Short weeks can still be busy!

…hence I am writing this on Saturday rather than my usual Friday or indeed Thursday as I had intended! It’s been a 3 day week for learners and a 4 day week for staff with everyone hopefully enjoying the Bank Holiday yesterday. It’s unusual to have one on a Friday but in these times more than ever I am sure that we all appreciate the sacrifices made by everyone involved in the Second World War as we celebrated the 75th anniversary of VE Day, whether they were fighting on the front line or at home worrying about a loved one who was – and trying to keep the community going in the meantime. Parallels can be drawn with our current situation and we should all be thankful that we will never be asked to face the challenges that those brave men and women did between 1939 and 1945. As we enter week 7 of lockdown, it is incomprehensible to think of the daily changes to lives and routines that were wrought on the world for six long years and we thank everyone for their heroic efforts to defend our way of life.

On Monday, staff had an in-service day and we carried out in depth follow up activities around Tom Sherrington’s companion book which examines Barak Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction. We split into groups, each with a video to watch and work to complete on a section of the book, and then ‘met’ on Teams to discuss our sections. Most of us were inspired to try to complete the rest of the sections and we will be following this up when we return to school to see which of the principles work well in the classroom. One of the key messages from the section I was working on was that it is normal for minds to wander (oh good) and that we should ‘vary the diet’ of the way we ask children to do things. This is extra-challenging at the moment but try to mix up the way your child is learning at home if you can and don’t expect them to sit and concentrate for hours at a time; the longest block they have in the classroom at school is 2 hours.

We also evaluated our School Improvement Plan for the current session; lots remains incomplete or unfinished as we have so far lost a lot of the planned opportunities to revisit, conclude or develop what we had started during this term. However, everything worth doing this year will still be worth doing next session and a lot of it will migrate to our 2020-21 ‘recovery’ plan, which parents will of course also get a copy of.

I had a cluster management meeting, again on Teams, on Thursday with the Head Teachers of Drummond Community High, Broughton and Leith Walk Primary School. We discussed the success and challenges of the Hub with the overall feeling that a good provision is being made available for those who need it and that both staff and children have adapted well to the current situation. Unfortunately, the challenges haven’t just come from the organisation of such an operation but from members of the public who flouted the lockdown rules to break onto the all-weather pitch at Drummond on Wednesday afternoon to pay football, surrounded by watching members of their families. This flies in the face of what we have been asked to do, as well as the fact that this is a play area for Hub children which then had to be thoroughly cleaned and disinfected. Staff did absolutely the right thing by calling the police and the footballers were justifiably shamed on social media by passing members of the public who spotted them and took photos.

We were delighted to welcome a few more children onto Teams this week and also to be able to distribute paper resource packs from the Hub and on foot to families who need or wanted them. Ms Macdonald was nominated for our second Secret Staff Superstar for printing her packs at home (after not being able to get near the Abbeyhill photocopier), running off extras for children who didn’t get one of the original set (again at home as the Hub photocopier was out of action!) and then delivering them on foot after a shift at the Hub. What a hero – well done Ms Macdonald! Our Secret Superstar learner is Mubin who has been working incredibly hard and who has really impressed Ms Howson this week – congratulations Mubin.

I hope that you’re all staying active; I have stopped blaming my lack of routine and the local leisure centre being closed for my poor activity levels and have managed to do 3 YouTube workouts this week – all before the rest of my family are out bed. Otherwise I have no hope! Is this something I can keep up when we go back to school….only time will tell. Hopefully you’ve been following Active Schools on Twitter, either through their own account or our retweets; they’re posting daily challenges and ideas for staying active and healthy without leaving our homes, or gardens if you’re lucky enough to have one. Miss Robertson has also been posting some inspirational dance videos so if you fancy something a little more creative be sure to check out what she’s been doing through the Colony of Artists blog!

Next week we will be gearing up for School Uniform Day on Friday 15th May; children across the city will be wearing their school uniform and so we hope as many Abbeyhill-ers as possible will take part and post photos in their teams! How many people will have outgrown their school uniform?!

Stay safe,

Sally Ketchin, Head Teacher

Mr Woodhouse gets his steps in!

This week we’ve been working on making sure that we can ensure as many children are accessing learning as possible. Some children have their own devices and as much access to our online learning platforms as they need, some don’t have access to one at all. Others have to negotiate with siblings and a parent who also needs the device for work. Thankfully, staff were lucky enough to get access to school for a few hours this week and managed to make up packs for a significant proportion of the school (there may have been some good natured, socially distant argy-bargying over access to the photocopier) which can be collected from our Drummond Hub next week. It was lovely to get a tiny taste of normality by being in school  but of course it still felt very empty without our fantastic children there. We can’t wait until the day when we can have everyone under the same roof at the same time again – however far off that may be.

If you’ve been keeping an eye on our Twitter feed this week, you’ll have seen lots of Active Schools challenges; what will they do next week when they reach the end of the alphabet?! We’ve also posted details of the new Edinburgh Learns guidance with a version for parents as well as children. You can find copies on our Coronavirus: Useful Documents & Links page. We also shared a post from TES praising the overall approach that all Edinburgh Hubs have taken, allowing key workers to do what needs to be done in vital areas and singling out our cluster High School and local hub Drummond Community High for special mention. Well done to everyone who is working so hard in Drummond and every other Hub across the city and providing such a high level of care for the children of key workers.

