The Redmyre Review

March 2018

March got off to a bit of a shaky start

with the children getting a few days to

have fun in the snow. I would like to

offer an enormous thank you to Mrs

Warden’s husband for kindly coming and

digging away the drifts around the

school which meant we could all get in to

school safely on the Monday. Thank

goodness thinks are warming up a little

in preparation for the Easter holidays.

This term’s Fairtrade Community Café

was held on the 7th March.

Unfortunately, probably due to the fact

that we hadn’t managed to deliver our

invitations the week before because of

the snow, it wasn’t as busy as usual.

However, our Community Café Crew, led

by Mrs Gall, managed to raise £64.45 to

go towards Traidcraft. I would like to

thank Mrs Sheila Moir, Mr Stott and

Mrs Gall for donating baking for the

café and thanks to all of those who

braved the cold and came along to enjoy

a cup of tea and a ‘fine piece’.

Parent Council News

Our boat has sailed into the harbour!

Last Friday we took delivery of our

rather marvellous boat from Caledonia

Play which was paid for by the parent

council and the Tesco donation. The

children voted overwhelmingly for a boat

rather than a tractor or a train their

reason being that ‘You can get more

people in the boat!’ You can’t say fairer

than that. Thank you so much to the

parent council and Tesco for this very

generous addition to the school grounds,

the children absolutely love it.

There’s a mast on the boat and we have made

up a game called sharks. It’s excellent!

Jack P4

Our rescheduled World Book Day

was held on the 8th of March when

children (and staff) were invited to

dress up as a favourite book

character. We had all sorts of

wonderful outfits including Mr Gum,

an alien from Aliens Love Underpants

(which was very funny) as well as a

few Fantastic Mr Foxes and a Little

Mermaid or two. Thanks to everyone

who sent in a donation that day for

Send My Friend to School, a charity

which works to ensure children

around the world are getting their

right to an education.

P5/6/7 Open Afternoon

Parents and carers from our P5/6/7

class were invited to school on the

21st May to enjoy having the children

show them round the class and look

at some of the work they have been

doing. In keeping with their current

topic of World War 2, some of the

children were dressed up as

evacuees and Miss Forster looked

like she had just stepped out of a

forties classroom. Thank you to all

those parents who were able to make

it along to this; having the children

show you what they have been doing

is a great opportunity for them to

reflect on what they have learned

and achieved.

Forest Schools

Unfortunately, the P6/7 have missed

out on the last two sessions of Forest

School. There was one scheduled to go

ahead on the first day back after the

snow days however, the forest area

which Lisa had initially thought would be

perfect for igloo building and snow

sculptures had actually turned to

horrible grey slush by the Monday. We

know that Forest Schools is all about

being out in all weathers and building

resilience but the slush, coupled with

the torrential rain that day, would have

been a miserable affair for everyone

involved. The following week, Lisa, our

Forest School leader was ill with

tonsillitis. We have rescheduled one of

these sessions for the 30th of April

however, sadly, we don’t think there will

be time for rescheduling the other one.

The P1s have now had two of their

sessions and by all accounts have been

having an absolute ball. I even heard

there were marshmallows being toasted

last time….I’ll need to see if I can find

out when the next marshmallow toasting

session will be and tag along!

Sportshall Challenge

A group of P3 and P4 pupils took part in the Mearns Cluster Sportshall Challenge on the 21st of March. This event, devised by Badminton Scotland and organised by our Active Schools Coordinators, aims to give P3 and P4 children a fun and competitive introduction to badminton by working through a series of ‘stations’ which are designed to develop skills associated with Badminton. It is hoped that by giving children this early introduction to badminton they will be encouraged to continue with the sport perhaps joining a club and participating in further competitions. I am delighted to say that Redmyre came joint first with Auchenblae in the Laurencekirk Network heats and consequently we will be going to Banchory on the 27th April to compete in the Aberdeenshire finals. Our winning team are shown below.

.

