Hatton of Fintray School Newsletter

Our Values at Hatton of Fintray School: Community, Happiness, Achievement. Respect, Lifelong learning, Individuality and Everyone looking after each other.

Term Three The end of another term is quickly approaching—it has been a fast and busy term in school and I’m sure equally busy for you! During our In-service days in February, we focused on:  DYW (Developing the Young Workforce) which was an cluster event that explored the skills that pupils should be encouraged to explore, develop and implement within school. There are cluster initiatives in place including career information days for P5s, P6/7 and academy pupils. There is also a Primary Engineer Challenge planned for P4 pupils in term 4.  Big Maths— as a school, we recognise there is work to be done on mental maths and agility, and after evaluation, we established that we would adopt a whole school pro- gressive maths approach that reinforces basic skills as they are the foundation for all mathematical concepts, developing fluency, reasoning and problem solving in a fun and engaging way. As a staff we attended a training day at Meiklemill School with Ben Harding, the creator of Big Maths. We will begin this programme in detail in term 4 and will keep you informed as there will be a homework focus on quick recall of number bonds to support fluency. As I mentioned in the previous newsletter, we had a vacant post for a School Administra- tive Assistant. This post has now been filled and Mrs Laura McMillian will be joining us on March 28th. She will work Thursday and Friday and Mrs Massie will be in the office Mon- day morning, Tuesday and Wednesday. The office is manned from 9:15 to 2:30 with the exception of Monday afternoon. Mrs Mackenzie will be leaving us to begin her maternity leave next week. We wish her well and look forward to a visit once her new addition arrives. Unfortunately, her post has not been filled. I will re-post the position before the beginning of next session. However, I have made arrangements for term 4. Mrs Andrew has agreed to teach the class an addi- tional day. She will teach Monday and Friday and I will teach the class from Tuesday to Thursday. Should you have any questions, please get in touch. The Easter holidays will soon be upon us—I would like to take this oppor- tunity to wish everyone a happy and safe holiday. Calling for helpers Early next term, we are organising a three week, whole school mini topic linked to Developing the Young Workforce. We are focusing on skills for work and for life while connecting with our local area, specif- ically the Hatton of Fintray Hill Climb. We will be running a whole school program on engineering with a focus on car building (although not real ones!). We need volunteers to help support the practical side of this learning! We need people to help on Wednesday afternoons for three weeks: April 17th, April 24th and May 1st. Please get in touch with the school if you can help! ...and we need stuff! We also need resources to create and build—Pringle cans, shoe boxes, dowels, milk bottle tops, electrical tape, 2x3 or 2x4 lumber, upholstery foam, casters, rope, sanding blocks, hand saws, wire stripper, wood glue, AA batteries, balloons, paper plates and paper fasten- ers. Happy to collect or please send them into school!

Have your say... Thanks for your feedback during our recent open day. Your feedback highlighted the posi- tive learning experiences at Hatton of Fintray. During your visit, I also sought your views on our communication tools and the use of social media. The largest majority of respondents agreed that engagement is highest with our new Marvellous Me app and the school newsletters. It’s not too late to have your say, drop the school an email on your preferences or include them in the recent email I send out seeking Stop/Start/Keep ideas. Please tick the box(es) next to the communication/social media tool you would engage with most frequently. Please include any other suggestions you might have. □Marvellous Me □School Newsletter □Class Newsletter □Twitter □School Website

IMPORTANT We have a new school phone number. It is: 01224 472 920 Our old school number will be disconnected after the Easter Holidays. Our school email address remains the same.

Adverse Weather Parents Information Line: 03700544999 Pin Number 02 1860 Website: www..gov.uk/closures Open Day—February 2019 Sharing our love of Science at Hatton of Fintray School!

Thanks for joining us!

Pupil Voice Groups

This term we have established Pupil Voice Groups—these are a way to en- sure pupils are heard, have a way to contribute to school improvements, share new ideas and lead initiatives. This session, we have used our bi- weekly meeting time to design and develop a team shield and slogan and to work on House Team charities. Mrs Strachan delivered a presentation to us to start our thinking on the charities we would like to learn more about and donate to. Each House team has chosen a charity focus; they are: Berwirk-Cancer Research Kinaldie—The Heart Foundation Balbithan-CLAN Cothal— Cyrenians

Smartie Math We were pleased to use a recent fundraising initiative to sneak in a little Smartie Math— always to fun way to work on estimation, data handling, fractions, shape, etc. Have a look at what we have done!

