Throw, catch, stitch, repeat!

P2 have been perfecting their throwing and catching with precision and experienced success on the basketball court this morning – well done P2! Elsewhere ‘Bob News’ visited P3 to collect their written applications to report on the moon landings. Hopefully they hear back soon! Mr Hamilton has also started the ambitious project of teaching P3 to cross stitch so we’re all looking forward to seeing the finished results!

P3 cross stitch project

Enthusiastic stitchers!

As the holidays approach, we continue to have cases of Covid across the school and Nursery and my thanks go out to the staff who have worked hard to cover absent colleagues, children who have put up with lots of last minute changes and families who have had a higher than usual stream of emails about changes in school. Thanks also to our Quality Improvement Education Officer, Iain Hutchison, who has provided vital support in school this week. It has been frustrating to find myself in self-isolation yet again with my second bout of Covid but the wonders of Microsoft Teams (something I don’t always say!) have allowed me to meet with and speak to staff, parents and children almost as if I was in school. Hopefully the February break will allow things to settle a little and we can move forward into the spring with less restrictions upon us.

Please remember that Nursery and school break up next Friday, 11th February and we resume on Monday 21st February.

Best wishes,

Sally Ketchin, Head Teacher

Festive fun at Abbeyhill!

Our final week of term is upon us! Despite tightening restrictions around the new variant of Covid which all parents were emailed about on Friday, we are still managing to have plenty of festive fun!

Reclaiming the pallet!

Practising woodwork skills

Sustainable Christmas tree

Everyone has been busy enjoying the festive season right across the school, from baking to planning a Christmas menu on a set budget, making Christmas decorations and using woodwork skills to create sustainable Christmas trees. Well done everyone!

Planning a menu

Personalised Christmas tree art

Enjoying the French cafe

Checking budgets

Christmas Jumper Day

Thank you to everyone who donated to our Reduce, Re-Use, Recycle Christmas Jumper Boutique, which ended up being more a Christmas Jumper Day giveaway as everyone took the ‘re-use’ message to heart which was fantastic. The Christmas Disco Daily Mile was a sight to behold!

Parties

Christmas parties are going ahead but in classes rather than larger groups; this measure was already in place before warnings about the Omicron variant. Next week we will be extra vigilant with our existing safety measures including the wearing of face masks and coverings, hand sanitising and not having any face to face meetings. Further measures to reduce the risk of Omicron cases will include no indoors mixing of classes for any significant length of time and no non-essential professionals in the school. Although the news of lengthy periods of self-isolation for any households with a positive case is worrying as we approach a holiday that is traditionally spent with friends and family, we would urge families to remain calm and stay safe as they have been doing. We will get through this as a school community as always.

Please remember that our term ends for Nursery – P7 on Friday 17^th December between 1155 and 1205, depending on which class your child is in.

Have a lovely weekend,

Sally

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 

We love the rain!

I hope you all enjoy reading your class newsletter if you receive school emails. Paper copies will also come out next week for those who don’t! It’s full of information about what has been happening in school since we started back in August. As you will read, everyone has been extremely busy and there is still plenty of excitement to come!  

We had our first outdoor wet break of the session on Monday and it was a new experience to be out in the rain, rather than cooped up indoors. Thank you to the families who have donated waterproof jackets that their children have outgrown as we needed quite a few spares for those of us who were unprepared! Thank you also to the parents who have taken the time to let me know that they think staying outdoors in (almost) all weathers is a positive thing. There certainly seemed to be less frayed tempers in the afternoon as we’d all had a dose of fresh air and enjoyed the delights of being outside in the rain – like jumping in puddles!

Spotlight on….P5 with Miss Howson

This term Primary 5 are exploring states of matter and substances as part of our introduction into chemistry! This started with an opportunity to make Ooblek (a non-newtonian fluid) which changes with force. We build on what we had learned in previous years, about solids, liquids, gases. We discussed how water is found naturally in all three states and reminded ourselves of the water cycle. We then began to deepen our understanding of how temperature changes the state of objects (how the addition or removal of heat leads to water/ice/steam). We began to look at how molecules in substances look (and you can see our photos of us being the molecules in a solid, liquid and gases state! We discussed how heat equals energy, so we break bonds and move more freely!

This terms science topic is looking at substances and chemical mixtures. To introduce the idea of chemical mixtures (more than one component within an item) we used Chromatography. Each pupil was shown 2 ways to conduct the experiment, and then with a partner had to agree on what protocols and techniques they were going to use. It was brilliant to watch the class as young scientists, discussing how to get the best results. After some experimentation, the class were then allowed to change the experiment, opting to investigate if we had to use filter paper or if normal paper would work. We were astonished to find out kitchen roll works! It was brilliant to see the different colours in our inks – and we created a brilliant display to show this science off!

If you would like to recreate this experiment at home you will need, a cup of water, a long piece of kitchen roll and some felt tipped pens. Draw a line a 5 cm from the bottom of your kitchen roll in felt tip. Place 3cm of kitchen roll (below the line) into water. Wait…. and watch the colours appear! Our young scientists can explain to you why!