An Audience with an Astronaut

The primary 5/6/7 jetted off on a trip

to Aberdeen Science Centre last

Thursday to meet representatives from

NASA including a real, live astronaut

who has been in actual space! Mrs

Hunter had applied to go on this trip

some time ago and we got a big shock

when Redmyre was actually chosen.

There was a competition to design and

make a space buggy which could travel

around an imaginary planet. The

children had to describe their planet,

the creatures that live on it and design

the buggy with features which would

provide ideal transport for the terrain

of the planet and the aliens which would

be driving it. The space buggies were

then built from everyday household

objects and were submitted, with the

design briefs, for the competition. I

am delighted to say that one of the

Redmyre teams won (the fact that none

of the other schools entered any space

buggies is neither here nor there) and

were awarded a huge pile of beautiful

space reference books for our school

library. Pictured below is the winning

space buggy designed by Emily, Jodi,

Emma, Ben and Olivia.

Pupil Equity Funding

You may have heard in the news about

something called Pupil Equity Funding.

Pupil Equity Funding is additional

funding from the Scottish

Government’s £750 million Attainment

Scotland Fund which is allocated

directly to schools and targeted at

closing the poverty related attainment

gap. Last year we, as a school, received

£6000 in PEF funding and in the

planning stages we decided as a cluster

of schools that we would pool our money

together to employ an extra Pupil

Support Worker to work with all

schools in the cluster and to pay for

much of the training which cluster

staff had during the November in

service days. After paying our share to

the cluster for these things we were

left with enough money to pay for

Forest Schools, Numicon resources for

every class, Jolly Grammar resources

to assist with teaching in grammar and

punctuation and we are able to pay for

12 extra hours of PSA support per

week from the beginning of March until

summer. Already the staff are

commenting on what an impact there

has been since having the extra support

in the classrooms. We are hopeful that

we will be able to continue with this

extra PSA time into next session using

a portion of our next lot of PEF funding

which should be allocated by the end of

April.

Home Time Pick Up

It has been noted that an increasing

number of people are parking beside

the bus and taxi bay to avoid joining

the one way queue to pick up at home

time. The system which is in operation

was set up in consultation with Police

Scotland who assure us that this is the

best system for ensuring the safety of

your children. Whilst I understand it is

frustrating to have to wait in the queue

I am sure you will agree that the safety

of all of our children is paramount. I

have it on good authority that police

officers have been running spot checks

on schools throughout Aberdeenshire in

the last few months and I would hate

for us to get a less than favourable

safety report for our home time pick up

procedures. So please, please, may I

implore that, for the safety of

everyone, you use the one way system.

We don’t want any accidents to happen, we want to be safe so

please use the one

way system. Josh P6

(Member of the Junior Road Safety Team)

Dates for your Diary

30/3/18 Good Friday (off school)

16/4/18 Summer term begins.

23/4/18, 14/5/18, 21/5/18, 28/5/18 P4 Swimming sessions

26/4/18 Generation Science for all classes

27/4/18 Sportshall Challenge

30/4/18 Last Forest School for P1

Rescheduled Forest School P6/7

30/4/18-25/5/18 Teaching students in school

11/5/18 Pupil Progress reports home

P7 Guidance visit from Mearns

21/5/18, 28/5/18, 4/6/18 P2/3 Forest School sessions P2/3/4

7/6/18 Abernethy Information Evening

(Auchenblae)

18/6/18, 19/6/18, 20/6/18 P7 Three day visit to Mearns

24/5/18, 31/5/18, 14/5/18 New P1 induction visits

21/5/18 Sports day (weather permitting)

21/5/18 Dalguise Information Evening

(Laurencekirk Primary)

11/6/18, 18/6/18, 25/6/18 Forest Schools P4/5

28/6/18 End of term assembly

2/7/18-5/7/18 P7 trip to Abernethy

6/7/18 Last day of term

Sam (P1) has written about knights and given some advice about when would be the best time to attack a castle.

Liam (P6) has written a letter to a friend from his place of safety as a wartime evacuee.

James (P4) has written a super description of what life would have been like in a Viking house.

