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Kellands School Kellands School
2nd February 2018 Issue No.20
Stottie baw, stottie baw, tell to me Hou monie bairns am A to hae? Yin to leeve, an yin to dee, An yin to sit on its nurse's knee.
- bairn's rhyme whilst bouncing a ball.
“But pleasures are like poppies spread, You seize the flower, it's bloom is shed; Or, like the snow-fall in the river, A moment white, then melts forever.”
― Robert Burns, Tam O'Shanter
Standardised Assessments
This term the P4s and P7s will be taking part in the new standardised assessments (SNSAs) followed by the P1s in Term 4. These assessments will be used alongside our own assessments and teacher judgement to measure progress and achievement. Aberdeenshire Council advises that: “Teachers will use this information, alongside a wide range of other assessment information, to discuss with you how your child is progressing with their learning, as part of the normal reporting process in your school.” This year the P5s completed INCA assessments in Term 2 and P3s will complete them this term, before moving to SNSAs from next year.
Kellands Netball
Well done to our Kellands netballers who participated at the Active Schools Festival at Alford. They showed great enthusiasm and progressed well during the tournament. They are looking forward to future festivals.
Return of ‘Big Kellands Pedal Run’
Some exciting news is that we are bringing back our whole school cycle event this year on Friday 8th June (put in your diaries). This will be an event run in conjunction with our community partners, Leisurelend and Sustrans and we can’t thank them enough for their help and support
for making this happen. We are in the planning stages at present but we are looking at Nursery – P3 around Kellands Park, P4 – 6 mile bike run and P5-7 13 mile bike run. We are then hoping to have a family picnic for all our Kellands family to celebrate cycling and the Kellands community. Thank you to Steven Barret and Phil Thornley for their support. We will be looking for any parents who would like to be trained as a led ride leader; training will be free and will take place at Kellands (date to be confirmed).
Cycle Friendly School Award
Congratulations to everyone in the Kellands community as we achieved Cycle Friendly School status on Monday which is an award for the whole school community. Special thanks to Miss Doig and Phil Thornley for all their amazing work.
Parents’ Bikeability Training URGENT
Each year at Kellands our P6s as part of their learning undertake their road safely Bikeability training. We need adults to be trained as Bikeability instructors. Phil Thornley has very kindly offered to run a parents Bikeability training course at Kellands. This is a vital part in trying to keep our children safe on the roads and we really need some parents to help Phil deliver the training. If you would like to do this training please get in touch with the school and we will try to organise times that are suitable. We cannot run the Bikeability unless we can recruit enough trained parents. Thank you so much in advance for your help.
CAR PARKING URGENT
Please could you be considerate when you are parking around the Kellands campus in the nearby streets. Residents have to have access to their drives and parking spaces at all times. I am sure you understand and will be mindful and park safely for the drop off and pick up times. A reminder that the staff car parks at the front and nursery ends of the school are for STAFF only and not to be used for dropping off, as they become a bottleneck and dangerous for the safety of the children. Also a reminder to please not occupy the disabled parking spaces in the school car parks at any time as these are crucial for access. We appreciate the difficulties with the extra parking restrictions due to the work at the hospital site impacting on increase parking at the turning circle at Kellands park; but we need to work together cooperatively for the safety of our Kellands’ children. If you have any ideas on how to help with this please get in touch with the school. Thank you for your help in this matter.
Rag Bag
Our next Rag Bag collection will take place on Tuesday 13th March 2018. Extra bags are available from the school office if you need.
Scot’s poetry at Kellands
Today we have Scot’s poetry finals at assembly. I have been lucky to around the school listening to several of the classes and the standard was very high; thank you to all the parents for helping their children learn these tricky poems. All the results will be in next week’s newsletter.
Community Partnership Working
2018 will see a very important link up between Kellands School and ‘The Garioch Partnership’ and Inverurie CLD. A big part of this will be where the Garioch Partnership will engaging with the wider Kellands community to develop a ‘Community Plan’ for 2018. This will be an exciting year and I hope you will engage with this so we can create a stronger and more inclusive Kellands Community, looking at all aspects of life, education and leisure; and how we can improve the Kellands Community.
Kelland’s Family Cookbook
As part of this we want Kelland’s school to be central to the community with an open, inclusive atmosphere where we want all our ‘Kellands family’ to feel part of and engaged with. Strong parental engagement is very import to us and we want to create a welcoming family ethos to the school where we are all working, sharing and learning together. We want to create a Kelland’s family cookbook, with ALL our Kelland’s families sharing a favourite family recipe from the past or present. We will then produce a Kellands family cookbook for all our families and are hoping to have a celebratory open/International Cafe day in term 4 celebrating the diversity of our ‘Kellands Family’, with the launch of the cookbook and hopefully some chefs preparing some of our meals. We will also be asking as many families as we can to be involved in the preparation of the book as possible. This will be a joint venture with the School, parent and pupil councils, Garioch Partnership (Dawn Brown) and Inverurie CLD (Lorna Forsyth). Thank you to all the amazing recipes we have received so far; they look fabulous and we really appreciate your input. Happy recipe writing and cooking!!!
AFCCT Garioch Projects
For an update on all the AFCCT Garioch Projects being delivered, please follow the link - http://www.afccommunitytrust.org/news/10364.php#.WlNxDORFDmQ
For more information on AFCCT please visit our website - http://www.afccommunitytrust.org/home.php
Lecht Winter Games
Links to the registration site will be available via the event page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1970528069830958/ To share news about the event, please use the following link: http://teambss.org.uk/news-info/news/LechtGames.
Parent Council DATES FOR YOUR DIARIES
We hope you have all had a lovely festive period and the time has come to announce some dates for our upcoming fundraising ventures.
