Session 2021-22

Tuesday 26 October 2021

This week is due to be very Autumnal once again with frequent rain showers so definitely a week for wearing jackets.

Our P1  were the only classes able to offer a face to face parent night appointment and they happened last night and again tonight.

The other classes will be as follows - 

Tuesday 2 November P3 (Miss Hughes), P4/3 (Miss McFetridge) 3.15 – 5.15

Wednesday 3 November P2 (Mrs Lennon), P3/2 (Miss Thomson), P4 (Miss Johnstone) 3.15 – 5.15

Thursday 4 November P5 (Mrs O’Brien), P6/5 (Mr Priest), P6 (Miss MacLeod), P7/6 (Mrs Palmer), P7 (Miss Thomas) 3.15 – 5.15

These times are all approximate. Some phone calls may be made with school mobile phones so you may not recognise the number.

There may be a few parents who staff wish to see personally but they will be contacted individually.

The Halloween Parade will go ahead this year but a maximum of two classes will use the school hall at any one time – the Parade will be shown on the schools’ Youtube page. Parents are unfortunately unable to attend due to Covid guidance where they cannot be admitted to the school except for an appointment.

The plan for the day is as follows –

The children will be asked to dress up if they wish (no pressure) They should not wear anything too scary eg Scream masks. They should not have too many accessories if possible.

Each class will have a time in the Hall to- parade, dance and, if time permits, play some games (See above).

Apples will be provided, however as I’m sure you appreciate, we will be unable to ‘dook’ for apples this year. 

I'm sure our children will enjoy this type of activity once again and hopefully our parents will make themselves available for the update on their children’s progress.

Sunday 3 October 2021

Looks like the weather is going to be quite mixed this week and certainly a lot cooler than it has been, very much more Autumnal than it has been for some time. Hopefully we’ll avoid wet intervals but all children should be wearing a suitable jacket every day.

There will be four days of school this week due to the staff inservice day on Friday 8^th October. P1-3 will finish at 3.10 and P4-7 at 3pm as usual on Thursday 7 October. The week of the 11-15 October is the October week holiday which will hopefully be dry to enable our children time to play outside.

School Times
All children will return to starting school at 9am and finishing at 3pm from Monday 18 October. Hopefully this will continue from this point onwards without any interruptions as was the case pre Covid.

Football
Some of our football players have been invited to play at St Rochs secondary after school on Thursday 7 October. This will be the first football game since 2019. I’m sure the children will be very excited.

Cop26 Trip
Eight children have been selected to take part in Tree Planting at Cathkin Braes. This is part of a Glasgow Children’s Woodland project. They will be taken by bus to the tree planting site, kitted out in school wellies and waterproofs. I’m sure it will be lots of fun.

Blairvadach
We have also managed to be successful in gaining a place at Blairvadach Outdoor Centre. Our P7s will be going 6-10 December. There will be no cost as the cost will be covered by the Pupil Equity Fund. There are 48 place available.

These three events a certainly positive signs of schools eventually opening up. Certain restrictions remain but it seems that things are definitely going in the right direction.

Halloween
The annual school Halloween Parade was cancelled completely last session. This session children will be allowed to dress for Halloween if they wish. We will not be able to have all the children in the hall at the same time but classes will be able to parade one at a time. This will be filmed and added to Elmvale’s Youtube channel for you all to watch at home.
More details will follow in a letter nearer the time of the event.

Christmas
We also intend to hold a Christmas Fayre for the children only. Parents are only allowed in the building on an individual basis – this guidance remains the same.
As singing is now allowed we intend to do a Christmas Show which will be presented on the school’s Youtube chanel.

Hopefully this is a positive sign of things getting better and certainly returning us to the time when school was much busier and an even more enjoyable place to learn than it was during the very strict Covid restrictions.

Parents Evenings
These are not due to resume until March 2022 at the earliest. Staff will be contacting parents by either phone or conference call - more information to follow.

Monday 6 September 2021

The weather is going to be unusually warm for this time of year – potentially as warm as 29 degrees by Wednesday so it would seem to be another week without jackets.  It also means lots of opportunities for outdoor learning which are likely to take place in the playground but could also involve Springburn Park. However it is possible that the weather might change again from Thursday onwards with lightning – a good learning experience in itself and rain on Friday.

Today’s assembly is on a third school value – Respect and will be presented by Mr Lynn. 

P3 are reading ‘The Owl who was Afraid of the Dark’ which is a well known book and loved by children so they are going to be in for a real treat. The class will also be studying animals and their habitats. In science they will be exploring light and dark, both of which are also very relevant as we head from  Summer into Autumn and then Winter. The class will begin to learn their x tables and in Literacy characterisation. There will be opportunities to create their own characters linked to the story. Homework will be found on SeeSaw. For any parents who have no ICT device or internet please contact the school as we can help.

P2 will be continuing with their reading books and relearning their sounds. In Numeracy they will be revising numbers to 20. In Health & Wellbeing they will begin the PATHs programme.

P3/2 will be working on their sentence structure in writing and numbers 0-50 in Numeracy.

Monday 30 August 2021

Looks like it is another dry week, sunny in places, not quite as warm as last week but still an improvement on the usual rainy Glasgow!

Our second assembly takes place today at 1.30pm on TEAMs. The theme is another school value – Kindness. This value is encouraged throughout the school and is shown by our staff and children on a daily basis.

Both Primary 1 classes are learning the phonemes ‘a’ and ‘t’ in literacy. In numeracy they are investigating the numbers 0, 1 and 2. Buzzbee is teaching P1 the school values and the importance that these have within school. Primary 1 are enjoying daily visits exploring the ‘Hive’ and learning through play on a daily basis. 

Miss McFetridge  has said that P4/3 will be starting their 'healthy body' health and wellbeing topic and their 'climate change' IDL topic. In maths, we are going to be looking at the properties of 3D shapes and will also be practicing our skip counting and reading, writing and ordering numbers. In literacy, we are going to be learning how to put words into alphabetical order so we can learn to use a dictionary and thesaurus to help us with our writing. We have started learning about characterisation in writing and so need to find lots of good descriptive words to help us!

Thank you for continuing to avoid the roads directly outside of the school, it really does make a huge difference to our children’s safety.

I’m sure that this week will be another amazing Elmvale week with lots of interesting learning experiences in both the nursery and primary. Please look at our Twitter feed @ElmvalePrimary for regular updates.

Monday 23 August 2021

This will be completed each week and provide information about what is happening in class on a regular basis. It has been too long since you had access to this information. The blog will be posted on Twitter and eventually you’ll (parents & children) receive access via SeeSaw.

This week looks like a return to summer weather, Wednesday could even be as warm as 25 degrees so no jackets will be required.

Our first assembly of the new session takes place today at 1.30pm on TEAMs. The theme is one of our very important values – Determination. This value is something that is important to all of our children as it helps them continue to progress but it is also helpful to us as adults to overcome challenges in our lives.

Mr McLauchlan tells me that the Turas room will be opening soon for our core group.  We will have some pupils returning and we will be welcoming some new starts! This term, we will be focussing on our school values and establishing our morning routine. We are looking forward to challenges, activities and, of course, Mrs McClune’s famous toast!

Mrs Palmer P7/6 will be writing about setting using similes and metaphors, making predictions before reading and starting our new novel, Goodnight Mister Tom. In maths, we will be using a number of addition strategies in a variety of contexts. We are starting our new topic of WW2 and we will be focusing on how to manage stress . We are reflecting upon our personal skills and abilities and in French we will be revising greetings. 

Miss MacLeod P6 plan on getting started in earnest with reading, writing, and numeracy and will be doing this most days. We also hope to finalise our Class Charter as well as taking part in some more health and wellbeing activities, including beginning the PATHS program. 

It’s good to see the P6 & P7 starting quickly with their learning in what is only the 2^nd week back after the summer holidays.

This week primary 5 will be creating our Elmvale values display in Art, writing postcards recounting an activity we took part in during the summer and reviewing place value in numeracy. 

P4 will be working on PATHS, Capitals letters and full stops, Handwriting, Reading (comprehension), Reading strategies (focus on predicting),  what we know about climate change for our topic in T1 on COP26 

Look out next week for information from the infants.

Uptodate Covid information –

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/self-isolation-and-treatment/when-to-self-isolate-and-what-to-do/

A parent also has given us a link of how to access lateral flow tests easily –

https://www.gov.uk/order-coronavirus-rapid-lateral-flow-tests

Pick up & Drop off

Please avoid driving & parking outside the school gates as this is now a pedestrian and cycle area 8.30-9.15 & 2.30-3.15. The police are due to make spot checks from time to time.

Hope everyone has an excellent week!

Session 2017-18

Saturday 16 September 2017

Last week was 'Maths Week Scotland' in which I'm pleased to say, many of our children got involved. All of our children have access to Sumdog which is a maths and numeracy focussed computer games program and can be played at home. This is available to all of our children from primary 2- primary 7.  Research shows that when children play this game for about 1 hour a week (not necessarily all at the one time), children's understanding in maths and numeracy improves by up to 18 months. Lennon in P5 and many children in P7/6 have been doing particularly well! 

Mr Feist has kindly linked our Twitter posts to our school website (front page and individual class pages) so if you don't usually access Twitter on your phone, you can look and find out what your class is up to on the website.

We will soon be adding the termly class newsletters to each class page. Some staff are going to start a blog in place of a class chronicle which should give you a great idea about what is happening in your child's class on a regular basis.

I have added last year's Standards & Quality report which should give a clear idea  of the progress made in our school. This year's School Improvement Plan has also been added in the relevant section which shows what we hope to achieve this year.

Ms McGroarty (Principal Teacher) has been meeting Joe Brannan (Active Schools Coordinator) and will hopefully soon be announcing a variety of clubs to take place at various times in the day.

Our JRSO group attended an event at the City Chambers on wednesday and there will be another one at the end of the month. We look forward to them working with us to assist in making the school environment as safe as possible.

I'm pleased to see that most of our children are wearing indoor shoes in school and are therefore helping the school environment to stay clean and healthy for all of our children from Nursery to Primary 7.

I am looking at the possibility of providing a facility to change this website into different languages to enable all of our parents and people worldwide to find out what is happening in our school. More on this later.

Next week will be a shorter 4 day week due to the September weekend which means that the school will be closed on Friday 22nd September and Monday 25th September.

A little further ahead, our Parents' Nights will take place on Tuesday 3rd October and Thursday 5th October. Please note that most events along with holidays can be found in the News & Events section of the website. I will be meeting with Mr Casey from Springburn Parish Church next week and the termly celebrations will be added thereafter.

I would like to wish you all a successful week and a lovely weekend.

Sunday 10 September

 The letters referred to below have been delayed as a result of some technical difficulties with the photocopier. They should be issued this week.

Several staff will attend training this week - Miss Caulfield, Ms McGroarty and Ms Blevins on Tuesday, and Ms Ireland on Thursday. Mr Robertson, myself , Miss Walmsley and Mrs Houston will cover these classes in the teacher's absence.

Ms McGroarty will take the assembly tomorrow and will continue our assembly focus on friendship.

Ms James from the English Department of Springburn Academy will work with children from P7/6 on Thursday morning. Alice McCann from Action for Children will begin working in Elmvale on Thursday 14 September. She will be available each Thursday to support some of our children and their families.

Staff and pupils from Garnetbank PS will visit our Nurture Class (Turus Room) to find out what goes on in here.

Looks like it is going to be a mixed week as far as the weather is concerned with rain on Tuesday and Wednesday. Hopefully our children will still be able to play outside.

Saturday 2 September

Welcome back after our summer holidays. I'm pleased to say that we have had a very successful start to the new session.
We have two new support for learning workers and three additional nursery staff members, one of whom will work in our nursery class.

The school refurbishment is coming to a close and should be completely finished by the October week. I hope then to be able to open our new bike shed. The school itself is looking fabulous both inside and out and although it has always been an absolute pleasure to work here, the improved environment adds to the happy working atmosphere.

Several letters will be issued this week. One will be looking for an update on contact details and the other will provide helpful information for all parents over the course of the year.

I expect this to be one of our most successful years to date with many interesting educational events and activities for our children which will help them every step of the way with their learning.

Session 2016-17

Sunday 23 March

Welcome back after what seemed to be a long Easter holiday. This being our last term before the Summer holidays, there will be a lot packed into a short period of time.

Tomorrow Mrs Houston will be leading both assemblies. We will also be hearing about the successes and achievements of many of our children -

Miss Blevins entered her class into the Young Writers 'Once Upon a Dream' poetry competition and some of the pupils have been chosen from 25,000 entries to have their poems published. Poems are chosen by editors who look at things that make a good poem i.e. perception, imagination, creativity as well as expression, originality and use of language.

Once Upon a Dream - Glasgow Poets, is scheduled to be published on 30th June 2017.

 The pupils that have been selected are:

 Cassidy Ashe
Aiden Donnelly
Jana Salahal-Deen
Heather McMahon
Abbey Nixon
Albertas Viningas
Nika Gogishvili
Giovanni Ifesinachi
Aiden Byrne
Aaron Cairns

Cecily in P5/4 won a Christmas Card competition meaning that her design will be available for next Christmas. She has received a £50 voucher for the school to be spent in Home Bargains.

Alfie McLevie reached the final of a boxing event in England at the beginning of the Easter holidays and he was also in the the final of another event yesterday. I'm sure we will find out tomorrow how he got on.

Well done to them all!

 There is a planned assembly programme where each class will be demonstrating their learning to invited parents at varying dates over the next few weeks. Please take note of when your child's class assembly  takes place.

A representative from Ardentinny Outdoor Centre will be speaking, to the children who will be going on this residential experience, tomorrow at 9.30am  in the ICT suite. Mr Feist and Mrs Rowan who will be supervising the children will also be at this meeting. Any parents who are unable to attend willl receive a letter outlining relevant information about this trip.

The nursery pre school children and parents will be going by bus to Caledonian University tomorrow afternoon. I'm sure that this will be a highly enjoyable afternoon for all concerned.

The nurse will be in school on Tuesday checking the weight and height of the P1 children.

P1E visit Scotland St school on Wednesday, there is a Golf coach in the afternoon for P7 and P5/4 and there is a Parent Workshop for Maths at 5pm to which all parents are invited.

P2H go on a trip to Pizza Express as part of their Healthy Eating study. I'm sure that this will be a tasty experience!

Two members of the Parent Council took part in an interview to find a new Depute Head Teacher to replace Mrs Baker. The new DHT will be a Mr Robertson. He will begin in August.

Once again it seems to be an enjoyable but busy week. The forecast seems to be dry but cool.

Sunday 26 March

Our Drama Club performed 'Alladdin Trouble' last week over two nights in the school hall. The show was a resounding success. The children were excellent! Elmvale definitely have some talented children who could potentially have a future in singing, acting and comedy.

Mrs Rowan will be leading our assembly tomorrow.

I hope that all of our parents received a copy of the newsletter for Term 3 and an outline of the dates and times of each class assembly that will take place in term 4.

Tomorrow is the start of the infant classes return to the refurbished first floor. Please check the newsletter for details of which classes move first. The work will then begin on the ground floor, main entrance and dining hall. The work is on track to be finished by the end of June.

There are not many events this week except for our Easter Celebration at Springburn Parish Church on Thursday 30th March from 9.45am (all welcome) and our Easter Bonnet or Decorate an Egg event on Friday.  School closes to children on Friday 31 March and reopens at 9am on Tuesday 18 April. I hope that all of our children, parents and carers have a wonderful break!

Sunday 19 March

Our Drama Club performed their first dress rehearsal of 'Alladdin Trouble' in the school hall on Friday afternoon in front of P4-7. Although I didn't see the whole show, what I did see was excellent. We really have some talented children!

The first performance for parents is on Monday night (20th March) in the school hall from 6.30-8.30pm and the second being the following night, same place same time. If you don't have your tickets yet, get them before they run out.

P1-3 will get to see the second dress rehearsal on Tuesday afternoon.

Tomorrow Mrs Houston will be leading our assembly. Primary 6 will be going to the Royal Conservatoire tomorrow for a showcase performance with three other schools as part of their recent music project.

Bobby McCulloch (Road Safety Officer for Glasgow City Council) will be speaking to every class on Wednesday about the very important subject of being safe on the roads of Glasgow.

We finish the week with Red Nose Day where we will have up to 200 noses on sale. These will be sold on a first come first served basis.

The forecast for the week seems to be a little wet to begin with becoming increasingly dry as the week progresses. Please make sure that your child wears appropriate clothing for the weather. Wet intervals take place where the weather is severe. All children are expected to be outside where rainshowers are light.

Have a good week!

Sunday 12 March

This week seems a little quieter. There are just two classes going on trips with P6 going to the Peoples' Palace on Tuesday and all of our P5s going to Caledonian University on the same day.

Our first Parents' Night also takes place on Tuesday 3.30 - 6pm and the last one is on Wednesday 4-7pm. Due to the refurbishment, this event will take place in the hall on both evenings.

Our Drama Club continue to work very hard and will be performing their dress rehearsal on Friday morning. The venue for the show has been changed to the School Hall. If you haven't bought your tickets yet, please do so as soon as possible in order not to be disappointed.

The Scholastic Book Fayre will be running the whole week and books will be available to buy during Parents' Night.

P2 will be experiencing a Hindu Dance workshop on Friday morning.

All in all it looks to be another interesting week at Elmvale!

Sunday 5 March

Last week was particularly busy with many classes going on trips as part of literacy week, going to either Springburn Library or the Mitchell library to meet with authors as part of Glasgow's Aye Write (Wee Write) festival. All our children had a very productive time.

Mrs Baker will be leading her last assembly in Elmvale tomorrow  before she departs on Monday 12 March to her new job as HT of Cadder Primary. Flouride varnishing for P1-4 will take also place tomorrow.

On Tuesday, Caledonian University will be working with our Primary 5 children and the English teacher from Springburn Academy will be working with our Primary 7 children. There will also be football coaches working with both Primary 3 classes.

I will be speaking to any interested parents about the Pupil Equity Fund on Wednesday morning in the Fuel Zone. If you are unable to attend, we will also be consulting parents at our Parents' Nights the following week.

We will be organising a special assembly to thank Mrs Baker for her committment and loyalty to Elmvale Primary on Friday 10 March. Parents are invited to this event although there will be restricted access and viewing due to our refurbishment.

The refurbishment works are making good progress and it is still their intent to be finished by the summer. Considering it has taken some schools in the region of two years to improve their state, it goes to show the great condition in which Elmvale finds itself despite its age.

The weather forecast for the week seems to suggest generally dry weather except Wednesday when it will be wet. Hopefully we can avoid a wet interval.

Swimming and afterschool clubs will continue as usual.

Have a good week!

Sunday 26 February

Tomorrow is the start of this year's Literacy Week which includes World Book Day on Thursday 2nd March and coincides with Glasgow City Wee Write festival. There will be many trips so read on to find out more about our exciting week ahead.

Mrs Rowan will be leading tomorrow's assembly. P2H go off to Springburn Library soon after morning interval and P5C leave at 12.45 to find out about the famous author Cressida Cowell at the Mitchell Library.

On Tuesday 28 February, Baldy Bane Theatre company are performing a show for P6-7 in the school hall just after 9am so don't be late! Meanwhile P4M and P3W are also away on a trip that morning. In the afternoon it is the turn of P2/1 to go to Springburn Library.

Twelve P7s are taking part in an athletic day long event at the Emirates arena on Wednesday and P7F go to the Mitchell Library in the afternoon to find out about the books of Ross MacKenzie.

Thursday is World Book Day so we would like to ask our children to dress up as their favourite character from a book. Many of the staff will also be dressed up. The P1 classes will be going to Springburn Library in the morning and on Friday 3rd March P7/6 will be going to the Mitchell library to explore the works of Mark A Smith.

After school clubs will continue as usual and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra will be working with P6 for the second time and Caledonian University will be working with both P2 classes.

Tickets for the show 'Aladdin Trouble' are on sale in the school office. This show will be performed over two evenings. I'm sure that it will be a great success so whether your child is taking part in it or not, please buy a ticket and come along to show your support for our hard working young actors and actresses.

It will be once again a very busy week at Elmvale!

If you have a child in our school, you should have received the letter on Friday that our Depute Head Teacher (Mrs Baker) has been successful in a recent interview for the post of Head Teacher in the North West of Glasgow. I'm sure like the staff and I that you will be sad to see her leave Elmvale but at the same time wishing her every success in her new job.

Sunday 19 February

We start off this week with our assembly which will be led by Mrs Houston. P6S will be starting a 4 week long project tomorrow with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra who will come in and work with our children. There will be a showcase performance on the 20 March in the Royal Conservatoire Scotland at 9.30am along with 3 other local schools. It is going to be a very exciting experience for our children.  P4 & P5 after school football will continue as usual.

Individual and family photographs will take place on Tuesday and Wednesday. This will involve children from both our nursery and the primary. We are unable to involve children from home or other schools. Primary 5/4 are lucky to be having a visit from Generation Science. These scientific experiences are always entertaining as well as thought provoking. The after school infant multi sports club will continue as usual.

Primary 2/1 are currently on doing some work on owls. They have invited in a company who will bring some real owls to school and all classes will have an opportunity to see the owls for themselves. This will cost about £120 and is an example of the type of experience that is paid for using money from fund raising and the school fund in particular.

Our school has been allocated £216000 as part of the Pupil Equity Fund  which has been distributed directly to schools from the Scottish Government. There are very specific criteria that should be followed when creating a plan to spend this money ensuring that money is spent on projects where there has been research which shows a positive impact on raising attainment.
This among other issues was discussed at the recent Parent Council meeting. All parents attending this meeting were given additional information. If you would like further information, please speak to me or the parents who make up the Parent Council.

The rest of the weeks after school clubs will continue as usual. In particular, the drama group continue to work hard to put on their perfomance 'Aladdin Trouble'. It is not long until this show takes place in the run up to the Easter holidays. I'm sure that it will be excellent so I hope that as many parents buy tickets as possible when they become available.

