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We are delighted to share that today we had our Silver Accreditation visit with UNICEF to look at how we’re progressing our Rights Respecting School work. Our assessors enjoyed learning about the work that we do in Orchard Brae and the opportunity to meet with some pupils (thank you Room 19), parents and staff. A huge thanks to everyone that joined us virtually or in person.
Please enjoy the video that we shared to highlight some of our work.
We’ll share more about our next steps in future as we are keen to continue progressing, going for Gold in the longer term. For now, we’re delighted to have recognition as a Silver Rights Respecting School: Rights Aware.
We’re delighted to report that we’ll be hosting the Friends of Orchard Brae 5k Fun Run once again on Tuesday 11th June 2024. This is a fun, friendly event and runners of all abilities are welcome, as are walkers. Please do not worry about your time – we will have a tail walker at the back to ensure you all get home safely and nobody finishes last!
Greene King Brig O’Don Restaurant have kindly agreed to host registration for us again. This will be ‘open’ from 5:30 pm to 6:15 pm, although to help us you can pre-register by completing the Google form online: https://forms.gle/iE23ovdu5Girrhhq9 Please note the minimum age for participation is 11 years, under 16s must be accompanied by an adult as the route does run alongside roads.
After registration, we’ll walk together to the starting point in Seaton Park. The route is stunning, all the more so on the beautiful evenings we’ve had for previous events. All being well we’ll get another fine evening. Whatever the weather, fun and good banter is pretty much certain with the crowd of friends we’ll have along.
Post event, we’d encourage you to head back to Brig O’Don for food or refreshments as thanks to them for supporting us again.
Active Schools & Sport Aberdeen are hosting a Young Carers and Care Experienced event. Although many brothers and sisters of our Orchard Brae youngsters may not consider themselves to be “Young Carers” we recognise the support that they give in everyday life and would encourage them to attend this fun event. Please register in advance.
Our Secondary Awards and Leavers Ceremony was held in school on Wednesday. Congratulations to all of the Award winners and thanks to the families that joined our celebration.
Today we bid a final goodbye to another fantastic group of young people who have all made huge progress over their years in Orchard Brae. It was an emotional day all round as we celebrated their success and wished them well.
Thanks to Nadine of Elm Music Therapy for making our Leavers video this year:
To our leavers, it’s been an honour and privilege to work with you all and we wish you all every success in the next stage of life. We will miss you all!
Room 17 are getting creative through their artwork! We have been using elastic bands to give a fun sensory experience and produce our art work. We had great fun pinging the bands full of paint and watching where the paint landed. It made different noises as we were doing it, which we all found very funny!
Coming into the last weeks of term Room 19 are continuing our good routines and embedding those relationships with both staff and peers. The pupils have been working hard to follow the class timetable this term and take part in all activities throughout the day around the school.
We have been focussing our efforts and looking at Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenthood. We have been utilising resources from the https://rshp.scot/ website. For more information about supporting or reinforcing these lessons, adults at home can follow the link which provides a vast range of resources.
When some of our peers were away in Bendrigg on their residential trip, we took the opportunity to come together outside for class novel time, music and enjoyed some fun in the sun.
During the second last week of term Room 19 engaged in the Whole School Event of Safety Week. This focus was on valuable lessons before the summer holidays focussed on Water Safety, Fire Safety, Internet Safety and Road Safety.
Room 16 have been taking part in 30 Days Wild, an annual challenge run by The Wildlife Trusts. We have to “do something wild” every day! With our pack we received a poster wallchart and cards with ideas we could choose from, and every time we do a “wild” activity, we write it on the wallchart and add a sticker.
For this activity, we used some flowers to explore and print with. We discovered that the rose made an excellent paintbrush and some of the flowers and grasses made lovely patterns when we printed with paint. You can find more information on this initiative at https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/30-days-wild .
We’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone that turned out to support our 3rd running of the Friends of Orchard Brae 5k (ish) Fun Run. Having seen lots of runs recorded on Strava we may need to remove the ‘ish’ from the name if we run our event again as it’s as close to 5k as a parkrun gets!