Kids Corner

Hatton of Fintray Playground design group was wondering if you could donate some tin cans—particularly if they do not have sharp edges, so we can make the ‘Tin Can Alley’ game rather than purchase it. We would also appreciate any large garden games that you are no longer using like Chess, Jenga, or Tic Tac Toe. We would like these because we would like a few more games to play with. Alana on behalf of the school Playground Group.

PARENTS: PLEASE IF YOU LIKE FOOTBALL READ THIS!

We are hoping you like football because you could help! We need one or two vol- unteers to help us have a lunchtime football club in Laird’s Park. It could be any lunchtime that is convenient for you from 12:40 to 1:10 - half an hour of fun and fitness! There are high expectations for behaviour and sportsmanship.

If you are interested, please call the school on 01224 791 221 or email:[email protected]

Thank you for considering this request! Euan and Theo, P5

Continuing to grow our ICT skills to support learning… Thanks to the support of our FSA, the number of Chromebook computers we have access to has grown significantly—almost a whole class set. The children are becoming quite able and the teachers have commented on how quickly their skills and knowledge have grown in a short period of time. Here are some of our P5s using Kahoot Learning Games — a fun way to get a sense of a learner's knowledge. We are also beginning to roll out Do ink—an app we use for green screen filming. The children are beginning to play with it a bit to encourage independent learning and will use it to show learning in a new way.

World Book Day and French Café Thanks for participating!

Stop, drop and Read! Science and Technology Generation Science visited our school recently to offer our pupils super learning experi- ences. They were very interesting and engaging. Our P4-7 pupils took part in Robo Con- structors and our P1-3 pupils took part in Bricks and Blocks. The pupils were able to pro- gram robots to make a pen move and they also discovered how to give instructions to a robot in the Bricks and Blocks session. We hope to have them visit again!

Meet our new Junior Road Safety Officers!

The job of the Junior Road Safety Officers is to help promote road safety issues within the school and local community. We held our first meeting with the Road Safety Advisor from Aber- deenshire Council and our next meeting will focus on next steps for the group where the children will decide what our road safety issues are, arrange competitions, raise awareness through a dis- play and review the JRSO website. School Calendar 2018/2019

March

Thursday 21st P1/2 Reports Issued

Friday 29th School Reports Issued

April

EASTER BREAK 1st April -12 April Inclusive

Friday 19th Aberdeenshire Holiday

Wednesday 24th Parents Evening/Book Fair 3:30-5pm

Thursday 25th Parents Evening/Book Fair 5-6:30pm

Friday 26th Overdrive Parent Information Session provided by 2:15pm Library Service Tuesday 30th P3/4/5 Class Assembly and Showcase of Work 2pm

May

Monday 6th Aberdeenshire Holiday

Tuesday 7th P1/2 Class Assembly 2:45pm

June

Monday 3rd Occasional Day

Thursday 6th Sports Day 9:30am

Wednesday 12th P5/6/7 Class Assembly 2:30pm

Thursday 13th Sports Day back up date 9:30am

Wednesday 19th Whole School Interactive Learning Funfair 2pm

Monday 24th-Friday 28th P7 Transition week at Inverurie Academy All week

July

Wednesday 3rd Whole school trip to Aberdeen Sports Village All day

Thursday 4th End of Term Assembly 2pm (village hall)

SUMMER BREAK 8th July until 16th August Inclusive

Monday 19th August In-service day

Tuesday 20th August New term begins

School Uniform Reminder

It would be lovely to have all our children in school uniform next term. Just a reminder—it consists of school sweatshirt with logo including leaver’s jumper, a white or navy polo shirt, dark school skirt or trousers (no black jeans or leggings), dark school shoes. PE Kit consists of: a t-shirt, standard length shorts, socks and gym shoes preferably with a Velcro or elastic fastening for younger children. No crop tops please. Finally, we request that football team tops and designer garments are kept for home use as they can cause disagreements amongst the pupils. The school cannot take responsibility for items that are lost or misplaced.