Other events to look out for will be Elmvale's Literacy Week, World Book Day and Wee Write which is the children's version of the book festival Aye Write.

It looks like the weather forecast is wet for the week but this will not prevent what will otherwise be a great week.

Sunday 5 February

I hope that you all received the letter on Friday outlining our February weekend holiday. Unusually we have a Friday holiday (10th) as well as the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday (inservice day). All children should return to the Primary and Nursery Class at the usual time on Thursday 16th February.

The weather forecast looks as though it will be unusually dry but cold this week.

Our P3 children thoroughly enjoyed their Celtic Connections trips as did the parent helpers who accompanied them. Here are a few comments from children in P3W -
Dylan - 'It was beautiful. I liked the lady playing the piano. I didn't like the bagpipes.'
Daran - 'I liked when they played Auld Lang Syne'
Alina - 'I liked the songs and when everybody clapped. I liked all of it.'
Carson - 'I liked the songs. I didn't like when it finished.'
Daniel - 'I liked being out of school and in the concert hall but I didn't really like the music'

Mrs Baker will be leading tomorrows assembly.

Our after school clubs will continue as normal this week, football for P4 & 5s on Monday, P1-3 Multi-sports club on Tuesday, Drama, Art and football for p6 & 7. Last week saw the start of a lunchtime netball club for children in P6 & P7.

We finish the week with a coffee morning to which all our parents are invited. This is to raise money for this year's school show - 'Alladin Trouble'. It will take place in the school hall from 9.30am. I hope that you can join us in supporting this very worthwhile cause.

I hope that you all have a great holiday weekend!
 

Sunday 29 January

Our Primary 1-3 children are now setteled in their temporary classrooms. The workmen have begun the task of redecorating their old classrooms. All the works appear to be running to schedule so it is likely that these children will be returning to their new classrooms after Easter.

Happy New Year to our Chinese families! I hope that you have a good weekend welcoming in the year of the Rooster. Mrs Rowan will be leading our assemblies tomorrow with the main focus being Chinese New Year.

P3K and P3W thoroughly enjoyed their visit to the Concert Hall for the Celtic Connections event. They will be going to another concert tomorrow and I'm confident that this will be as equally enjoyable.

The SPCA will be talking to children from P4-7 tomorrow.

The Aye Write festival is not far away and several teachers have requested workshops for their classes. Fingers crossed that they are successful.

We now have several after school clubs running - Multi sports, Art, Drama, Football. It is possible that a netball lunchtime club might start up sometime soon.

Swimming will continue for P5 & P7 on Thursday.

The forecast for this week looks a little mixed with the possibility of rain on Tuesday and Thursday.

Regardless of the weather, I know our children will continue to have another very successful week!

Sunday 22 January

This will be the first full week of our P1-3 classes in their temporary classrooms while their original classrooms are refurbished. All P4-7 children have been returned to their classrooms and are very impressed with the work of the 4Rs team. Most of our P4-7 children have remembered to bring a change of shoes.

Our assemblies tomorrow involve a look at Robert Burns in preparation for our Burns celebration on Wednesday 25th January in the afternoon. Each class has prepared a song, poem or story and will perform it in the school hall. Classes will retire to their rooms thereafter and toast the Bard with Irn Bru  and shortbread. We will finish this event with Auld Lang Syne.

The Celtic Connections Festival has begun and P3K and P3W will be heading to the Concert Hall  to see the Unusual Suspects on Thursday 26 January..

Tomorrow, a representative from Glasgow City Council  will be speaking to P3W & P3K about recycling. I'm sure this will be an enjoyable experience.

The infant multi-sports after school club on Tuesday will have its first session.  I'm sure our children will have great fun!

The vegetable stand continues to sell its produce at the front entrance of the school building on a Tuesday from 3.10-3.30pm. If you wish good value, quality, fresh veg, this is the place to get it.

Looks like the weather this week is going to be dry which means our children can enjoy a whole week of intervals outdoors.

Sunday 15 January

This week sees all classes from P4-7 returning to their original rooms. Please make sure that your child comes to school with a change of shoes that will be able to remain in school each day.

P1-3 will be decanted to alternative rooms to enable their classrooms to be refurbished. These classrooms should be ready for after the Easter holidays.

The final enrolment week was fairly quiet until Friday when it seemed that everyone appeared all at the same time with about 10 families enrolling their children at this time.

Our new Depute Head Teacher (Mrs Houston) who is responsible for the nursery and the infant department will start in Elmvale PS tomorrow. I'm sure that all of our children, parents and staff will give her a warm welcome to our school.

There will be an assembly tomorrow for P1-3 only. Mrs Houston will be introducing herself to the infants at this assembly.

This will be an exciting week as the P4-7s return to lovely looking classrooms and a vastly improved toilet area on the top floor. We will be asking them for their opinions on how to organise the library and ICT suite.

Sunday 8 January 2017

Happy New Year! Welcome back! We hope that you all had a great Christmast and New Year holiday.

Tomorrow is the first day of the traditional enrolment week - it is likely that most parents will have registered their child for school in November but if not this is the final opportunity. Leaving it any later could result in failure to secure a place at any of the local schools. Enrolment times are as follows -

Drop in times on the 9th - 13th of January are :

• Monday 1.15 - 2.45pm
• Tuesday 9-11.30 and 1-2.30pm
• Wednesday 1.15-2.45pm
• Thursday 1.30 - 4pm
• Friday 9- 11.30am

Please check your child's school bags for an important letter that will  be issued on Tuesday 10th January at the latest. This concerns a number of staffing changes along with the plan for P4-7 returning to their refurbished classrooms and for the destination rooms of P1-3 in order for the refurbishment to take place on the first floor of the school.

I will be taking assembly tomorrow with the focus  being on New Year and Resolutions.

It will be once again a busy week as we prepare for the refurbishment to move from the top floor to the first floor.

Sunday 18 December

Last week four very confident Primary Six children led the drive for safer parking outside the school gates along with the Police and a representative from Glasgow City Council Road Safety department. They advised drivers of the dangers to other children about parking/waiting on the yellow zigzags as well as assisting the police with speeding drivers on Hawthorn Street with their use of a speed detection gun. They are likely to carry out this task at various different times over the next few months.

The pantomime on Wednesday was most successful as was the Nativity Show performed by the children in P1-3.

We still don't have a final total for funds raised so far from our various events but we think it is about £2000 which is safely deposited in the bank. This will be used to provide classes through the year with free educational trips.

This final week will see us celebrating Christmas at Springburn Parish Church on Tuesday 20th December from about 9.45am. We hope that you can join us.  We finish at 2.30 pm on Wednesday 21st December at 2.30pm having spent the day enjoying our classroom Christmas parties. Please note that you can send your child to school without uniform but wearing something suitable for their classroom party. Although this is a short week, I'm sure that for all of our children it will be very much enjoyable!

To everyone reading this, on  behalf of all at Elmvale, I'd like to wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! 

Sunday 11 December

Last week in Elmvale was very successful. The choir received a very generous donation for £150 from Springburn Shopping Centre - Thank you! We use almost all of our money raised throughout the year to provide free educational trips to bring learning to life for our children.

The P4-7 show was superb with all of our children singing very enthusiastically throughout the whole performance.

Our Christmas Fayre was also very well attended with many of our new Primary 1 parents through to parents and grand parents that I have known for many years. The hall remained busy until about 2.45pm. We are very grateful to the businesses who donated prizes and the very many parents who donated cakes, games, books, dvds and much more. I think that this year's event was particularly successful with a significant amount of money raised to support our children throughout 2017. Next week's blog should contain the final amount. Thank you to all who donated and were able to contribute on Friday.

Our last full week before we finish results in a week of many exciting events. We start the week off tomorrow with an assembly for P1-3 children only. The P1-3 children have been practising furiously to get their Nativity event knocked into shape and Monday afternoon sees them performing for the first time in front of an audience. Their first performance will take place on Tuesday afternoon with their final performance taking place on Wednesday afternoon. Two performances mean that there are no restrictions on numbers. I hope that you have bought your tickets what will prove to be a highly entertaining experience.

P7/6 go to an Inventor's workshop in the afternoon of Tuesday 13 December.

There is a special treat for all of our children in P1-7 on Wednesday morning - more information to follow.....at school.

Swimming for P5 & P7 will continue on Thursday as normal.

The week finishes on Friday 16th December with the Christmas Dinner in the Fuel Zone.

Don't forget our Christmas Celebration on Tuesday 20 December from 9.30am in Springburn Parish Church and our Christmas Parties on Wednesday 21 December. School closes at 2.30pm on Wednesday 21 December.

The recent update on the refurbishment of the school indicates that the work is on track with the top floor being available from about 20 January. Having seen some of the changes already, this really will be a transformation!

Sunday 4 December

The forecast for the week ahead is suggesting damp weather for Wednesday and wet for Friday. Therefore our school hall for the Christmas Fayre is definitely the place to be!

Our School Choir will be performing in Springburn Shopping Centre tomorrow from approximately 1.30pm to 2.30pm. Please come along and support our children.

The P4-7 Christmas Extravaganza rehersal will take place in the Salvation Army Hall on Tuesday 6 December from approximately 1pm. The real event will take place on Wednesday 7 December from 1.30pm. I have heard that all of our children are putting their heart and soul in their perfomance so it is an event not to be missed. I hope that you have already bought your tickets!

The Choir will perform again on Thursday 8 December but this time they will be at Glasgow City Chambers performing for the Lord Provost's Lunch. I am sure that they will continue to be a great success! Swimming will continue as usual for Primary 5 and Primary 7.

We finish the week on Friday 9 December with our Christmas Fayre. This is our major fund raiser for the year. As well as our raffle tickets that can be bought each day until Friday, there are a whole host of attractions  eg our Adult tombola and school tea room. We hope to see you there!

Our staff have been working hard to provide all of our parents with an interim report card to give you an idea of how your children are progressing. This will be issued very soon.

Tomorrow's assembly will feature Mr Feist's Mannequin Challenge along with practice of our Christmas songs. Please keep checking our Twitter account for daily updates of what is happening in Elmvale. Have a good week!

Sunday 27 November

Although the weather was cold last week it didn't stop our children from being outside and exploring the increasingly white and frosty environment. The forecast shows that this cold weather will continue although not as cold as last week and will hopefully remain dry. Keep bringing your scarf, gloves and hat to school and make sure all clothing is labelled with your name.

P5, P6 & P7 had a wonderful time at the BBC studios. I hear that Adam P5 and Tinaye P7 were on the stage? I look forward to seeing the show when it is broadcast on CBBC. We'll let you know when it is due to be shown.

There are less trips this week but if you have been following our Twitter Account you will have seen our children working hard for their respective Christmas Shows. These are not to be missed so when the tickets are issued make sure you buy them in order not to be disappointed.

I was lucky enough to be at the Concert Hall on Saturday night to see the RSNO, Aly Bain & Phil Cunningham, Julie Fowlis and Eddi Reader celebrating St Andrews Day. In Elmvale, we intend to continue to remember this day by coming to school without uniform - you may wish to come to school wearing tartan or you may wish to bring a Scottish poem/story or one you have written yourself. It is possible that Mr Feist may bring his bagpipes. Whatever happens, I'm sure our children will enjoy their day.

On Thursday 1st December, P3W will be going to the science centre in the morning and the choir will be carol singing in the Springburn Shopping Centre in the afternoon (1.30-2pm). P5 and P7 will be going swimming as usual.

All our classes are working hard to prepare for the Christmas Fayre on Friday 9th December. We have had a number of donations from the following companies so far. We very much appreciate the generosity of local businesses and I would like to thank them by listing them below -

VIP tickets from Ryze (Trampoline Park)
Tiger Speedway tickets & a meal for 4
2 Tickets for a Partick Thistle game (excluding Celtic & Rangers)
Tesco at St Rollox
The Stand Comedy Club
McDonalds Restaurant Vouchers
Ocho Spa Spray Tan Voucher
Lidl Christmas Hamper
Nisa Shop (red & white wine)
Anayas Indian Restaurant buffet for 2

We hope to receive more donations over the next few days. Please send in any donations that you have at home. We would very much appreciate home baking on the 9th December for our tea room.

I'm sure that this will be another busy week at Elmvale!

Sunday 20 November

This week's weather is due to be cold but dry so please continue to make sure that you come to school with warm clothing, gloves and a scarf. Please make sure that clothing continues to have your childs name written somewhere. There is an increasing amount of nameless clothing to be found in the janitor's office.

It was disappointing that our new bike shed has not yet been built. I've been informed that this is behind schedule. Hopefully it will be built in the next few weeks.

This week appears to be very busy for several classes in the upper school -

The week begins with P5/4 who will be leading our assembly. We hope to see many parents joining us for a start of about 9.20am.

On Tuesday morning, Primary 6 take part in the Sportshall Challenge at Springburn Academy and Primary 7F take part in a Young Inventor's workshop. On Tuesday afternoon from 2pm, we are inviting all interested parents and carers to our 'What is Dyslexia workshop'. As well as giving you information, this workshop will help you help your child's learning regardless of whether they have dyslexia or not.

On Wednesday, our Junior Road Safety Officers will be meeting the Police and the Parent Council in order to tackle the dangerous parking committed by some selfish drivers outside our school gates.

On Thursday, P7/6 go off to the Emirates Stadium for a basketball tournament during the day and the football team go off to Springburn Park to play some local teams from approximately 3pm to 5pm. We will be wishing both teams all the very best.
Primary 7 and Primary 5 swimming should be taking place as usual.

On Friday Primary 5C, Primary 6S and Primary 7F all depart for the BBC Pacific Quay studios in order to take part in a new show. I'm sure that it will be a very interesting and fun experience for all of our children. Children will leave about lunchtime and return approximately 4.30pm. Please look out for your child's letter for more accurate information.

Our Parent Council met last Friday. I'm sure that they will be able to pass on the focus of discussion amongst our parents.

We have changed the date of our Christmas Fayre to Friday 9th December. I hope that you will be able to attend and support us in raising much needed funds to subsidise future events for our school.

I hope that you all have a successful week!

Sunday 13 November

This week's weather is supposed to start off mild and wet on Monday but turning progressively colder from Wednesday onwards. Please make sure that you bring a suitably waterproof jacket for what appears to be a cold, windy and wet week ahead.

Ms Kytzia will be leading our assembly tomorrow with the focus being on Article 29 of Human Rights  Your education should help you to use and develop your talents and abilities.  It should also help you to learn to live peacefully, protect the environment and respect other people. The Ivor Goodsite prizes will be given out tomorrow and the JRSO will also be speaking, The First Minister's Reading Challenge for P4-7 will also be discussed.

On Tuesday 15 November, there will be a fruit and veg barrow in the playground. This will sell fruit and veg at cost price. Please bring additional funds as this will be a non profit making organisation encouraging healthy eating.

Our workshop on Tuesday 15 November will focus on Numeracy and Maths. It is really important that you try to attend this event. The teaching of this curricular area has changed in the last few years. The workshop should start at 2pm so I hope to see you all there. We have been improving the way that we teach Maths and Numeracy in class for the past two years. Your attendance will help your child to make good progress.

Book week is 21st to 26th November. If any parents would like to come in for Goldentime , please get in touch. Letters will be given out this week.

We are due to have a new lockable bike shelter installed on Friday 18 November. This will mean that both bikes and scooters can be locked up safely while our children work in the school building. I hope to see many more children and staff bringing their bikes and scooters and contributing to a healthier environment for all.

I would like to finish by thanking Mrs Donohue for carrying out a short survey to find out who reads this blog. I am so glad that it not just me and a few members of the management team and Parent Council who read this but it would appear to be some of our children (I'd like to think during the day!) and our parents.

I hope that you all have a great week!

Sunday 6 November
Last week the Elmvale Primary School Choir went to STV studios to sing three songs which will be shown as part of their annual schools Christmas Show. As soon as I receive word of our slot on STV Glasgow, I'll pass it on to you. Our Primary 6 and under football team also took part in a competition at Firhill Complex. They won one game, were held to a draw in another and lost the third. Considering the restrictions that they are currently experiencing at the moment with a limited playing area, they did extremely well. They all thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

The registration of all children who live in Glasgow City, whose children will be starting Primary 1 from August 2017, will take place this week. It is very important that your child is registered at your local catchment area school.

Flu vaccinations will take place tomorrow for children whose parents have agreed to this being undertaken.

On Tuesday, Nicola Miller Principal Teacher of English from Springburn Academy, will be working with the children in Primary 7. Next Tuesday she will work with P7/6.

Our Literacy workshop will take place on Tuesday 8th November from 2pm in the Fuel Zone. If you would like to find out more about how to help your child with their reading and writing, it is very important that you come to this meeting.

We will be sending a basketball team made up of children from Primary 6 & Primary 7 to the Emirates Stadium on Wednesday 9th November to take part in the Jump 2 It Tournament. I'm sure you will want to wish them well and they will no doubt thoroughly enjoy their experience.

Primary 5 and Primary 7 children will be going to swimming as usual on Thursday.

We will be finishing the week with our own remembrance assembly on Friday 11 November from 10.45am. This will involve children and staff from P4-7 only.

P4-7 have signed up for the First Ministers Reading Challenge and are currently awaiting their reading passports. Our journedy will be documented through Glow blogs linked to the website.

We are looking for more readers to this blog. One of our support for learning workers has been doing a questionnaire in the playground to remind children and parents of its existence. If you are reading this now and have found it helpful, please encourage other children and parents to read it too. We hope to give the Elmvale Community and further afield as much information as possible about what happens in our school. We are always looking for feedback and ways to improve communication. Please let us know via the guestbook, letters, Twitter, speak to the office or staff in the playground.

The weather forecast for this week seems to be dry except for Tuesday and Wednesday. Please send your child to school with a suitably warm water proof jacket.

Have a good week!

Sunday 30 October
 We had our Halloween Parade on Friday 28th October. Yet again the standard of the homemade costumes was very high indeed. I'm sure many of our children and their parents have worked very hard to create such fantastic outfits. Please have a look at our Twitter pages for more information. Twitter can be accessed via your phone @ElmvalePrimary or via our website link. If any of our children plan to go out on Monday 31st, I hope that they go with an adult or older sibling and visit homes of friends and family only.

On Monday morning, we will have a P1-3 assembly which will focus on Halloween and Fireworks along with our usual celebration of the achievements of our children.
This will be followed by a talk to P6 & P7 about the dangers of fireworks which will be presented by the Fire Service.

On Tuesday afternoon, Mr Rae (DHT from Springburn Academy) will be speaking to P7s about going to secondary school.

On Thursday P7 & P5 will be going to swimming as usual.

Next week 9-13 November will be enrolment week for all children entering Primary 1 in the session 2017-18 and who live in Glasgow. All children should register at their local school which for those who live in our catchment area means Elmvale (non denominational) or St Stephens (denominational).  I have added a link which should answer any questions that you may have about starting Elmvale here. The times for enrolment are to be found on our website under the heading of 'Starting School'. In general you may register your child each day from 10-11am or 1.30-2.30pm.

Sunday 9 October

On Friday 7 October, our Parent Council met and a number of important issues were discussed. The police will continue to be a presence outside our school to try and ensure that all of our children can cross the road safely without their sight being blocked by some selfish individuals who insist on waiting on the zigzag line or double parking outside the school gates. The school crossing on Hawthorn St will return to two lollipop people to assist our children in crossing the road safely. The Parent Council has also agreed to give £600 to the school fund to enable every class to experience one educational trip this session.

Please have a look at the work of the ICT club - their animations really are amazing. These can be found on our Twitter account (@ElmvalePrimary).

The scaffolding will be erected for our school refurbishment during the October week. All classes on the top floor will be redirected to a new location on their return after the holiday. P7 will be located in the staffroom, P6 in the nurture classroom, P4 & P5/4 will share the afterschool care & PE storage rooms, P5 will be in the downstairs nursery playroom and P7/6 will be on the first floor between P2 & P3. Cones will be placed in the playground to show where the classes will line up.

Tomorrow, P7/6 will be leading our assembly. I think that this will be a very entertaining assembly going by what I've seen. I hope that most of our parents will be able to attend. Perhaps one of our staff can film it and add to Twitter for those who cannot make it.

On Tuesday, Caledonian University will begin working with some of our P2 children, supporting them with their reading.

On Thursday, we will be celebrating Harvest at Springburn Parish Church from about 9.45am onwards. This event has been completely organised by our P4, P5/4 and P5 children. I hope that you are able to join us for what will be a very enjoyable occasion.

Although Thursday will be the last day of school before the October week holiday as Friday is an inservice day, Mr Feist will be continuing with his ICT club and will no doubt the children will continue to amaze us with their newly developed skills!

There are a number of important dates to consider in advance -

28th October will be our Halloween Parade with prizes given in most cases to homemade costumes. This event may take place in the playground if the weather is dry or inside the building if not. Parents will be invited regardless but all will need to spectate on the 1st floor. It will not be possible to go to the top floor due to the works that are being carried out.

7-11 November is enrolment week for all Glasgow Schools. Parents should register their child in the school for their catchment area. Our times of enrolment will be added to this website very soon.

The weather forecast appears to show the current dry spell continuing until at least Thursday. Fingers crossed that it will continue into next week!

Sunday 2 October

My apologies for the lack of blog material over the past few weeks but there were some technical issues which prevented me from accessing the schools' website at home. I'm sure that you will have been accessing some of the class blogs during this time - Ms Holmes and Mr Feist's in particular have been very active.

The ICT club  has begun very well with some very interested children getting fully involved in all the activities. Ms Holmes class were fortunate in receiving university students who amazed P5/4 with their scientific experiments on Friday 30 September.

The football team took part in their first friendly game of the season with an 8-0 win against a local school at Petershill Park. Although the score seems uneven, the first half finished at 0-0 and both teams appeared to play fairly similarly.

