, once again.

Thank you to everyone who has sent in donations for the Poppy appeal.

My highlights this week have been:

Seeing beaming smiles as the children learn and practise their Scottish country dancing.

P1 and P2 continuing to be Responsible Citizens by clearing the leaves at lunch time. They are bagging them up ready to create a mulch over the winter ready to put on our raised beds. Miss Lee has been inundated with volunteers. 😊

At assembly this week we focussed on Growth Mindset. Having a positive outlook and can-do attitude towards learning in school and the wider community.

We were delighted to have our children in school on Wednesday as we await the result of the Unison Consultation. I will keep you updated if there are any further plans which may affect the school.

Thank you to all the P7 parents who popped into our drop-in session on Wednesday to ask the last-minute questions.

It was wonderful to celebrate the wide range of cultures in our school. This week we welcomed parents and carers into school to share information and traditions about Diwali. Have a wonderful day on the 12th of November if your family celebrates this festival.

Our Class Buddy system is in place with all classes getting out in the fresh air developing and sharing outdoor learning skills.

Road Safety is a huge part of enabling our children to get out and about in our community. These skills are taught in school and we appreciate this being reinforced at home. For families with Nursery, P1 and P2 children, talk to them about road safety as part of everyday life.

Reinforce the importance of walking on the pavement with an adult or friend, waiting at crossing points and walking across the roads.

A Snapshot of our Learning:

P7 making junk model monsters to help them plan the villain in their story.

P2/3 consolidating their number bond knowledge using numicon and playdough

P2/3 have been learning about what diya lamps symbolise after reading the story of the legends Rama and Sita for Diwali. We made our own diyas using old CDs and electric tea lights ready to light on Sunday.

P1/2 and P4 went on an autumn walk in Holyrood Park as part of our buddying this week. We used our senses to look for signs of autumn.

P1/2 were learning all about Remembrance and why we wear poppies in November. They made a large poppy picture to remember those who fought to protect us from harm.

Primary 6 and Primary 2/3 working with their buddies to make ‘Red Word’ books.

P1 learned about remembrance day and made some poppy art. They continued to practise their handwriting and names. In PE they developed their understanding of positional language and learnt two new sounds ‘n’ and ‘p’.

For this week’s update I include:

Reminders

P1 Health Questionnaires and Child Smile Forms (sent home last week).

• Final date to return the Health Questionnaire is 22nd November

• Final date to return the Child Smile is 23rd November.

Scottish Book Week

• P1-P3 Book Gifting Session with Parents – 16th November at 2.30. Please come to the office to sign in.
• Book Week Scotland Disco Mile – 17th November 9.00am – All children to dress as a character, wear a onesie/ pyjamas or just bring a book or character from one. Please do not go out and purchase a costume, often home made is best and lots of fun

Achievements

• Please keep sending achievements from home into school so we can celebrate at assembly.

School Calendar of Events

• Check the Calendar for updates. Please note that dates and times may need to be changed. If this is the case, we will give as much notice as possible.

New items

• Staffing

• Snacks

• Breakfast club
• Key Christmas Dates

• Survey of Funded Early Learning and Childcare 2023
• Supports for Children who are Neurodivergent and their Parents.

• School Calendar

Staffing

We are delighted to be welcoming our new PSA, Mrs Onea, to the staff team on Monday.

Snacks

Reminder that you child needs a small healthy snack at break time. A small packet of crisps, a piece of fruit or veggies or a biscuit is plenty. Please do not send anything with nuts, high sugar sweeties, big bags of crisps or bars of chocolate.

Breakfast Club

A reminder that the Breakfast Club opens at 7.45. All children need to be booked in advance on parent pay.

If you child has been allocated a space by school, we will explain the process for this.

All children should be signed in – unless agreed with Mrs Robertson or Mr Combe.

If your child is new to the breakfast club, we must have a completed registration form before they can start.

Thank you for following these procedures which allow Breakfast Club to run smoothly.

Some Key Christmas Dates:

Nativity and Christmas Concert

This will be held in Meadowbank Church on 14th December at 1.30. P1 will be performing “The Nativity” and P2 and 3 will be singing and narrating the story.

