Busier than ever despite lockdown: Week 2

This week has been the second for all of us of juggling conflicting work schedules and parenting! I managed to ‘work’ and parent at the same time when my daughter and I logged into Mr Hamilton reading ‘Hairy Maclairy’ to P1 on Tuesday and it was lovely to see so many of the class! They had a very successful Show and Tell this morning to celebrate the end of term and they weren’t the only ones to be having a virtual meet up. P3, P4, P5 and P6 have also had a class catch up this week and although not everyone was able to be there, I know that the ones who made it really enjoyed seeing their teachers and friends. I’m sure the popularity of these virtual gatherings will grow as everyone begins to miss familiar faces more and more!

There has been so much going on online this week and it’s fantastic to see that it’s not just children who have been using Teams but parents too, with lots of you sharing tips and ideas for making it through the day with a smile on your face! I loved Mat’s ‘Survive’ mind map that was actually fairly similar to Lexi’s summer holidays one, just with less outdoor activity. It shows that Mat, and others I’m sure, is using this time to be mindful and use the time he has at home and with his family well.

Mr Woodhouse very kindly picked up some home resource packs from our Hub school, Drummond, and took them to families who were self-isolating or otherwise unable to collect them – thank you Mr Woodhouse (although we all know he enjoyed the excuse to get out for a walk!). On the way, he spotted a message from Lili to Otis and Lenny so it’s great to see that you are using creative, practical ways to stay in touch and not just doing it online. It’s really important to let others know you are thinking of them so that everyone feels that little bit less isolated.

It hasn’t just been Lili who’s been creative this week; Sara has made an incredible fairy garden with her dad, John has managed some impressive home gymnastics (complete with crash mat), Erin has created a very interesting PowerPoint about swans including beautiful photos that she took herself, Martina has been inspired by her native Spain to design an incredible poster about Semanta Santa and Mat and Emilia have done some beautiful art work and research on Picasso and Caravaggio respectively as part of P6’s art history project. Meanwhile, P7 as a whole seem to have been working impressively hard on their human body projects – well done P7! With all this creativity and kindness, its been hard to choose just one Secret Superstar and so this week we are going to have three! Well done to Otis, Belle and Rosie who are writing cards and letters (‘keep them very cheerful’ – Otis) to the Helen Wallace Trust Housing Association and Marionville Care Home to keep up the spirits of the residents. Well done to you all and to anyone else who has been inspired by their messages calling for helpers on Teams.

Although we’re officially on holiday from today, the teachers have been putting up plenty of ideas and resources to keep you busy if you are looking for something to do over the next few weeks although remember, it’s important to take a break too. The last few weeks have been mentally exhausting as we have come to terms with a temporary new way of life and started to learn lots of new skills so give yourself time to switch off. However, a few things that have really inspired me this week are….

The learning resources from The Palace of Holyroodhouse that some of your teachers might have posted into your Teams. I know lots of you are very interested in art and we’re a very creative school – our strong relationship with the annual Colony of Artists festival and our Artists in Residence programme proves that! So take a look at the resource if you want to learn more about Leonardo, explore the palace virtually, download some activity sheets or improve your interpretation of art!

I also loved the suggestion of creating a Kindness calendar  from the British Red Cross with suggestions such as checking in on neighbours in a safe way, calling or writing to a relative, doing something helpful for a friend or family member or simply following advice to stay at home to keep our communities safe and relieve pressure on the NHS and other vital services.

We’re on holiday next week but I’ll be posting some fantastic videos from Russell McLarty who is the local minister and a great friend to the school. He should have been at our Easter assembly but has recorded some wonderful stories for you instead which I’ll post in each class area during the course of the week.

In the meantime, stay safe, stay healthy, follow the government guidance and look forward to the day when we’re all together again.

Sally Ketchin, Head Teacher

From Truth Pixies to SEAL via 16th century dragons!

World Book Day

We’ve had a very Literary week at Abbeyhill as we geared up to celebrate World Book Day yesterday! Lots of exciting activities were going on across the school from dressing up and reading new stories in the Nursery*, visits to our new local bookshop Toppings for P1-3, a Book Treasure hunt in the playground, a Big Booky Swap in the hall and audio books for everyone! We enjoyed ‘The Truth Pixie’ by Matt Haig and loved hearing the first few chapters of ‘The Boy Who Made the World Disappear’ by Ben Miller. I can guess what some of those book vouchers will be spent on! Well done to Ms Howson and P5 who did the lion’s share of organising our in-school activities.