The Redmyre Review

March 2018

March got off to a bit of a shaky start

with the children getting a few days to

have fun in the snow. I would like to

offer an enormous thank you to Mrs

Warden’s husband for kindly coming and

digging away the drifts around the

school which meant we could all get in to

school safely on the Monday. Thank

goodness thinks are warming up a little

in preparation for the Easter holidays.

This term’s Fairtrade Community Café

was held on the 7th March.

Unfortunately, probably due to the fact

that we hadn’t managed to deliver our

invitations the week before because of

the snow, it wasn’t as busy as usual.

However, our Community Café Crew, led

by Mrs Gall, managed to raise £64.45 to

go towards Traidcraft. I would like to

thank Mrs Sheila Moir, Mr Stott and

Mrs Gall for donating baking for the

café and thanks to all of those who

braved the cold and came along to enjoy

a cup of tea and a ‘fine piece’.

Parent Council News

Our boat has sailed into the harbour!

Last Friday we took delivery of our

rather marvellous boat from Caledonia

Play which was paid for by the parent

council and the Tesco donation. The

children voted overwhelmingly for a boat

rather than a tractor or a train their

reason being that ‘You can get more

people in the boat!’ You can’t say fairer

than that. Thank you so much to the

parent council and Tesco for this very

generous addition to the school grounds,

the children absolutely love it.

There’s a mast on the boat and we have made

up a game called sharks. It’s excellent!

Jack P4

Our rescheduled World Book Day

was held on the 8th of March when

children (and staff) were invited to

dress up as a favourite book

character. We had all sorts of

wonderful outfits including Mr Gum,

an alien from Aliens Love Underpants

(which was very funny) as well as a

few Fantastic Mr Foxes and a Little

Mermaid or two. Thanks to everyone

who sent in a donation that day for

Send My Friend to School, a charity

which works to ensure children

around the world are getting their

right to an education.

P5/6/7 Open Afternoon

Parents and carers from our P5/6/7

class were invited to school on the

21st May to enjoy having the children

show them round the class and look

at some of the work they have been

doing. In keeping with their current

topic of World War 2, some of the

children were dressed up as

evacuees and Miss Forster looked

like she had just stepped out of a

forties classroom. Thank you to all

those parents who were able to make

it along to this; having the children

show you what they have been doing

is a great opportunity for them to

reflect on what they have learned

and achieved.

Forest Schools

Unfortunately, the P6/7 have missed

out on the last two sessions of Forest

School. There was one scheduled to go

ahead on the first day back after the

snow days however, the forest area

which Lisa had initially thought would be

perfect for igloo building and snow

sculptures had actually turned to

horrible grey slush by the Monday. We

know that Forest Schools is all about

being out in all weathers and building

resilience but the slush, coupled with

the torrential rain that day, would have

been a miserable affair for everyone

involved. The following week, Lisa, our

Forest School leader was ill with

tonsillitis. We have rescheduled one of

these sessions for the 30th of April

however, sadly, we don’t think there will

be time for rescheduling the other one.

The P1s have now had two of their

sessions and by all accounts have been

having an absolute ball. I even heard

there were marshmallows being toasted

last time….I’ll need to see if I can find

out when the next marshmallow toasting

session will be and tag along!

Sportshall Challenge

A group of P3 and P4 pupils took part in the Mearns Cluster Sportshall Challenge on the 21st of March. This event, devised by Badminton Scotland and organised by our Active Schools Coordinators, aims to give P3 and P4 children a fun and competitive introduction to badminton by working through a series of ‘stations’ which are designed to develop skills associated with Badminton. It is hoped that by giving children this early introduction to badminton they will be encouraged to continue with the sport perhaps joining a club and participating in further competitions. I am delighted to say that Redmyre came joint first with Auchenblae in the Laurencekirk Network heats and consequently we will be going to Banchory on the 27th April to compete in the Aberdeenshire finals. Our winning team are shown below.

.

