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.

A Surprise For Room 8

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Follow us, Room 8, into an amazing journey through our world of rights along with Handa, from “Handa’s surprise” by Eileen Browne.

In the story, Handa, a girl from Kenya, took a surprise bowl of fruits on a journey to her friend Akeyo. Different animals pinched the fruits without Handa’s permission. There were many interesting animals and fruits to find out about, making the journey really fun. As Handa’s journey was about to end, a goat bumped into a tangerine tree, and filled up her empty bowl with tangerines. When she arrived at Akeyo’s village, that was a happy surprise for both Handa and Akeyo. Handa was amazed by the loss of the other fruits, and the presence of tangerines. There was a happy ending because Akeyo’s favourite fruit is tangerine and Handa brought them to him.

What made this story so wonderful was the beautiful describing words. It also introduced the theme of friendship and its importance, which is another positive asset to this story. The surprise at the end of the story added a comical twist that brought the happiness.

Altogether, this was a really engaging and entertaining book that was wonderful to listen to and made us smile. Furthermore, the book has given us the opportunity to learn about children’s rights, to explore and taste the fruits from Handa’s basket, and to speak about our uniqueness and importance.

However, our journey is not finished yet, so be ready for other adventures along with Handa and her friend, Akeyo.

Football Tournament

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Last week some of our Secondary pupils attended a Football Tournament at Garioch Sports Centre. Once again we enjoyed the opportunity to socialise with young people from other schools and to compete against them in friendly competitions.

A Colourful Term in Room 3

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This term our topic has been Our Colourful World. We have been reading the book The Rainbow Fish and exploring the colours of the rainbow using all our senses.

 

Each week we discover a different colour by touching and feeling lots of different things that are all the same colour and we use some of these materials to make a scale for our very own rainbow fish. Then we get to taste, feel, smell and play with food items that are that week’s colour. It has been fun to discover some new foods and juices. Some of the things we have liked: sweet chilli rice crackers, green beans, strawberries, baked beans & orange smoothie. Some of the things we haven’t liked: jelly (it was fun to play with but we didn’t like the texture in our mouths), radishes, green smoothie, tomatoes.

A brilliant, bouncy birthday in Room 3

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Room 3 were very lucky to go on a trip to Jump In to celebrate our classmate’s 8th birthday!

 

We had a wonderful time bouncing on the trampolines and playing in the sponge pool and by the end of the day we were all ready for an early night!

We Are Keeping Healthy In Room 11

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The children in Room 11 have been participating in a range of fun activities and learning how to keep healthy. They have been having fun at swimming, cooking and taking part in PE lessons. Some of them have been showing how competitive they are when playing curling.

All of them have been showing their responses to different smells and some of them have been very clear of what they like (mint, onion).

They have been having great fun exploring how their bodies work and what they can do when they really want and try.

Earth Day in Room 6

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Monday the 22nd of April was Earth Day.  Class 6 took part in a scavenger hunt to see how many different items we could find when we were out in the community, relating to caring for the environment.  We also managed to find a few in school too!

Social Maths In Room 10

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We regularly play maths games in groups and with partners in room 10 to consolidate some of our learning from our maths lessons and to make maths fun. 

In these pictures we are using non-standard measures, calculators and some of the mathematical language we know.

 

 

Innoflate: Room 5’s Extra Special Outing

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Room 5 worked really hard last term. As an end of term treat they went to Innoflate. Everyone had lots of fun, staff included, and enjoyed the slides, jumping around and playing on the big bubble. We were all very hungry after our play session so enjoyed a relaxed lunch in Burger King. We have all settled back really well this week too.

Room 9’s Beautiful Vases

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The pupils in Room 9 recycled plastic bottles and made beautiful, colourful vases which can be used for holding flowers. Our pupils selected the colours they wanted to use and made choices about how to paste the cellophane onto the bottles. In doing so, the boys and girls were reinforcing the skills they developed previously when they made their Elmer the Elephant models. They commented on their work and were encouraged to comment on each other’s vases when they were on display in our classroom.