It was great to see so many parents and children volunteering their time to help us improve our school playground on Saturday. We have made a good start on the planted areas but would benefit from more volunteers assisting to make our grounds look more attractive the next time this opportunity arises.

Please look out for the school newsletter this week which will give further details of Elmvale's refurbishment.

There will be a Parent Council meeting on Friday 7 October in the after school care room at 9.30am.

Parents' Night meetings will take place on Wednesday 5th and Thursday 6 October this week. I hope that you have received your child's appointment? All meetings will take place in the school gym hall asclassrooms are preparing for the upcoming refurbishment.

P7/6 will be leading the first class assembly on Monday 10 October. P5 and P5/4 are organising our Harvest Celebration in Springburn Parish Church on Thursday 13th October. I hope that you will be able to join us at this time as I'm sure that both events will be very entertaining.

The weather forecast for this week will be dry but cooler. Please make sure that your child comes to school with appropriate clothing as classes sometimes work outside which can become uncomfortable if no jacket is available. Please make sure that all of your child's clothing has their name written on it somewhere as lost unnamed clothing is harder to reunite with its owner.

Sunday 11 September

Our Primary One children all managed their first full week in school very successfully. I am conficent that week two will be as equally successful.

Mrs Rowan will be leading our assembly tomorrow.

The two student teachers will continue to work in P7F.

The dance coach will continue to work with P2, P2/1, P5/4 and P4 on Tuesday.

Hopefully P7 swimming will resume on Thursday.

The Junior Road Safety Officers will be visiting the City Chambers on Thursday afternoon.

The forecast for the week ahead is dull tomorrow, wet on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Please make sure that you dress for the weather. Hope you all have a good week!

Sunday 4  September

Our Primary One children will be in school tomorrow for a full day.  I'm sure that they will all do extremely well.

Miss Kytzia will be leading our assembly tomorrow. The focus is Growth Mindset.

We have two student teachers joining us in P7F on Tuesday and Friday.

The dance coach will be working with P2, P2/1, P5/4 and P4 on Tuesday. I'm sure that our children will have lots of fun.

Primary Seven swimming remains cancelled but Primary Five swimming will go ahead as planned on Thursday.

The weather appears to be dry except for Friday when it will be wet. Let's hope the weather remains dry all week!

Sunday 28 August

This week appears to be dry again which means it should be possible for our children to bring their bikes to school. I have managed to do just that in 4 days out of 10 so far. We are due to get secure cycle parking in November - covered cycle and locked space ensuring that not just bikes but scooters can be left as well without needing locks.

We begin our final week before the P1 children join us full time. Your children should start to receive homework over the course of this week. P2 and P1 will receive music on a Wednesday morning from the Youth Music Intiative. P7 swimming is cancelled on Thursday as the teacher has been recalled for Jury Duty, P5 swimming will go ahead as usual.

Mrs Baker will be taking our assembly tomorrow which will continue the theme of 'A New Term'. Assembly - please click here if you would like an idea of what will be covered.

I met with the parent council on Friday. They are looking for some new members. There will be another meeting on Friday 16 September for any interested parents.

I was able to pass on some information about our school refurbishment. The parent council will be a good source of information. The first task will be to reorganise some empty classrooms. The 4Rs project plan to begin work on the top floor. The classes on the top floor will be moved to other parts of the bulding. This is not due to start until 10 October. Details to follow nearer the time.

I hope that you all have a great week!

Sunday 21 August

What a glorius start to the new term, lovely warm weather which helped in settling our primay one children very quickly. I hope that you have been following us on twitter to see just how well our first week has been.

The forecast for this week is not so good with several days of rain. Naturally this won't stop our children thoroughly enjoying themselves as well as experiencing excellent learning opportunities.

The week kicks off with our first assembly of the new session which will focus on Elmvale's vision, values and aims as shown below -

Please look out for several very important letters that are due to be issued on Tuesday. These letters contain important information about attendance, school uniform, using the school playground, and many other issues.

The school nurse will be visiting on Tuesday morning to conduct an eye test for the P7s and the P5s and P7s have swimming on Thursday.

All our staff are excited to work with their new classes and will continue over this week to get to know them better and prepare for the year ahead.

The school is due to be refurbished over the course of the year but more details will follow over the next few weeks.

I hope that you all have a great week!

Saturday 13 August

It has been a typically Scottish dreich summer as far as the weather is concerned but I hope that hasn't stopped our children using the past six weeks holiday to get outside wearing appropriate clothes and get involved in other fun learning activities.

The forecast is for lovely warm weather next week which although would have been welcome while school was closed, will help all our children and in particular our Primary 1 children, settle back into school routines.

It has been a good few months since I have written this blog but my intention is to add to it on a weekly basis for the whole of this new session.

The classes for this year are as follows -

P1H - Miss Hoy
P1E - Miss Hopkins
P2/1 - Miss Thomas / Mrs Lamberton
P2H - Mrs Lang / Miss Higgins
P3W - Miss Walmsley
P3K - Miss Kelly
P4M - Mr McDaid / Miss McCallum
P5/4 - Miss Holmes
P5C - Miss Cauldfield
P6S - Miss Szula
P7/6 - Miss Blevins
P7F - Miss Fenton

ICT/Music/PE - Mr Feist

Cones will be placed in the playground to show where each class should line up.

As many of you know, Mr Fleming left to become Head Teacher in another school. Miss Kytzia will cover the vacant post as Acting Depute Head Teacher with her remit focussing on the nursery and infant departments.

Our school is due to be refurbished this year so I'll be keeping you informed of the implications of this as the weeks progress. Our nursery class has been refurbished over the summer and looks completely transformed. I'm sure that our nursery parents and children will be delighted with the result. We look forward to a similar transformation across the whole school.

All of our staff look forward to welcoming our children and parents on Monday. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

13/03/16

It looks like we are in for another lovely week of weather, dry everyday but cold so I'm sure that our children will continue to make the most of it.

On Monday, P5 will be releasing their carefully looked after fish into the river Cart hoping that this will have a positive impact on the growing trout population of the Clyde and surrounding tributaries.
P5/4 will be leading our assemblies and showing off some of their learning. Parents are invited to this event which starts at 9.30am.

We have our parents' evenings on Tuesday and Wednesday. Laura Tuckerman from Balgrayhill Community Centre will be joining us on both nights. We will also be looking for your views on our school, please complete post it notes which can be found on each landing.

Jump2it continue their work with P7, P6 & P7/6 on Tuesday as does Caledonian University who will be working with some P2 children on a Literacy Project.

On Wednesday, Drumenergy will be working with six classes over the course of the day. P5/4 & P7/6 will be involved in athletics, tennis and rugby.

There is a football game at Petershill on Thursday after school which our football team plan to attend.
We will be celebrating Schools Autism Awareness week on Thursday and have invited Adele Kytzia (autism specialist) to speak to all interested parents about Autism. I hope that you can join us at 2pm in the school hall.

Friday will be the last day for our current teaching students - Miss Clifford, Miss Faulkner and Mr McDade. They will return after Easter and will be working with older classes in the last term.
We will also be celebrating Sports Relief on Friday - please bring 50p to wear something sporty. There will be lots of sporting events throughout the day.
Don't forget our Home Learning Support club for parents on Friday mornings.

So another busy week at Elmvale. I hope to see you at some of these events.

 6/03/16

It really has been a lovely weekend. Sunshine and blue sky both Saturday and Sunday. It really does make such a difference as we leave Winter behind and head towards Spring with its promise of long lighter nights. I hope that all our children have made the most of the fine weather and have found themselves out and about and are now ready for the week ahead.

What a week it was last week as the pictures above show. Twitter of course has a great many more and gives a real flavour of our Literacy Week and World Book Day. Some of our many special guests have left a note of their thoughts from their visits in our guest book. It really was a huge success!

Parent evening appointments were issued on Friday, please check your child's bag if you have not been given your appointment yet.

Some of our invited guests were unable to attend last week. We have the authors Janis McKay and Jo Hall coming to Elmvale on Friday 11th March and they will be speaking to P4-7 and P1 respectively. The calendar has more details about these visits. We will also be starting new maths workshops for parents on Friday 11th March. This will last for a period of 8 weeks and really is not to be missed as it will help you help your child.

P7 will be visiting the library on Tuesday 8th March in the morning and in the afternoon, Jump2it will return for their second visit and continue their work in promoting the dangers of smoking and alcohol and necessity of taking regular exercise to P6 & P7.

Four children from P6S will be going to St Albert's PS on Wednesday to take part in a Euro Quiz. We will be wishing them every success with this competition.

P2H visit Scotland St School Museum on Thursday.

So once again, it is an eventful week for the children in Elmvale Primary. Fingers crossed that the weather stays dry and sunny and we can only hope that it becomes a little warmer too.

Next week will be autism awareness week (14-18 March). Letters will be issued this week inviting parents to awareness training which is due to take place on Thursday 17th March from 2pm. I hope that you will be able to join us.

Working in Partnership

At Elmvale we are committed to an improvement agenda - please leave your suggestions for improvement here. 

28/02/16

This week is going to be very busy in Elmvale due to our exciting and very well planned by Ms Kytzia, Literacy week!

I have added the timetable to the Newsletter section of the school website underneath all of the Primary School newsletters. Everything should go as planned unless there are some unexpected cancellations.

As you will see from the timetable, we have a wide range of readers who I'm sure will be greatly appreciated by our children.

Our week kicks off with P7/6 leading our assembly. They will be introducing Literacy Week to the whole school.

The team from Jump2it will arrive on Tuesday afternoon and will work with the P6s & P7s on basketball and various important health issues.

Students from Kelvin College will begin an eight week football after school coaching club with children from P5 & P6. Names will be issued of the lucky participants tomorrow.

Thursday will be a day not to be missed where the whole school will dress up as their favourite character from a book. There will be a parade in the morning for P1I, P1R, P2M, P3E, P5/4, P5H and in the afternoon for P1S, P2H, P3G, P4B, P6S, P7/6, P7F. I'm sure that the outfits will be fantastic.

 All parents are invited to the Tom Renwick workshops on Friday. Letters have already been issued with appropriate times. These really will be fantastic, interesting and will help you help your child with their maths. It really is an opportunity not to be missed.

Please remember to tweet in pictures of your children reading in unusual places. If you take a photograph into school, please pass to Ms Kytzia. Prizes will go for the most unusual place and will be given out at the next weeks assembly.

Please remember to send in old and used books for our book stall. We hope that this will be an outstanding week of fun and excitement, everything that you can expect from a good book and that you all get behind us in promoting the importance of reading. It makes a real difference to your child's progress.

I hope to see you on Friday at Tom Renwick's workshops.

21/02/16

I hope that you all had an enjoyable February long weekend holiday. Our children certainly did and returned raring to go for the second half of this term.

The coffee morning on Friday 12th February was a great success with approx. £300 raised. Thank you to everyone who made a donation/assisted on the day or came along and enjoyed everything on offer. Your continued support is greatly appreciated.

This week starts off very well indeed as Mr Feist's class present their assembly to the whole school. I hope that parents are able to attend what I'm sure will be a very successful and interesting presentation on the Victorians. This begins at 9.30am in the school hall.

On Tuesday 23rd February, P4, P5/4 and P5 will be taking part in Science Workshops - Good Vibrations. These experiences are often great fun but provide opportunities to improve our children's science skills as well as knowledge and understanding.

The SPCCA will be visiting on Thursday and will be speaking to the upper school classes about the importance of looking after animals.

The Scholastic book fair will also be arriving on Thursday and will remain with us on Friday and the whole of Literacy week (28 Feb- 4 Mar). I hope that our children will use this great opportunity to save up and buy some excellent books.

We finish the week adding the final preparations to our Elmvale Literacy Week experience. We expect to welcome many different visitors to our school who are delighted to come and read their favourite stories to our children. This will be a very busy week with all sorts of exciting experiences planned already. A letter will be issued tomorrow with more details on what will be happening in Literacy Week and information around the possibility of making and wearing creative costumes of your favourite character from a book. It would be helpful if you could please donate old books which we can sell with all proceeds going towards buying new literacy resources.

I would also like to say a special thank you to Mandy Forsyth who has been working with P3E to create gifts for our special guests for Literacy Week. It makes such a difference when parents work closely with us to both benefit our school, our children and those who do their best to support us.

7/02/16

The focus of our assembly tomorrow will be Chinese New Year. Hopefully some of our children whose families are of Chinese origin can tell us about their own experiences either tomorrow or at our next assembly.

We have three student teachers - Miss Faulkner, Miss Clifford and Mr McDade - who begin their placements with us tomorrow and will be working in P2M, P3E and P1R respectively. I'm sure that they will enjoy the Elmvale experience.

Badminton will resume for P7/6 in the school hall on Tuesday morning. Please make sure that you have your gym kit.

The Caledonian Club showcase of the P5 and P5 from 5/4 work will take place on Tuesday afternoon. I hope that parents of these children will be able to join us.

The parents from the Elmvale Parent Council will be organising a Coffee Morning in the school gym hall from about 9.15 - 11.30am. All funds raised will go towards this year's school show - 'Alice in Wonderland'. I hope that as many of you as possible can come along and support our children in this way.

School dinners on Friday 12th February will have Valentines day as the menu focus. I'm not sure how this will translate into food but I'm sure that you will all love it!

I have added a subsection to the Parent Links part of the website and this contains an advert from Glasgow Life about improving your skills in using a computer. Please have a look for more information.

Please remember the holiday weekend - Monday 15th & Tuesday 16th February with Wednesday 17th February being an inservice day. So all children for the primary and nursery class should not return to school until Thursday 18th February. I hope that you all have a lovely mid term break.

31/01/16

We will be welcoming our new Depute Head Teacher , Mr Allan Fleming, who will begin his first day in Elmvale tomorrow. His remit will cover the nursery class and infant classes. Ms Kytzia who has done an excellent job as Acting DHT will resume her Principal Teacher remit and will teach P3E until the end of this session.

Miss McIntyre has now left Elmvale and will be replaced by Miss Park who will begin teaching P7/6 on Wednesday 3rd February. Mrs Baker will teach P7/6 until Wednesday.

Primary 6S will lead our assembly tomorrow providing us all with a clear picture of the work that they have been doing in class. There are two assemblies every Monday with the first assembly beginning at 9.20am to which all parents are invited. We will try and film each class assembly and add the film to our Twitter account. This means that all parents whether working or otherwise engaged will be able to see what is taking place in their child's class. The dates for every other class assembly have been added to the school website calendar section.

Primary 5H will be visiting Caledonian University on Tuesday 2nd February to continue their project on Scotland. There will be a presentation on their work on Tuesday 9th February to which all parents are invited.

Joe Brannan our active schools coordinator is providing us with a football club from 8.15-8.45am in the school hall on a Thursday and Friday. This should provide a warmer and drier experience particularly for those of our children who arrive at school early in the morning.

There were some very strong winds on Friday morning but I'm pleased to say that most of our children came to school and all of those children had no difficulties at all. If Glasgow City Council keeps its schools open, then it considers it safe to send children to school. Our Winter weather seems to be increasingly stormy, with more strong winds due on Monday 1st February. Keeping your child off school because of the weather is not going to be good for your child's progress in learning.

I look forward to seeing all our children tomorrow. The week will start off brilliantly with the excellent P6S assembly and I'm sure will go from strength to strength from there.

Have a great week!

24/01/16

We wish everyone a happy and healthy 2016 and look forward to another busy year ahead!

January newsletters for the nursery and whole school were issued this week. Please see a copy here. 

Primary 1 Registration for starting school in August 2016 has now taken place. If you have still to enrol your child for starting school in August 2016 or you know anyone else whose child is due to start school, then please contact the school office to arrange an appointment.

Parent Council Meeting took place on Friday 22nd January. Mrs Higgins spoke with council members regarding the school show, Alice in Wonderland in May. Laura Kennedy from Glasgow Life was a guest speaker who is working with council members to deliver parent/carer maths workshops commencing in February. Please look out for posters around the school and on the PC notice-board coming soon!

Tartan Day and Robert Burns Birthday, Monday 25th January - All children are encouraged to wear something tartan tomorrow to celebrate Robert Burns our National Baird's birthday. This can be a scarf/hat or a ribbon - no need to go and buy something new please. We will enjoy a Scottish themed lunch in the Fuel Zone and we're looking forward to some classes performing at a special celebration Assembly. Mr Feist will pipe our children into the hall and afterwards we'll also be having a wee Scottish beverage (and maybe a highland fling) to celebrate!

Caledonian University will be working with the children in P5 on Tuesday 26th January. This will be a thoroughly enjoyable experience for all concerned and a further update on their achievements will be posted next week.

Cabinet Secretary Keith Brown will be visiting Elmvale Row on Wednesday 27th January. Ms Kytzia met with Catriona Rowe from Scottish Water this week and we are excited to announce that four of our winners from the Health and Safety competition have been asked to meet him. Letters will be sent out to parents/carers on Monday for consent for this visit as the BBC will be filming. 

Lost Property and PE kits: Parents/carers were invited in before the end of last term to retrieve items from the 'mountain' of lost property. PE kits were also sent home for washing and checking that children's gym shoes/trainers still fit. Please ensure that all PE kits including shoes are returned. In addition please ensure that you name all items of children's clothing and belongings, thank you. 

Mid-term holiday: School will be closed on Monday 15th and Tuesday 16th February for the Mid-term holiday. In addition school will be closed to pupils on Wednesday 17th February for In-service.

Committed to an improvement agenda - if you have any suggestions on how to improve our school - please leave a message in our Global Guestbook and we will act on your advice.

Please follow us on Twitter for updates @ElmvalePrimary and our school website will be updated shortly.

Working in Partnership

15/11/15

It was lovely to meet so many of our new P1 parents for session
2015-16 last week. We look forward to working with you all next year.

For those of you who follow us on Twitter, you'll be aware of the hard work of our children, parents and staff (and their families) in their efforts to improve the playground environment on Saturday by removing many weeds and planting various flowers, bulbs and small trees. Thank you so much for your hard work as the results are stunning!

I received an email from the North Area Committee which has approved a grant of £2500 which will be used to subsidise the P7 residential trip to Ardentinny Outdoor Centre. This will be much welcome news to our P7 parents coming as it is just before Christmas. A letter will be issued this week, outlining the total cost for each child. If any parent has paid the total cost already, the difference will be returned to you.

Scottish Water will be visiting us at our assemblies tomorrow (not last week), to announce the winners of the 'Building Site Safety' posters. These winning pictures will form the murals which will be added to the hoardings surrounding their site.

The Pupil Council will be sharing their improvement suggestions from the whole school at our Open Mic session tomorrow.

All parents should have received their Bingo Cards by now. Please remember that these must be returned to school by the 14th December.

Our Infant Department & Nursery have started practices for 'A Wriggly Nativity. Letters will be sent out this week to invite parents and carers to this event.

Ms McMullan's last day before going on maternity leave was Friday 13th November. We wish her all the best at this time. Mr Craig will be taking over her timetable tomorrow (Monday 16th November) and will remain as a member of staff until Ms McMullan returns.

Miss McIntyre  (P7/6) has been selected for jury duty and will remain absent for the duration of the trial. Ms Kytzia and Mrs Baker will be covering her class until she returns. 

The P7 girls will be at swimming on Thursday and P4B will continue to receive Rugby coaching.

The afterschool football club on a Tuesday for P5&6 will continue as will the Lacrosse club on Friday.

Unfortunately the weather looks like it will continue to be wet so make sure you come to school appropriately dressed.

Have a great week!

8/11/15

The weather forecast for this week is due to be similar to the weather this weekend - wet and windy. Please make sure that your child comes to school with suitable clothing - waterproof jacket or coat and wellingtons. It may be dreich outside but our school will be as warm and welcoming as ever!

Last week, our Primary Six and under football team missed out by 1 point in going through to the next round of the Soccer Sevens football event. They have they look of a very successful football team for the future.

The Lacrosse after school club started on Friday 6th November. We had a number of very excited children taking part along with Mr Feist. I have to admit that I know little about Lacrosse so understand Mr Feist's interest in becoming involved. I'm sure that they will all have a fabulous time over the coming weeks.

Tomorrow is the start of Enrolment Week where all residents in Glasgow register their children who are due to start school in August 2016 in their local catchment area school. We look forward to welcoming many new parents and children to the Team Elmvale Family. Please read important information on starting school here and frequently asked questions here. We have paper copies available at the school too. 

Scottish Water will be joining us at our assembly tomorrow morning to tell us about the murals that will be added to their perimeter fencing. These murals were designed by our children.

Caledonian University will be continuing their work with P2 and their Digital Book Project.

Elmvale will be conducting a Remembrance Event on Wednesday 11th November but this will involve the children and staff only. Mr Harvey will be playing the 'Last Post'.

Mr Feist has been working hard with a P1-5 choir as we have the opportunity of taking part in a television broadcast. More information on this exciting opportunity next week.

Ms McMullan will be going on maternity leave on Friday 13th November. We wish her all the very best and look forward to hearing about her new arrival. Mr Craig who worked in Elmvale a year or so ago will take over Ms McMullan's classes and we would like to wish him a very warm Elmvale welcome for when he starts on Monday 16th November.

Can you believe there are only six more Sunday's until Christmas? On that theme - a couple of members from our supportive Parent Council will be distributing Christmas Challenge Bingo Cards around all classes tomorrow with Ms Kytzia. This is an exciting opportunity for your family to win £50 worth of cinema tickets. There are two cards: Nursery-Primary 3 and Primary 4-Primary 7. Good luck Team Elmvale - you have to be in it to win it!

I hope that despite the weather you all have a wonderful week!

 25/10/15

We are all very proud that Elmvale featured in the Times Educational Supplement ( a leading Educational Newspaper) as being the third  equal  school in Scotland to have the most followers on Twitter. For our many visitors to this website and blog, if you would like to see what goes on in our excellent school on a daily basis, please follow us @Elmvaleprimary

Elmvale has yet another busy week ahead.