An Audience with an Astronaut

The primary 5/6/7 jetted off on a trip

to Aberdeen Science Centre last

Thursday to meet representatives from

NASA including a real, live astronaut

who has been in actual space! Mrs

Hunter had applied to go on this trip

some time ago and we got a big shock

when Redmyre was actually chosen.

There was a competition to design and

make a space buggy which could travel

around an imaginary planet. The

children had to describe their planet,

the creatures that live on it and design

the buggy with features which would

provide ideal transport for the terrain

of the planet and the aliens which would

be driving it. The space buggies were

then built from everyday household

objects and were submitted, with the

design briefs, for the competition. I

am delighted to say that one of the

Redmyre teams won (the fact that none

of the other schools entered any space

buggies is neither here nor there) and

were awarded a huge pile of beautiful

space reference books for our school

library. Pictured below is the winning

space buggy designed by Emily, Jodi,

Emma, Ben and Olivia.

Pupil Equity Funding

You may have heard in the news about

something called Pupil Equity Funding.

Pupil Equity Funding is additional

funding from the Scottish

Government’s £750 million Attainment

Scotland Fund which is allocated

directly to schools and targeted at

closing the poverty related attainment

gap. Last year we, as a school, received

£6000 in PEF funding and in the

planning stages we decided as a cluster

of schools that we would pool our money

together to employ an extra Pupil

Support Worker to work with all

schools in the cluster and to pay for

much of the training which cluster

staff had during the November in

service days. After paying our share to

the cluster for these things we were

left with enough money to pay for

Forest Schools, Numicon resources for

every class, Jolly Grammar resources

to assist with teaching in grammar and

punctuation and we are able to pay for

12 extra hours of PSA support per

week from the beginning of March until

summer. Already the staff are

commenting on what an impact there

has been since having the extra support

in the classrooms. We are hopeful that

we will be able to continue with this

extra PSA time into next session using

a portion of our next lot of PEF funding

which should be allocated by the end of

April.

Home Time Pick Up

It has been noted that an increasing

number of people are parking beside

the bus and taxi bay to avoid joining

the one way queue to pick up at home

time. The system which is in operation

was set up in consultation with Police

Scotland who assure us that this is the

best system for ensuring the safety of

your children. Whilst I understand it is

frustrating to have to wait in the queue

I am sure you will agree that the safety

of all of our children is paramount. I

have it on good authority that police

officers have been running spot checks

on schools throughout Aberdeenshire in

the last few months and I would hate

for us to get a less than favourable

safety report for our home time pick up

procedures. So please, please, may I

implore that, for the safety of

everyone, you use the one way system.

We don’t want any accidents to happen, we want to be safe so

please use the one

way system. Josh P6

(Member of the Junior Road Safety Team)

Dates for your Diary

30/3/18 Good Friday (off school)

16/4/18 Summer term begins.

23/4/18, 14/5/18, 21/5/18, 28/5/18 P4 Swimming sessions

26/4/18 Generation Science for all classes

27/4/18 Sportshall Challenge

30/4/18 Last Forest School for P1

Rescheduled Forest School P6/7

30/4/18-25/5/18 Teaching students in school

11/5/18 Pupil Progress reports home

P7 Guidance visit from Mearns

21/5/18, 28/5/18, 4/6/18 P2/3 Forest School sessions P2/3/4

7/6/18 Abernethy Information Evening

(Auchenblae)

18/6/18, 19/6/18, 20/6/18 P7 Three day visit to Mearns

24/5/18, 31/5/18, 14/5/18 New P1 induction visits

21/5/18 Sports day (weather permitting)

21/5/18 Dalguise Information Evening

(Laurencekirk Primary)

11/6/18, 18/6/18, 25/6/18 Forest Schools P4/5

28/6/18 End of term assembly

2/7/18-5/7/18 P7 trip to Abernethy

6/7/18 Last day of term

Sam (P1) has written about knights and given some advice about when would be the best time to attack a castle.

Liam (P6) has written a letter to a friend from his place of safety as a wartime evacuee.

James (P4) has written a super description of what life would have been like in a Viking house.

