Primary 4 have been having lots of fun using the ExPLORE strategies to research different types of renewable energy sources. We have been using our skimming and scanning skills on books, articles and websites, carefully noting where our information has come from.
Primary 5 have been learning about renewable and non-renewable energy sources. As part of our investigation into wind energy and wind turbines, we have made our own miniature wind turbines.
Primary 6 have been spending a lot of time getting familiar with their new e-portfolios. They have been filling in the sections ‘All about Me’ and ‘My
Achievements’. Each pupil’s e-portfolio is looking very interesting indeed.
The class have also just started learning about Judaism and Bar and Bat mitzvah.
Primary 7are off to Lockerbie for their residential trip and we look forward to hearing all about it on their return. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the staff for the commitment that makes this type of trip possible.
Holidays & Inservice Days
Christmas:Mon 22 December to Fri 2 January 2015
February break:Mon 9 & Tue 10 February 2015
Easter:Fri 3 to Fri 17 April 2015
May Weekend (1):Mon 4 May 2015
May Weekend (2):Fri. 22 & Mon 25 May 2015
Summer Holiday:School closes Wed 24 June 2015
Inservice Days: Thu 5 & Fri 6 February 2015
and Tue 26 May 2015
Please remember if you have any concerns, queries or compliments please do not hesitate in contacting me at the school or come along to one of our management team drop ins:9 – 9.30 a.m. every Friday.
Yours sincerely,
Pauline Ferguson
Pauline Ferguson(Head Teacher)
Newsletter
October 2014
Dear Parent/Carer
I hope everyone had an enjoyable October break.With our days shortening and weather conditions becoming more changeable, please make sure your child comes to school with suitable outdoor clothing and footwear.
Parent / Teacher Interviews
Our first round of parent/teacher interviews, when you will have the opportunity to meet with your child’s teacher and discuss their progress, will take place on the12th and 13thof November – appointment letters have been issued. Building on the success of previous years we extend an invite to your children to accompany you and to join you for the last few minutes of the interview to hear their teacher’s report.
Harvest/Inclusion Service
Well done to our Primary 7 pupils for leading our recent service at Orchardhill Church and thank you to all parents/carers who joined us and those who contributed to the food collection. The charity committee decided to donate the collection of £211.95 to ‘Glasgow City Mission’
TheParent Councilheld discos for the children last week which were very well attended. Thank you to the Parent Council for their continued support. The recent science workshops and the Christmas visit from Hopscotch Theatre are entirely funded by the Parent Council, without the fundraising of our council we would not be able to ‘treat’ the children to this and other ‘extras’.
Uniformsamples will be available to try on and order in the brown hall between 3pm and 5.30pm on Thursday 30th October,alternatively order onlineat . Entry to school via “disabled entrance”.
Pupil Council
The following pupils were voted through by peers for delivering a successful talk on the role of the pupil council representative.
P1 Elijah & Fraser, P2 Elliot & Ruby, P3EilidhRory, P4 Amelia & Matthew, P5 Philip & Iona, P6 Mikey Pink & Lewis, P7 Abbey & Sana.
The focus of the pupil council work this year will be to gather pupil views on learning and transition.Iona and Lewis will share our plans soon at Eastwood House to the Director of Education.
Houses
Our first House Challenge was a great success. Pupils in P4 -7 took part in a design competition where they had to design a new house shield for our 4 houses. Elements of the winning entries were transferred onto 4 huge template shields and all pupils from P1-P7 worked on decorating the collage shields. Holly Edward, House Captain for Eastwood-Livingstone said ‘The House Challenge was good because we got to work with different children and they enjoyed all the art work.’
Eco
Our new committee has had their first meeting. They are full of great ideas for our school grounds, biodiversity and of course keeping the school litter free. Their first job is involving the whole school in the Environmental review.
Rights Respecting School
Article 3 (Best interests of the child): The best interests of children must be the primary concern in making decisions that may affect them. All adults should do what is best for children. When adults make decisions, they should think about how their decisions will affect children. This particularly applies tobudget, policy and law makers.
At the end of last term, pupils voted to elect a representative from each class to form our new Rights Respecting School. We are very excited about leading this new initiative in Giffnock and look forward to sharing more information with parents.Representatives (P3-7) will have their first meeting soon to discuss what it means to be a Rights Respecting School as well as plan their work for the year.
Library
We have been busy over the past several months setting up our new school library and hope to showcase this during our up and coming Parents’ Evenings. We hope our new library with internet access will be a motivating resource for all our pupils to enjoy and will be an invaluable asset to aid our ongoing focus on literacy.
From around the classes……
Primary 1had a fabulous, colourful autumn walk to Eastwood Park. We collected leaves, conkers and acorns. We counted them out and used them to make a lovely display table. We will go back in the winter to see what our special tree looks like.
Primary 2
The Primary 2s have been continuing work on their Climate Zones project and have been investigating the differences in these zones. In literacy they are all working very hard at learning the sight words. We have written a report about our October holidays and included punctuation and time markers. In numeracy we have been progressing our learning about fractions by working with quarters.
Primary 3have been busy planningand researching ‘Lord Rowallan’ by finding information through various sources such as books, newspapers, internet, videos and the library. We have been learning to take notes undergiven headings by using bullet points and mind maps. We will use this information to recreate a story about ‘Lord Rowallan.’