“I didn’t know that bees

are so amazing and are

vital for our world”

- Finlay P7

In This Issue

Curricular updates

Celebrating success

Bee Week

Welcome Dear Parents/Carers

I hope you have all had an enjoyable October Break. As we welcome the children

back for the start of a new term, it's hard to believe that Christmas is only a few weeks

away.

However, this promises to be an interesting and profitable term for the pupils, culmi-

nating in our Christmas Shows at the end of the term. Our 'whole school' involvement

in P7's Bee project has been exciting and it was wonderful to watch the classes

participating in this topic, at their own level, during our first Bee Week in September.

Winter weather is beginning to make itself felt and may I remind you to ensure that the

children come to school with weatherproof jackets and suitable footwear for all

conditions they might encounter at Break and Lunchtimes. Could you also please

make sure that all clothing is clearly named.

Newsletter for Parents and Partners Sept/Oct 2014

GREENBRAE news

Greenbrae School pupils learning about honey production

I should also like to remind you that drinks to be consumed within the classroom must be water only, in line with our encour-

agement of health promotion. May I also reiterate, especially as the dark nights are approaching, that we ask parents to

please refrain from parking in the car park, adjacent to the school, for the health and safety of the children. Parking in this car

park constitutes a real danger to the pupils, especially those who have to access 'after-school club' transport in the car park.

The staff and myself look forward to this term ahead and will do our utmost to ensure that all our pupils are happy and that

that they achieve to the best of their ability. Thank you for your constant support.

Anna Royle— Head Teacher (acting)

Around Greenbrae

Primary 1 P1 have been learning about the Gruffalo this term, as their first topic. They have been

learning about the different animals in the story, making play dough models of them, and

even designing their own monsters! For homework they made brilliant animal and Gruffalo

masks and on Friday got to show these to the rest of the school in Assembly. They also

sang the Gruffalo song, and scared all the other boys and girls in the school with their

roaring!

Primary 2 P2 really enjoyed going to Tech Fest. We took part in a workshop with the mobile plane-

tarium where we learned about the stars and the constellations.

We had a great time when the ‘Bike Road Show’ came to school. We went on lots of

different styles of bikes from balance bikes to three wheelers!

Our topic this term has been ‘Sea and Seashore’. We have been painting seashore

scenes, sorting seashore animals by their habitat and learning about food chains.

‘Bee Week’ was great fun. Millie and Finn really enjoyed baking chocolate crispies and

the rest of the class thought they were really tasty!

Greenbrae School pupils enjoy learning inside and outside

Primary 1/2 This term P1/2 have been learning about life on the Island of Struay through the Katie

Morag stories and each child designed their very own tartan. Our new Primary 1s have

settled in very well to school and are busy learning sounds through the Jolly Phonics

scheme. Our Primary 2s are also working hard learning to count up money in the Green-

brae corner shop. The Artwork produced by the children both at home and in school for

Bee Week was fantastic. All the children are keenly winning house points for the new

House System in school and created their own shields for each castle. Well done P1/2.

Nursery This term the Nursery went on a mini beast safari, the am class to the local woods and the pm class explored the school grounds for their hunt. In each location most beasties managed to avoid our inquisitive gazes and hands on research but we did find the big 5: a spider, a beetle, a slug, a fly and a worm!

In Nursery both classes have enjoyed learning about the honey bees and tasting honey for various snacks: on toast, in cereal and in our baking and the subsequent pictograms told how many of us liked honey.

Around Greenbrae

Primary 6 Primary 6 have had an exciting first term back at Greenbrae. During the first term back we have read the novel Mr Stink, written by

David Walliams. Within our topic of Rainforests we have learnt about the water cycle and how the rainforest essentially produces

its own rain. Primary 6 also attended Tech Fest at the Beach Ballroom in term 1, where we had the opportunity to attend two fan-

tastic workshops, Potions and Explosions and RSPB Habitats.

Primary 4

P4 had a magic time during their visit to TechFest. They learned how to make toothpaste and found out about the night sky inside

the Planetarium. Animal Encounters was the favourite workshop where they all had a chance to hold a giant snail then touch a

centipede, lizard and snake!

