A day of goodbyes

It’s been an emotional one today in Abbeyhill! I have said my goodbyes after 7.5 fantastic years working as Head Teacher at Abbeyhill and we are also saying goodbye to 3 families who are all moving house and beginning new adventures in other schools within the next few weeks. A lot has changed since I started here in 2014, not least the children. Our current P7s were in Nursery when I began and it has been a pleasure to watch them grow in confidence and character, along with all our other class both old and young.

Despite a focus on moving on for a few of us, life at Abbeyhill has continued as normal this week. The P7s hit the bike trail in preparation for camp (yes, they can all remember how to cycle – tick), P3 looked at gender bias in the workplace as part of International Women’s Day as well as tackling the highest summit in the city – then rolling down it! We’ve also had a clear-out and been able to match lots of pre-loved uniform with new forever homes which fits well with our love of sustainability at Abbeyhill. I enjoyed a farewell party with the Abbeyhill Ambassadors yesterday who do such a fantastic job at representing the school. I’ve even left the bunting up to welcome Mrs Robertson on Monday!

Examining gender bias in P3

Reaching high heights

Steady as you go

Pre-loved uniform giveaway

Let’s skip to the good bit!

In this week’s update to families, I have confirmed that Abbeyhill will ‘Wear It Silly’ for Comic Relief, knowing that a portion of the funds raised will go directly to the appeal for aid in Ukraine. The school will make a donation on behalf of everyone as well so families shouldn’t feel any pressure to donate money if they are not able to. Everyone can dress up as they like, in pyjamas, a superhero costume, onesies…it’s up to them!

And finally, thank you so much to all of you for your constant support of myself and the school, especially over the last few years which have held unprecedented challenges for us all. Abbeyhill is a wonderful place to be and I shall miss my incredible colleagues, the families that make up our school community and most importantly the brilliant children who I’ve had the privilege to spend so much time with.

My thanks and very best wishes to all of you, now and in the future.

Sally Ketchin, Head Teacher 

Red Nose fever!

By the end of last week we were red nose, deeley bopper and wristband crazy for Comic Relief. Well done to everyone who took part and helped us to raise a whopping £400 for all the charities who benefit. Thanks also to our local Sainsbury’s who supported us and provided official RND tops for the staff! However, it was interesting to note David Attenborough’s words of warning about the encouragement of single use plastics, especially considering that RND fell on the same day as the second Students for Climate Change protest and next year we will consider whether Abbeyhill will be displaying painted red noses, rather than plastic ones, and donating the full amount to Comic Relief rather than the 50% which is currently received after the production and marketing costs for red noses and other merchandise are removed.

In other Abbeyhill news, we had a staff training session on Monday which was jointly run by both Mr Hamiltons and focussed on the evolving way we need to approach teaching internet safety. Some great new resources are coming out that will help children and adults to see all the opportunities that the virtual world can offer us, as well as the dangers. Just like the real world, it’s important to be able to look around and appreciate the amazing things you might see but also use common sense and have guidance on what to do when things go wrong. We’ll have information displayed for families this week when they come to visit us for Parents’ Evening.

On Thursday I took P4 for the day while Mrs Flowers and Miss Macdonald got stuck into the unenviable task of auditing our Maths resources. Mrs Flowers got very excited about all the things she found that had been hidden at the backs of the cupboards and by the end of the day they had planned an exciting Maths based family event for May so watch out for that when next term’s ‘Save the Date’ sheet comes out!

On Friday, we had a bumper awards assembly with certificates for everyone who took part in the fantastic Talent Show on 7th March as well as the introduction of the ‘Over and Above’ Award. A maximum of two children per class were nominated for this and had to have gone over and above in one or all of our school rules; Ready, Respectful, Responsible. With the grand prize of being allowed to sit on the chairs rather than the mats, it was all to play for and I think a lot of people will be upping their game this week! Well done to our first OAO winners. The Pupil Council also told everyone about how they had worked with Graham Construction to build a Bug Hotel in the wildlife garden. They explained how this had come about, told us about the building process and gave their top tips for keeping it (and all the bugs who come to stay) safe.