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*The Nursery children would love to have some parents come in and read to them in a range of home languages. Please speak to the Nursery staff if this is something that you’re interested in!

SEAL in P1 

I was lucky enough to spend some time in P1 earlier in the week and was given a guided tour of the play based learning environment by one of the children who demonstrated how the children are encouraged and supported to have independence in their learning as well as to challenge themselves with the tasks they choose. I took part in a SEAL (Stages of Early Arithmetical Learning) group but couldn’t catch any of the P1s out, they were very confident in what they were doing and were very much enjoying the learning activity. Well done P1!

Team P2

P2 spent some time in the sun creating a flower with our Loose Parts Play equipment. They used their knowledge of different parts of a flower as well as excellent team work and communication to carry and display the flower. Well done P2!

P7/P2 collaboration

Mr Woodhouse took half of his P2 class with half of the P7s to the Palace of Holyroodhouse as part of the P7s ongoing project on Leonardo da Vinci. P2 joined their P7 buddies to learn about Leonardo and in particular his work on costume design to entertain King Francis I of France. P2 were then expertly helped by their buddies to create a dragon mask of their own!

 

The children left behind were kept very busy as Mr Forde set the P2s and P7s the task of designing something that would help the planet; did they want to battle climate change or an alien invasion?! The P7s helped their P2 buddies to think through the concept and then they built it using Lego before ‘writing up’ their ideas in poster form. Next week, this group will go to Holyroodhouse while this week’s dragon mask makers will get the chance to save the world!

Parent Literacy Course 

We had the first of 3 sessions designed to support parents to understand how various concepts of Maths and Literacy are taught in the classroom so that they are better able to support their children at home. Teaching methods change over time, and can be different in different countries, and the feedback was that it was useful to hear from teachers about exactly how they teach certain things. Thank you to Ms Macdonald who talked about how she teaches Maths across the school. Next week Mr Hamilton and Ms Howson will be talking about Literacy so if you are booked on I look forward to seeing you there!

Parent Council

We had our second Parent Council meeting of 2020 on Wednesday evening and it was lovely to see a few new faces there! Our agenda was wide ranging and covered topics such as our new Outdoor Classroom and Community Garden, Loose Parts Play, P7 leaving gifts and upcoming family events such as the Summer Garden Party on Saturday 30th May! We all thanked the Parent Council, particularly our Chair, Simon Preston, for the fantastic 3rd annual Burns Supper that was held in January and was a sell-out event as ever.

Parents’ Evening 

Our Parents’ Evenings bookings are now open and you should have received an email or letter inviting to book your appointments. Please do so as quickly as possible to avoid missing the timeslots that are most convenient for you.

Traffic laws on Abbey Street

Please remember that Abbey Street is closed to all traffic except those with valid permits and emergency service vehicles between the hours of 0820 – 0905 and 1505 – 1540, Monday to Thursday and 1210 – 1240 on Fridays. This is to reduce traffic congestion and pollution around the school gates at key times which helps to keep Abbeyhill children and families safe. If caught ignoring this, drivers face a £60 fine and 3 penalty points on their license. Please support your children and do not ignore the law.

Sally Ketchin, Head Teacher

 

 

STEM, Art, gardening, cooking…thank goodness it’s Friday!

Our classes have been busy this week and I was lucky enough to spend a day in P7 this week and even more luckily, on a day when a trip was planned! P7 are working with staff at the Palace of Holyroodhouse on a project based around Leonardo da Vinci’s sketches which are currently displayed there and it was a pleasure to see their own sketchbooks which they have created as well as witness the time and effort they put into creating their own emblems, inspired by Leonardo.

Over the next two weeks, they will visit with P2 and help their younger buddies to make dragon masks so watch this space for some photos!

P1 have been out on the hills as usual (luckily for them the rain didn’t start until after school) and have been using natural resources to help them with their current Maths topic of time. Well done P1!

P2 planted Mirabilis Jalapa perennials in their own alphabet pots which they had made. Not only will they look lovely as they grow in the classroom but they might even be able to be transplanted into our outdoor planters which will form part of our Outdoor Classroom and Community Garden which was launched on Monday! It was fantastic to get so many parents and lots of really useful suggestions for how we can get started, from landscapers to project managers and practical tips for growing with the children. I can’t wait to see it all begin to take shape and I’m confident there will be a lot of discussion about it at Parent Council next week.