On Tuesday, the Caledonian University Club will start to work with our P2 children on their Digital Books. I am sure that it will be a great experience for all those involved.

Mr Feist will be going with the Elmvale Choir to the STV Studios to perform 3 songs. Elmvale will be one of many Glasgow schools to take part in STV's Christmas Special. You will be able to see our children performing on STV on Christmas Day in the comfort of your very own home (if you live in Scotland). I'm looking forward to it already!

Staff from Ardentinny Outdoor Centre will be coming to talk to our P7 children and any interested/available P7 parents. This should help to give our children and parents a very clear picture of what to expect and provide an opportunity to ask any questions. This will also take place on Tuesday.

Our parents from the Parent Council will be meeting to discuss possible fundraising events on Wednesday morning. We look forward to hearing all their great ideas to help our school continue to raise money.

There will be a Soccer 7s competition on Thursday from 1-3pm at the Firhill Complex for the P7 and possibly P6 players who make up our football team. I'm sure that you would like to join me in wishing them every success.

We end the week with our Halloween Parade.
The first one takes place from 9.30am and will involve the morning nursery children and all the classes from P1-3. If you would like to watch, please remember that you must use the balconies, prams should be left with the janitor or in the PT room and that all emergency exits must be clear.
The second one takes place from 1.30pm and will involve afternoon  nursery children and all classes from P4-7. The same procedures apply in the afternoon as they did in the morning.
Prizes will be awarded to homemade costumes and where there are no homemade costumes, to the most creative appearance.
Please remember that there should be no Scream masks or any mask that could make young children frightened. I'm sure that this event will be great fun and will be fantastic for any parents stuck for ideas for their own Halloween events.

Have a great week!

3/10/15

Last week the Social Enterprise Group were superb in assisting the launch of this year's Social Enterprise for the City. They were commended on their presentation skills. Well done!

We have a very busy week ahead of us -

There is African Drumming coming to the school all day on Tuesday. Some of this will be workshops and some will be demonstrations.

Our Harvest Celebration will take place in our newly refurbished school Hall on Wednesday 7th October. All parents are invited but please be advised that seating is limited with standing room only on the first and second floor balconies. P1-3 will start approximately 9.30am and P4-7 will start approximately 10.15-10.45am. P3 will be entertaining us with their version of the 'Enormous Turnip'

Our first parents' nights will take place on Wednesday 7th and Thursday 8th October, 3-6pm and 4.00 - 7pm respectively. If you do not have your appointment yet, please contact the school.
Zoe Chatterton from Caledonian University will be in our school on Wednesday 7th October from 3.30-4.30 and will be pleased to talk to parents about the possibility of starting an Open University Course with the Caledonian Club.

Gregg Cann and Ms Kytzia will also be handing out flyers at the parents' night regarding an exciting partnership programme to develop a Growth Mindset Culture at Elmvale and Our Community. We will also be asking parents their views on what workshops they would find useful this session and how they can become more involved in their children's learning.

 The class which has lined up the best since August and has won the most Line points will be going on a trip on Friday to the Leisure Centre as a prize. The two winning classes will be announced at the Harvest Celebration. Greg Cann from NG homes has very kindly organised this special treat.

The next Parent Council meeting will take place on Friday 9th October at 9.30pm. Please note that this meeting will be looking to assign  parents to some of the vacant positions currently available in our Parent Council. Our Parent Council will be working with the school to improve the educational experiences of all our children. Parent Council meetings will not be dealing with fundraising events as this will be taken forward by a separate group. If you wish to be part of Elmvale's Parent Council and work with us to improve our school from an educational perspective, please join us and leave your name at the office in order for a space to be made available for you.

 The weather last week was probably better than during the summer and it would be great to think that it will continue but sadly I think we'll begin to see more Autumnal weather next week. Please send your child to school with the appropriate clothing for the weather and don't forget to put his/her name on it. If it goes missing, it is so much easier to find. There is a huge amount of discarded uniform already!

Please keep checking Twitter for an update of the exciting learning experiences in Elmvale Primary School.

Please remember that if you wish to discuss something with a class teacher, an appointment must be made at the office. Parents should not approach staff in the lines. This is a safety issue. They must concentrate only on the children.

Friday 9th October will be our last day before the October week holiday. The school closes at 3pm as usual. I'm sure that this will be an exciting week of learning for our children and if I don't see you at any of the events in our school this week, I'd like to wish you all the very best during the October week and look forward to welcoming you all back on the 19th.

20/9/15

Our school website was started in 2006. We have almost had 100000 hits in this time and as we know, 76 countries are interested in what we do. Our school Twitter site gives more regular updates on what is happening, has been up and running in the last year and already has over 2000 people following. We believe that Elmvale Primary & Nursery Class is a very good school and is well on its way to excellence. We are pleased to share our successes with our own parents, the local community and further afield. We will continue to celebrate our schools' achievements using whatever technology is available. We hope that you enjoy our postings and please use our Guestbook for your own comments.

Judo Taster Sessions
Several classes experienced this during their PE sessions.

PEEK Project
All of our children were involved in this which helped to make our intervals more fun and enjoyable.

BBC Scotland Learning Visit
On Wednesday we had a visit from Claire O'Gallagher from BBC Scotland Learning. Claire has been following our adventures on Twitter and enjoyed a tour of our school with Mrs McClune and some of our children from various clubs and committees. She reported very positively about her visit and found it to be really insightful. She will be spreading the Elmvale word around her colleagues and commended the fantastic work of our children and team. We look forward to working in partnership with the BBC during this session. Go Team Elmvale!

BBC Studios - 'The Dog Ate My Homework'
P7F & P6S went to the BBC studios on Friday to make up the audience for the Christmas Special for this popular CBBies show. If you generally like making a fool of yourself, then this trip was for you! There were lots of opportunities for dancing (in front of the camera), shouting out and generally immersing yourself in silliness for several hours. It was an interesting experience for our children in understanding how programmes are made. The show lasts 40minutes on screen but took about 3 1/2 hours to make. We will be informed prior to the Christmas holidays when the show will be aired. I'll be hoping that the Christmas hat is a good disguise!

Additional Languages
We have struck up a link with a school in Southern Spain, not far from Barcelona. Ms Hutchison will continue to teach basic Spanish to some of our children. She will also be introducing Spanish pen pals to the children in P6S. Who knows, this could result in a trip to Spain at some point in the future?
We will be welcoming Mr Kurt Brausch to our school on Tuesday who will be introducing German to P3G. Elmvale embraces the Scottish Government aim of 1+2 languages.

Science Centre Visit
P6S & P6 from 7/6 will be visiting the Science Centre for a full day on Thursday 24th September as part of a project organised by Caledonian University 'Water for All'. I'm sure that they will have a wonderful day!

ICT Surgery
We are delighted to announce that the launch of our new ICT Surgery on Thursday between 3-4pm was a success with new parents/carers following our Twitter account as a consequence. If you want to get better at using Twitter, or the school website, to keep up to date with what is happening in the school - then please pop along. Likewise, if you are struggling to set up your own account or don't know how to keep yourself or your child safe online, then Mr Feist will be happy to answer all of your questions. Please view Elmvale's Social Media Policy here and GCC's Social Media Guidelines here.

Nursery Project - 'Bertie Book on Twitter'
We hope you have been following the nurseries exciting literacy project with children's writer and illustrator Jo Hall, @JoJoGnome. We were excited to see this project being featured in her recent blog here. A special thank you must go to Elaine, our CDO, who led this project for Elmvale Nursery Class in collaboration with Jo. Please keep following our Twitter page to see the children's responses on this project. The talented Jo Hall has pulled all of our photographs and her illustrations together for us to enjoy, 'Bertie Book - A story in 11 tweets!' here. 

P2H Sculpture Project
Lauren Currie from Glasgow Sculpture came in to visit Primary 2H and Mrs Higgins and Ms Hoy this week. They will be taking part in an exhibition of the sculptor Nicolas Deshayes, by creating sculpture based around his work and moving around the studio to music. We will keep you up-dated on this exciting project.

Assemblies
We look forward to Ms Ireland and some children from Primary 1 sharing our 'Sign of the Week' for 'Makaton Monday'. Makaton is a language programme using signs and symbols to help people communicate. It is used by many people who find it difficult to use verbal communication and is designed to support spoken language. At Elmvale we introduce 1-2 signs and symbols a week in both the Nursery and Primary 1 to support all children to develop communication, language and literacy skills. Please view a helpful You Tube clip on some Makaton signs we have been learning here. 

Growth Mindset
Thank you to P6S for sharing their positive thinking and motivational quotes with us this week. These can be viewed on our school Twitter account and on P6S' class page. P1S have been nominated for next week. We look forward to their responses!

Head Teacher Hot Seat
We hope you enjoy our monthly Head Teacher Hot Seat. For the month of September, Mrs Etherington and P3E have volunteered to see if Mrs Baker, our Depute Head, will keep a cool head in the hot seat! Please view previous blogs here. 

Health Improving School
Elmvale is a Health Improving School and all of our children have ready access to chilled drinking water. Water is available from a chiller in the dining hall and classrooms also have large bottles provided from Scottish Water. Please encourage your children to bring in their water bottles every day to keep them hydrated.

Uniform
Thank you to all families for supporting our drive to encourage the wearing of school uniform. We have uniform items in stock if you are short of an item. Please ask at the office and our staff will be happy to help you.

A Message From Cordia
"Fuel Zone is the catering service provided in all Glasgow primary and secondary schools. The service is provided by Cordia who are part of Glasgow City Council. We offer a great value service where children can enjoy a tasty and healthy lunch in our vibrant dining areas.
We offer a choice of three options each day and menus run on a three weekly cycle, allowing children to experience a variety of meals. We can also cater to specific dietary requirements including Halal, vegetarian and special medical diets.
All primary 1-3 children can enjoy a free lunch, while primaries 4-7 can receive a three course meal with a drink from only £1.70.
Throughout the year the Fuel Zones are transformed for fun theme days celebrating different events in the calendar. Popular theme days include the annual Burns Supper and international theme days which provide an educational and enjoyable experience to children.
We hope your children join us in the Fuel Zone for a fun and healthy lunchtime.
For more information including full menus join us online at www.fuelzoneprimary.co.uk and follow us on Twitter:@FuelZoneGlasgow.
To find out more about Cordia watch the video "Who we are and what we do" at www.cordia.co.uk/About-Us."

We currently have posters up in our school advertising our Italian theme lunch on Thursday 24th of September. Please follow our Twitter account @ElmvalePrimary for photographs of this fun event. 

September Weekend Holiday
Please remember that this is a short week - school closes at 3pm on Thursday 24th September and reopens at 9am (8.35am for the nursery class) on Wednesday 30th September.
We may be on holiday but keep in touch as it is always good to Tweet!

Working in Partnership

13/9/15

Our visit to the Goethe Institute two weeks ago turned out to be very beneficial as we enrolled our first German speaking family this week. Our children have been very enthusiastic about learning phrases like -
Ich heiße ...., Ich möchte gern Ihr Freund sein. I'm sure these children will settle very well in our school and will help our English speaking children in learning another language.

I have been regularly looking at our school Twitter site and it really is fantastic to see so much going on in Elmvale - we now have several classes with their own individual pages eg P7/6, P6S, P1S and P7F. P1I will be joining our tweeting classes this week. Claire O' Gallagher from BBC Scotland Learning has been following our adventures on Twitter for a while and is coming in to speak with us and see some projects. This is an exciting opportunity for Elmvale to highlight the positive power of Social Media. We truly believe it can change our classrooms by giving you a real sense of what children are thinking, easy access to in-the-moment materials, connecting the classroom to people making a big impact, globalising our classrooms, connecting families and our children think about lessons outside the classroom. We are excited to start class blogging to further connect with our community and the big wide world.

Thank you to P7/6  for sharing their excellent positive thinking posters and motivational quotes. This week P6S have been nominated to share theirs to further develop a growth mindset culture across our school and this will begin at assembly tomorrow.

Jo Hall ( a children's writer and illustrator who visited us last year during World Book Day) has set up a project with our nursery class to write a short story. She has tweeted the story starter with a male character. This will help to encourage the boys to become more interested in books.

Tom Renwick has been supporting Numeracy with P7/6 and has set our first problem solving 'weekend task'. We're looking forward to hearing which strategies and thinking our children have applied. In his words, "Numeracy, let's actually get excellent."

On Friday 18th September P6 & P7F, myself and an additional 3 helpers will be going to the BBC studios to be part of the audience for 'The Dog ate my Homework'. This will be an out of school hours event as we will not be returning until about 6pm. It should be entertaining and beneficial for our children, many of whom are interested in TV / acting / drama etc.

Keep following us on Twitter where you will see that it will be a busy and educationally exciting week in Elmvale!

6/9/15

Unser Besuch des Goethe-Instuts letzte Woche war ausgezeiehnet -(Our  visit to the Goethe Institute last week was excellent). Our children knew names of cities as a result of knowing football teams but other than that their knowledge of Germany was limited. They left knowing significantly more eg Germany invented the first car, Haribo gums come from Germany and they also picked up some German phrases eg Guten Tag, Ich heisse......... , etc. Thank you to the Goethe Institute for a very informative and motivating experience.

We will be continuing with the theme of Growth Mindset and the power of positive thinking tomorrow. We look forward to motivational speakers visiting the school later this term to work with our Valers on positive thinking and meditation workshops.

P7/6 will be sharing their positive quote of the week with us on their new class Twitter page. Please could all our parents sign the class contract to keep us all internet safe. This term we have piloted three class Twitter pages in P7F, P7/6, P6S and P1S commencing this week for improved communication with parents and to further  celebrate success and achievement. We are extremely proud of our carbon footprint and the growing numbers of parent / carer followers. Incidentally we are not far off 100000 hits on our website and with visits from 75 countries worldwide!

Thank you to our parents for a very successful 'Meet the Teacher'. We were delighted with the 40 parents attending which is the best attendance yet! Thank you to Mrs Miller for arranging 8 translators / interpreters for the day. Feedback has been extremely positive - please see the results of our audit here. Information packs were sent home with a P1 curriculum newsletter, Turus room pamphlet, parent council Twitter/Facebook card for parents / carers who could not attend. Please view our Primary 1 curriculum chat power-point here.

Our Tweet of the Week was Hadil in P7F. Well done in using English very well so quickly!

Could all infant parents please stand behind the white lines.

Please send your child to school with a healthy snack and water. Some children have brought energy and fizzy drinks, both of which are banned. We have some children who suffer from nut allergies - please do not send your child to school with a snack containing nuts.

There should be no dogs of any size in playground nor should any smoking take place in any part of the playground or near any of the gates - we expect as you do that your children experience a happy and healthy time in our school.

We are all very excited at the prospect that tomorrow will be the first of many full time experiences for our P1 children. I'm sure that it will be a great success.

Please hand in any empty washing up bottles for active literacy activities and old mop poles to transform into magic counting sticks for active numeracy workshops.

On Thursday, our school football team will be playing their first match at Petershill Park. I'm sure that you will be joining me in wishing them all the best!

The weather forecast suggests that the week will be dry. I'm sure that it is going to be an exciting week!

 Session 2015-16

30/8/15

There seems to be a rumour going around that there has been a fire and break-in at Elmvale. Nonsense! Someone out there has a very vivid imagination!

Tomorrow we look forward to P7 and P7/6 visit to the Goethe Institute in Park Circus where all our children will be going on a German Adventure. I'll be accompanying them so more on this next week.

Monday's assembly will be on the power of Positive Thinking and Growth Mindset. P6S will be sharing their learning on mindfulness and how they've been practising mindfulness breathing. P7F will pilot our new Positive Thinking quote of the week with each  class taking a turn weekly. Our whole school will be working on using positive speech to better aid how we learn and approach new challenges. Please view Ms Kytzia's assembly on Growth Mindset here.

We look forward to the nursery enrolments on Tuesday in my office and welcome some new children at the same time.

We are looking forward to seeing familiar faces at our P1 'Meet the Teacher' on Thursday. A curricular newsletter will be issued on that day. We have also booked some translators / interpreters as Elmvale is proud of the many cultures that make up our school community.

We are always looking for new parents to join our Parent Council. The next meeting is on the 9th of October. It would be great to see many new parents at this meeting. A representative from Cordia will be present to talk about  Fuel Zone choices.

Please return any consent and medical forms as soon as possible. Remember to phone the hub if your child is unwell and not Elmvale. The phone number is on our Twitter account - @Elmvaleprimary.

I'm sure this will be a great week - Positive Thinking is working already!

23/8/15

It seems that the weather has improved this summer since our children and staff have returned to school. What a wonderfully sunny weekend we have just had this week and last week. I hope that all our children have made up for the cold summer holidays and been out and about much more recently.

Elmvale has got off to a great start - the recently painted and reglazed hall really does look magnificent. All our children enjoyed their first assembly of the session in this hall. They said it was lovely, beautiful, fantastic, amazing, cool etc. Our assembly tomorrow will take place in the hall once again. The scaffolding in the playground should be removed and all parents will be able to once again walk around the side of the building.

Scottish Water have done a fabulous job trying to fit in with the life of the school and have reopened Fernbank Street.

We have introduced a new award/ recognition of achievement on Twitter - Tweetoftheweek. Cruz in P4B was successful for using her initiative and picking up litter despite it not belonging to her in the first place. It is good to know that our P4s care for the local environment.

The children in our P1 classes have settled very well as have a number of new children who have joined Elmvale from a wide variety of places. I'm sure that they will enjoy the Elmvale experience as much as we do.

Our first Parent Council meeting of the new session took place on Friday. It was good to welcome a number of new parents.

I'm sure that this week will continue to be excellent with lots of interesting learning experiences taking place across the school.

WELCOME BACK!

Tomorrow (13th August) will be the first day of the new school year where we will look forward to meeting all of our new primary one children and their parents and welcome back our returning children. Can't wait!

We now have a new double glazed glass roof above our gym hall and the whole central part of the inside of the building has been repainted. It looks fabulous! The workmen will be finished soon with the playground and gym hall returning to normal in about two weeks time.
In the meantime all P1-3 children should enter the infant playground using the Elmvale Street gate.

We look forward to next year when all our windows are replaced and the whole school is painted.

Scottish Water have been working hard to complete the work on the roads outside the school. They should be finished in the next few weeks. If you are travelling by car to school, please allow extra time for your journey as I expect there will be a considerably increased volume of traffic making waiting times at the temporary traffic lights much longer. Cars should use Memel Street in order to drop their children off in Elmvale Street. The Traffic Police will be present should we need any further assistance.

The Lollipop person will be standing sightly further along Hawthorn Street on the opposite side of Fernbank Street. Your children will continue to be safe crossing the road in order to get to Elmvale Primary.

All of our staff are just as excited about meeting and getting to know their new classes in the same way that all of our children are excited to get to know their new teachers. I know that tomorrow will be lovely memorable experience for us all.

21/6/15

This will be the last blog of session 2014-15 as the summer school holidays begin on Wednesday 24 June from 1pm.
Last week our Prize Giving was particularly successful with many children receiving some well deserved awards for their hard work this session. We also celebrated the retirement of on of Elmvale's longest serving teacher's ever - Miss Davidson who has spent the last 39years working in our school. We introduced a new award - the Davidson shield in her honour - which will reward children for their positivity. Casey from P2 was the first child to receive this award. Some of the highlights of this event can be found on our twitter account.

On Friday, all our classes from P2-P6 had the opportunity to meet their new teachers for session 2015-16. This seemed to be a great success. The P3s were pleasantly surprised to get the same teacher!

Tomorrow will be the last assembly of the year in the Salvation Army Hall.

Our picnic in the park is gearing up to be a fantastic event as a result of the input from lots of different groups such as NG homes. We appear to be lucky with the weather forecast which suggests that the weather on Tuesday is to be dry and warm! This will make a lovely change from the wet, windy and cold weather of late.

We finish on Wednesday 24th June at 1pm. We will be unable to finish with our usual countdown in the hall due to the scaffolding but perhaps we can finish with something similar on the balconies.

I hope that you all have a lovely summer, that the weather in Glasgow improves significantly and I look forward to welcoming you all on Thursday 13th August!

14/6/15

Summer at last reached Glasgow last week with some lovely warm days from Monday to Friday. Many of our classes made the most of it by engaging in outdoor learning in the playground. My P6/5 class which I take for PE on a Friday teamed up with 10 P5s from Miss McLaughlin's class and took on P6 at a game of rounders. Almost all the children made the most of the opportunity and had a great game.

On Monday, Scottish Water spoke to our children at assembly in the Salvation Army Hall and warned them of the dangers of entering their site. They must wear protective clothing to keep them safe at all times. The flood prevention scheme will involve digging a hole 20m deep. Who can be the first to tell me where 20m is in relation to the height of our school building? Or would our school need to be taller?

The P7s attended their leavers dance in the Salvation Army Hall. This turned out to be a great venue as there was plenty of space for dancing along with a permanent stage to see our children receive an award to help them remember their time spent in Elmvale whether that be for 9 years or a few months. Our children arrived wearing suits, kilts and evening wear and they all looked very smart indeed. Many of our staff turned up along with former members of staff such as Mrs MacLeod to take part in the fun and entertainment. All our children had remembered their Scottish dances very well from the Gay Gordons to the Canadian Barn Dance. Thank you to our parents, staff and children for making this evening so successful.

Some of our Enterprise group went to Edinburgh on Thursday 11 June in relation to the 1st place Dragon's Den competition. They went by train and were away for the whole day.

Our second Parent Council meeting took place on Friday 12 June and there was much discussion about various issues. The minutes of this meeting will be added to our school website.

On Wednesday 17 June, 8 of our P6 children will take part in a programming event at Caledonian University. I'm sure that the children will have a very enjoyable day.

Our Prize Giving will take place on Thursday 18 June from approximately 9.45am in Springburn Parish Church. As well as celebrating the success of our children it will also be an opportunity to thank Miss Davidson for her dedication and commitment to the children of Springburn as she will be retiring after a period of 39 years at Elmvale.

