School staff

The school has advertised for a part-time clerical officer and interviews will take place shortly. In the meantime Pam Rendall is covering some of this role.

The school has lost three and a half days of support for learning assistant time from the beginning of this term. We have reorganised our support timetable, please do let us know if you think your child has been adversely affected by this change in staffing.

Brynna Bailey has a teaching placement in Primary 2/3 for this next month. Brynna will be in charge of the class on some occasions during this placement.

Protect your child online

Advice for parents about YouTube can be found here. Click the image here.

School Improvement Plan

Do you have an opinion about the content of the School Improvement Plan? The draft plan can be found here:

Please send any comments about this plan to the school at:

A summary plan is attached to this newsletter.

Parent Group (Dounby’s parent council)

The next meeting of the Parent Group will be at 6.30 p.m. on Thursday, 23rd November 2017 in school.

School Council

The school has re-established a more traditional format for the School Council which will meet for about half an hour most Friday afternoons. The chair of the new School Council is Kayla Harvey. Other members are Bradley Cormack, Sarah Corrigall, Arwen West, Abbey Lloyd McCarron, Michael Scarth, Alice Ford, Alysha Ritch, Halcro Tait, Rhona Barr and Balfour Norquoy. There is one vacancy currently. School Councillors were largely chosen by a random number generation process although some were chosen by their classmates. For each class (P3/4, P4/5, P5/6 and P7) both boys and girls have at least one representative.

At its last meeting the School Council discussed the summary, draft School Improvement Plan; how safe children feel in school and litter around school. The council also chose its chairperson.

Warm clothes, sturdy footwear

As autumn/winter approaches, we would like to remind all children to wear suitable warm clothing, including a waterproof coat and sturdy footwear, as we always encourage outdoor play where possible during break times.

We have issued yellow high-viz waistcoats to all the children, please make sure your child wears their’s to school every day, thank you.

Sickness

If your child is physically sick or has diarrhoea they should not come to school for 48 hours, nor should they take part in any events or social gatherings. The NHS and the local authority are working hard to limit the spread of the Norovirus but we all need to follow this advice. Along with good disinfection regimes, isolating individuals with the virus from others for 48 hours is the best means of limiting the spread of this unpleasant illness. Please help us by following this advice.

Class Photographs

Class photographs are on display in the foyer.

They are also available to view and order on

Suzanne Lee’s website: suzanneleephotography.co.uk

using the password: dounby17

If you wish to place an order, please do so by

Friday 24th November.

Picking up your child from school

If you are collecting your child at the end of the school day please will you:

  • Make sure your child knows that you are picking them up.
  • Inform the bus driver if your child usually comes home by bus.
  • Pick your child up from inside the school building, we will not let them come out to the car park for safety reasons.
  • Pick your child up at 3.25 p.m. which is the time school closes.

If you pick your child up from Nursery we will send them to Nursery for you to collect them from there. Children who go home independently will be asked to leave the school site at going home time and not linger to play on the playground.

Parent Group (extra)

There are still some vacancies for class representatives on Parent Group (Dounby’s parent council). If you are interested in working more closely with school, to help us improve what we do, please contact Margaret Sinclair (chairperson)

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Diary dates

Thu 9th Nov / Netball After School Club begins for P4/5 Girls – 3.30 – 4.30 pm
Fri 17th Nov / Children in Need event in school (more details to follow)
Fri 1st Dec / Dounby Village Tree Lighting
Mon 11th & Tues 12th Dec / P1 & P7 health checks
Tue 12th Dec (evening)
Fri 15th Dec (morning) / P1-3 Christmas Performance (further details to follow)
Wed 13th Dec / Christmas Lunch
Fri 15th Dec / School Disco – 6.30 – 8.00pm
Fri 22nd Dec / Christmas Service in the Milestone Church (all pupils)
Fri 22nd Dec (pm) / School Parties
Fri 22nd Dec / School closes for Xmas break
Mon 8th Jan / School opens

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