The Redmyre Review

March 2018

March got off to a bit of a shaky start

with the children getting a few days to

have fun in the snow. I would like to

offer an enormous thank you to Mrs

Warden’s husband for kindly coming and

digging away the drifts around the

school which meant we could all get in to

school safely on the Monday. Thank

goodness thinks are warming up a little

in preparation for the Easter holidays.

This term’s Fairtrade Community Café

was held on the 7th March.

Unfortunately, probably due to the fact

that we hadn’t managed to deliver our

invitations the week before because of

the snow, it wasn’t as busy as usual.

However, our Community Café Crew, led

by Mrs Gall, managed to raise £64.45 to

go towards Traidcraft. I would like to

thank Mrs Sheila Moir, Mr Stott and

Mrs Gall for donating baking for the

café and thanks to all of those who

braved the cold and came along to enjoy

a cup of tea and a ‘fine piece’.

Parent Council News

Our boat has sailed into the harbour!

Last Friday we took delivery of our

rather marvellous boat from Caledonia

Play which was paid for by the parent

council and the Tesco donation. The

children voted overwhelmingly for a boat

rather than a tractor or a train their

reason being that ‘You can get more

people in the boat!’ You can’t say fairer

than that. Thank you so much to the

parent council and Tesco for this very

generous addition to the school grounds,

the children absolutely love it.

There’s a mast on the boat and we have made

up a game called sharks. It’s excellent!

Jack P4

Our rescheduled World Book Day

was held on the 8th of March when

children (and staff) were invited to

dress up as a favourite book

character. We had all sorts of

wonderful outfits including Mr Gum,

an alien from Aliens Love Underpants

(which was very funny) as well as a

few Fantastic Mr Foxes and a Little

Mermaid or two. Thanks to everyone

who sent in a donation that day for

Send My Friend to School, a charity

which works to ensure children

around the world are getting their

right to an education.

P5/6/7 Open Afternoon

Parents and carers from our P5/6/7

class were invited to school on the

21st May to enjoy having the children

show them round the class and look

at some of the work they have been

doing. In keeping with their current

topic of World War 2, some of the

children were dressed up as

evacuees and Miss Forster looked

like she had just stepped out of a

forties classroom. Thank you to all

those parents who were able to make

it along to this; having the children

show you what they have been doing

is a great opportunity for them to

reflect on what they have learned

and achieved.

Forest Schools

Unfortunately, the P6/7 have missed

out on the last two sessions of Forest

School. There was one scheduled to go

ahead on the first day back after the

snow days however, the forest area

which Lisa had initially thought would be

perfect for igloo building and snow

sculptures had actually turned to

horrible grey slush by the Monday. We

know that Forest Schools is all about

being out in all weathers and building

resilience but the slush, coupled with

the torrential rain that day, would have

been a miserable affair for everyone

involved. The following week, Lisa, our

Forest School leader was ill with

tonsillitis. We have rescheduled one of

these sessions for the 30th of April

however, sadly, we don’t think there will

be time for rescheduling the other one.

The P1s have now had two of their

sessions and by all accounts have been

having an absolute ball. I even heard

there were marshmallows being toasted

last time….I’ll need to see if I can find

out when the next marshmallow toasting

session will be and tag along!

Sportshall Challenge

A group of P3 and P4 pupils took part in the Mearns Cluster Sportshall Challenge on the 21st of March. This event, devised by Badminton Scotland and organised by our Active Schools Coordinators, aims to give P3 and P4 children a fun and competitive introduction to badminton by working through a series of ‘stations’ which are designed to develop skills associated with Badminton. It is hoped that by giving children this early introduction to badminton they will be encouraged to continue with the sport perhaps joining a club and participating in further competitions. I am delighted to say that Redmyre came joint first with Auchenblae in the Laurencekirk Network heats and consequently we will be going to Banchory on the 27th April to compete in the Aberdeenshire finals. Our winning team are shown below.

.

