Newsletter Oct 09

I am delighted to be able to tell you that Mr and Mrs Stewart had a baby girl on Tuesday October 20th. She is to be called Anna and mum and daughter are both well. The recent Open Evening was very successful in terms of the number of families attending and I would like to thanks those of you who came along. Our recent Book Fair did well and we sold about £800 worth of books – mostly during the Open Evening. This is fantastic.

Literacy Week which was organised by Mrs Frew and Mrs Simpson was amazing and the children loved it. The activities were really successful and the Friday afternoon sharing time was great. Children from each class told the others in school about the things they had done during the week. We have still to finish some of this for the upper school and it will be done during assembly time on Friday. Well done to staff and pupils too who dressed up as a book character – the parade around school was amazing. My thanks go to those who worked so hard to make this possible.

Class trips will be starting soon and letters will be sent home as appropriate in plenty of time for any payment to be made etc. Trips link in to class work normally and are planned carefully taking into account risk assessments and factors of personal safety for our pupils. We will assure – as far as is humanly possible – that children are safe and secure while on an outing from school.

Our football team is currently sitting top of the league so well done boys and many thanks to Mr Connochie and Mr Bob Niven for making this possible. Thanks to Mr Cuthell for helping organise the last round of matches.

Congratulations to our Road Safety team who won the recent competition within Grangemouth. This is fantastic. The trophy will be presented at assembly next week. Well done to Gemma Myles, Holly Duncan, Rebecca Clark and Shannon Henderson. Future events Cross country run – Wednesday October 28th Dress down day for funds – pay £1 to dress down : Friday Nov 13th Staff development days – school closed to pupils : Monday 16th and Tuesday 17th November Concerts are planned as follows: Nursery, P1, P2, P3 – the evening of Monday December 7th and morning of Tuesday 8th. Primaries 4,5,6,7 – the evening of Thursday December 10th and the morning of Friday 11th. I hope that by giving you advanced notice you will be able to arrange time off etc if you wish to attend these events. This is a new way for us to do concerts but we will try it out and see how it works. Further information about tickets etc will be sent home separately. Parties will be held during the week beginning December 14th and 21st.

You will find attached to this letter an updated policy for Homework. This has now been discussed with staff and MPP members and is now school policy. My thanks to Mrs Finlay and her working group for putting together this policy and also to those parents/carers who responded to her questionnaire last session. It was one of the highest returns we have had. Curriculum for Excellence is the current overview for Scottish Education. This brings with it many changes for staff in schools and ultimately for our pupils. We are moving away from the 5-14 National Guidelines including National Assessments for each level. Change can be daunting for teachers and for you as parents / carers and so I propose to have a couple of meetings where I will explain – or try to – the changes in our education system and what that means for you and for your child. There will be an evening meeting on Tuesday November 10th at 7.00 p.m. and another meeting the following morning at 9.15 a.m. Both will have the same content and should last no longer than one hour. I hope that as many of you as possible will try to come along and learn about current changes. Both meetings will be in the Assembly Hall. In order to kind of gauge interest and for seating, can you please complete and return the slip to me before November 10th? Many thanks S Wright Headteacher _______________________________________________________ Curriculum for Excellence Information Meeting I / We plan to attend the meeting on (please tick the meeting you wish to attend) TUESDAY NOVEMBER 10TH AT 7.00 p.m. ____ WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 11TH AT 9.15 a.m. ____ Number attending ______

Signature of parent / carer _________________________