Category: Primary

 

Broad General Education

The Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) is Scotland’s education framework for ALL learners; its main aim is to enable children and young people to develop the four capacities; successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors. In Orchard Brae School each learner is enabled to become as independent as possible, developing skills for life, learning, leisure and where appropriate work. Our curriculum offer is personalised to each pupil throughout their learning journey, as we maintain a focus on positive future destinations.

Our learners in P1 – S3 work within Broad General Education (BGE) at a level and pace that is suited to their individualised needs.  Personalised targets focus core skill development within Literacy and Communication, Numeracy and Health and Well Being.  The ethos and life of the school community is structured to enable pupils to learn and practise life skills as part of their daily routines. Through interdisciplinary approaches and specialist courses, we offer real life learning contexts, deepening and practicing knowledge and skills within Expressive Arts, RME, Science, PE, Technologies and Social Studies.  Interdisciplinary learning, through ‘Our world’ contexts over a 5 year cycle, facilitates pupils’ exploration, experience and learning which is practiced within community contexts, ensuring confidence and success is generalised and secure.  Family learning is a vital part of our pupils’ success and, along with our termly learning challenges, we offer a range of workshops, activity nights and holiday schemes for families. Achievement and success is recognised and celebrated.

Animal Discovery: Live Webcams

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Some of our pupils show an interest in animals and nature. There are Live Webcams at Edinburgh Zoo and Highland Wildlife Park that the children may enjoy.

https://www.highlandwildlifepark.org.uk/webcams (Highland Wildlife Park)

https://www.edinburghzoo.org.uk/webcams/ (Edinburgh Zoo)

For our Secondary pupils, the National Geographic Kids website can provide more information. Although not all pupils can access it fully independently, there are pictures to look at and discuss, and some interesting video clips to watch:

https://www.natgeokids.com/uk/category/discover/

Have a look and find out what your favourite animals are.

 

 

Fun Activities In Room 10

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These are some of the activities Class 10 have taken part in recently. We have enjoyed listening to the guitar-playing of one of our teachers, and having the opportunity to get up close when an instrument is being played, and to touch and to explore as well as listen to it.

We have enjoyed a brief spell of sunshine in the afternoon now that the weather is beginning to improve and have puddled with our feet in paint, looking at the marks we have made. We really enjoyed that.  It was messy and squishy.

We have enjoyed pouring between tins and pots and learning about ‘empty’ and ‘full’ in our maths lessons.

We are doing well at snack times, requesting our food nicely and showing our lovely manners. We all enjoy each other’s company in class 10 and particularly enjoy our sociable activities.

Sport Relief 2020

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Many thanks to Amanda, Salvi, Sam and Scott for organising fun activities for us all to join in with to support Sport Relief 2020. We kicked off the morning with a select band signing up to Run a Mile. Thanks to Room 19 for braving the cold throughout our challenge, the spectators that cheered us on from the warmth of the classrooms and those that came out for playtime, supporting with cheers as we ran our loops. Each of us did 5 loops of the playground in total.

At lunchtime we enjoyed dance sessions with Sam. We all had lots of fun!

Finally, the whole school joined in for the afternoon to Walk a Mile with a Smile. We were grateful that the sun came out and warmed up the playground nicely for us. We also had some special visitors – the sumos!

Our day was just for fun, but we also received generous donations towards Sport Relief, raising a total of £165! Well done to everyone for taking part!

Bucky Bear Hosts A Picnic

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On Wednesday all the boys in room 5, were invited to a picnic in Duthie Park. The picnic was hosted by the class bear Bucky! Bucky has been going home with the boys at the weekend to meet their family and have adventures with them. To say thank you he decided to host a picnic were all the boys could bring their favourite stuffed toys (even the staff brought theirs). Bucky and the boys all had an amazing time eating lots of different food and getting to meet their friend’s teddies. Bucky Bear had the best time ever as he loves getting to meet new people and go and lots of different adventures! He will remember this picnic forever and can’t wait to plan another one!