An Audience with an Astronaut

The primary 5/6/7 jetted off on a trip

to Aberdeen Science Centre last

Thursday to meet representatives from

NASA including a real, live astronaut

who has been in actual space! Mrs

Hunter had applied to go on this trip

some time ago and we got a big shock

when Redmyre was actually chosen.

There was a competition to design and

make a space buggy which could travel

around an imaginary planet. The

children had to describe their planet,

the creatures that live on it and design

the buggy with features which would

provide ideal transport for the terrain

of the planet and the aliens which would

be driving it. The space buggies were

then built from everyday household

objects and were submitted, with the

design briefs, for the competition. I

am delighted to say that one of the

Redmyre teams won (the fact that none

of the other schools entered any space

buggies is neither here nor there) and

were awarded a huge pile of beautiful

space reference books for our school

library. Pictured below is the winning

space buggy designed by Emily, Jodi,

Emma, Ben and Olivia.

Pupil Equity Funding

You may have heard in the news about

something called Pupil Equity Funding.

Pupil Equity Funding is additional

funding from the Scottish

Government’s £750 million Attainment

Scotland Fund which is allocated

directly to schools and targeted at

closing the poverty related attainment

gap. Last year we, as a school, received

£6000 in PEF funding and in the

planning stages we decided as a cluster

of schools that we would pool our money

together to employ an extra Pupil

Support Worker to work with all

schools in the cluster and to pay for

much of the training which cluster

staff had during the November in

service days. After paying our share to

the cluster for these things we were

left with enough money to pay for

Forest Schools, Numicon resources for

every class, Jolly Grammar resources

to assist with teaching in grammar and

punctuation and we are able to pay for

12 extra hours of PSA support per

week from the beginning of March until

summer. Already the staff are

commenting on what an impact there

has been since having the extra support

in the classrooms. We are hopeful that

we will be able to continue with this

extra PSA time into next session using

a portion of our next lot of PEF funding

which should be allocated by the end of

April.

Home Time Pick Up

It has been noted that an increasing

number of people are parking beside

the bus and taxi bay to avoid joining

the one way queue to pick up at home

time. The system which is in operation

was set up in consultation with Police

Scotland who assure us that this is the

best system for ensuring the safety of

your children. Whilst I understand it is

frustrating to have to wait in the queue

I am sure you will agree that the safety

of all of our children is paramount. I

have it on good authority that police

officers have been running spot checks

on schools throughout Aberdeenshire in

the last few months and I would hate

for us to get a less than favourable

safety report for our home time pick up

procedures. So please, please, may I

implore that, for the safety of

everyone, you use the one way system.

We don’t want any accidents to happen, we want to be safe so

please use the one

way system. Josh P6

(Member of the Junior Road Safety Team)

Dates for your Diary

30/3/18 Good Friday (off school)

16/4/18 Summer term begins.

23/4/18, 14/5/18, 21/5/18, 28/5/18 P4 Swimming sessions

26/4/18 Generation Science for all classes

27/4/18 Sportshall Challenge

30/4/18 Last Forest School for P1

Rescheduled Forest School P6/7

30/4/18-25/5/18 Teaching students in school

11/5/18 Pupil Progress reports home

P7 Guidance visit from Mearns

21/5/18, 28/5/18, 4/6/18 P2/3 Forest School sessions P2/3/4

7/6/18 Abernethy Information Evening

(Auchenblae)

18/6/18, 19/6/18, 20/6/18 P7 Three day visit to Mearns

24/5/18, 31/5/18, 14/5/18 New P1 induction visits

21/5/18 Sports day (weather permitting)

21/5/18 Dalguise Information Evening

(Laurencekirk Primary)

11/6/18, 18/6/18, 25/6/18 Forest Schools P4/5

28/6/18 End of term assembly

2/7/18-5/7/18 P7 trip to Abernethy

6/7/18 Last day of term

Sam (P1) has written about knights and given some advice about when would be the best time to attack a castle.

Liam (P6) has written a letter to a friend from his place of safety as a wartime evacuee.

James (P4) has written a super description of what life would have been like in a Viking house.

