National Numeracy Day: 19th May 2021

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19th May is National Numeracy Day. There are events throughout the day on the National Numeracy website:

https://www.nationalnumeracy.org.uk/numeracyday

Numeracy is all around us. It helps us to understand the world and process our environment. Colours, patterns, shape, size and texture are all related to numeracy and play can support our early understanding of these concepts. As our pupils develop, we focus on functional numeracy, learning about time through our daily routine, money in practical situations such as knowing we have to pay in the shop, measurement in HE and outdoor learning. Numeracy skills are developed across the curriculum.

There are lots of things you can do at home to support your child’s numeracy development. Why not some of these activities? For Primary / early Secondary learner here are some ideas. Follow the link below for more:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EIwt0gKHQ-0tJ7N1p1J9XeYrV3OBIUOx0KXplmkf5zQ/edit?usp=sharing

For our Senior Phase learners:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSl3vrEw2_6rLo8diWVck-jzCk2OMK5RZ81ZAe6isXMGMf1dWo2qD-xW6I0En-8f9Tq6ReYeie3tIdI/pub

We’d love to see how you use numeracy at home. Please share any photographs or comments by e-mail to: gw19russellclare@ab-ed.org

Sleep Scotland Workshop

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Orchard Brae Connect are delighted to be hosting a Parent Workshop in conjunction with Alyson O’Brien from Sleep Scotland. This will take place online on Tuesday 8th June between 10-11 am.

In this session Alyson will talk about why we sleep, what happens when we don’t sleep, why we wake through the night and general ideas on how we can get a better nights sleep. Although Alyson might not be able to discuss specific individual sleep issues, it would be useful for her if you are able to briefly describe your child’s sleep problems, to allow her to focus on any common themes, only if you are happy to do so of course.

Please note that this event is only open to parents and carers of pupils attending Orchard Brae School and nurseries.

If you are interested in attending this event or would like to find out more, please email rebecca.j.duncan@gmail.com

Things Are Growing Well In Room 2!

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This term Room 2 pupils are growing sunflowers, cress and salad leaves from seeds. Each morning one pupil has responsibility for watering them – they all like to take their turn.  Our pupils have done a good job of nurturing the plants and this week it was time to transplant our sunflowers, which are about 4cm tall, into individual plant pots.

Look out for sunflowers coming home for you to grow on a windowsill.

Letter To Parents & Carers – 17th May 2021

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Dear Parent/Carer,

Today we move into protection level 2 which has been long awaited by everyone. I have listed below what this means as a guide as I know how confusing it can get trying to keep track of what is and is not permitted within the different protection levels.

At Level 2:

  • you can meet socially in groups of up to:
    • 6 people from 3 households in your home or theirs – and can stay overnight
    • 6 people from 3 households in an indoor public place like a café, pub or restaurant
    • 8 people from 8 households outdoors
  • under 12s do not count towards the total number of people or households meeting outside but do count towards household numbers indoors
  • you do not need to physically distance from family and friends in a private home
  • you can travel anywhere in Scotland in Levels 0, 1 or 2 but must not enter a Level 3 or 4 area unless for a permitted reason
  • you can travel to England, Wales, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands – before you travel you must check the travel rules in those countries
  • you can provide informal childcare, for example to look after a grandchild
  • up to 50 people can attend weddings and funerals
  • tradespeople can carry out any work in your home such as painting, decorating or repairing
  • you should work from home where possible

What can open at Level 2

Places and business that can open at Level 2 include:

  • cafés, pubs and restaurants
  • all shops and stores
  • all close contact services including hairdressers, barbers and beauty salons
  • gyms, leisure centres and swimming pools
  • tourist accommodation
  • visitor attractions
  • public buildings like libraries and community centres
  • cinemas, theatres, concert halls, amusement arcades, casinos, bingo halls, bowling alleys and snooker/pool halls
  • stadiums and events – with maximum numbers

What must close at Level 2

Places and business that must close at Level 2 include:

  • soft play, funfairs, nightclubs and adult entertainment

This is not a full list. You can get more information in the sections below.

Full details can be found in the link below.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) protection levels: what you can do – gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Once I have received the updated school’s guidance from the Scottish Government, I will update our Covid-19 risk assessment and share it with you.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact school.

Take care

Kind regards

Caroline

Outdoor Education

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There has been lots going on to support our learning in Outdoor Education with many staff giving up their time to volunteer and help with developments. On Tuesday and Thursday, we’ve had a Ground Force team working for a few weeks doing a range of jobs, including planting bamboo, bordering plant beds and a general tidy up of the sensory garden.

We’ve also been supported by One Seed Forward to erect our polytunnel. The frame was up and ready for our team of willing volunteers to finish the job on Saturday. This was a big job and used lots of skills, both numeracy (measuring and fitting things in the right place), following the instructions, and listening to do as we were told for those of us with lots of enthusiasm with no prior experience. We cleared the ground to level it off for the installation of raised beds and slabs to make it fully accessible, and one great all rounder managed to lay the turf on a very muddy area of the playground, hopefully resolving a longer standing issue.

We were well fed and watered with tea, coffee and delicious homebakes, always a good way to get the most from the workforce, and finally into the afternoon we got to the really exciting bit, stretching the cover over the tunnel to complete it.

A great team effort! Thanks to everyone that supported on Saturday – we really appreciate the time given by the volunteers from One Seed Forward, friends and family, and of course our own staff team. Great job!

Settling Back in Room 12

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We have been getting back into the swing since returning to school.

One thing we have enjoyed is our Wednesday yoga sessions. Here we see one of our young people really enjoying the one to one yoga with Hannah who understands the needs of our class perfectly. One of our class always greets her with “Namaste”, now without prompting!

We have been choosing what we would like to do in class time. This can be through use of symbols, pictures, signing, verbally or in the case of this picture, by switch. Here, one of our pupils is choosing the song he would like to hear.

Celebrating Star Wars Day in Room 16

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Room 16 have been celebrating Star Wars day! We made a google form questionnaire together to find out what everyone’s favourite Star Wars character is. We showed our results using bricks to represent the number of votes for each character. We then ordered them from the most popular character to the least popular character. Chewbacca is officially Orchard Brae’s favourite character!

On The Road In Room 9

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The pupils in Room 9 have been very busy investigating their new topic theme, transport. Transport is a fantastic topic to explore as it’s something that we all use in our everyday lives as we travel from A to B.

As you can see the pupils had lots of fun creating different track layouts and exploring how the toy vehicles moved around the track.