Clothing Exchange

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Room 16 have been doing a great job, supporting the Clothing Exchange scheme. Pupils are regularly tidying up the area, washing, sorting and folding new clothing. It’s good to see an increase in sizes available too. Please keep sending items in if they’re in good condition and no longer of use to your child. Do also feel free to pop in and browse any time or let us know via the home school diary if you’d like the class team to have a look on your behalf.

World Book Day 2020

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We have been very busy celebrating World Book Day this week and classes have had lots of fun with a range of different activities taking place.

This year’s theme was Share A Story and we have had great fun sharing our favourite books with each other.

 

Room 3 have had a very busy week celebrating World Book Day.  Some of the pupils have been trialling a new bit of software on one of the brand new GridPads called Look to Read.  Here is a wonderful video of one of our pupils who is accessing the GridPad with Eye Gaze reading a story on it for the very first time!

As you can see, she understood very quickly that she had to look at the words as they turned red to hear them and then watched the animations closely.  This is very hard work and despite this, this young lady then proudly shared this work by reading the whole story to her friends in class.  We are excited to share this software with more friends in school.

They also enjoyed a trip to our local library, where they had the opportunity to look at and share lots of new books.

Room 15 were exploring stories using Attention Autism.  They enjoyed finding out about The Tiger Who Came To Tea, Super Tato and The Very Hungry Caterpillar and they also had a wee competition to see how high a tower they could build with books.

Some of our pupils have even been sharing stories at home too!

We hope everyone has had a fun week and enjoyed sharing a story as part of World Book Day!

The Self Portrait

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The topic, All About Me, provides children with the opportunity to answer the all-important question “Who Am I?”. Activities as Self-Portrait, Facts About Me, My Opinions, Me Poem, My Hands Can, and Me Recipe are just a few of our planned activities for this term.

One of our favourite activities has been The Self-Portrait.

We needed several photographs of people from magazines or internet pictures, scissors, glue, card.

STEP 1:  We pre-cut the body parts of the people from the magazine or internet pictures.

STEP 2: The pupils took a ‘look’ in the mirror and determined what they like best about themselves – a great exercise for building character and self-esteem!

STEP 3: The children got a piece of card and glue. They created a cubist-inspired collage by assembling and gluing eyes, noses and lips from multiple angles.

Have fun!

Friends of Orchard Brae Fun Run: 28th April 2020

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Many thanks to the brother of one of our pupils who has asked if he can fundraise individually through sponsorship for the 5k Fun Run for Friends of Orchard Brae. If anyone else wishes to raise money through the Fun Run or any other sponsored activity in future, sponsor forms can be obtained via the Friends of Orchard Brae by contacting school, or a sponsorship page can be set up at: https://wonderful.org/charity/friendsoforchardbrae

Lisa Thomson (Chairperson of the Friends) is the normal point of contact for any fundraising. Clare Russell can also be contacted regarding the Fun Run.

Full information regarding the Fun Run can be found here: https://scottishrunningguide.com/race/fun-run-for-friends-of-orchard-brae

or check out the Friends of Orchard Brae Facebook page.

Please remember, all participants must be over 12 years of age to enter, and must be accompanied by an adult at all times if under 16. Donations are optional – the event is free to run for everyone!

If we have wheelchair users who wish to participate, an adapted course that avoids the rooty / muddy trail section will be available.

PE With Rooms 6 & 7

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Rooms 6 and 7 have been joining together for PE.

They have been enjoying a variety of activities developing their gross motor skills, co-operation skills and body awareness.

Exploring Tartans In Room 11

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Last month, we had great fun participating in Robert Burns celebrations in class. The pupils spent time choosing different tartans to paint .

I chose the Black Watch which is very similar to my family’s tartan which we looked up too.

I chose the Royal Stuart tartan which apparently has rock’n’roll status and is worn by pop and glam rock stars.

I liked the Balmoral tartan which traditionally it can only be worn by those of royal lineage.

I fell in love with the MacLeod tartan which is bold, vibrant and commands attention!

Other pupils also liked the MacQueen tartan which is the most striking and with its links to the bold red tartans in Jacobite portraiture and it has taken a rebellious reputation!