This week, as well as Parents’ Evening, we have trips to the Collective Gallery, ongoing engagement with professional artists in school as part of our Artists-In-Residence programme in preparation for the Colony of Artists in September, filiming will start for the ‘Power of Yet’ video, it’s World Poetry Day on Thursday, a familiar face will be popping in to advise me on how can begin to address gender balance at Abbeyhill (Mrs Lansdown!) and we have a special guest from Changeworks who is going to talk to us about our ongoing drive to reduce plastics. Phew! Check our next blog post to see how it all went!

Sally Ketchin, Head Teacher

Have you got that Friday feeling?

…which for us is happy exhaustion! It’s been an incredibly busy week at Abbeyhill with the Talent Show, Euroquiz, World Book Day, plenty of cooking and a soundscape! Read on to find out more.

Last night saw the Parent Council Talent Show which was a fantastic celebration of a diverse range of talent, taste in music and interests. We had a ventriloquist, a berimbau performance, Highland and Scottish dancing, a poetry recital, stand up comedy, ballet dancing and lots of amazing singing. It was a wonderful celebration of all the things that make us unique as well as the things that bring us together; happiness, laughter and good times with friends and family. Thank you to the Parent Council for the many months of organisation and planning that went into a very well organised event that was enjoyed by everyone who attended. Thank you also to Russell McLarty for hosting us at Meadowbank Parish Church. The whole event was filmed so I’m sure copies will be available before too long!

On Monday, Mr Hamilton took 4 P6s to the City Chambers to take part in Euroquiz 2019. They spent week practising and came a very respectable 14th out of 24. Congratulations to the teams from Sciennes and James Gillespie’s who will go forward to the national event. It was a great opportunity for us to see inside a building we’d normally only walk past as well as a chance to represent Abbeyhill at a citywide level whilst also meeting P6s from other schools. Well done Team Abbeyhill!

On Wednesday, P2 had a very special visitor (Miss Stephen’s mum!) who is a trained chef and helped them to make delicious carrot and apple muffins in the Cooking Classroom. Everyone got a chance to weigh, measure, stir and most importantly, TASTE!

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Our Cooking Classroom is being really well used thanks to our Food for Thought grant and the P7s cook (or prep!) up a storm most days to keep our healthy tuck shop going. Our Food Champions met with colleagues from our local LIDL store who popped in yesterday with some exciting offerings…a George Forman grill, a Nutribullet and plenty of tupperware for all our culinary handiwork – thank you to LIDL!

As part of our World Book Day celebrations the children participated in a “Where’s Wally” hunt in the playground. Everyone had to find Wally and either crack a code or answer book related questions. It was great to see the children searching so enthusiastically- some light rain didn’t stop the fun! The winners will be announced at Monday’s assembly. In the afternoon Mr Martin held a whole school World Book Day assembly where we played charades, unscrambled book titles and guessed the hidden book character. The assembly ended by watching the animated version of the popular story “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle. The assembly was a great chance for everyone to share the fantastic book related activities they had been doing in class.

On Wednesday evening, our Curator in Residence, Iliyana, co-hosted a very special meeting in school with Citadel Arts Group where anyone who has been involved with Abbeyhill at any point in their lives was invited to come in and share their stories. Together with P4 and P6 they will work to transform these living memories into a book and a binaural soundscape to be premiered at Colony of Artists 2019 (21st and 22nd September). Don’t miss it!

Next week it’s RED NOSE DAY! Everyone has been getting very excited about the official red noses that have been on sale in school and these will continue to be available next week. It’s also an optional dress down day on Friday with a suggested donation of £1 for Comic Relief. It’s also Parent Council on Wednesday from 6.30pm and bookings are now open online for Parent’s Evening on 19th and 21st March – check your inbox for the link!

Phew, that’s it for this week – have a good weekend everybody!

Sally Ketchin, Head Teacher

Comic Relief Bake Sale

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!