The Redmyre Review

March 2018

March got off to a bit of a shaky start

with the children getting a few days to

have fun in the snow. I would like to

offer an enormous thank you to Mrs

Warden’s husband for kindly coming and

digging away the drifts around the

school which meant we could all get in to

school safely on the Monday. Thank

goodness thinks are warming up a little

in preparation for the Easter holidays.

This term’s Fairtrade Community Café

was held on the 7th March.

Unfortunately, probably due to the fact

that we hadn’t managed to deliver our

invitations the week before because of

the snow, it wasn’t as busy as usual.

However, our Community Café Crew, led

by Mrs Gall, managed to raise £64.45 to

go towards Traidcraft. I would like to

thank Mrs Sheila Moir, Mr Stott and

Mrs Gall for donating baking for the

café and thanks to all of those who

braved the cold and came along to enjoy

a cup of tea and a ‘fine piece’.

Parent Council News

Our boat has sailed into the harbour!

Last Friday we took delivery of our

rather marvellous boat from Caledonia

Play which was paid for by the parent

council and the Tesco donation. The

children voted overwhelmingly for a boat

rather than a tractor or a train their

reason being that ‘You can get more

people in the boat!’ You can’t say fairer

than that. Thank you so much to the

parent council and Tesco for this very

generous addition to the school grounds,

the children absolutely love it.

There’s a mast on the boat and we have made

up a game called sharks. It’s excellent!

Jack P4

Our rescheduled World Book Day

was held on the 8th of March when

children (and staff) were invited to

dress up as a favourite book

character. We had all sorts of

wonderful outfits including Mr Gum,

an alien from Aliens Love Underpants

(which was very funny) as well as a

few Fantastic Mr Foxes and a Little

Mermaid or two. Thanks to everyone

who sent in a donation that day for

Send My Friend to School, a charity

which works to ensure children

around the world are getting their

right to an education.

P5/6/7 Open Afternoon

Parents and carers from our P5/6/7

class were invited to school on the

21st May to enjoy having the children

show them round the class and look

at some of the work they have been

doing. In keeping with their current

topic of World War 2, some of the

children were dressed up as

evacuees and Miss Forster looked

like she had just stepped out of a

forties classroom. Thank you to all

those parents who were able to make

it along to this; having the children

show you what they have been doing

is a great opportunity for them to

reflect on what they have learned

and achieved.

Forest Schools

Unfortunately, the P6/7 have missed

out on the last two sessions of Forest

School. There was one scheduled to go

ahead on the first day back after the

snow days however, the forest area

which Lisa had initially thought would be

perfect for igloo building and snow

sculptures had actually turned to

horrible grey slush by the Monday. We

know that Forest Schools is all about

being out in all weathers and building

resilience but the slush, coupled with

the torrential rain that day, would have

been a miserable affair for everyone

involved. The following week, Lisa, our

Forest School leader was ill with

tonsillitis. We have rescheduled one of

these sessions for the 30th of April

however, sadly, we don’t think there will

be time for rescheduling the other one.

The P1s have now had two of their

sessions and by all accounts have been

having an absolute ball. I even heard

there were marshmallows being toasted

last time….I’ll need to see if I can find

out when the next marshmallow toasting

session will be and tag along!

Sportshall Challenge

A group of P3 and P4 pupils took part in the Mearns Cluster Sportshall Challenge on the 21st of March. This event, devised by Badminton Scotland and organised by our Active Schools Coordinators, aims to give P3 and P4 children a fun and competitive introduction to badminton by working through a series of ‘stations’ which are designed to develop skills associated with Badminton. It is hoped that by giving children this early introduction to badminton they will be encouraged to continue with the sport perhaps joining a club and participating in further competitions. I am delighted to say that Redmyre came joint first with Auchenblae in the Laurencekirk Network heats and consequently we will be going to Banchory on the 27th April to compete in the Aberdeenshire finals. Our winning team are shown below.