On Friday 19 June, our children will have an opportunity to meet their new teacher.

I hope that you all have a good week!

31/5/15

This week will continue the rather unseasonally cold, wet and windy weather on Monday and Tuesday but from then on the weather is due to get warmer with perhaps a temperature of 15 degrees celsius by Friday. That still doesn't sound warm but it will be decidedly better than what we've had so far!

Our Emirates Sports Day experience was a resounding success. Some children said 'it was the best day of their life' or 'they would like something similar every week'. Many of our staff and parents commented very favourably on the success of this event. Please have a look at our Twitter account for more information.
All the photos taken of this event can be found in the gallery section of our school website including one of me (I'm sorry to say!) skipping while demonstrating how to do this to some P4s.

Our award ceremony for this event is due to take place on Thursday 4th June in the Salvation Army Hall from about 9.15am.

The P4 enterprising group have been awarded a prize of a 'Barge Party' on Friday 5th June to reward them for all of their hard work. Well done the Social Enterprising Group.

This week will begin with our assembly which will once again take place in the Salvation Army Hall. We are very grateful to the Major for making this venue available to us.

Our second P1 induction will take place on Wednesday 3rd June. We hope to see all our P1s and there parents present at this very important event.

Our P7s will make their way to Springburn Academy on Tuesday 2nd and Wednesday 3rd for their two day induction. I'm sure that they will impress all with their good behaviour and positive attitude to work.

26/5/15

Today we had our first whole school assembly in the Salvation Army Hall. The windows in the roof of the school hall are being replaced as part of the 4Rs programme which will eventually see all the windows in our building replaced.

The main theme was  our Emirates Sports Day event which will take place on Thursday 28th May. The weather forecast for Thursday is due to be wet and windy. However this will be the first time that our sports day will go ahead without any postponement due to all activities taking place inside the arena where it will be totally dry. I hope that all our parents remember to bring their tickets on the day as there will be no way any parent can come on the bus / enter the stadium without one for health & safety reasons.
Please check all letters issued for further details and our twitter site.

The second big event of the week is welcoming our new P1s to Elmvale tomorrow (Wednesday 27 May). We are very much looking forward to meeting our new children and their parents from 1.15 - 2.45pm. All other classes will have an early lunch in preparation.

Although it will be a short week, it will be very very busy!

17/5/15

The weather continues to be wet and dreich! However it looks like it could be better for the holiday weekend on Friday 22nd May and Monday 25th May when the school will be closed. Fingers crossed!

Last week saw P7 work with Caledonian University on their newsletter and P6 went to the University for some programming skills. P6 return to Caledonian University on Wednesday 20th May. We are very fortunate to have such a great partnership with Caledonian University as we hope it will influence our children and their parents in the benefits of further education when they leave secondary school. Almost every stage in our school now works in partnership with this University. Zoe Chatterton will be back in our school to confirm the attendance of any P3 & P4 families who wish to take part in their free and very exciting week long activity session in the first week of the summer holidays.

This week we will also have the P4/3 - P7 fun run in Springburn Park which will be a great opportunity for exercise.

I have been informed that the first works to be carried out on our building as part of the 4Rs project that involves upgrading every primary school in Glasgow  will take place at the holiday weekend. This means that scaffolding will be erected in the gym/assembly hall in order to replace the glass windows in the ceiling and slates on the roof. After the holiday weekend, no child or parent will be able to access the infant playground except by the Elmvale Street gate which leads into the nursery playground as the space between Hawthorn St and the building will be used to transfer materials onto the roof. We also expect our school to be painted internally over the summer holidays. Eventually all our roof will be upgraded and all our windows will be replaced. It has taken our school longer than others locally as the façade of the building is listed. I'm sure that once all of these works are carried out, our building will last for at least another 100 years!

10/5/15

It has been two weeks since my last post. My apologies for that but hopefully this will help to keep you up to date with what has been happening in our school.

Sadly the weather hasn't been great and the forecast doesn't look like it is due to improve much - doesn't look like the usual May warm summer like weather that we have grown accustomed to in the past. I was building some new garden furniture last night which can only mean one thing - it is going to rain for the next few weeks!

Anyway, the weather doesn't look good but the learning in Elmvale continues to be a fantastic experience for our children.

Some of the nursery staff have been on training courses to find out more about science, literacy, 'Boy Play', and outdoor learning. All the staff are looking forward to putting this learning into practice. The children also had some very exciting visits to Caledonian University.
Well done to Elaine (in the nursery) who completed the 'Race for Life' today and in only 1 hour and 6 minutes. CONGRATULATIONS!

The Nurture class had a very busy Literacy Week so much so that they had to extend their work on their chosen book 'Giraffes Can't Dance' by Giles Andreae. All the animals laugh at Gerald when he dances at the Annual Jungle Dance and make him feel so sad and lonely. Help comes from a very wise friend. If you want to know who helped Gerald, the children in the Turus Room recommend this book.

Primary 1R enjoyed a visit to Springburn Library. Mark read a super story about a giant and books were brought back to school. The class have started a Plants and Minibeasts topic and are looking forward to learning all about them.

P3/2 enjoyed a pop up book fayre, saw a magician and even went on a book treasure hunt during Literacy Week. They are beginning a brand new topic about the Youth Olympics and have started learning about the history of the games.

The Eco Committee recently visited the builders working near our school. They had a meeting with one of the planners who told them about their project. The builders are currently building underground tanks that will prevent large floods caused by heavy rain. The tanks are so large that it will take two years to build them!

Primary 3 have already started their exciting topic on the 'Titanic'. They have many questions about it and are eager for answers.
They enjoyed their work on the 'Twits' by Roald Dahl during Literacy Week. They created revolting recipes, new book covers and wrote imaginative stories about nasty tricks they would like to play on each other.

Primary 4/3 are also studying the 'Titanic'.  The children have been picking the skills they wish to focus on and are excited to try them out in different contexts. They also worked with 'The Twits' and had loads of laughs with Mr and Mrs Twit and created their own character descriptions and lots more.

Primary 4E have begun their new 'Woodlands' topic. They have been working in groups to investigate and explore different issues around woodlands. They are planning a trip to the park! During Literacy Week they read  lots of books by Anthony Browne. They think his pictures are fantastic. They have written letters to him and hope he writes back.

Last week many of our classes and staff took part in cooking activities on the 'Cooking Bus'. This was a fantastic opportunity for all in Elmvale. Jacqueline O'Brien from P5 made some Spring Rolls and I was very lucky to try one. It was delicious! Well done Jacqueline!
Many of our parents took the opportunity of going to this on Thursday 7 May when the school was closed due to the election. The feedback from their experience was very positive.

Our first Parent Council meeting went ahead on Friday 8th May with many items discussed. Please have a look at the minutes of the meeting to find out about the great support this group of parents are going to provide for our school in the near future.

I was working with P6/5 on Friday and we played our first rounders game of this year during PE. The class played very well with Johnny and Bradley selecting some very even teams. Each team finished with 22 runs. Well done! P6/5 were also very much aware of the election the previous night. Although their knowledge of the difference between the Scottish Parliament and the British Parliament was limited, it was good to see that children so young were taking an interest in current affairs.

Caledonian University worked with the Primary 7s for the first time on their newsletter. This will continue on Friday 15th May. More information on this will be added next week.

The Primary 2 Caledonian University Club showcase of their digital book work took place on Friday - Friday was a busy day! By all accounts they had produced an excellent piece of work!

This week, the Caledonian University Club will work with P6 children for the first time on 'Scratch' which is a basic computer programming resource. This will take place on Thursday 14th May and all transport and training will be provided by the Caledonian Club!

The football team will be playing at John Paul Academy on Monday and we wish them well. Mrs Reed will be leading our assemblies tomorrow.

It will be another busy week, I know that all our children will continue to make fantastic progress.

24/4/15

It's been a very busy week back and we have enjoyed some fantastic learning and weather! When the weather is warm and sunny, please remember your child's hat, sun cream and water bottle to be safe and healthy outdoors.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the glorious weather we have been enjoying recently is due to break this evening, with next week forecast to be much cooler with a mixture of sunshine and showers. Don't pack away your child's winter jacket quite yet - it may come in handy next week!

Literacy Week

The whole school had a fabulous week performing a variety of activities involving reading, writing and drama. Literacy Week aimed to celebrate learning and raise awareness of the importance of reading and writing skills.

The skill of reading is a critical one for a person's success, especially in today's world. Whether they are going to become a brain surgeon, electrician, math teacher, taxi driver, or enter into the army, they will have to read and read well. Elmvale also recognises that beyond the "skill of reading" is the joy or enjoyment of reading. So, this Literacy Week was designed to have some FUN with reading.

Some of this week's literacy activities included nursery/infant and senior treasure hunts, visits to Springburn Library (certain classes), class visits to the Book Fayre, shared learning amongst infants and seniors, visits from special guests to read stories and a story with a magical twist from Uncle David. 

Please read 'Oh the Places You'll Go' by Dr. Seuss here.

Thank you to all of our special guests, the children for their hard work and to the staff for making the week a very enjoyable and successful one. A special thank you must go to Mrs Baker for organising this week's events. We hope our Valers will be challenged to read every day because "Reading Accelerates Success".

Here is a snapshot of a few classes experience this week:

P1I/P1R

"We have had a very busy week. We have read and explored 'The Gruffalo'. On Monday we were discussing the characters using 'WOW' words. We really enjoyed the book hunt on Tuesday. We enjoyed working in groups. We also painted the different characters. We looked at symmetry and created our own symmetrical butterflies. On Thursday we were learning about Stranger Danger and safer strangers. This morning we are looking forward to going on a Gruffalo Hunt."

P2/1

"P2/1 have had an amazing Literacy Week, working on the book 'Six Dinner Sid'. We created menus, used 'WOW' words to describe Sid, and made booklets for before and after pictures. We read with P6/5 on Friday during shared learning time and made pants for monsters after reading 'Monsters Love Underpants' during our Book Fayre visit! We also had a ball at the literacy treasure hunt, worm show and Uncle David's magic afternoon - we're worn out today!"

P2L

"For Literacy Week we have been learning about the author Shirley Hughes and her work. We read 'Alfie Goes Out' and 'Digger and Alfie's Feet'. After reading some of her poems, Mrs Higgins realised that some of the children need to practise rhyming words."

Makaton Sign of the Week

Makaton is a language programme using signs and symbols to help people communicate. Being able to communicate is one of the most important skills we need in life. Elmvale Primary and Nursery Class are pleased to announce that we will be introducing 'Makaton Sign of the Week' at assemblies soon. Please look out for Makaton signs and symbols coming soon on Twitter!

Clubs

This week Joe Brannan our Active Schools Coordinator arranged for two college students to visit the school at lunchtime to deliver athletics activities in the playground. The students will attend the school for the next 4 weeks in the lead up to the Fun Run and sports activities plan for Springburn Park on Thursday 21st May, 10am - 12 noon.

Caledonian University

P6 will be trained to work on Scratch which is a computer programming tool. These opportunities will be provided by Caledonian University. The first session will take place on Thursday 14 May, am for P6 and pm for P6 from P6/5, and the second session on Wednesday 20th May for all P6s for the whole day. Both sessions take place at Caledonian Uni.

School Committees

Social Enterprise Committee

The annual Social Enterprise in Education Awards are on 11th June 2015 in The Hub by the Castle in Edinburgh and we are really looking forward to our Social Enterprise Committee being awarded for their brilliant Stationary Spot.

Every year they like to get young people involved in the event as much as they can and as Elmvale's social enterprise group gave such a brilliant presentation at the Dragons' Den event, they have been invited to be involved in helping present the Awards Ceremony!

We are very proud of our children and Mrs Dunn for all of their achievements. Go Elmvale!

Eco Committee

On Friday our Eco Committee visited the building site at the back of our school and spoke to the site manager and builders regarding their project. We are looking forward to them feeding back to the whole school.

Health Committee

Our committee members are called Healthy Heros. Each rep will be taking one of the wellbeing indicators as their superpower and focusing on this!

They have redesigned the healthy snack lotto tickets and these will be given out every day to children bringing in healthy snacks.

Some classes are involved in putting up a new display outside the Fuel Zone to encourage children to think about what they are putting in their lunch boxes and checking to see choices are balanced and coming from 5 food groups. Primary 6 are designing lunch box covers, P7G creating samples of contents for lunch boxes, P4/3 will be creating posters to heighten awareness.

Look out for our Healthy Heros display outside of the office for any news/updates!

Website Committee

Please read this weeks Website Committees agenda and meeting minutes here.

Pupil Council

Please read this weeks Pupil Councils agenda and meeting minutes here. (will attach later today)

Emirates Committee

We held our first Emirates Parent Committee on Friday afternoon. We would like to thank all of the parents/carers who attended and offered valuable advice. Please read our agenda and minutes here.

Pupil Holidays

At assembly, we mentioned to all of the children how quickly this term will fly by and how important it is for them to work hard and make the most of every day. With just over a week of April to go, it's probably worth reminding you of the pupil holidays that are scheduled for May. These are part of the reason why June will be here before we know it!

Monday 4th May
Thursday 7th May (Inservice Day - holiday for pupils)
Friday 22nd May
Monday 25th May

On behalf of all the staff at Elmvale, happy Friday everyone! We hope you have a relaxing weekend and look forward to seeing everyone on Monday.

'Be The Best We Can Be!'

**************

19/4/15
I hope that you have all had a good holiday. No doubt the weather has helped in providing lots of our children the opportunity for making the most of their time off school by being outside and enjoying the sunshine. I was away in the North of England (Yorkshire) and Perthshire in Scotland and was very lucky with some sunny and warm weather. The sunny weather  really does make a difference so returning to work will be a cheery experience. This week is expected to continue to be dry so perhaps we could see a few more children bringing their bikes to school? I hope to have mastered cleats by Wednesday and intend to bring my bike to school as well.

We will look forward to welcoming Mrs Reed (DHT for nursery and infants) back to our school after a year's maternity leave.

We had expected Mrs Glancy to continue with working with P5 after the holidays but Miss McLaughlin has returned and Mrs Glancy has gone to Knightswood PS from tomorrow. She had expected to go to this school in August but this has been brought forward. We will be wishing her the very best in her new post. Please pass this news onto any children in P5 that Miss McLaughlin will be returning to us from tomorrow and will remain with us until the end of term.

Tomorrow's assembly will be led by myself and will focus on our holidays and important issues to consider for this our last term before the summer. I look forward to seeing you all.

29/3/15
Our new Parent Council was formed last week. I believe that 12 parents attended the training session. It is fantastic that so many parents wish to have a greater involvement in improving our school. I will add more detail to who will be making up the Parent Council when I have all the details.

This week is due to start off rather cold, wet and windy so make sure that you are well wrapped up for Monday and Tuesday. 

Tomorrow, Zoe Chatterton from the Caledonian University Club will be in the playground at 8.45am to speak to any parents in P3 or P4 that she missed on the first parents' night in March. She will be inviting you  (adult in your family) and your child to a week long free event in the first week of the summer holidays at Caledonian Uni . This looks like it will be an event not to be missed as you and your child will be picked up by bus from our school and returned at the end of the day. Please take time to speak to her if you see her.

I think we might be lucky with the weather on Wednesday when we have our Easter celebration. We hope to start at 9.45am in Springburn Parish Church and it would be good to see as many parents as possible joining us. All children will return to school at the end of the celebration.

On Thursday 2nd April, our parents from the parent fundraising group will be organising a coffee morning which will help to raise much needed funds for the P7 leavers dance. I hope that you will come along in large numbers to make this event a great success. This event begins at 9.30am so please remain in the playground after your child has gone into the building. This event will take place in the school gym hall.

The P5 girls swimming starts on Thursday 2nd April.

Please remember that school & nursery closes at 2.30pm on Thursday 2nd April.

If I don't see you this week, I hope that you all have a great holiday!

22/3/15
Last week we had our parents' nights and it was also the last week for our infant afterschool clubs.
Please read on for a snapshot of experiences from a selection of classes -

P1I Miss Ireland has been reading the story 'The slightly annoying elephant' by David Walliams. The class has been using this to work on measurement. They have also created their own piece of art by using different materials to make a collage of Mr Elephant. They also worked in pairs to create WOW words to describe the different characters in the story.

P1R have also been learning about measuring. They have measured objects in the classroom as well as each other. They have been learning about connecting words and used these when writing about their walk around Springburn. This was part of their work on 'Buildings' and they carried out a survey of all the different types of buildings in Springburn.

P2/1 have been learning many different skills while creating their digi book. They have also been drawing the house that they live in as part of their study of 'Houses & Homes'.

P2L have been working with the P2s in P2/1 to create their digi book with students from Caledonian University. They have finished their illustrations and sound effects and are understandably looking forward to presenting the finished product to their parents.

P3/2 were working on vertical addition outside in the playground in the sunshine. They used chalk and white boards to practise their maths skills.

P3B had an exciting trip to the Madrassa Mosque where they learned about the Muslim religion and their customs. The children have also been hard at work learning about Australia and have been making their own boomerangs.

P4/3 have been working on mapping skills in connection to their study of Australia. The children have been exploring the main features of a map. They also investigated the creation of a solar eclipse.

P5M continued to enjoy reading 'How to train your dragon' and have created some amazing 3D models for Home Learning. They also investigated solar eclipses.

P7F were also learning about the science behind solar eclipses and compared them with lunar eclipses in preparation for the eclipse on Friday 20th March.

This week (23March) will see our HMIe report published on the Education Scotland website from Tuesday 24 March, the P5s will be off to play basketball at the Emirates Stadium, Caledonian Club in school working with the P2s on Thursday, Thursday will also be the last day of swimming for the P5 boys, P7s will be going to Springburn Academy all day on Friday and P6 will be going to see the official opening of an astro turf pitch at Springburn Park. There is also a Parent Council Training meeting on Friday 27th March and there are currently about 10 parents planning to attend. We hope to have a new Parent Council up and running very soon.

Two classes have been successful in winning the Munro Challenge. They have one the opportunity to go for a walk on Wednesday 25 March with one class going in the morning and the other going in the afternoon. The winning classes will be announced at tomorrow's assembly. Well done!

The following week (30th March), Zoe Chatterton from the Caledonian University Club will be in school  on the 30th March and will be speaking to any P3 or P4 parents who might be interested in the week long free summer club, we will have our Easter Celebration at Springburn Parish Church from 9.45am on 1st April. All parents are invited. All classes will walk there and back. P5 girls swimming begins on Thursday 2 April and school closes at 2.30pm.

15/3/15
This week's blog will be a little shorter than usual as I was away with the P7s as explained last week.
Mr Feist has very kindly put some videos on our Twitter account to show the many varied and wonderful experiences that our children had while in Blairvadach. These will also be shown to the rest of the children in the school at our assemblies tomorrow morning and the parents of the children who attended will be invited in to see them and will be presented with their own copy at some point in the not too distant future.
Sure enough the weather forecast last week was very accurate. Miss Kytzia's group went hillwalking on Tuesday in glorious sunshine and my own group along with Mrs Dunn's group went hillwalking in heavy rain and strong winds! All our children surpassed themselves with their achievements with many of them surprising themselves with their courage, teamwork and determination. They all did exceptionally well!

Red Nose Day appears to have been very successful going by the Twitter Account information and pictures. Well done to Mrs Etherington and P4 for organising such a successful event! I'm sure that I'll hear all about it tomorrow.

8/3/15
Tomorrow, 32 P7 children will be going to Blairvadach Outdoor Centre. Going by the weather forecast, Tuesday and Friday appear to be the better days. Just as well the council run establishment provide all the equipment and waterproof clothing. I think we'll need it! It is likely that we will keep you informed of our week via twitter as well as the usual texts home.

What a week we had last week!

P7F (as written by Mr Feist)
The children in P7F have been thinking primarily about their reading skills. Our visit to the library and world book day have really kindled (excuse the pun) their love of reading.
Our focus for writing has shifted to describing setting. In numeracy, the children have been transferring their division skills to use in fractions and percentages.

P5M (as written by Miss McLaughlin)
P5M enjoyed a trip to the Mitchell Library to the Wee Write festival to see Tom Gales (author) & Liz Pichon. We even left with a signed piece of artwork. We have also been celebrating World Book Day and our classroom door of 'How to Train Your Dragon' was retweeted by Cressida Cowell the author of this book!
We have also been learning to summarise and you can see our summary of our visit outside of our classroom.

The Nursery Class
The children have been enjoying hearing lots of stories. Some children have chosen to listen to 'Guess how much I love you' and some have chosen 'Going on a Bear hunt'. Our visitors were reading these on World Book Day.

Turus Room
The children have all been reading about Hugless Douglas.

P1I
This week we have been enjoying lots of stories with P7F. We have also made our very own bookmarks and were very excited that everyone dressed up for World Book Day. Congratulations to Alyshia for winning 2 trophies for her fantastic hip hop dancing. Well done Alyshia.

P1R
They enjoyed all the costumes for World Book Day. They were writing their own books and hope to share them with everyone in Elmvale. Keep reading everyone!

P2/1
We are enjoying our shared reading time with P6/5 and enjoyed World Book Day. We have enjoyed our daily 'take time' and used our own books for Drop Everything and Read. P2 enjoyed fabulous active learning sessions with Caledonian Book Club using our imaginative skills and our acting skills

P2L
The children were working with Caledonian University and have begun to create their digi-book on the seashore.

P3/2
We have been reading lots of books about the seashore. The children have learned that the animals in the deepest parts of the ocean have to make their bodies light up because it is so dark. They have also learned about a seacow which eats sea grass!

P3B
Are learning all about Australia and have created some excellent pieces of Aboriginal artwork. All children were very excited about World Book Day.

