Please find details of the Aberdeen City schools telephone information service for parents/guardians. This is the Schools Information Line. The main...
Aberdeen City Libraries are delighted to be hosting Sensory Story Time sessions especially for children and young people with additional support needs, in conjunction with Ailie Finlay, at Mastrick Library on the 9th of August. These sessions will be in high demand and booking is essential. Please book using the link below;
Last week many pupils in the Primary department enjoyed participating in the annual KidsOut Fun Day which is organised by the Rotary Club.
The event, held at the Gordon Barracks, saw 450 children from across Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire come together to take part in lots of fun activities including bouncy castles, emergency service vehicles, magicians, horses, owls and other small animals including The Critter Keeper!
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?
Light The Blue is Aberdeen Performing Arts annual multi-artform festival celebrating the creativity of young people aged 5-25 across Aberdeen and beyond. Created for young people, by young people 2023’s festival takes place over the course of eight days across Aberdeen city centre with an electrifying line up of theatre, dance, film, music and more. We are delighted that Orchard Brae are again participating in events throughout the week.
Aberdeen Performing Arts in association with Orchard Brae School
The World Through My Eyes installation has been created with pupils from Orchard Brae School and visual artist Jenny Hood, accompanied by live performances by pupils created with drama artist Saffron Gilles will be going live on Tuesday 13th June at 1pm in the Big Sky Studio at the Music Hall. Tickets to this launch are by invitation only and available to parents, carers and friends. If you would like to attend, please contact the school to note your interest and we shall share the booking code when it goes live.
The World Through My Eyes installation will be open to the public throughout Light The Blue, exploring how we navigate the world from the perspective of a young person with complex needs. You can visit on Wednesday 14th – Friday 16th June, 10am – 5pm, and Saturday 17th June, 10am – 11am and tickets can be booked using the link below.
Other events that may be of interest include pop-up performances on the Bon Accord Centre Roof Terrace and Soundplay Projects have their sensory space set-up in the Music Hall on Saturday 10th June, On Saturday 17th June, the Big Gig at the Music Hall features Orchard Brae’s Makaton Choir. More information about the festival and events happening across the week can be found via the following link.
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.
Aberdeen City Council are offering free period products around the city and are now offering reusable products including menstrual cups and reusable pads in addition to disposable products. If you would like to access these, please visit one of the venues listed or contact Mhairi Wilson (Specialist Nurse, Orchard Brae).
One of our main aims is to support families across the city through creating safe space where like-minded parents/cares could meet, have a chat and feel understood. In order to make it happen we have been liaising with schools and setting up Parent Support Groups in 5 primary schools (Stoneywood, Fernilea, Kaimhill, Glashieburn and Woodside). All groups are led by AOR staff and they meet monthly. Parents make suggestions what they would like to discuss and if they would like to have guests (SALT, OT, School Nurse, SW, charities). We are looking at setting up more similar groups in different schools in the future.
If you would like to join one of the groups and meet parents, have chat and enjoy a cuppa, please get in touch with Alex Polanska.
