Calderwood Lodge Primary School and

Nursery Class

Newsletter 2

Dear Parent/Carer, We have had a very busy September in Calderwood Lodge! The school has been buzzing with excitement as we welcomed and celebrated a variety of festivals across the month. Our House Captains have been elected and the children have been busy earning house points. The weather has been good and the children have been able to spend their breaks outdoors. Please remember we like to have the children out at break times where possible, so please send them to school in appropriate clothing when the temperature starts to drop! Thank you to all of the parents and children for their kind wishes for my wedding at the weekend, it was very much appreciated. It will take me and the pupils a while to get used to me not being Miss Johnson! Kind Regards, Marion Carlton Head Teacher

Staffing Update Mrs Monique Graham has joined us as a Pupil Support Assistant. Monique has settled well into Calderwood Lodge and compliments our fantastic team of support staff.

Over the session we will welcome students from Glasgow and Strathclyde Universities who are undertaking their B.Ed or PGCE teaching qualifications. These students are always a great support to the class teachers and the pupils benefit from having an additional member of staff during teaching times. Choir We are delighted to welcome pupils from Primary 4 to 7 to be a part of the Calderwood Lodge Choir this year. As always the choir will be singing a diverse range of songs, including a number of songs in Ivrit, as well as a few modern pop songs and songs from musicals. The choir plays an important role within the community, and regularly performs at a number of events throughout the year. Preparations are already underway for what is normally a busy second term, with visits to Jewish Care and Maccabi to join in the celebrations for Chanukah. Please be sure to come along to hear more from the choir at some of the community events they will be performing in.

Mr Robson

Forest Schools The boys and girls in the nursery have started their Forest Schools programme. The children use an area in the park to

develop a range of skills across the curricular areas. Parents are welcome to join their children at their Forest School session, please speak to the nursery staff if you are interested.

Karen Phin

Rosh Hashanah Assembly Primary 7 did a wonderful job of leading the Rosh Hashanah assembly. Each class was involved in the assembly, whether it was through song, dance or a display of their work. The assembly included information about apples and honey, blowing the shofar, pomegranates, tashlich and challah baking, to name but a few. Each and every child joined in with the mitzvah of eating apple and honey to represent a sweet year ahead, and enjoyed joining in with an upbeat song at the end. Thank you to all of the children for their hard work and thank you to the parents who managed to come and join in with our celebration.

Mrs Rosenberg

Yom Kippur Assembly Primary 6 worked so hard learning their lines for their rendition of Yonah and the Whale. They performed with perfection whilst also telling the school about the important mitzvot we carry out on Yom Kippur. The whole school joined in with Al Chet where we say sorry to Hashem for our wrong doings over the last year. May Hashem seal us all in the Book of Life and grant us a happy year ahead.

Mrs Rosenberg

Parental Involvement and Engagement As you know we are working to improve parental engagement and involvement at Calderwood Lodge. A number of parents have commented positively on the new annual calendar of events saying this has allowed them to plan work and child care arrangement well in advance. Parents with pupils in Primary 1 to Primary 7 are represented by our Parent Council. These meetings are open to any parent who wishes to attend and minutes are uploaded onto the school website. Parents of nursery pupils are represented at the nursery Parent Forum chaired by Karen Phin. Thank you to the parents who came along to the first meeting. Minutes of this meeting are displayed on the Parent Forum wall in the nursery. Parents are also invited to add suggested agenda items here. Any parent of a nursery child who wishes to attend a Parent Forum meeting is welcome. East Renfrewshire Diversity Day Event Four Primary 7 pupils represented the school at East

Renfrewshire Council’s Diversity Day. The day is an exhibition of faith and cultures for Primary 6 pupils from selected East Renfrewshire schools. The pupils were a real credit to the school and spoke confidently during the event. Well done!

This year our Primary 6 pupils were invited to attend the event as participants. They had a great time taking part in a range of activities to learn about the variety of faiths and cultures across East Renfrewshire.