P4/3
They were working on non-fiction texts. They were looking at the differences between fiction & non-fiction. They were very excited about dressing up as their favourite book character for World Book Day. They went to the 'Biggest Book Show on Earth' which was part of the Wee Write festival. They saw authors like Steven Butler who is author of 'Dennis the Menace Diaries' and David O'Docherty who is author of 'Danger is Everywhere'. The children had a wonderful time!

P7G
Had a wonderful World Book Day & were excited to welcome Mrs Ervine (HT of Springburn Academy) into our class for 'Golden Time with a story'. We are very excited about going to Blairvadach.

A huge thank you to all our visitors to Elmvale for World Book Day and also for your comments on our Global Guestbook. It really helped to bring books to life for our children. Please continue to send pictures of your children reading in an unusual place.

I would also like to thank the many parents who have informed me of their interest in being part of an Elmvale Parent Council. There will be training on Friday 27th March at 1.30pm in Elmvale. I will be in touch with all parents who expressed an interest to see if you are able to make it.

Mrs Baker and Ms Macdonald will be in charge this week while I'm away with the P7s, Mrs Dunn, Miss Kytzia & Mr Feist.

1/3/15
The 1st of March already! Spring is not too far away, lighter nights and warmer if not drier weather. Can't wait!

Our children continued to take part in many fantastic experiences last week -

P1R, P1I and P2/1 were using amazing presentation skills when they put on a fantastic show to celebrate China & Scotland. Many parents came along to watch the celebration. Thank you to all who were able to attend.
In P1I, Najeeb is our Maths Genius for working hard on his adding. This class has also begun learning some Makaton.
P2/1 showed their creative design skills in showing parents examples of artwork done in class. Mrs Renwick thought that they were confident individuals and she was very proud of them. The children have also been learning to tell o'clock, half pas in digital and analogue clocks and they were successful in this. There are lots of children now wearing watches and using their new maths skills to tell the time!

P2L have been learning fractions through drama.

 
P3/2 are taking an active role in their learning, they have chosen the book Hunky Monkey to decorate their classroom for World Book Day. They have also been busy preparing for their assembly tomorrow and have also been developing their presentation skills. They are looking forward to their parents & carers seeing them perform.

P3B have been very enthusiastic about their new topic - Australia and have been working extremely well with Mr Lawton the student teacher. The P3 boys and girls show cased their talents for Red Nose Day yesterday and we now have two fantastic acts going through to perform in the competition.

P4/3 were invited to a Good Vibrations workshop where they developed their skills and knowledge as part of their learning on Sound and Hearing. The children were fantastic at taking part and they loved the practical experiments.

P4 have enjoyed sharing some of their learning with Ms Clerc who is visiting our school from Austria. The children carried out research at home and found out lots of fascinating facts. Ms Clerc then showed a powerpoint all about Austria. P4 have been making pictures in the style of Hundertwasser who is a famous Austrian artist and architect. Next week P4 will be trying Apple Strudel!

P5M have had a fantastic time at Springburn Library and have returned to school with many interesting books. They also had another training & Health focussed session with the Glasgow Rocks.
P5 continue with the WOWW project which films them and then plays back the film of them working to help them improve their listening and learning skills.

Emirates Sports Day
Thank you to both Greg Cann from NG Homes Sports Legacy and Joe Brannan our active sports co-ordinator. They have been incredibly helpful with ideas, help and advice for Sports Day.

World Book Day (5th March)
Thank you very much to SCOTMID for kindly donating £20 in vouchers to purchase goodies for our special guests.
We look forward to welcoming the following people to read stories to our children -

The day is expected to be very busy and will begin with the nursery and P1-3 dressing up as their favourite character from a book parade between 9.30am and 10am.

Willie Bain and Councillor Stewart will judge the first parade in the afternoon and Maureen McKenna (Director of Education) will judge the second parade.

Caledonian University will also be in Elmvale in the morning and afternoon working with P2 on producing a digital book. This will be the first of many visits over the next few weeks.

Staff from Caledonian University will also be giving out leaflets for parents of children in P3 & P4 at parents' night. They are organising a week of free activities for the first week of the summer holidays. A parent and child of children at these stages will be collected by coach from our school and brought home at the end of the day. Each day will have different activities and there is no cost. It is likely to be a fun and memorable experience!

P4/3, P5M & some children from P2L will be going to the Michell Library to take part in the Wee Write Festival which is all about encouraging children to enjoy writing stories.

So once again, we have a busy week in store starting of course with our assemblies which will be led by P3/2, P2 and Ms Macdonald. Have a great week!

22/2/15
I really have to start off today's blog with a huge 'CONGRATULATIONS!' to our Social Enterprise Group who as I'm sure you'll know by now, won the Dragon's Den competition at Glasgow City Chambers! They did exceptionally well, not just to get to the final but to beat the other excellent competitors at the same time some of whom were from secondary schools. One of the judges has left his comments on our very own school website global guestbook.

Incidentally there are some very interesting posts from many different countries. Please have a look as it helps to get a picture of those particular places. We now have 66 countries in the world that have looked at our school website.

I am now going to share with you some of the successes of last week -
Nursery - The children were celebrating Chinese New Year and tasting different foods from China and Scotland - they tasted noodles, spring rolls, porridge and shortbread. The children learned a Chinese Dragon Rhyme.

Turus Room - There are three boys who have spent their last day in the Turus Room. Well done for reaching the end of their journey!

P1I Cody is the star writer this week for working hard on his finger spaces. Kevin is the maths genius for working hard on his number formation.

P1R The Eco Committee met twice this week to organise events in March. Kevin is pupil of the week for always working hard in school. Well done Kevin!

P2/1 They have made red envelopes for Chinese New Year and fabulous dragon masks. They took learning about time outside to make chalk clocks in the playground and played what's the time Mr Wolf.

P2L They made some sock puppets to finish 'Old & New Toys' topic with Caledonian University. Some children from this class attended the Nina & the Neurons workshop.

P4/3 They have rounded up their sound & hearing topic by completing a number of experiments. One of them that the children enjoyed was trying to sound proof a box using a range of materials. They tested to see if it worked by putting an alarm clock inside. Did any of them work?

P4E They went to Stirling Castle as part of our learning about Mary Queen of Scots. They had a tour of the castle and dressed up in clothes of the time and held some weapons! They also visited the gift shop.

P5M The Glasgow Caledonian Club came in for their last session to unveil their excellent poem and new display which can be found in the gym hall. The display shows the contrast of Scotland and Africa.

P6/5 Jump to It came to work with the children and put on workshops about smoking, healthy eating, alcohol and there were opportunities to play basketball. The children are also doing a great job looking after the young trout. Mr Ronaldson is very kindly providing a helping hand over the weekend.

P6H They also had the same visit by Jump to It.

P7G The girls have been continuing their swimming lessons this week doing front & back crawl with some girls even swimming 16 lengths! This class have started their new buildings topic. Mr Hamilton from Springburn Academy also paid the class a visit on Friday.

P7F also have a visit from Mr Hamilton and some former pupils of Elmvale who are now in S1. They were answering questions about transition to high school.

ECO The competition starts tomorrow. Anyone looking for information should contact Miss Sullivan, Miss Ireland, Mrs Rowan or Mrs Blevins.

JRSO are working with the ECO committee to promote the Munro Challenge and the Big Pedal Challenge - well done to both groups in working to help our children and staff to be the best they can be in health!

The Social Enterprise group won despite competing against other primary and secondary schools. Well done to them!

Pupil Council are busy getting ideas for our school sports day at the Emirates Arena.

Outdoor Learning are set to launch a competition to design a sensory garden. More information at tomorrow's assembly.

Health Task Force - There are new healthy snack lotto tickets designed and soon to be issued. The Committee members are Healthy Heroes. There will be a competition coming to promote healthy lunch very soon.

As you can see last week was a busy week, I'm sure this week will be no different. We start tomorrow with P6/5 & P6 leading our assemblies.
I'm sure it will be excellent!

15/2/15
I hope that you've all had a great weekend. The weather has been great - we have been lucky with so little snow and ice so far - today was very much a reminder that Spring is not far away and going by the weather forecast we could be in double figures by Wednesday.

I hope that like me you were impressed by our children on STV Glasgow on Thursday showing off their very impressive Stationary Spot. I have since been approached by a Ciara in P3 and Kayleigh in P4 who wish to start up a swap station for children's goods. We'll see what we can do for these very young entrepreneurs.

Our line up for World Book day is shaping up nicely. There are a wide variety of people who will be celebrating this day with us. Two new sections have been added to our website for Book Day and for Red Nose Day. Please have a look.

Thank you to our parent helpers who are helping to organise the Emirates Sports Day. Their assistance is greatly appreciated. There are a number of Fundraising events being planned and these will be revealed shortly.

We are currently encouraging as many people as possible to tweet why we love Elmvale. There have been a number of different people giving their opinions including myself. Please get involved.

Mrs Baker and Mr Casey will be taking tomorrow's assembly. The focus will be on citizenship and Chinese New Year.

We had two additional short assemblies last week which were carried out by the police. The focus was internet safety. We would like to thank the police for their input. They reminded us that children should not have a facebook account if they are younger than 13 years of age. They are breaking the law if they do have a facebook account. They are also leaving themselves open to bullying type behaviour and worse by having a facebook account of their own - please make sure that your children do not do this for their own safety. There should be a letter coming out about internet safety on Monday.

The social enterprise committee will be working hard to perfect their pitch for dragon's den on Thursday. They will be competing against 11 other schools. There will be a banquet lunch in Glasgow City Chambers. There will be 4 dragons judging. It will be a challenge but we will be wishing Elmvale the very best of luck and by 3o'clock there will be a winner! It will be really exciting!

We are hoping to provide parents with children with autistic spectrum disorder, tailored parental help. Please contact the school if this applies to you.

The Petershill football games will be starting up soon.

I hope that you all have a great week!

11/2/15
My apologies for not writing on Sunday 8th February, I was away in Pitlochry for a few nights and didn't have access to a computer.

I am very pleased to announce that we have won yet another grant of just less than £8000 to support children with autism. We intend to use the money to create a sensory room, further train our staff and hopefully buy some more ICT equipment to help our children access the curriculum more successfully.

The Primary 6 players who make up our school football team which I'm pleased to say includes a girl, were very successful on Friday 6th February by winning all of their games and are through to the West of Scotland final. I'll keep you posted regarding this next competition.
Callum (P7) was successful in being selected to play for Glasgow City once more.

Each class will be given the opportunity to write down their highlights of the week in order to celebrate their achievement. This book will circulate around the school on a Thursday and will be passed to me by Friday. I will add relevant parts to this blog at the weekend.

The Pupil Council visited the Emirates Stadium to view the arena and speak to Gillian Bland, the events organiser, in order to begin preparations for our Showcase Sports Day on 28th May 2015. Thank you to the parents who have shown a keen interest in working in partnership with this exciting project. If anyone else would like to be involved we are commencing a parents as partners sub-committee soon. Michael Kavanagh who is the chairperson of the Commonwealth Games has agreed to open our Opening Ceremony at the Global Showcase /Sports Day. Our children are writing to all of their favourite athletes to ask them if they would attend this event.

We are applying to Food for Thought funding from Education Scotland to further develop the teaching and learning of food handling in our school. More on this in my blog on 15th Feb.

One of the staff from Clyde in the Classroom came in today to check the hatcheries being looked after by P6/5. I'm very pleased to announce that we have many brown trout alevins swimming around in their tank. Well done P6/5!

Our Social Enterprise Committee will be on STVGlasgow tomorrow Thursday 12 July at 8.30pm.

We will have an extra assembly tomorrow as the police will be coming to our school to talk about using the internet safely. Please remember that children under the age of 13 should not have a facebook account. This is illegal and can result in bullying type behaviour or worse. This type of information and more will be discussed tomorrow.

We may also have workshops on Friday provided by the BBC for the programme 'Nina & the Neurons'. This has yet to be confirmed.

It may be a short week, but it will be busy!

Any parents of children in P5 - the Caledonian University Showcase of their work will take place in the school gym hall on Friday 20th February from about 1pm. Please take the time to attend as the results of our children's work is always impressive.

A little further ahead and a date for your diary is 5th March. This is World Book Day and Elmvale is really going to town to celebrate! We intend to celebrate with different authors, orators, music and really make the day a memorable extravaganza. Don't miss it as it is going to be really special!

1/2/15
Here we are in February already. I'm sure like me, you are noticing that it is staying lighter for longer. The sun was lovely today and a reminder that Spring is not far away. However the forecast once again is threatening snow for Tuesday morning. It could be disruptive for travel to work but fortunately I also live in Glasgow as do many of our staff and we are committed to getting to work so the school will always be open! 

We had the HMIe team in last week and they were a lovely group of professionals. If this is the future for Scottish Education, then I think we are in good hands.

I would like to thank the 14 parents who came in to speak to HMIe and for painting a very positive picture of our school, the picture that we see of our school every day of the year.

I would also like to thank our very dedicated staff team many of whom came into school on Sunday the 25th January. One of our children who lives in the flats asked me why there were about 16 cars in the playground that day and what was going on? If you were also wondering that, now you know!

We have a guest speaker tomorrow at our assemblies who is going to talk to us about the very important topic of recycling.

Elmvale will be closed Monday 9th February to Wednesday 11 February for our midterm holiday and inservice day. School and nursery class will reopen on Thursday 12th February at 9am (school) and 8.35am (nursery) as usual.

The Petershill Park Thursday football games will be resuming soon, weather permitting, which will help the Elmvale football team to once again get back into shape.

We will be welcoming an Austrian student into our school soon who will be helping out in classes and should be able to assist me when I begin piloting the teaching of German.

25/1/15
I think our children did exceptionally well last week as they remained in side the building for the entire week - no break times outside at all due to the ice that just would not go away. The forecast for this week? Well tomorrow looks fine but I think we could be back to very cold weather come Friday and more snow. So don't put away those snow boots, warm hats scarves and gloves yet!

We look forward to welcoming our visitors tomorrow, HMIe inspectors who we hope will enjoy the Elmvale experience as much as we do.

On Friday 23rd January, P6/5 went to the Science Centre to find out all about bringing the Clyde into their classroom. It won't be long until they are looking after their very own young trout.

Free the Children are coming in for a Learning for Sustainability talk on Wednesday. Four classes will be involved in an assembly and then P6H will particpate in three workshops focussing on team-building, issues in the community and then they will work together to create an action plan. This ties in very nicely with our School Improvement Plan.  

Caledonian University will be coming into school on Thursday morning to work with P5. I'm sure that their project will be as exciting as in previous years.

Valers enjoyed celebrating our famous, national baird, Robert Burns on Friday with songs, poetry and Scottish treats. We are looking forward to the special menu being put on this Friday the 30th of January in the FuelZone. We have recently piloted an idea by the Pupil Council to play music in the dining hall and we are looking forward to more Scottish tunes at the end of the week. Thank you for tweeting in your favourite Scot's dialect words for us all to enjoy!

We aim to be a Health Promoting School and want to thank parents/carers for their support, providing children with healthy snacks and drinks. Unfortunately we still see the occasional not so healthy snack - we ask that these are not consumed in school; these can be kept for a treat after school or at the weekend perhaps? Children are not allowed to bring cans or glass bottles into school for Health and Safety reasons and energy drinks which are considered harmful to children are not premitted in school. We encourage that children bring water in a plastic bottle into school; they can refill this in school when required. Water is FREE, healthy and will safeguard children's teeth from the carbon dioxide (fizzy bubbles) which causes decalcification of tooth enamel and reduces children's high sugar and additive intake. We already encourage children to bring in healthy snacks into school such as fruit, low fat crisps, or healthy snack instead of bags of sweets, bars of chocolate etc. Children get healthy lotto tickets for a healthy snack and are entered into a weekly draw for a prize during assemblies. We ask for your support to keep your children healthy. Who will win the prize draw at Ms Kytzia's assembly tomorrow?

At last, the announcement of the winner of the 'Hunt the Bee Competition'. Thank you to Lia, Paul, Brogan and Ellie for taking the time and effort to take part in this competition. As there were four children who tried their best, all four children will receive a prize at assembly tomorrow morning. Well done!

18/1/15
Winter weather has finally arrived in Glasgow! We have the usual small amount of snow but it has now frozen and is now causing hazardous driving conditions on minor roads and makes walking on the pavement very dangerous. Take care coming to school tomorrow.

All the infant clubs  started have been well attended and very successful. We will be adding information on all clubs on the chalkboards at the front school entrance.

P4/3 went to Celtic Connections on Friday to see Le Vent du Nord which is a band from Quebec in Canada. This was the very same band that I went to see on Saturday night in the Old Fruitmarket. The band were telling the audience that it is -37degrees in their home town at the moment so Glasgow feels quite warm in comparison!

 The Nursery Class have been learning all about Scotland in preparation for Burns' Night on 25th  January. P1's have started learning all about Hamish McHaggis and have been learning some Scottish Country dance. P1R did some fantastic writing on the Loch Ness Monster. Madison in P1 has moved onto stage 6 Oxford Reading tree. Well done Madison!

 P2/1 have been taking home Ted Higgins (a bear) as part of their Toys topic. They have been learning about all the different countries from which people in their class come. P3B have started their topic Sound and Hearing and have written to the National deaf Society to ask for some more information.

The Turus Room have been working hard on achieving their targets

All classes will be sharing their learning.

Mr Ronaldson has started up a lunchtime football club for infants which is proving very popular indeed so much so that they have to play in the area of the playground parallel to Hawthorn Street in order to have enough space.

P3B are in the lead for line-points with the most gold coins. So it is time all the other classes tried their very best to give them more competition. 

Our first successful DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) session occured on Friday. Please encourage your child to send in challenging books to read during these 15 minute slots.

Children in senior classes have been painting the threads of our stairs to add Blooms words to help with everyone's learning.

We are going to be working with the Bridges project and providing experience for people from other countries who are already trained teachers in their home country or are going to be training as teachers.

Mrs Rowan has restarted the smoothie stall. It will be run by members of the school football team. Delicious smoothies  cost 50p with all proceeds going to buy new football team tracksuits.

Callum  McLean has been picked once again for the Glasgow football team. There is a game coming up soon with training due to take place on 22nd January. Well done Callum!

Last week's competition caused a little confusion - which bee to hunt! Therefore this will be extended for another week. You are looking for the bees that are made with card and tissue paper. The winner will be the one who has the correct answer or is closest to the correct answer.

Pupil Voice

We are now seeking opportunities for the Pupil Council and Parent Council to work closely together on school issues. This is on the agenda for next Friday's  meeting as Pupil Council members wish to discuss establishing an initial focus.

The weather this week has been fairly awful with strong winds, rain and even hail. However our determined children made it into school regardless. The weather this week looks like more of the same so please remember to wear suitable clothing for Winter weather especially a change of shoes if possible.

We are expecting many special visitors in the next few weeks. On Wednesday 14 January, Isobel Taggart from Education Headquarters will be visiting our school and speaking to the Website Committee. This is as a result of the letter sent by Brilliant Brogan in P5. They have been busy preparing a video to demonstrate the use of technology at Elmvale. The children are very excited about showcasing their work.

From Monday 26th January, we will be welcoming a team of eight people who will be visiting us from Education Scotland. They will be in Elmvale to inspect the primary school and the nursery class. I'm sure that they are very much looking forward to meeting our children, staff and parents and seeing all of the wonderful learning that is taking place in our school.

The Pupil Council had their first meeting of the new year and are looking forward to making further improvements in the school.

It is great to walk around the school at the moment and hear the children taking part in so many games. There is a great Butterfly Game on the infant stairs where you hear children trying to read words from different stairs as the words are at different heights. There are numbers on the stairs for the children to practice their counting. Elmvale children are constantly surrounded and immersed in print to help develop their literacy and numeracy. The front entrance has the alphabet randomly placed on the walls.

Our school motto is Be The Best We Can Be and for that reason this week's Head Teacher Blog Competition is a Bee Hunt! From tomorrow there will be small bees randomly placed all over the school. Your job is to post the correct number of bees on the Guestbook and say where you spotted them. The winner will be announced at next Monday's assembly with a special prize!

We have applied for another grant to fund more IPads and develop a sensory room and provide parent workshops to support families with children with autism. We await with interest.

P5M have asked me some more very good questions for the Head Teacher Hot Seat. Please have a look if you would like to find out more. There will be a special new year Hot Seat where the staff will be providing the questions!

We were in the Evening Times on Tuesday regarding our Outdoor Education successful grant of £500 for our sensory garden.

We have a high regard for parents as partners in their children's learning and are often looking for parents to take part in fundraising, helping in classrooms, on school trips and social events for the children. We often look for parental views on how we are doing in our school through annual questionnaires and have tried to organise focus groups. We continue to seek volunteers to add to our Parent Council.  Our parents have been given a questionnaire via their child from HMIe. Please complete these and post them in the freepost envelope provided.

It is important that to be the best that you can be, you need sleep, healthy food and fresh air. I hope that all our children are managing to get outside and splash in the puddles wearing wellington boots and waterproofs. A cold is not caught from being outside in bad weather if dressed properly. A cold is more likely to be caught when in a room with lots of people or other children.

DEAR will be starting up again in Elmvale this week. This stands for Drop Everything And Read. This will take place once a week and promotes reading. All children and staff will take part.

Finally something else to look out for in the coming weeks. P6/5 will be going to the Science Centre on 23rd January to learn about young trout. They will then be given some young trout to look after (in their classroom) and will then release them back into the wild. I'm sure that they will be delighted to keep you updated on their progress via this blog.

21/12/14
This will be the last blog of 2014.
There were seven children who attempted our Christmas Quiz. Having checked our guestbook there has been an  additional entry which was made on 19/12/14. The answers to the quiz are as follows -

1) The word 'Santa Claus' comes from the Dutch Sinter Klass which is the dialectical pronunciation of St Nicholas.
2) St Nicholas was a Greek bishop of Turkey.
3) There were 2 people who described Santa with a red suit - Thomas Nast who was born in Germany and an American  Clement Clarke.
4) On Christmas Eve the Germans & the British soldiers stopped fighting. A young British soldier got a football for a present and he walked onto 'No Man's Land' and started playing football but contrary to popular belief it was only the British that played football. The Germans observed and stopped firing. The Germans and the British did exchange presents and there was an unofficial cease fire.