The Choir will be performing to open the concert. All parents’ carers and wider family are welcome to join us there.

**All children will be collected from school at the end of the day**

Strings and Choir Concert

The Choir will also be joining the Strings Groups at their Concert on the 7th of December- Parents of Strings Groups and Choir are invited to attend.

Survey of Funded Early Learning and Childcare 2023

The City of Edinburgh Council is seeking the views of parents and carers with children under 5 years of age to ensure we provide a high-quality service that is responsive to the changing needs of our local communities.

The online survey aims to gain the views of parents and carers regarding the following areas:

• The current delivery models available to access the funded entitlement to 1140 hours of early learning and childcare.

• The quality of early learning and childcare parents and carers experience.

• The criteria for allocating places in local authority early years settings.

• The demand for an additional year of funded early learning and childcare.

• Experience of accessing additional support for learning for your child.

• Parent & carer engagement with our early year’s settings.

The findings from the survey, which is open until Friday 25 November, will be used to inform future delivery of early learning and childcare in Edinburgh and ensure our children continue to receive high-quality provision that is flexible, accessible and affordable for parents and carers.

To help us capture the views of parents/carers accessing funded early learning and childcare we would appreciate it if you could complete this survey. 

If you have any questions or queries in regards to this, please contact earlyyears@edinburgh.gov.uk

Link:  Survey of Funded Early Learning and Childcare 2023

Supports for Children who are Neurodivergent and their Parents.

Please find below some great supports for families:

NDwell

The NDwell service is for children and young people aged between 5 to 24 years old and/or their parents, who live in the City of Edinburgh and are neurodivergent. This includes children and young people with a diagnosis of autism, ADHD and intellectual disability and those awaiting diagnosis.

Please find attached information on the next NDwell Drop-ins which are running at Craigmillar Library on Tuesday the 14th of November and the 12th of December from 10.30 am -12 pm

The NDWell Drop in Service can provide-

• a listening ear from a skilled and experienced support worker, access to information, resources and guidance as needed, referrals to their own services where suitable, as well as their partners or signpost you to other services that will best fit your needs. To book a slot to attend please email NDwell@barnardos.org.uk

NDwell also run a series of young people and parents information and support sessions and courses. These are suitable for parents of primary and secondary age children.

Find information on this terms’ dates for Zones of Regulation a 4 part course and sessions on -well-being, sharing with your child that they are neurodivergent, sleep, energy management, and emotional regulation at https://tailoredfoundation.co.uk/online-parent-information-sessions-autumn-23/

For information on the children and young people’s Understanding Autism or Wellbeing groups and/or to request a place contact NDwell@tailoredfoundation.co.uk 

Autism Parent Info Sessions – High School

ASL Service and Psychological Services together with NHS partners are coordinating a series of 6 Autism Parent Information Sessions for parents and carers of autistic children in attending City of Edinburgh, mainstream High schools. The sessions are appropriate for parents, grandparents or carers. Young people themselves should not attend. Parents of children without a formal diagnosis are welcome to attend. The sessions will take place at lunchtime each week on Microsoft Teams. Interested parents should book a place follow the details on the attached flier, book via Eventbrite or contact 0131 4692850.

Mindroom Parent and Carer Peer Support Group -For parents and carers of neurodivergent children and young people in Edinburgh. Future dates attached.

These groups are to help parents and carers to share their knowledge and lived experience of supporting neurodivergent children. Peer support is when people use their own experiences to help each other.

Each monthly online group will have a topic where parents and carers can share information, resources, and strategies. To sign up to the Parent and Carer Support groups or to find out more information about any of Mindroom services. Tel: 0131 370 6730 Email directhelp@mindroom.org Website: www.mindroom.org

Information on other Autism supports is on our Support for Families webpages.

School Calander

Screenshot 2023-11-10 at 16.42.45 2023-11-10 16_43_29.pngDownload

Kind Regards

Moira Robertson

Snow days to sunny days

On Tuesday we were commenting that there was real warmth in the sun and by Thursday we were battling blizzards to get to school! P3 made the most of the snow by bundling up in waterproofs and heading to the park which we are so lucky to have on our doorstep – it was just a shame the snow didn’t last long! They then headed back to school to work on their ISS models…check the P3 twitter feed for the finished articles. P6 and 7 also enjoyed heading to the park with the P3s and the importance of warm clothes for their upcoming trip to Lagganlia definitely hit home for some P7s….