Many thanks to all the parents who returned the volunteer contact list form for fundraising events. Nursery ones are to be distributed soon, then we will be in touch for staffing the following events.
Family Bingo Night, Inverurie Town Hall, Friday 27 April 2018, 6.30-9.00pm, £3 per adult and £1 per child, raising money for our school funds. Further information will follow regarding ticket sales/raffle donations nearer the time. If anyone knows of a bingo caller, or if there are any budding parents for this job, please get in touch with details for us to follow up.
Ladies Tipsy Tea Party, Kintore Arms, Inverurie, Saturday 26 May 2018, 1300-1800, £25 per ticket. Funds raised from this event will go towards a multi sports pitch which we are seeking to build in the P4-7 playground in conjunction with the Garioch Partnership. Tickets can be purchased in two ways, if you wish to sit with a group of your friends, tables of 10-12 persons can be held for a £50 deposit, full payment is required 6-8 weeks before the event or alternatively tickets can be sold individually or in smaller groups upon full payment. Tickets can be obtained via [email protected] or by contacting Gail Winchester or Mrs Miller (Unit 1). If any parents out there have any business contacts, who they think may be approachable or wish to donate towards our raffles on that day, or indeed if they would be interested in a monetary donation towards the sports pitch or sponsorship at the event, please also send relevant information to us.
Other Fundraising Events Currently we have no organisers for our Summer Barbeque, which is traditionally held towards the end of term in June as a fun event for families to raise funds. The organising does not have to be done by one person alone, several people make the load a bit lighter! There are always parents/parent council members who have previously organised events and are on hand and
happy to share their experiences. Without willing volunteers to organise, together with help from parent council members and other parents, events cannot run. You do not need to be a parent council member to organise an event. It can be as little (or as big!) an event as you have the time and ideas to make it. If this is something that would interest you, please get in touch at our email address, leave a note in our pigeon hole in the staff room or speak to any parent council member. We are always looking for new suggestions of raising money, so any thoughts you have would be appreciated as well. Historically we have held Race Nights, Car boot sales, Quiz nights, but we are open to any suggestions of new events.
We are contactable on our email address [email protected], by leaving a note either with Mrs Murrison at the office or in our pigeon hole within the staff room.
Please also see the flyer above regarding the newly formed Inverurie Boxing Club, which is looking to recruit new members from age 7-17 years and boxercise sessions for the 12+ age group.
Many of us have boys and girls who attend Colony FC. Their fundraising committee have recently announced a 3rd Ladies Day event on Saturday 10th March 2018. Please see attached flyer if anyone is interested in going along to support this worthwhile fundraising afternoon for our football players and contact Caron Harper directly if you would like to attend.
Gail Winchester KPC.
School Closures
1. ABERDEENSHIRE WEBSITE https://online.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/Apps/schools-closures/ (the web page is re-set at 4.00pm every day to be clear for next day’s information). We recommend you register for free to receive email alerts when the school updates their closure status.
2. THE SCHOOL INFORMATION LINE calls cost approx 8p Dial 0370 054 4999 per minute peak, 5p Enter Kellands code 021940 cheap from landlines – mobile Follow instructions rates may vary
3. TWITTER/FACEBOOK twitter@kellandsps http://twitter.com/aberdeenshire
facebook@kellandsprimaryschool https://en-gb.facebook.com/kellandsprimaryschool/
4. SCHOOL TEXT MESSAGING We will use Groupcall to message all parents in the event of a closure.
5. RADIO STATIONS Out with school hours, your local radio station is a good place to find closure information. Popular stations are:
Northsound 1 Northsound 2 BBC Radio Scotland FM 96.9 MW 1035kHz FM 92.4-94.7
Original NECR FM 106 FM 97.1-106.4
Parents from rural areas should keep the school informed of weather conditions and be prepared to pick up their children if any danger is imminent. Transported children are the responsibility of the hirers, drivers and passenger assistants are aware that:
Pupils have to be conveyed to their homes Pupils can only be left at an address which has been prearranged and authorised by the parent Pupils should be taken back to school in the failure of either of the above.
If conditions deteriorate during school hours please have arrangements in place for children to be collected and signed out by an adult in the event of a closure.
KELLANDS HOLIDAY DATES
FRIDAY 9TH FEBRUARY 2018 OCCASIONAL DAY
MONDAY 12TH FEBRUARY 2018 MID TERM HOLIDAY
TUESDAY 13TH FEBRUARY 2018 IN-SERVICE DAY
WEDNESDAY 14TH FEBRUARY 2018 IN-SERVICE DAY
THURSDAY 29TH MARCH 2018 SCHOOL CLOSES FOR EASTER HOLIDAYS
MONDAY 16TH APRIL 2018 SCHOOL RE-OPENS
MONDAY 7TH MAY 2018 MAY DAY HOLIDAY
MONDAY 4TH JUNE 2018 OCCASIONAL DAY
FRIDAY 6TH JULY 2018 SCHOOL CLOSES FOR SUMMER
MONDAY 20TH AUGUST 2018 IN-SERVICE DAY
TUESDAY 21ST AUGUST 2018 SCHOOL RE-OPENS
FRIDAY 12TH OCTOBER 2018 SCHOOL CLOSES FOR OCTOBER HOLIDAYS
MONDAY 29TH OCTOBER 2018 SCHOOL RE-OPENS
MONDAY 12TH NOVEMBER 2018 IN-SERVICE DAY
TUESDAY 13TH NOVEMBER 2018 IN-SERVICE DAY
FRIDAY 21ST DECEMBER 2018 SCHOOL CLOSES FOR CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS
MONDAY 7TH JANUARY 2019 SCHOOL RE OPENS More school holidays can be found online: https://www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/schools/parents-carers/school-term-dates-and-in-service- days/