As there were just a few children who took part it was decided to award them all a prize for making the effort to research the answers in the final week of school before the holidays. All seven children were given their prize except one who was absent. Having checked the guestbook tonight there will be a prize awaiting a futher child who took part and entered their answers on the 19th December.

Our last week before the holidays began was a great success. The P4-7 Extravaganza was very successfull. The children sang beautifully and  enthusiastically. The infant Nativity was much longer than it had been in the past and involved all our children. This was also a great success. It is amazing to see children as young as Primary One remembering their lines and confidently present themselves in front of a huge audience. Well done Carly, Megan and many others in the cast.
Again it was great to see everyone get involved so enthusiastically. It really made such a difference!

All our children enjoyed their parties on Thursday 18 December and Santa Claus (the real one!) even made a visit on route from the North Pole.

I hope that you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year when it comes. I look forward to seeing you all in 2015.

14/12/14
'It's a Magical Time of the Year' is the title of one of our Christmas songs. It's starting to feel more like Christmas! It is only 11 more days but Elmvale has another very busy week ahead.

We're really looking forward to our Christmas Celebration at Springburn Parish Church on Tuesday 16 December from 9.30am. We look forward to parents & carers joining us to get us all into the festive mood.

We also have our infant Nativity on Wednesday 17 December in the afternoon.  This is a much longer performance than in the past and will also involve our Nursery children. There are some tickets still available so please ask at the office to avoid disappointment.
The children have been busily rehearsing and can't wait to perform!

Our P1-7 Christmas parties will take place on Thursday 18 December which is also a non uniform day in order for you to wear your favourite party outfit.

Remember our Nursery and school close at 2.30pm on Friday for the Christmas holidays.

Elmvale enjoyed a fun-filled week last week. It kicked off with our P7G & P7F showcase of learning. Thank you to all parents that attended to support their children. I'm sure that you will agree that our children were great!

We had a special 'Thank you' assembly  where we thanked our active sports co-ordinator & Greg from NG Homes for attending and delivering special certificates. Greg has set up a special challenge for the children where they take up more sports both in and outside of school in the New Year. We look forward to tracking our children's further wider achievements so that they will ultimately lead fitter and healthier lifestyles.

Our Christmas lunch which also took place last Monday, ran very smoothly with the addition of stickers of the children's preferred choice. Thank you to our dinner ladies for all of their hard work and efforts!
Some Nursery children enjoyed their special lunch in the Fuel Zone with me and the Nursery staff.

Last Wednesday, P4-7 put on an excellent Christmas Extravaganza. A line from one of the songs 'Outside the weather is frightful' which explained our weather precisely but despite this almost all children were in school and remembered to bring their coloured T-shirts. They sang beautifully, with lots of smiles and enthusiasm. Some of our parents commented that it was our best show ever and I would have to agree. Thank you to all our P4-7 staff, support staff and Mrs Etherington and Mrs Baker for ensuring such an excellent performance.

Further to another recent grant application, SCOTMID's West Regional Committee has considered our proposal and decided to award our school with a grant of £500 in cash to contribute towards the cost of creating a sensory garden. We look forward to further developing  outdoor learning opportunities for our children. The children are looking forward to Yvonne Goodfellow coming in next week to take pictures of them in uniform in our playground.

Angel Weng in P3/2 was one of several children who wrote to famous Scottish Personalities in Glasgow about our aim to raise funds to buy Literacy resources for our school. Angel received a reply and a cheque of £500 from the comedian Frankie Boyle! This brings our funds to £1350!

Our students finished on Friday. They worked incredibly hard and their feedback on how well Ms Hutchison, Ms McLaughlin and Mr Feist and all the staff supported them was very well received. We wish them all the very best with their future careers.

Our Elmvale Christmas Choir have been very busy. Ms Davidson and Mr Feist accompanied 36 children to the Glasgow City Chambers banqueting hall where they sang their hearts out to distinguished guests. We are all very proud of them.
They also sang at the Springburn Salvation Army Hall on Friday night from 7.30pm. They sang five carols and gave another superb performance. Please see Twitter pictures for this event. Major Ian Patrick was very impressed with the children and kindly gave each of them chocolate coins. He made a special request for Elmvale staff to perform a carol for next year's performance. Who will lead our new  staff choir?

The Children's and Parent's Christmas Fayres were a roaring success. Information on the amount raised will be included in next week's blog. The parent responses to this event were exceptionally positive. These comments will be posted on the website next week for everyone to see.

The Website committee members gave out business cards to encourage more parents to read our website & follow us on Twitter to celebrate children's success. We hope that some of our parents will leave messages in our Guestbook.
Catherine from St Catherine's PS who is in charge of our dinner school provision will be coming to speak to the Pupil Council tomorrow at 1pm to discuss some of the representatives comments from their classes regarding the dinner hall. Look out for an updated, 'You said.... We did...' on the Pupil Council webpage tomorrow evening!
We received an email from Isobel Taggart regarding Brilliant Brogan's personal, handwritten letter. The Website Committee will be so excited to hear that she will be visiting our school in January regarding issues around social media, You-Tube & wifi access for our new iPads.

If you look at Twitter comments, 6 of our children received fantastic feedback from NG Homes over the weekend. They had the opportunity to meet the Olympic double canoeist, Tom Baillie, and it was reported that they were a credit to our school!

The Nursery raffle will be drawn tomorrow to win a brilliant bike! If you look at Twitter, Ms Mitchell is modelling it but we hope it goes to a smaller winner!
Tomorrow is the Nursery Christmas parent & child carol singing party. We look forward to seeing you all at 9.30 for some Christmas carols around the tree!

To finish off this week's blog, I'd like to finish with a Christmas quiz for our children. I'd like to think that most of our children are sleeping by now as it is almost 9pm so perhaps they can tackle this tomorrow. However I have 4 questions for our children to answer. There will be a prize (to be given out on Friday 19 December) for the first correct answers on our Global Guestbook.
1 Where does Santa Claus come from?
2 Who was St Nicholas?
3 Who was the first person to describe Santa with a red suit?
4 What was the Christmas Truce of 1914?

Good Luck!!

7/12/14
Going by the weather forecast that I have seen tonight, it seems that it is highly likely that we will experience some wet intervals. There seems to be a strong chance of rain on Tuesday with the rest of the week appearing to be quite cold and very windy. Who knows, we could even see some snow and not just on the hills!
Ashley will be finishing in the nursery class soon and be moving on to Sandyford Day Nursery.
Our nursery class visited the Riverside Museum during the week and had a great time.
Thank you to Mrs Renwick's mum and dad who donated £150 for more active literacy resources. We have made a total of £850 and money is still coming in.
Congratulations to our student teachers who have passed their classroom observation visits made by their tutors. We wish them every success with the rest of their studies once their placement in our school comes to an end on 12th December.
The Pupil Council collected ballot papers submitted by children across the whole school and did the big count on Friday. It was a very close count and all the posters submitted by the candidates were brilliant. Paige has been nominated as our Chairperson, Dean is our new Vice-chair and Tina is our secretary. The council will be entirely led by the children now with minimal intervention from staff.
The website committee have made three voting videos so far and the rest will be made and added to the website tomorrow. The children filmed each other to make their fun election videos.
Ms Hutchison has accepted the role of International Education Champion. A new child has just joined P6 and he has come to us from Spain. P6 will be going to the GFT to see a Spanish film with subtitles.
P6/5 have been learning a Polish Christmas lullaby and P7G have been learning a Gaelic Snowing Song. Both P6/5 and P7G will be performing their songs at the P4-7 Christmas Extravaganza in the Salvation Army Hall on Wednesday 10th December. I hope that you already have your tickets?
P7F will be sharing their learning in video form. I've attached it here from Dropbox - hopefully you can open it.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6kt8x6p0rqiyl5c/Assembly.mp4?dl=0
This really is outstanding work by P7F and well worth taking the time to investigate.

We now have 58 countries on our hit counter and global messages are arriving from all over the world.

We applied to Education Scotland for a grant. We have been successful and will be awarded £2500 which will be spent on ipads. These will help support some of our children with access to Literacy.
A letter will be issued tomorrow to all of our infant parents (P1-3) offering their children an opportunity to take part in a selection of after school clubs. These clubs will take place between January 2015 and March. This is in response to our parents who had requested more after school clubs for younger children. Hopefully this will influence our children in leading more active lives.

We received a cheque for just over £400 for recycled clothing. If you have been using the clothing recycling bin in the carpark at Springburn Shopping Centre and wondering if you are helping in any way, then now you know, yes you are! Many thanks to everyone who is doing just that and keep up the good work!

Thank you to Ms McMullan who organised a very successful staff night out on Saturday 6 December. It was the first time for many years that almost all  the staff were in attendance together at a Christmas night out. Well done Ms McMullan!

Please remember that our Christmas Fayre takes place on Thursday 11th December for children only and Friday 12th December for parents and children. For health and safety reasons please make sure that if you are a parent of children in the am nursery class and P1-3 that you come to the Christmas Fayre in the morning only. There will be the same opportunities / items available for sale as in the afternoon.

I look forward to seeing you all at the Fayre on the 12th.

30/11/14
The weather this week is due to be dry and with a temperature more like normal for this time of year. So it should be another week of no wet intervals!
Our website and twitter account is really going from strength to strength. I hope that you are all trying to access these on a regular basis as both are a great source of up-to-date information as to what is going on in our school. It really is fantastic to see our children achieving great success.
We now have 48 countries on our web counter and many comments from people around the world. Our very own Executive Director for Glasgow (Maureen McKenna) has left a message all the way from Malawi. Please see all of our international messages here left in our Global Guestbook. We have registered our school with the British Council and we are gathering evidence to apply for a Foundation Award in International Education. Ms Kytzia has started to develop this section on the website. Please have a look at the superb work of Ms Hutchison and her Spanish Club here. They are looking forward to twinning with a Spanish school after Christmas. Learning a second language develops a love of language and enjoyment of learning.

We received a donation of £100 from Gibson & Goold in Ayr. They received  Angel's (P3/2) handwritten letter. This means that we are now able to buy even more active literacy resources for the infant department. Thank you to Miss Macdonald for her commitment to raising much needed funds for Elmvale.

Thank you to Brogan in P5M who sent letters to both Morag Gunion and Isobel Taggart asking them to unblock our access to Twitter and Youtube in our school. The website committee are looking forward to their response.

We have posted our first video, Vimeo, on Twitter with Gemma in P7F sharing her learning of area and perimeters. We are looking forward to using more technology to enhance learning in our school. The website committee will be asking classes to take part in a competition next week. This competition comes from Police Scotland. To celebrate the festive period,  the Police, are encouraging school aged children to design / draw a poster illustrating what festive safety means. The posters will be submitted via Twitter.

Thank you for all of your generous donations for the Christmas Fayre. They will ensure that the day is a great success.

Our parent helpers have been hard at work wrapping presents and working on a wide variety of Christmas activities.

The Pupil Council will be selling raffle tickets around the classrooms from tomorrow. The cost of a strip is £1 and there are a variety of gifts including -
a wonderful Christmas cake and a gingerbread house.
Prize winners will be announced on the day of the Fayre.

Thank you to everyone who gave generously for our celebration of St Andrew's Day - there was a lot of tartan to be seen. Our Pupil Council will be  sending half of the proceeds to a Scottish Charity of their choice.

Thank you to Mr Feist and a group of P7s for attending Springburn Nursery to play the bagpipes and teach some Scottish songs. Mr Feist also ended our celebration of St Andrew's Day on Friday by playing his pipes in the playground at 3pm. Please see our Twitter account for photographs.

Congratulations to both of our postgraduate students for passing their classroom observation visits.

P3/2 have updated their class page on the website. Well done Miss Sullivan for adding their learning journey and pictures for children and parents to enjoy. Please see their updated class page here.

Miss Ireland, Mrs Rowan and Miss Sullivan will be leading the ECO Committee and helping our school move towards it's goal of a third green flag!

Miss McLaughlan will be taking our Outdoor Learning Committee - we look forward to her expertise in this area to further develop the great work going on in our school.

I will be meeting with the director of an organisation which will provide us with sports coaches for more after school / lunchtime clubs between January and March. This is likely to involve many of our infant children.

Thank you to Mrs Renwick for working hard to encourage involvement from many more international partners. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading about children's experiences in different parts of the world.

The children in the nursery class have been learning about people who help us and are hoping to have the police and fire brigade out this week.

Our student 'Erin' has finished her placement and we would like to thank her for her hard work and enthusiasm.

The children have been learning 'Knock knock' and will be part of our infant nativity.

Margaret Brown who is our new lunch cover worker will start with us tomorrow.

Our new assessment booklets have started and are proving to be a great way of showing what great learning experiences the children have covered. They are also working towards their targets and are doing really well at learning the Rhyme of the month!  Last week was book week and the children were immersed in some great stories!

23/11/14
Last week was national Anti Bullying week and this was the main theme of our assembly which you can read about below. Some classes took part in bullying quizzes to reinforce the message 'Be cool not cruel' and 'Be an Elmvale Buddy not a bully'. 

Primary Four also went to the Glasgow Museum of Modern Art.
The Military Museum visited our school all day on Friday and showed a range of military history. This was particularly beneficial for Primary Five and Primary Seven who have been studying WW1 and WW2 respectively.

Mrs Baker met with the parents group who are making plans for fundraising for the Christmas Fayre in December. This is one of our most important fundraising events which I hope to inform you about next week in more detail.

The Infant Department have been practising hard on their Nativity 'It's a baby!' and the singing is sounding lovely already.

The infants have been continuing their fundraising activities by writing letters to celebrities who live in Glasgow. Miss Macdonald received a phone call from a celebrity's PA to say that they had received Angel in P3/2's handwritten letter. They are sending a cheque to our school to help buy more literacy resources!

The UDO Dance Championships took place last week at Springburn Academy where our dance team came fourth. The group were presented with a trophy to commemorate their achievement. There are pictures relating to this on Twitter.

Mrs Baker met Greg Cann from NG homes. They were discussing some very interesting sounding activities which included canoeing in Pinkston Basin. More information to follow.

This week is 'Book Week Scotland'. Our staff have been posting their favourite books on Twitter. I have two favourite children's books that are memorable for me as a teacher working with children. They are -
The Angel of Nitshill Road which is a great story with a theme on Anti - Bullying and The Song of Pentecost by W J Corbett which is not unlike Watership Down but more memorable. I wasn't keen on reading books as a child but two books do stand out for me. These are The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas and The Hobbit by J R R Tolkein. I found both of these books highly entertaining and struggled to put them down, often reading them into the early hours of the morning. The latter book got me into reading frequently and it was followed by The Lord of the Rings and many more books from the Fantasy and Science Fiction genres. I now consider reading to be one of my hobbies.
Some of our staff will be going into the Nursery Class and share their favourite books with the children and we will be inviting parents to drop in and share theirs too. Some famous authors have responded with their favourite children's books as well.
Mrs Etherington will be sending round a timetable to our classes for library slots. She has challenge cards for classes to complete. We hope to have many more Drop Everything And Read (DEAR) sessions this week.
Please remember to continue to browse the latest stories and happenings from life in Elmvale Primary & Nursery Class. Enjoy!

Our Website Committee are making Video Election Campaigns for the whole school to vote and the Pupil Council have chosen  a Poster Campaign for chairperson, vice-chairperson and secretary.
Both Aakansha P6 and Megan P2L will lead tomorrow's Open Mic session for School Improvement at our Assembly.
Our assembly  tomorrow will be led by myself and will focus on the theme of Friendship. Please view my assmebly power-point here.

On Friday, we will celebrate St Andrews Day by wearing something Scottish / non uniform day. Will that mean that Mr Feist and myself will be wearing a kilt? Well you'll just have to wait and see!

 16/11/14
Our Remembrance Assembly was a great success. It was a very moving experience as a result of our children's reading of their poems, Mrs Dunn playing the 'Last Post' on her trumpet and Mr Feist finishing off with the bagpipes. Photographs for this event have already been added to twitter and to the website gallery. Please view them here. The Springburn / Kirkintilloch Herald have also received copies of these photos.

The Elmvale School football team did extremely well in their recent competition in East Dunbartonshire. They came second which is the best result that we have ever achieved in this competition and were awarded a trophy which will be displayed in our trophy cabinet in the foyer.

We had a large number of families enrolling their children in our school during enrolment week. I know that Miss Macdonald thoroughly enjoyed meeting our new parents and we look forward to seeing them again at our induction days in May.

Our first Parent Council meeting of the session was a great success. We welcomed a new parent to our meeting. The parents who attended were Katherine Yuill, Carol Aljundi,Lizzie Logan, Mandy Forsyth, June Welsh and Pauline Loch . Apologies from Jan Galbraith. Minutes will be added shortly.

The Social Enterprise Committee which I mistakenly wrote as P4/3 but is in fact run by Mrs Dunn and consists of children from P4-7 spoke extremely well to the Parent Council and presented a business proposition. They asked for £60 to start up a business selling stationery. The proceeds for this business would be donated to a Cancer charity.

The parent audit from the 1st & 2nd October focussing on the school website and Twitter was shared with the parent council. At that time we had 389 hits on the web counter and 123 Twitter followers.  Currently we are at 1944 web hits and 411 followers. We are addressing all parent comments 'You said.... We did...'

The website committee are going to try to boost the 43 countries to have a wider global audience. Minutes and agendas of both Pupil Council (here) and Website Committee (here) are on the relevant committee pages on the website for better communication.

We will be introducing the Open Mic session to weekly assemblies for greater Pupil Voice. Bradley Johnston from P6/5 will lead the first session.

Miss Kytzia will be leading our assemblies tomorrow. The main theme will be Anti - Bullying. This week is National Anti-Bullying week. Please see tomorrows assembly here. We all work very hard in Elmvale to ensure that our children have a bullying free experience in our school.

Mrs Blevins (P3B) is leading JRSO (Junior Road Safety Officers) and next week is Road Safety Week. There will be a whole school competition involving our school mascot Buzzbee. You can view the competition details here.

The Nursery Class and P3B class pages have been added to the website. Please view our class pages here.

The Elmvale P4-7 choir performed at John Lewis on Saturday 14th November. Unfortunately one of the children fainted and landed on the laptop which assisted with producing the music. Our children continued gallantly without the music but the session had to be cut short. The photos for this performance are on Twitter and will be added to the website.

The UDO Dance Competition will take place on Tuesday 18th November at Springburn Academy.

P5M & Website Committee will be writing to local businesses this week to ask for prizes for Christmas Extravaganza and to consider sending us their plastic bag money.

Thank you to SCOTMID who have agreed to donate food for the Turus Room and items for Christmas.

There will be a number of theme days for school dinners over the course of the year which can be checked on our calendar - Christmas dinner is on 8th December. You can check what your child is eating by looking at our homepage.

A number of useful articles for parents have been added to our Twitter page - Cyber-bullying, internet safety, child anxiety etc.

Parent Voice (like Pupil Voice) is very important to us so please use our guest book for any suggestions or improvements and we shall try to act upon them.

I hope that you all have a good week!

 9/11/14
This week will be another one of mixed wet, windy but mild weather.
Callum McLean P7 has made it through the next round of trials to play for Glasgow City football team. He will be playing in his first game tomorrow. We will be wishing the Glasgow Team and Callum all the very best.

On Tuesday 11th November P4-7 will be taking part in our remembrance event. We hope that many parents will join us at 10.40am.

On Wednesday 12th November, our football team will be in action against teams from East Dunbartonshire in a competitive cup game. Again, we will be wishing them every success.

Mr Feist has now updated his class section of the website - it is certainly very enjoyable and worth a look.

I would recommend that you look at Elmvale Twitter account where a wide variety of people/companies/organisations are now following Elmvale Primary. There are even more pictures of our school achievements than on our website. Mr Feist has also set up the Elmvale Brilliant Book Club which is very much worth a visit.

This week is Glasgow City's Enrolment week. We hope to welcome many new children to our school from Monday 10th November onwards. I look forward to meeting you all.

There will be a Parent Council meeting on Friday 14th June at 1.15pm. This will be a good opportunity to review progress this session and clarify what we hope to achieve over the course of the whole academic year. P4/3 would also like to present their ideas.

The school choir will be singing in John Lewis (Buchanan Street) on Saturday 15th November between 12noon and 1pm on the first floor.
They were excellent last year and I'm sure that this year will be no different. They also raised a large sum of money for the school. I hope that you take the time to go along and support them.

2/11/14
The weather this week is due to be mixed but predominantly cold. Lets hope that it is at least dry during intervals!
Miss Macdonald will be taking assembly tomorrow. Among other issues, the result of the pupil competition on naming the school mascot bumble bee for 'be the best we can be' will take place. I'm sure the winning name will be interesting.
The pupil council will be working on the transitions slide show for Starting School at Elmvale.
Four classes have been set up so on the school website to show off the wonderful work of the children. They are P1I, P1R, P2/1 and the Turus Room.
Miss Macdonald, Ms Kytzia & the Pupil Council representatives will be visiting Springburn Nursery  for a Starting School talk tomorrow. 
All enrolment information and FAQ can  be found in the Starting School section of the website.
Our Infant Department have raised over £650  from the recent fundraising Sing-a-thon! Well done to them. This money will be used to buy resources for active literacy. £100 will be spent on each infant class.
Peer reading began on 27th October and has been a great success. P7 children wrote witches poems for all P1 children to take home.
Thank you to Mrs Rowan and Ms Ireland for enabling 6 classes to 'dook for apples'. Please see the Twitter account for pictures.
Go Green for Halloween was a great success with a fabulous turnout from our parents and carers. A special thank you goes to Mandy Forsyth who gave up a whole day to play the music.
We have been receiving very positive messages from other schools regarding our Twitter account for sharing good practice.
Our target jotters will be going home this week. Please sign them when your child brings them home and make sure they return the next day.