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An Audience with an Astronaut

The primary 5/6/7 jetted off on a trip

to Aberdeen Science Centre last

Thursday to meet representatives from

NASA including a real, live astronaut

who has been in actual space! Mrs

Hunter had applied to go on this trip

some time ago and we got a big shock

when Redmyre was actually chosen.

There was a competition to design and

make a space buggy which could travel

around an imaginary planet. The

children had to describe their planet,

the creatures that live on it and design

the buggy with features which would

provide ideal transport for the terrain

of the planet and the aliens which would

be driving it. The space buggies were

then built from everyday household

objects and were submitted, with the

design briefs, for the competition. I

am delighted to say that one of the

Redmyre teams won (the fact that none

of the other schools entered any space

buggies is neither here nor there) and

were awarded a huge pile of beautiful

space reference books for our school

library. Pictured below is the winning

space buggy designed by Emily, Jodi,

Emma, Ben and Olivia.

Pupil Equity Funding

You may have heard in the news about

something called Pupil Equity Funding.

Pupil Equity Funding is additional

funding from the Scottish

Government’s £750 million Attainment

Scotland Fund which is allocated

directly to schools and targeted at

closing the poverty related attainment

gap. Last year we, as a school, received

£6000 in PEF funding and in the

planning stages we decided as a cluster

of schools that we would pool our money

together to employ an extra Pupil

Support Worker to work with all

schools in the cluster and to pay for

much of the training which cluster

staff had during the November in

service days. After paying our share to

the cluster for these things we were

left with enough money to pay for

Forest Schools, Numicon resources for

every class, Jolly Grammar resources

to assist with teaching in grammar and

punctuation and we are able to pay for

12 extra hours of PSA support per

week from the beginning of March until

summer. Already the staff are

commenting on what an impact there

has been since having the extra support

in the classrooms. We are hopeful that

we will be able to continue with this

extra PSA time into next session using

a portion of our next lot of PEF funding

which should be allocated by the end of

April.

Home Time Pick Up

It has been noted that an increasing

number of people are parking beside

the bus and taxi bay to avoid joining

the one way queue to pick up at home

time. The system which is in operation

was set up in consultation with Police

Scotland who assure us that this is the

best system for ensuring the safety of

your children. Whilst I understand it is

frustrating to have to wait in the queue

I am sure you will agree that the safety

of all of our children is paramount. I

have it on good authority that police

officers have been running spot checks

on schools throughout Aberdeenshire in

the last few months and I would hate

for us to get a less than favourable

safety report for our home time pick up

procedures. So please, please, may I

implore that, for the safety of

everyone, you use the one way system.

We don’t want any accidents to happen, we want to be safe so

please use the one

way system. Josh P6

(Member of the Junior Road Safety Team)

Dates for your Diary

30/3/18 Good Friday (off school)

16/4/18 Summer term begins.

23/4/18, 14/5/18, 21/5/18, 28/5/18 P4 Swimming sessions

26/4/18 Generation Science for all classes

27/4/18 Sportshall Challenge

30/4/18 Last Forest School for P1

Rescheduled Forest School P6/7

30/4/18-25/5/18 Teaching students in school

11/5/18 Pupil Progress reports home

P7 Guidance visit from Mearns

21/5/18, 28/5/18, 4/6/18 P2/3 Forest School sessions P2/3/4

7/6/18 Abernethy Information Evening

(Auchenblae)

18/6/18, 19/6/18, 20/6/18 P7 Three day visit to Mearns

24/5/18, 31/5/18, 14/5/18 New P1 induction visits

21/5/18 Sports day (weather permitting)

21/5/18 Dalguise Information Evening

(Laurencekirk Primary)

11/6/18, 18/6/18, 25/6/18 Forest Schools P4/5

28/6/18 End of term assembly

2/7/18-5/7/18 P7 trip to Abernethy

6/7/18 Last day of term

Sam (P1) has written about knights and given some advice about when would be the best time to attack a castle.

Liam (P6) has written a letter to a friend from his place of safety as a wartime evacuee.

James (P4) has written a super description of what life would have been like in a Viking house.