New Year Newsletter

1. Auchinairn Primary School & Nursery
! ! !
10 January 2010
New Year Newsletter
School Inspection part of the new curriculum
•! The school was very good at Involving a
In December we wide range of partners to support
had a visit from the children, families and the school more
School Inspectors generally
[HMIe]. As this was •! The use of ICT throughout the school
a mid term visit was developing very well
they looked at •! During their visit the inspectors received
specific areas of our school but during their Excellent feedback from parents and
feedback they did provide us with a general partners
review of how they found the school – and the •! The school was having a profound impact
feedback was superb! Here are just some of they on supporting families and individuals
things that they highlighted as excellent practice •! At all stages children displayed
in our school: enthusiasm and confidence
•! Health & Wellbeing was a strong feature •! Interdisciplinary Learning was becoming a
of the school and was the basis of some strong feature of the school
excellent practices which helped the •! The school was using a broad Range of
school drive forward many new initiatives. different mediums to meet a variety of
•! Drama was used very effectively as a needs
vehicle for learning other things, •! Good questioning of children’s
improving behaviour and building self understanding was witnessed and was
esteem helping to improve the quality of teaching
•! The schools progressive work in and learning
addressing children’s Attachment and
Resilience was sector leading. The feedback highlighted that the new policies
•! Motor skills and other groups e.g. and procedures we have been putting in place over
Emotional Resilience were very the last 20 months were having a real IMPACT on
effectively managed and ensured the quality of learning and teaching throughout
individual pupil needs were being the school. Thank you to everyone who is helping
addressed us make such a success of our school!
•The school was already
very well on way to meeting
the Building the Curriculum
4 [BtC4] criteria which had
recently be published as
1

2. School Improvement Plan Update - in bold you will see extracts from the
content of our improvement plan - followed by a brief update on our progress
half way through the school year.
Support for learning:
•Meeting the needs of More Able pupils – although there was limited
feedback from parents we have devised a draft policy for review and have
already put in place some new procedures such as the teaching of Latin
•Philosophy – this has now been integrated into the curriculum after
training delivered to staff by Mr Friel to colleagues
•Creativity and the Arts – we have made a number of links recently, such
as the Carl Rosa opera Company in London and Scottish Ballet. The new
school choir and our violinists are making super progress and have made a
number of public appearances.
•In-service on current thinking about brain development – this has been
delivered to support staff by the Headteacher and will be part of the
teachers training programme in the months ahead
•Autism awareness – The DHT has delivered staff training on this and on
supporting children with dyslexia. We hope to become a Dyslexia friendly school in the coming year
•Building resilience in the classroom – training has been delivered to staff and we are to develop this further using the
Bounce back scheme we have purchased, as part of new programme in our new room for children and families
•Development of a dedicated room to focus, in a nurturing way, on the specific needs of some of our children –
this has now been completed and will become a key feature of our school in the months and years ahead.
Development of the key areas of A Curriculum for Excellence – we
continue to make changes to our curriculum to meet the requirements of
the new curriculum.
Self Evaluation across the school - The headteacher has put in place a
range of new evaluation procedures as part of our strategic management
of the school, its functions, policy, procedures, best value and outcomes/
impact.
PSHE/Citizenship programme – this has been devised and will soon be
shared with staff.
Sexual health, relationship [SHaRE] and drug education programme –
this has been devised and will soon be shared with staff.
Restorative Justice approach to behaviour management – our school
arranged training for all of the schools in the area, delivered at a cluster
in-service. We have now organised more in-depth training for staff in our
cluster schools to drive forward this initiative for better behaviour and
discipline.
Throughout the session we will continue to implement a range of
effective learning and teaching strategies across the school to engage,
motivate and involve pupils in the learning and teaching process e.g. :
timetable of school based CPD events
•Teaching children to become more independent
•Develop children’s thinking skills
•Co-operative/collaborative Learning developed – staff training started
and to be extended
•Further develop Questioning skills among staff and pupils
We will continue to provide a more extensive range of information leaflets and provide related workshops.
Develop new school Website – the new format will soon be launched and will be populated with more information.
Homework policy – questionnaires have been issued, information collated and a draft policy devised for consultation
and review.
Glow- the school is now using this as a tool for managing and sharing information between staff and national groups.
Teachers are using it as a tool to develop class forums and we have successfully used the Glow meet facility to work
with people on-line – such as the renowned poet, Liz Lochead.
2