It’s been tricky as usual to choose a Secret Superstar this week. Could it be Alma for logging in and getting on with her work from Spain? Or Mat who hasn’t missed a day of online learning since school closed? Sophia is extremely dedicated and also had a birthday she’ll never forget with her isolation birthday party – Happy Birthday Sophia! I hope your teddies and dolls enjoyed the party. Gregor showed great resilience as he battled with a Maths challenge for hours but his persistence paid off and he got there in the end, well done Gregor. John has been working his socks off and is looking forward to coming back to school for a rest by the looks of his photos! Unfortunately there can only be one winner and this week it’s a special one with our very first Secret Staff Superstar! As I said above, packs of work will be available to collect from Drummond next week but there will be no need for P2 families to make their own way there as Mr Woodhouse hand delivered every single pack for his class yesterday – what a hero! Well done and thank you Mr Woodhouse, your class all really appreciated the extra effort that you made.

Next week, it’s a short one as we have an staff only in-service day on Monday where Abbeyhill staff will be working virtually on activities created by Tom Sherrington to go through his companion book to Barak Rosenshine’s ‘Principles of Instruction’ which is the professional text we were working on before schools closed. There will be videos and worksheets to be completed before staff share their sections of work with each other and use it to evaluate their own teaching practice. On Friday, we are all off school for a bank holiday; hopefully the sun shines so we can responsibly enjoy some time outdoors. As always, take care, stay safe and stay healthy!

Sally Ketchin, Head Teacher

 

Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much…great Teams-work Abbeyhill!

Week 1 of home-schooling is done! It’s been absolutely fantastic to see so much brilliant work going on online in our Microsoft Teams and to still have lots of positive contact with families through Twitter, email and phone calls. None of us knows how long this situation will last so try to stay positive and take each day one at a time. We will get through this and will hopefully have found out more about ourselves and the little things that we value in our normal, everyday lives when they resume.

You would be forgiven for thinking that there won’t be anything to feature on the blog with school being closed but that’s far from the truth! I’ve been so impressed at the quality of work going on online and it’s been lovely to see the interactions between children, teachers and parents each day. That’s one positive that we can take away already; we’ve been forced to explore a new way of working and I know that we’re developing skills that we’ll take back to school and continue to build on when this is over. Everyone seems to be busy getting creative this week and I’ve seen a fantastic garden collage in P1, a particularly beautiful rainbow in P3 (done carefully with pipe cleaners to spread extra joy around the community), some home-made bird feeders in P5 and one extra special use of technology that has to earn Eva the SECRET SUPERSTAR award of the week for really making me look twice! She used Google 3D animals to make it look as though she  had wild creatures in her house and I admit it had me squinting at my laptop trying to work out whether they were real or not! Well done Eva, I will definitely be having a go at that this weekend!

Other special mentions go to Elis who is learning the new skill of knitting, Ruaridh for designing and making a very sturdy looking rocket, very entertaining book reviews from P4, baking in P6 and World War 2 fact files in P7. P6 even had their very own video conference, hosted by Ms Stamati, and it sounds like it was a lot of fun and a great chance for everyone to see their friends.

Of course, it hasn’t all been fun and games and everyone has been working incredibly hard to ensure that all children have access to educational materials whether it’s online or on paper. So many new systems have had to be set up so quickly and despite barely leaving the house, most of the staff say they’re still exhausted by the end of the day. I’m sure all the parents are as well. I certainly am as Mr Ketchin and I juggle work with parenting a toddler who asks to go Nursery several times a day! However, well done to all the teachers, parents and children who have mastered Teams this week and a very special thank you to Mr Martin, Mr Hamilton, Mr Woodhouse and Mrs Flowers who went to our hub school, Drummond Community High, this morning in preparation for the children of Category 1 workers coming in. Ms Macdonald will join them on Monday as we expect our Category 2 and 3 parents whose work is essential to also use this service. Thank you to you all (although I know they were glad of an excuse to get out and got to work really). A huge thank you as well to Mr Woodhouse, Mr Hamilton, Mrs Lyall, Mrs Peters and Mrs Watt who delivered food parcels to some of our families this afternoon (and a special thank you to Miss Wilson who was on her way but was told the team had it covered!). Plenty more staff are willing to help if demand gets higher as food deliveries are made every two weeks and lots of parents have also emailed to say that they are willing to help as well – it really is much appreciated.

On my very limited time out of the house this week I have noticed that everyone is being so much nicer to each other. There seems to be much more of an appreciation for our fellow human beings, especially those working tirelessly to ensure that some normality prevails. 8pm last night was a very emotional moment as nearly a million people across the UK opened their doors and windows to applaud all our fantastic NHS workers and all I can hope is that this spirit of appreciation and kindness continues long after normal service is resumed across the country. As it will be.

Whatever you are doing this weekend, please stay safe, observe the emergency laws that are in place and keep your loved ones healthy. Take care.

Sally Ketchin, Head Teacher