P3, P6 and P7 enjoying the snow together

Snowballs in flight!

P7 they also made ‘trench stew’ as part of their WW1 topic and even tried their hand at baking their own hard tack biscuits! Much to Mr Woodhouse’s surprise, most of them enjoyed the meal!

Homemade hard tack biscuits in P7

Elsewhere, P2 have enjoyed hearing what their adopted tiger, Gopal, got up to during his February break – where do you think he went on the train? P4 have been using their Maths, numeracy and problem solving skills to design different shaped fields for farm animals as well as bringing active strategies into their lessons to help them apply their knowledge. P5 have started a Mesoamerican Civilisation topic and I’m looking forward to hearing their finished ‘I Like Food’ poems after spending some time with the class yesterday while they were exploring similes in poetry prior to writing their own.

Gopal the Tiger enjoyed his holiday!

The Abbeyhill Ambassadors managed to dodge the storms and blizzards and got out into the community to join the Keep Abbey Street Tidy campaign by doing a timed litter pick challenge on Tuesday. They were able to fill half a black bag in 5 minutes which was great in terms of removing rubbish from the street but sad that it had ended up there in the first place.

At the end of a very busy week our new Head Teacher, Mrs Moira Robertson, came to visit and she thoroughly enjoyed meeting children, parents and staff. It’s not long until she starts and she is very much looking forward to being part of the Abbeyhill community.

Next week, P5 are heading out to the Money Museum and we are gearing up for our first ‘in person’ assemblies in nearly two years! Everyone will be dressed up for World Book Day and it will be lovely to come back together and share this experience with P1 and 2 who don’t quite know what to expect!

Sally Ketchin, Head Teacher

Busy to the last!

There has been no slowing down for the approaching holiday at Abbeyhill this week! P1 have some new digital cameras and have been practising all week…there may be a few of Mrs Ketchin as I was in the class yesterday and was asked to join in with a few selfies!

Budding photographers in P1B!

P2 have celebrated Safer Internet Day (8th February) by discussing how they use online devices before working on ideas for their own games. Miss Smith is convinced there are some future star app developers in the class! P3 have had a really busy week making props and costumes for ‘Abbeyhill Space News’ and some incredibly detailed work has gone into their Valentine’s cards. Parents who follow @Abbeyhill2026 will also have loved the action shots from the crash mat challenge race that they undertook with P7!

Ready…

…set…

…FLY!

P4 have been in a bubble this week (I thought it was quiet) but have still kept busy with a quick dash out to the playground in between breaks for some outdoor Maths as well as some indoor place value challenges. With hats.

The stylish option – place value hats!

Sketching out initial ideas

Group problem solving

Dividing and multiplying by powers of 10 in P4

I really enjoyed being part of the audience for the Abbeyhill dry ski slope challenge with P5. Tensions and excitement were high as each skier took to the slope; congratulations to the winners who saw their ski models make it safely off the slope and beyond! P6 and P7 had their first rugby session with Leith Hawks this week and there is some fantastic footage for parents who follow @Abbeyhill2023 twitter feed. P7 have also been busy making models of fighter planes for their WW2 topic, as well as brushing up on their coordinates and grid reference skills using maps of Edinburgh.

Carefully adding those final details

Brushing up on map skills

Parental Involvement and Engagement

In my update to parents this week, I asked for support in completing the Parental Involvement and Engagement survey. The Scottish Government has asked all 32 local authorities to undertake this census with parents in their local authority area before March 2022 and your support with this would be very much appreciated. If you are an Abbeyhill parent or carer, please check your emails for the link and QR code to get started.

Welcome back!

I was also delighted to say that nearly two years after closing the school gates to almost all parents, we will welcome parents back into our playground from Monday 21^st February. This is in line with the general easing of restrictions around social distancing across the country. It will also be safer given the current concerns around road safety at the back of the school that the Parent Council and school are working on together with the City of Edinburgh Council.