Primary 7 Trip to Safety in the Park Primary Seven went on a school trip to Arthurlie Park in Barrhead for an educational event called Safety in the Park. Safety in the Park is an event to teach young children about drugs, road safety, law and our health and wellbeing. It included activities which gave us safety advice about electricity, fire and cyber safety. There were 7 different stations:

1) The Drink Station “It showed us how horrible and dizzy you could end up feeling if you drink alcohol” Gabby

2) Stranger Danger “I felt embarrassed that I followed the lady who didn’t have any identification. It was very easy to be convinced by somebody who we shouldn’t have been trusting”. Amy

3) Rethink your drink “I was surprised by how much sugar was in Diet Coke and Coca Cola Life” Rachel

4) Community Safety “It surprised me that you could get fined up to £500 for dog fouling!” Maddie

5) Road Safety “It is often presumed that it is the driver’s fault in a bike accident, but quite often it might be the cyclist’s fault”. Amy

6) Cyber Safety “Even the smallest detail can reveal so much about your life that you don’t realise”. Gabby

7) Fire safety “Whenever you have a campfire, you must put rocks around it, in order to prevent the spreading of fire”. Freddie Our day at Safety in the Park has shown us all that we have to make sensible and safe decisions every day. It reminded us that we shouldn’t allow ourselves to feel pressurised into anything we aren’t comfortable with or know is bad for us. It was a really great day!

Infant Siddurim On 4th September Primary 1 and 2 pupils were presented with their own copy of The Tribe Siddur for Young Children & Families. The siddur contains tefillot (prayers) for Shabbat and our Brachot (blessings). A huge thank you to Rabbi Rubin for presenting the siddurim to the children. It was lovely to see so many parents and family members join us to celebrate this special day.

Great Scottish Run On Sunday 4th October a group of parents and our own Mr Robson will take part in The Great Scottish Run to raise funds for Calderwood Lodge. The money raised will be used to purchase sports equipment to keep our pupils healthy and active during PE and break times. Good luck to everyone who is taking part!

Dr Duffy Retires Dr Duffy, former acting head teacher of Calderwood Lodge, has decided to retire at the October break. Dr Duffy has had an extensive career as a head teacher including two periods at Calderwood Lodge. Everyone at Calderwood Lodge wishes him a long, happy and healthy retirement. School Lunches We have been working with staff, pupils and a group of parents to develop and improve our school lunch menus. A new menu

will be available from October 2015 to April 2016 with a variety of new options based on feedback from the various groups. We hope the children enjoy the wider range of options available and will continue to seek feedback and make improvements to the dining experience.

Edinburgh Book Festival In August, Primary Three, Five and Seven were lucky enough to visit the Edinburgh International Book Festival. This year Primary Seven met Nick Sharratt and Vivian French. We were even lucky enough to be able to work with the two of them in an extremely enjoyable workshop. They helped us to learn new skills that encouraged us all to improve our illustrating and writing. After we had completed our workshop we continued to explore the book festival and discovered the bookshop. There were ‘book doctors’ available to give advice and help you make the right choice before buying a book. We were able to walk around taking pictures and meeting actors and actresses who were playing a variety of characters from all sorts of books. Overall, everyone enjoyed the day and I hope that we can go back again!

Mrs Santi

Primary 5 met an author called Barry Hutchison. He told us about three different books that he has written. ‘The Shark Headed Bear Thing’, ‘The Swivel Eyed Ogre Thing’ and ‘The Moon Faced Ghoul Thing’ (which is coming out at Halloween). He likes to write scary, funny, monster fiction books. He told us a little bit about himself when he was a little boy. Can you believe he is scared of squirrels!? As part of the workshop we had to create a monster. Barry asked us what features we would like the monster to have and then he drew them. We decided to give it a crocodile face, wasp eyes and a squirrel body and tail. It was a great day and we felt very lucky. The best bit of the whole day was getting to see Barry Hutchison.

Mrs Gage

Nursery Wall Our wall in the nursery garden is finally fully repaired giving us full access to the nursery grounds. Thank you to Mr Harvey, Isla’s dad, for helping us put together our new outdoor resources. I am sure the children will have great fun exploring the new resources.

Karen Phin

Important Dates for your Diary Friday 2nd October Maths work home today Monday 5th & Tuesday 6th October

School closed for Shemni Atzeret and Simchat Torah

Friday 9th October In-service day 3 – school closed to pupils Monday 12th October to Friday 16th October

School closed

Friday 23rd October Early Shabbat closures start today Thursday 29th October Beauty and the Beast pantomime in

school Monday 2nd November Tempest photographer in school Friday 6th November Primary 4 parent curriculum workshop Wednesday 11th November

Parent Council Parent Forum meeting

Thursday 19th November

Parents’ Evening

We value your views

Please let us know if you are particularly pleased about something or have any suggestions:

Parent’s Name: ____________________________

Child’s Name: _____________________________

Please return to the school office. Thank you!