There have been a number of parents approaching staff in the line in the morning. It is really important that the classes enter the building as quickly as possible. Please use the sharing book or arrange an appointment through the school office.

Callum Maclean in P7 has been successful in making it through to the next round of trials for the Glasgow City football team. The second round of trials will take place on Tuesday 4th November. We will be wishing him every success.
The football team will be playing at Firhill complex on Thursday 6th November. This is a competitive event and we will be wishing them all the best.
There is a further competitive game on the 12th November where our school team will be playing in Lenzie and will be playing against a selection of teams from East Dunbartonshire schools.

26/10/14
Autumn has really returned with a vengeance! Rain, wind and large puddles and lots of yellow and red leaves on the roads and pavements.
However the weather did not stop us from taking 14 children (13 boys & 1 girl) by foot from Elmvale to Petershill Park in the pouring rain to play football. The wind and rain didn't stop our two teams from trying their very best against Royston, St Rochs and Golfhill.
The first team won two games and lost two games. Although the second team lost all its games, they played much better than the last time.

The first team will take part in a friendly tournament at John Paul Academy tomorrow after school. These games will take place each Monday over the next six weeks. They will be up against teams who are probably from Caldercuilt, Cadder, Highpark and Parkview.
Mrs Rowan will travel with Mr Stevenson  and the team in the Springburn Academy minibus.

On the 3rd November Kelvin College students will be providing football training for girls from P5-7. This will take place in the school gym hall while the first team are away in Summerston. Letters will be issued tomorrow for any interested girls.

Callum McLean P7 and Dean Burrowes P7 have been put forward for the Glasgow Trials on Tuesday 28 October.  We will be wishing them all the very best. Three P7 children were selected from our school last year and the year before to play for Glasgow and that is despite the fact that we have no football pitch!

As you  may have seen from the News Section, we have been awarded just over £1000 from the North Area Committee. This will be used to extend the number of after school / lunch time clubs as well as to pay for buses to football events and the purchase of a new football strip.

Tomorrow, Mrs Baker will be leading our assembly. Please view her power point here. I led the assembly last week which focussed on the theme of excellence. Two stories were read out to the school, both of which were a good example of excellence. They were created by Thomas Burt P7 and Kia Forbes P6.

Our Halloween Parade will take place on Friday 31st October. The details of this event have already been issued by letter. The focus of this event is creativity and prizes will be awarded to children with homemade costumes. There have been many inventive costumes created over the years. Our parents were unable to see the parade last year due to a strike by PSA staff but all parents will be very welcome on Friday although they must be able to climb the stairs in order to view the proceedings from the 1st & 2nd floor balconies. Children will not be dismissed from school until 3pm. Children do not need to take part in this event and therefore parents do not need to buy costumes.

There will be two German students helping out in our Nursery Class from tomorrow onwards for the next two weeks. They are training to work with children of this age in Germany and have been given the opportunity to come to Scotland and observe good practice here.

I have been attending night classes in German for the past three years and plan to pilot teaching German in one of the classes in our school. This will start in November and parents will be informed by letter.

19/10/14
I hope that everyone has made the most of our October Week's holiday. We were back to unusually warm and dry weather for this time of year. I was away in France for a few days with my wife (Laura) who used the opportunity to practise her French.

I hope that all our children and families who celebrated Eid over last weekend, had a very happy time. We like to value and recognise the importance of Eid for our Muslim families and this will be discussed alongside our theme of excellence at our assembly tomorrow.

Divali will take place on Thursday 23rd October. A very Happy Divali to all our children and families who celebrate this festival. Some of our children will be learning about Rangoli patterns and will be drawing patterns with chalk in our playgrounds to celebrate Diwali in the week following Divali.

Thank you to all our generous parents to donated an item of food for our Harvest Celebration. Thanks also go to our pupil council who donated them to various local elderly organisations.

Thank you also to our parents for their fund raising efforts on Friday 3rd October and to our parents and their friends for their very generous fund raising activities for the infant sponsored sing a thon. Thomas in P1R raised an amazing £51!

All of our children throughout the school are fully involved in some challenging experiences from P6/5 and P6 who were extracting DNA from Kiwi fruit and observing the results using microscopes kindly lent by Springburn Academy to P4/3 and P3 and their Chocolate Factory visits. The friezes in the school showing off the achievements of our children are impressive.

P5, P6/5 and P6 were auditioned for a CBBC Crime programme. I'll keep you posted on their success.

Enrolment of children in P1 August 2015
Please remember that children in Glasgow should be registered in their local school during the week of 10th November.

Peer Mediators
We have 24 P7 peer mediators who are doing a fantastic job taking turns and supporting the children in our infant department in making good choices in the playground.

Playground Zones
This idea was introduced by our playground staff and it has been a great success. There are now specific areas for children to play with yo-yos, hula hoops, skipping ropes and quiet areas for children to read.

Target Setting in Classrooms
Every child in every class in the school will be setting targets to focus on improving aspects of their work. Please speak to your child about their targets.Targets will be sent home to keep you informed of what needs to be improved. These target jotters must be returned to school in order for children to continue to make appropriate progress.

Many of our new after school clubs will begin / continue this week -

Monday - Football
Tuesday - Rugby
Thursday - Football at Petershill Park (2 teams)
Thursday - Afterschool Multi sports
Thursday - Homelearning
Thursday - Reporters

Parent Fundraising
Our parents will be organising their first social event of this session on Friday 24th October. Please see Mandy Forsyth for tickets. It is important to support these events to raise much needed funds for the school.

Elmvale Nursery News
Children are going to start learning all about people who help us after the October break. Primary 2 are also looking at this topic and the children will be sharing their learning.

The children took part in a half hour sponsored sing-a-thon and are raising lots of money to buy fantastic new resources for the nursery.

Every morning the children gather to focus on the calendar and weather.

All of our new children have settled in well.

The children now visit our ICT suite on a weekly basis and will be joining us at Assemblies after the holidays.

The children are  doing very well with their new snack routine and are becoming much more independent.

Some parents recently attended a course to be run by the Sports Legacy Coordinator to train children to competently ride a bike. Our nursery children will soon have the opportunity to take part in this fantastic initiative.

The children have been learning all about nursery routines, rules and making new friends. This has been a very successful learning block and many of the children are able to discuss and demonstrate the nursery rules.

We are very fortunate to have students working with us just now from North Kelvin College and New College Lanarkshire. They will be in the nursery for 2 days a week.

Two German students will join our nursery from Tuesday 21st October.

5/10/14
Sadly we are back to the usual Glasgow weather this weekend with rain and a much cooler 12-14 degrees centigrade. I think the weather forecast looks to be a bit dreich this week!

As noted below, we took two football teams to Petershill Park in Springburn last week. The First team consisted mainly of players who made up last year's football team and had significantly more experience. The Second team was a mixture of P4,5,6,7 and had significantly less experience. I think this game coincided with one of the last warm days. The children played against, Wallacewell, St Rochs, Royston and Golfhill. The First team played extremely well and involved all their players. They played with skill and motivated one another. They reminded me of the team from 2012 - 2013. They won all of their games except for one which they drew. The Second team gained some valuable experience. Well done Team Elmvale! There will be another game at the same venue in 3 weeks time.

Conversely Mrs Baker took P5 & P6/5 to the Bank of Scotland Scottish run on Friday which she described as the wettest day ever! Despite this, our children did the school proud and ignored the weather to complete this activity successfully. They all received a medal and a goodie bag.

P7F & P7G were also out on a trip on Friday to the Science Centre. They thoroughly enjoyed their visit and learned a great deal. Their experience included a 3D film about the strongest/long range telescope ever and the Universe.

Tomorrow (Monday 6th October), Mrs Etherington will be taking our assemblies.

On Tuesday, this year's P1s will feature in The Evening Times. If you would like to buy a copy of the picture please have a look at the 'Latest News' section of this website for details.

Tuesday will also see P3 or P4/3 go on their trip to 'The Number 1 Chocolate Factory'.  This trip will be completely free thanks to the fundraising carried out by both classes. I'm sure that the children's learning experiences will be interesting and worthwhile.

On Wednesday we will be celebrating Harvest at Springburn Parish Church from about 9.30am. I hope that you are able to join us for this event which will be a good opportunity to hear the choirs, take part in the whole school singing and hear about the successes of your children. All our children will return to school but Mr Casey has organised tea, coffee and baking to be available at the end of the celebration for all our parents and visitors. The cost of this tearoom will be 50p.

Wednesday will be a very busy day for the other P3 or P4/3 class as they will go to the 'No1 Chocolate Factory' on returning to school from the Harvest Celebration.

Elmvale will host its own coffee morning from 9.30-11.30am in the school dining hall. Homebaking is welcomed from all parents/carers/supporters. The children can come to school on this last day before the October Week, wearing casual clothes (no football strips please) and pay £1 which will go to school funds.

Staff will be wearing pink (myself included!) to raise money for Breast Cancer awareness.

As you can see, it will be a busy week. Please note that school closes at 3pm on Friday. If I don't see you on Wednesday, I hope that you all have a great holiday.

29/9/14
It has been another fine weekend here in Glasgow with temperatures reaching a balmy 20 degrees Centigrade and no rain! I hope that all our children have been out and enjoying the  unusual dry and warm weather.

 Congratulations to all the boys and girls in P3 and P4/3 who took part in a recent fun run to help raise money for their up and coming school trip.Thank you to all parents and guardians for their support and encouragement with this event.Due to the Monday holiday, this week will of course be short. However it will be a busy week. Wednesday night will be our first parents' night of the year with appointments from 3.30pm - 6pm and Thursday with appointments from 4.30 - 7pm in both the primary and nursery class.

Our football team will experience their first friendly game of the season on Thursday 2nd October when they go to Petershill Park to play against some of the local primary schools' football teams. We will be wishing them all the very best.

On Friday 3rd October, P5 and P6/5 are looking forward to running the Bank of Scotland Fun Run. Many thanks to Springburn Harriers for their support in helping to train our young athletes. We hope they enjoy the event and everybody makes it to the end!

26/9/14
Today is of course the first day of the Glasgow holiday 'September Weekend'. I hope that everyone is out and about making the most of the lovely Autumn weather.

I need to add the following information to everything that happened last week -

Congratulating our Golden Rules Competition Winners. P1R William, P4 Melanie, P5 Aiya, P3 Gary, P4/3 Nika, P7G Marie France, P7F Tina, P1I Jamie, P6 Zander, P3/2 Suzanne, P6/5 Johnny. They all received certificates at Mrs Etherington's assembly from the previous week and proudly stood on our red hot-spots.

Their wonderful posters highlighting our 6 Golden Rules will be placed around the school with our new Vision, Values, Aims and Golden Rules poster. Their entries will also be celebrated on our website under the 'Competitions' section under 'News & Events'.

Miss Macdonald Introduced a new line point system to both the infant and upper school which is motivating our children to line up quietly and to move around the school remembering our school rules. Primary 3B won 3 silver coins in one day for an excellent line at both interval and lunchtime! Each class are excited about getting their own treasure chests soon. Team Elmvale is Going for Gold!

We will be introducing a 'Golden Post Box' and 'Golden Book' in our nursery, infant and upper school to further track and celebrate our children's wider achievements outside of school. We are very proud of all our Elmvaler's and their great achievements both in and outside of school. We will also be introducing a 'Success Tree' to also celebrate our staff and families achievements too. A letter will be issued shortly to explain how these new initiatives will be used.

Pupil Voice is very important to us at Elmvale. Our Pupil Council will be up and running after the September Weekend with members from every class in our school. We can't  wait for all of their ideas to further drive improvements in our school.

Both inservices were very successful. Staff enjoyed their healthy pot-luck lunch organised by our Health & Well-being coordinator Mrs Etherington which fed us for two days! A special thankyou to Ms Davidson & Mrs Rowan who greatly contributed to our assembly activities.

We are excited by the numerous clubs and committees that will commence soon. Mrs Baker has worked hard to timetable these activities which will benefit all of our children.

Thank you also to Mr Feist, Miss Gray, Ms McMullan and Mrs Rowan who trained the P7 peer mediators. These children are now doing a fantastic job in our infant playground, supporting these children by resolving issues in a restorative manner. Well done P7!

**************

 Please view Miss Kytzia's assembly on Achievement and Celebrating Success here.

Miss Leishman (last year's P6 teacher) popped in for a short visit and was recruited in for helping out to supervise a school trip. She enjoyed catching up with her pupils from last year.

Names were taken out of ' a hat' for the week long residential trip to Blairvadach. There were 38 children in total who were interested. Names had to be taken out of the 'hat' twice as the first attempt had not included one child who had returned her form in time. There is still the possibility that the six children who failed to make up the 32 selected could find themselves with a place as a result of children moving away from the area / changing their minds about taking part.

P4/3 & P3 are going to be conducting a fundraising activity to help to pay for their trip to the chocolate factory.

I have met with Brian Casey, the new minister at Springburn Parish church. We intend to have our Harvest Celebration on Wednesday 8th October from 9.30am in Springburn Parish Church. There will be a tearoom in operation after the celebration with tea/coffee and baking. This will cost 50p.

We are soon to start a variety of new clubs involving children from P2-P7.  Some of these clubs will take place after school or during lunchtimes and will cover varying different sports, an art club and a school newspaper club. They will involve coaches, current staff, former staff and a former parent. I will be announcing further details at our Harvest Celebration in October.

Scottish Water will be conducting drilling in Elmvale Street from tomorrow (22nd September 2014). At the best of times Fernbank St / Elmvale St is congested at 9am / 3pm. Please try to avoid this area by parking on Hawthorn St or further down Elmvale St at Memel St. This would avoid the temporary traffic lights that will be found in Elmvale St from the 22nd September along with the restrictions in parking as a result of the drilling. 

This will be another short week as a result of the September weekend from Fri 26th Sept to Mon 29th Sept inclusive.

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14/9/14
The forecast for this week is for predominantly dry weather with perhaps Tuesday being a little wetter. Well done to everyone who brought their bikes last week.

Miss Kytzia's assembly was very entertaining and no doubt particularly so for our children who witnessed myself being involved in a trick using two hankies and the magic words abracadabra. However I'm sure that they took on board the main points of trying their best and being motivated in everything that they do.

Mrs Etherington will be conducting tomorrow's assembly on the theme of valuing individuals. I'm sure that this assembly will be just as enjoyable.

Our discos last week were very well attended. It was great to see so many of our new P1s come along. I think that there were about 200 children in total who attended over the two nights. They certainly all seemed to have a great time.

The Shettleston Harriers (Athletics) were in Elmvale on Friday 5th September helping to train the children in preparation for a running event in the not to distant future. They will pop in again over the next few weeks to check on the children's progress.

P4/3 and P3 are working on Charlie & The Chocolate Factory. They hope to go to 'The No1 Chocolate Factory' at Charing Cross. P5 went there last year and it was a very expensive trip. They intend to carry out some enterprising fundraising activities. Please look out for these in order to help us fund this fun and interesting trip.

I have received approximately 36 returned slips for the P7 trip to Blairvadach. There are unfortunatley only 32 places. Names will be taken out of 'a hat' this week. Those who are not able to get a place initially, will be put on a waiting list. We were offered 24 places last year and only 16 children took up this offer. It is therefore entirely possible that those on the waiting list could be offered a place.

This week will be a short week for our children. On Thursday 18th September the school will be closed to children as it is used as a polling station. Staff will still attend school. The school will also be closed on Friday 19th September as this will also be an inservice day for staff.

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 7/9/14
I have managed to complete this year's 'Pedal for Scotland' Glasgow to Edinburgh 47 mile challenge route. Mrs McCabe (clerical assistant)  also took part. Hopefully we can encourage more staff and perhaps some children from school to take part next year?

Miss Kytzia will be taking our assembly tomorrow. The theme is 'Motivated to Learn' and the 'Magic Within'. This will involve Dr Suess and a magician and will be entertaining, educational and will have a motivational and positive impact on our children. I'm looking forward to it already!

Please view Miss Kytzia's assembly on 'Motivated to Learn' here.

I would like to thank the P7s this year for being such excellent buddies - one of our P1s was quite upset when his buddy did not resume her post for several days as it was covered by the P7s from the other class.

I would also like to thank the grandparent of a P1 child who donated two large bags of books. This was greatly appreciated by the school and the children.

Don't forget that this is the week of our discos. We work hard to ensure our children improve their attainment across the curriculum but it is also important that they can socialise in a positive manner. Our discos are very popular and great fun!

The forecast for this week is to be dry. I will be bringing my bike to school from Tuesday onwards. Last week we had several bikes attached to our bike rack, perhaps this week we can see some more?

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31/8/14
Another fine weekend has seen me complete a 40mile cycle in total from Lochwinnoch and back in preparation for next week's 'Pedal for Scotland' event. The Bike Station in Glasgow organised this trip as a warm up to this event.  It is surprising the number of cycle paths that are available in the City of Glasgow and beyond that ensure cycling can be safe and free from  traffic!

The Bike Station has been involved in our school before where they enabled our children to swap old bikes for reconditioned ones. We hope that they can provide this service again in the near future.

As mentioned below, P4, P7F & P7G, & P6/5 will be going to see the Glasgow Youth Orchestra in the City Halls in the Merchant City tomorrow.

On  the 9th & 10th September, we will have our first discos of the year. These are organised by our very enthusiastic parent helpers. Tickets can be bought at the door. More details will be added next week.

Tomorrow will be our third assembly of the new session. Miss Macdonald (DHT for infants & nursery) will lead this assembly and the main theme will be respect.

Please view Miss Macdonald's assembly on 'Listened to and Respected' here.

Both P7s will begin football coaching  on Monday afternoon.

Having just seen the weather forecast it looks like it will be another warm and dry week. Just the start we would wish for our P1s who will experience their first full days in school.

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24/8/14
Last week was our first full week of the new academic year. Almost all our staff returned and all will be in Elmvale from Monday 25th August. Our children had great fun in the playground with our new hoops, and skipping ropes. The P4s were enjoying the rolling log and monkey bars and the fun fitness trail. There was the usual basketball and football areas and picnic tables for those who like to chat. The weather was kind with dry weather and at times sunny days! 

In an effort to keep fit and lose some weight, I've been bringing my bike to school and it was good to see that some of our children have been bringing their bikes as well. A few brought scooters. Please make sure that if you do bring a bike / scooter that you bring a suitable padlock.

We have been lucky yet again with some lovely weather this weekend  which is partly why I'm completing this blog so late on a Sunday night! I was out on Saturday for a 32mile cycle in preparation for the 'Freshnlow Pedal for Scotland' event on the 7th September. Some of our staff will also be joining me on the cycle from Glasgow to Edinburgh on that day. Throughout this year we will be interested in the achievements of our children, parents and staff out with the school day. I know that one of our P6 children will be involved in various events in skiing / snowboarding at Xscape. Please make use of our Achievements section.

Although we haven't fully organised our after school clubs we hope to start the football team soon and there may also be a netball club and hockey club for children in the upper school. We will also be introducing clubs for P2& P3 shortly. Mr Feist has audtioned for his choir and there were in the region of 60 children interested. He may have to introduce a lunch time club to cater for the number of children.

Ms McMullan has begun her violin club and will continue to teach this with the same participants as last year for the time being.

Tomorrow, Mrs Baker will lead our assembly. Each assembly will focus on our aims, values and school rules for Elmvale.

Please view Mrs Baker's Assembly 'Everyone Nurtured' here. 

On Tuesday 2nd September, P7G, P6/5, P7F & P4 will travel to the City Halls in the Merchant City to see the Glasgow Schools' Symphony Orchestra.

Our 'Important information' letter will be issued to all our primary parents tomorrow which will include such information as the importance of sending your child to school without nuts (due to nut allergies), importance of good attendance etc.

Here's hoping it is as good a week as last week!

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August 2014

Welcome Back P2-7 and Hello to Our New P1s!

The sun was shining on Wednesday 13th August 2014 and it was great to see so many smiling faces. All of our children were looking very smart with some wearing blazers, many wearing our Elmvale badged yellow polo shirts and navy sweatshirts and some with our new V necked badged navy jumpers, white shirt and Elmvale tie. All of our children were full of enthusiasm and ready to learn. I have every confidence that this will continue throughout this session.

Almost all of our P1s started with only a few moving house over the summer. These places were quickly taken by a few P1s whose families had moved into the area. All of our new children started happily and there were no tears whatsoever. Our P1 teachers have reported that the children have settled very quickly.

Currently (15th August), we have a few places in P1,2,3,4,7 but none in P5 & P6. Although 13 primary classes and the nursery class are in use we still have our ICT suite, Library, After School Care room, separate dining hall and gym hall ensuring that there is plenty of space for our children to learn comfortably.

Mrs Murray, Mrs Reed, Mrs Glancy and Ms Lamberton are on maternity leave and Miss Gillespie and Miss Leishman left to teach abroad. We would like to wish them all the very best.

I would like to welcome Miss Grey (P7), Miss McLaughlan (P5), Miss Dunn (P4/3), Miss Blevins (P3), Miss Sullivan (3/2) and Miss Ireland (P1) to Elmvale. I'm sure they will enjoy their experience in Elmvale and will ensure that all of our children will continue to make excellent progress with their learning.

On Monday 18th August, P2-7 will attend our first assembly of the academic year. We hope to issue PE times soon along with information regarding other important issues such as homework, after school clubs, parent events etc.

Please view my Welcome Back Assembly here.

I will be adding to this blog on a weekly basis with the intention of keeping you up-to-date with what has happened, is happening and will happen. I hope that you find this useful.

Goodbye Primary 7 and Good Luck!

It has been a pleasure to have had the Primary Seven's in Elmvale over the past seven years.  They have made excellent progress in this time and I hope and wish that this continues into their secondary education.  I would like to wish you all every success for the future and I look forward to hearing about your progress in the years to come.