We began to discuss the differences between mixtures and solutions this week, by watching Ms Howson make a picnic for herself – we all thought it was a little unfair! Into the first bowl she added: granola, dried apple bits, chocolate buttons, white chocolate buttons, and into the second bowl she added orange dilute and water. We were given a task, in groups discuss strategies we could use to separate the items in the bowls into their original items. It was a lot trickier to separate the orange juice! (and Ms Howson was very impressed when she saw people try filtration like the chromatography experiment!).

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We then watched The Great Picnic Mix-up and returned to our mixtures with our new knowledge and could discuss what was a mixture, and what was a solution – and how and why we could tell them apart.

With our new knowledge of solutions and mixtures it was time to make our own! We had four stations set around the room, each with a bowl, water and a bag of solute (different types of sugar and salts). To begin with we each went around the four stations in teams, trying to work out if our solute did dissolve, and how best to measure. We agreed on a sprinkle measure as a class. We were then given team captains and assigned a station – our task was to recreate the experiment, tallying each sprinkle to see the solubility of each solute. We worked hard as teams, sprinkling and tally marking trying to discover which solute would win!

After we had tidied up we discussed how we could improve the accuracy of our experiment (standardised measure, same temp water, same number of stirs. We agreed as a class we may return to this experiment later in the year and complete it in a more scientific way!

To recreate this science at home: you need a cup of water and a solute (salt, sugar (anything that would dissolve in the water). Our young scientists can explain why this works, what dissolving is, and why you cannot dissolve forever!

Report from the sidelines

Well done to our football team who did Abbeyhill proud at their first match last Saturday! There was some excellent football for our team and best of all, great teamwork. The parents and carers were great too at giving support and encouragement. Our opponents – Wardie – were all P7s and a well established team. They initially took a strong lead but in the second half Abbeyhill played some amazing football and pulled back to 5-7, the final score. We didn’t win but have lots to be proud of. Good luck in tomorrow’s match!

And finally….

Are you looking for things to do in the Leith and Abbeyhill area? The updated ‘at a Glance’ guides have just been published and will be shared with you next week. If you want to have a look now, please click here to access the website.

Next week, it will be all systems go as we gear up for our involvement in the Colony of Artists festival on Saturday 21st and Sunday 22nd September, Russell McLarty will start his ‘Listening Spot’ on Wednesday in the playground and our Abbeyhill Ambassadors will be doing a bag pack at Sainsbury’s. Remember that school is closed for the September weekend on Monday 16th September but we resume as normal on Tuesday 17th. Have a lovely weekend!

Sally Ketchin, Head Teacher 

 

It’s all about our community

On Wednesday, Abbeyhill’s new football team went down to the Graham Construction site at Meadowbank to collect their fantastic new kit that has been sponsored by Graham. We didn’t quite have a full team but once we got back to school and everyone else saw the jackets, shorts, socks and shirts – all embossed with our school logo – there seemed to be a flurry of signups! Thank you again to Graham Construction for their generous sponsorship. Good luck to the team for their first match of the season which is tomorrow; you can follow their progress on twitter @FCPrimary

Yesterday we had our second Meet the Teacher Marketplace event. Following on from the success of last year, we invited some our community partners to come along so that families could have a chat to them and find out a bit more about what they are doing to help us deliver a rich and varied curriculum at Abbeyhill. Liz Hare represented our Artists in Residence programme and gave us a sneak preview of the ‘Abbeyhill through the Ages’ book which will be on sale at the Colony of Artists festival in a few weeks. Gary Young represented The Mindful Enterprise who will begin work with the P4s in a few weeks; training them in mindful techniques to support learning and relationships. P5-7 will have their refresher courses and P1-3 will start their sessions with Robin Harris from Young Minds Meditation shortly. And of course, we will continue our regular mindfulness and yoga assemblies! Gemma-Rose Lansdown came from Education Scotland to talk about our Gender Balance and Equality project and was of course a very familiar face to our P2s who were delighted to see her. Rosie Palmer represented the Palace of Holyrood House who we will partner with when their newly renovated Education Centre opens later this year. We will pilot their educations programmes and make suggestions for new ones. Mrs Flowers has a lot of ideas already! Last but not least, Robert May from the Holyrood Ranger Service came along to talk about the outdoor learning events and opportunities that we’re exploring right on our doorstep. Simon Preston, Chair of our Parent Council, gave a warm welcome to all families, new and existing, and reminded them about all the ways that they can be part of school life. Early feedback suggests that the event was enjoyed and valued by everyone.

Next week, P5 will be heading to the park as part of Archaeology month to learn about Celts and Romans so I look forward to sharing photos and news from what they get up to. Mr Hamilton will be sharing his learning from his course today, ‘Play for Learning’, which P1 are very excited about. With Mr Hamilton away, I’ve had the chance to spend the morning in P1 and we had a fantastic time in the playground making broomsticks inspired by Julia Donaldson’s ‘Room on the Broom’ as well as using Loose Parts Play with P3.

Our first class newsletter will also be shared on Friday so please keep an eye out for more news from Abbeyhill!

Sally Ketchin, Head Teacher