P3 have also had a busy week as they have made pancakes in the Cooking Classroom which included recipe writing, measuring and munching! (None made their way to Mrs Ketchin’s office I notice…). They even found time to design and make their own wooden boats before testing them in the water tray and YES they all floated!

P5, 6 & 7 had a visit from Generation Science yesterday and learned all about electrical circuits.Everyone now knows what electrons, atoms and negative charges are, as well as how to build their own ammeter!

On Tuesday I was on a Child Protection course to update my qualification in this area. We discussed some hard hitting topics and examined practice from across Education, Health, Social Work and the Police. Online safety was discussed at length with advice for parents (and practitioners) to think of the internet as a place when you are trying to decide whether to let your child use a particular app, game or website. Just like the real world, the internet is a wonderful, diverse place with amazing things to see and do but also with plenty of hidden dangers that young people need to be guided to navigate and deal with. Would you let your child go to Waverley Station, speak to as many strangers as possible, swap phone numbers and get on an unknown train? This is the reality of what many apps and games encourage children to do with TikTok being one of the most toxic apps available at the moment.

Next week, our Parent Literacy course starts on Monday and the tutors plus teachers are looking forward to sharing tips and strategies that we use in school to help you help your child. We have a Parent Council meeting on Wednesday and I shall also be at a cluster Head Teachers meeting where P7 transition to high school will be a strong agenda item – not long now! Mrs Watt and I shall be holding interviews for citywide Pupil Support Assistant posts and the Abbeyhill Ambassadors will be crossing their fingers that they get a reply to their letter to a local soup kitchen offering to spread kindness round the community.

And finally…

There have been no reported cases of coronavirus in Scotland yet but if you are concerned about anyone in your family, please do not come to school or send your child to school but seek advice from NHS 111 immediately. Do not physically go to your GP. In the meantime, the usual good hand hygiene practices and caution about seeing anyone who has travelled to an affected area will help to keep your family healthy. The Easter holidays are still 5 weeks away but it is worth checking your travel insurance in case you have trips booked to any of the affected countries which you may be advised to cancel.

Sally Ketchin, Head Teacher

We love being part of our community!

From our new community garden to working hard with our royal neighbours, read on to find out what we’ve been up to at Abbeyhill this week! Our class newsletter went out today and it’s great to read about all the different things going on in each class. Nursery have been taking advantage of significant Early Years funding that was recently made available to each setting and lots of new STEM equipment has been arriving over the last few weeks. Plenty of it has gone into the garden so you may have already spotted it!

Speaking of gardens, yesterday I met with a playground development officer to discuss our proposed outdoor classroom and community garden. Simon Preston, our Parent Council Chair, was also there and we were pleased to hear about support that be offered in terms of building and sourcing the items we need to transform the area on the grass that has recently been revealed following the removal of the thorny bushes. If you are able to join us on Monday for the official launch of the project then Simon, Mr Woodhouse and Mr Hamilton look forward to giving a little more information on what you can expect to see before the school year draws to a close in June. P1 and P2 will both be exploring planting in the new garden as part of their projects this term although P3 is planning to go a little further afield and visit the Rainforest! Watch this space to find out what they are up to as they explore this topic.

If you have our newsletter, you’ll be able to access the official photos from P6’s Burns & Beyond project that I wrote a lot about last month and P4 and P5 have also been heavily involved in live performance this week as they were lucky enough to secure tickets to The Lion King at the Playhouse where they all had a wonderful time on Wednesday afternoon. I spent time in P5 on Thursday and enjoyed hearing them tell me about their favourite parts as well as discussing the technical elements of the production!

P7 have continued to represent Abbeyhill’s new partnership with The Palace of Holyroodhouse and visited again this week as part of a project which will see them create and bind their own sketchbook will be used as the project continues. P2 are very much looking forward to the culmination of this particular project which will see them be able to get involved and explore what the P7s have learned with them as well as doing some sketching of their own.

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Next week, we have our Outdoor Classroom launch and a Generation Science workshop for P5-7. I’ll be lucky enough to spend a few days with P7 so I’m looking forward to being part of the workshop as well as accompanying them to The Palace of Holyroodhouse to see their artistic skills in action!

Sally Ketchin, Head Teacher