Coming up

When we return, the Abbeyhill Ambassadors will be undertaking a street clean as part of our support for the Keep Abbey Street Tidy campaign. They will also be getting opinions from their class on potential playground upgrades which the Parent Council are in the process of applying for funding for – fingers crossed! The Junior Road Safety Officers will also be getting involved with the work the Parent Council is leading on safety at the back of the school and the ambassadors will support them in that.

We will also send out booking links for Parents’ Evening appointments which will take place over the weeks beginning 14th and 21st March. At this time, we are still planning for virtual events.

In the meantime, have a lovely holiday!

Sally Ketchin, Head Teacher

In a world where you can be anything, be kind…

Abbeyhill Ambassadors have taken inspiration from this quote by Jennifer Dukes-Lee and embarked on the Abbeyhill Kindness Project. Our aim is to look for acts on kindness, big and small, in the school and playground and to celebrate and encourage them. As one of our members of staff said this week having fallen outside school and experienced lots of parents rushing to her aid (thank you!), these acts of kindness “restore your faith in humanity’ and it’s important to raise awareness that most of us are kind and caring all the time.

In my weekly update to families, I confirmed that our new Head Teacher, Mrs Moira Robertson, will start at Abbeyhill on Monday 14th March. She’s very much looking forward to joining the fantastic Abbeyhill community which I have told her is warm, welcoming and a lot of fun to be part of!

Next week we shall be enjoying the video Mrs Flowers is putting together of everyone’s Scots poems recitals in celebration of Burns Day. Thank you to all the parents who have helped their child practise and learn their chosen poem; the Scots language can be a difficult one to get a grasp of! P7 will also be taking a trip to Sainsbury’s on Monday to stock up on supplies to make their own Burns Supper having worked out their budget and shopping list in class. I’m hoping there’s a plateful going spare…

Budgeting for Burns in P7

Elsewhere this week, P1B have been very active in their experiments as they begin their Space topic and now that P2 have finished trapping crocodiles in the playground (see last week’s post!), they have moved on to creating their own jungle in the classroom. Watch this space for a photo of the finished product! P5 have been learning about creating infographics based on winter sports and P4 have also been thinking of Burns when they created some ‘Neeps and Tatties’ artwork in the style of their incredible visiting ‘Artist in Resident’, Anna York, as well as creating some of their own tartans!

Make your own tartan in P4

P4 getting inspiration from Anna York

Have a lovely weekend and please remember that although restrictions are likely to ease next week, the pandemic is over and for now we should all continue to take the same precautions. We still have a number of cases in school and ‘Warn and Inform’ letters have been sent to families in several classes this week (see Covid-19 for guidance). Stay safe out there!

Sally Ketchin, Head Teacher

Back in the swing of things

The holidays already seem a distant memory as we complete our first week back at school. Thank you to all the families and staff who continue to comply with our Covid safety measures; there is no doubt that the ‘new normal’ has just become ‘normal’ although we all look to weekly updates from the Scottish Government with anticipation as changes to restrictions are made throughout the UK.

There have been a wide range of activities going on in school this week from mini palaces in P1B, inspired by their visit to The Palace of Holyrood House at the end of last term, to mime in drama for the P5s. Mr Hamilton made a challenging ‘cleaning up’ situation for himself in P3 but the space art that was created was worth it! P2 have started ‘The Enormous Crocodile’ as their new class novel and were inspired to start building crocodile traps in the playground with the loose parts play equipment (hopefully they don’t actually catch one). Meanwhile, P7 have been putting their woodwork skills to good use while making frames to create a gallery of Abbeyhill Calendar covers and artwork – well done P7! An ‘Artists in Residence’ project has begun in P4 and the Abbeyhill Ambassadors have been set a Kindness challenge…watch this space for more news in the coming weeks.

Crocodile traps by P2

Space art by P3

The family update that was sent today included information on universal free meals being extended to P5, national entitlement travel cards for 5-21 year olds, Active Schools, drama and two Warn and Inform letters which are also available on this website.

Next week we’ll be gearing up for Burns with lots of practise for our online Burns’ recital which we’re all looking forward to.

Have a lovely weekend everybody!

Sally Ketchin, Head Teacher