3. Nursery Information - Care **Environment and Staffing were not graded in the
very good category because of authority practices, not
Commission feedback school issues. The report noted that the Headteacher
had already raised these concerns with the authority.
!"#$%&'()*(+#,-(#./(0"11),&(2(3(2(4-,'(5))/(
Statement 1 5 - Very Good
Statement 3 5 - Very Good
!"#$%&'()*(6.7%,).8-.&(2(9(2(5))/(
Statement 1 4 - Good
Statement 2 4 - Good
!"#$%&'()*(0&#**%.:(2(9(2(5))/(
Statement 1 4 - Good
Statement 2 4 - Good
!"#$%&'()*(;#.#:-8-.&(#./(<-#/-,=>%1(2(9(2(5))/(
Statement 1 4 - Good
Statement 4 5 - Very Good
What the service does well Service Strengths What we could do better
Extracts and feedback from
• ‘The nursery had very The report suggested written
our report:
good methods in place information completed by
to ensure that children parents relating to children
- Very good progress in
and parents views who may have an allergic
involving young children in
influenced the reaction needs to contain
planning for their own
provision and more detail - now in place
learning – responsive planning
development of the The Headteacher should
care and support continue to liaise with the
- More access to the outdoor
provided.’ authority to provide more
learning area and the
• ‘We found that the midday cleaning; to ask for
purchase of more resources.
service was very good the nursery to be painted; to
at involving parents in provide child height coat
- Very good progress in
identifying and storage and review the
introducing the new
addressing the needs position of the changing unit
curriculum [CfE] e.g. Profile
of their children.’ at the entrance of the
CfE Maths/ Language/Match
• ‘The nursery had good children's toilets to ensure
the CfE Early stage outcomes
methods in place to greater privacy.
to nursery themes.
ensure that children
and parents views The Headteacher would like to thank
- More effective nursery to
influenced the the staff in the Nursery for all of
primary transitions developed
development of the their hard work.
including a more productive P1
environment.’
induction process to build-in
• ‘The head teacher
teacher exchange, ASN
encouraged very good
identification and induction
communication through
activities.
staff meetings, an open
door policy and having
- More opportunities to
regular contact with
develop emergent writing.
3
staff, parents and The full report can be seen in the
Whole day placements now in
children within the Nursery or on line at:
place for some of our
nursery.’ www.carecommission.com
children.

4. Education Newsletter Sunday, 10 January 2010
Events in January
Our new telephone number will be 955
2289 as of Wednesday 13th January,
assuming there are no technical problems
installing our new system.
Our Health Week will start at the
beginning of February - as last year
children will be required to make a small
Classroom Monitoring contribution of £2 to help towards all of
Last term the Headteacher and Depute the activities we have planned.
Headteacher reviewed the quality of learning and If your child receives additional support
teaching opportunities by visiting classes and for their learning you should have had a
watching lessons. We are delighted to inform you letter inviting you to a progress meeting.
that there was clear evidence of excellent practice This will be followed up with a phone call
in the school. to confirm attendance. Thank you for your
support with this.
Obviously there are still many areas we are all Playground
working hard to improve yet further. These It is very important for children’s
include: Challenging our more able children; development that they have as much
increasing the pace of learning in some lessons; active time outdoors as possible - to
developing more active and outdoor learning learn and play - in all kinds of weathers.
opportunities, improving children’s written As soon as it is possible to do so our
language skills - to name but few! children will once again have
opportunities to
Future In-service and be out of doors.
Staff and Curricular As always
Development nights please ensure
will help us make the they have
continuous suitable clothing
improvements we want and footwear.
for our school.
As always, if you have any issues or
concerns, please get in touch:
! !
Auchinairn Primary School
Some useful websites:
Beech Road
Bishopbriggs
G64 1NE A curriculum for excellence -
building the curriculum 3 a framework
Tel: 0141 772 3753
Fax: 0141 762 0294 for learning and teaching:
office@auchinairn.e-dunbarton.sch.uk http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/Images/
building_the_curriculum_3_jms3_tcm4-
Headteacher Mr Garry Graham
Depute Headteacher Miss Kirsty Rawley 489454.pdf
Principal Teacher Mrs Joyce Barbour
Learning and Teaching Scotland -
http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/index.asp