The Bike Roadshow was great fun and energetic with lots of cool bikes to try out in the playground. Topic work on The Vikings is

well underway and the Greenbrae Honey Bee Calendar, that they’ve worked on with P5, is off for publishing.

Primary 5

P5 have had a busy year so far!!! They visited Techfest in September to participate in 2 workshops – The Potions and Explosions

Show demonstrated by a rather eccentric scientist called Scientific Sue and Build a House from a Seed which was all about the

importance of wood. It was a very enjoyable and informative morning and thankfully no-one [including the volunteers] were injured

in the process.

The NHS Grow Well Team have been taking the children for 7 weeks of lessons on Healthy Eating and the learning was made

fun by playing lots of active games. As part of the P7 bee project, an artist came in to undertake a lesson on still life drawing.

Many children were reluctant at the beginning but ended up producing excellent results as seen by Luke’s photo! Thank you to

Ann for all her help and advice.

Primary 7 Hello, it’s been a long, exciting 8 week term. We have been busy with reading our new book ‘Holes’ by Louis Sachar. In Maths we

have been doing shape, time and multiplication and we have been writing reports. We also found out the House Captains for Bal-

moral, Crathes, Drum and Fraser. They are Catie and Connor S, Katie S and Aria, Amber and Finlay and Avia and Callum. We

also found out what our Christmas play is. We will give you a clue…. ha it’s a secret! We also participated in a very exclusive Bee

Week. 12 of our classmates read stories to the nursery am and pm, P1, P1/2, P2 and P3. Four of our other classmates were

“Cooking with Honey”. They made our school chocolate covered crispies glazed with honey. Two lucky boys got the chance to

visit our very own beehive. They said it was great fun! We also got a visit from Graham Much from the Westhill Holiday Inn. We

got to taste fruit dipped in a ‘honey yogurt’. It was very scrumptious! That’s all for this term. By Catie and Amber (P7)

Primary 3

This term in Primary 3 we have been learning about Ancient Egypt. We went on a trip to the Special Collections Centre at Aber-

deen University. We got to see some artefacts from Ancient Egypt and we got a chance to be Egyptologists for the morning. The

class novel we have been reading is James and the Giant Peach. We have been learning about adjectives and used some lovely

adjectives when describing Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker. In Maths we have been learning about numbers to 1000 and 3D

shapes. We did a 3D shape hunt around the school and our classroom.

Contact Us

At Greenbrae School we are always keen to hear from our parents and partners.

Greenbrae School

Greenbrae Crescent

Aberdeen

AB23 8NJ

+44 (0)1224 704447

enquiries-greenbrae@aberdeencity.gov.uk

www.greenbrae.aberdeen.sch.uk

Greenbrae is buzzing!

Congratulations are in order to Greenbrae School for securing funding for a food related

project from 'Food for Thought'. Our successful bid realised the sum of £2771. This fund-

ing, authorised by the Scottish Government, will enhance learning and teaching about

food across Curriculum for Excellence, within our school. It will also make connections to

the World of Work.

Coupled with our initial funding of £2771, Greenbrae also successfully acquired a further

£1500 from Mains of Loirston Charitable Trust who fund farming related projects. What a

wonderful opportunity this is for the school to develop their project to include work on pol-

lination of our food crops.

Greenbrae are now the proud owners of their very own bee hive and bees, by courtesy of

Scottish Government's 'Food for Thought' funding. Luckily our school has a farming fami-

ly, the Thomson family, who have kindly given the school a bee-hive site and access to it.

The honey from this hive will be very special, not just because it will be Greenbrae honey

but also because locally produced honey is best for one's health. Hopefully, the bees will

help with the strawberry pollination on the farm next year.

This bee project offers first-hand experience to our pupils. From being involved in building

the bee hive to having access to visit the bees, the children will get an insight into the life

and workings of these special insects. At the same time, the school has had visits and

talks from various specialists to further develop their knowledge and understanding of this

project. We all regard bees in a different light now!

We are very proud that Greenbrae has been so successful in acquiring such funding

which will enable us to enhance our Learning and Teaching across the Curriculum for

Excellence.

The school looks forward to the next Bee Week and we thank P7 and their teacher, Mrs

Judy Duncan, for leading us in this project. There will be more to report, I know. Watch

this space!