A huge thank you goes to the Brig O’Don Restaurant (King Street) for hosting our registration and making us so very welcome post race. It was great to see a number of people returning for food or drinks to support the business! Our senior pupils made a sign for us and once again it was like the Pied Piper leading everyone across to the park for our start.
We were blessed with a beautiful evening – if anything, our participants found it a little bit too hot! For those of us that were volunteering, the weather was spectacular and made for a very pleasant evening. I’d like to say a personal thank you to the colleagues and friends who turned out to support. You helped to make the evening truly special – your enthusiasm did not go unnoticed!
Feedback on the event has been really positive. Whether running or walking, everyone seemed to have fun and it was a very friendly, welcoming event, epitomising the inclusivity of Orchard Brae School.
Thanks to Jackie Stewart and Peter Jennings (Metro Aberdeen) for processing the results and supporting with the course marking.
The spot prizes were gratefully received by those that were picked out by our random number generator, so thanks to everyone involved with those (George especially!).
Your donations were incredibly generous and very much appreciated. With a combination of our online fundraising page and the charity buckets, we are delighted to have raised a grand total of £1185-81. This will be put towards the upgrade of our sensory rooms. These spaces are so important in supporting our children and young people to regulate and learn.
A fantastic evening once again! See you all again next year?
Tuesday 13th June will see the third running of our Friends of Orchard Brae 5k (ish) fun run. For clarity, it is very close to 5k, just not an officially measured course.
Entry is free with donations welcome. All money raised will be ringfenced and will go towards the upgrade of our sensory rooms. These are being uniquely designed to support sensory regulation, enabling all learners to calm and regulate in order to fully access learning opportunities.
The Route
Run, walk or jog … the route is just over 5k and starts and finishes in Seaton Park. We’re back on the original route as the trees that blocked the way last year are gone. This is step-free and a lovely route!
The event will be timed, but is ultimately just for fun! If you’re looking for a personal best time this is probably not the route for you (but it will be a good training run). The route is mainly on tarmac, there are a few cobbles, and it does take in the off-road path alongside the River Don so don’t wear your new shoes!
Prizes
Spot prizes only – these will be randomly given out to our finishers.
Entry Requirements
Free entry for all. Participants must be over 12 years old on the day of the event. Any participant under 16 years of age must be accompanied by their guardian at all times.
Entry on the night is also welcome, however completion of the form will speed up the process. Registration will be open from 5:30-6:15 pm at Brig O’Don Restaurant, King Street. Huge thanks to Chris & the team for welcoming us back. From there, we’ll assemble at the start line (to the right of the entrance) for a 6:30 pm start.
Additional Information
Bring your own water if you need it. Please do not wear headphones or earphones (bone conduction only permitted) due to the need to hear traffic and instructions from marshals along the route.
My ‘legendary’ white chocolate fudge will be available for donations, as will Lorraine’s tablet.
After the run, we’ll go to the Brig O’Don (King Street) – all welcome to come along for food and chat.
There will be a tail walker so please come along and run or walk whatever your pace! Our tail walker (Nicola) has kindly offered to be last so nobody else will be!
We are delighted to share that we have just gained the Bronze Rights Respecting Schools Award from UNICEF UK. This is the first official step in our ongoing Rights Respecting Schools journey.
The Rights Respecting Schools Award promotes understanding and implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in schools. The convention itself consists of a range of articles that place a duty on governments, local authorities and all those supporting children to be ‘duty bearers’, upholding the rights of the children and young people in their care and ensuring that all those under 18 can access their rights, children being the ‘rights holders’. The convention underpins everything that we do as a school to ensure that all children and young people are valued, heard, and given opportunities to develop fully.
To gain our Bronze Award, a small group of teaching staff evaluated our progress against key outcomes before developing an action plan for moving forward as a school. We will look to sharing more news as we progress on our journey and would welcome involvement from families and associated professionals in taking things forward.
This poster provides an easy to read overview of the UNCRC. We will be sharing more information on these rights as we go forward on our journey, learning together.
