Happy Chinese New Year!

This animation shows the animals of the Chinese Zodiac, drawn using Chinese characters.

 2014 is the Year of the Horse. In the Chinese calendar the year is 4712. Happy New Year to all our families who are celebrating.

Microsoft Office 365 Cloud Tools

Microsoft Office 365 is the new messaging and storage solution for City of Edinburgh educational establishments. Office 365 is a cloud based suite of tools which allows collaboration and provides a considerable increase in storage space. After a successful pilot at Castlebrae High School, today Sciennes was one of the first schools to receive this rollout upgrade which greatly enhances our communications systems and we are grateful to the DigITal Learning Team and City of Edinburgh Service Redesign Team for all their visionary efforts in improving ICT across the city.

Buddying Up for Burns

P2A and P5A buddies had a fantastic day together enjoying Scottish activities before finishing with a Burns Supper provided by Mr MacSween himself!

Miss Pearmain organised the celebratory day of activities - including making shortbread in the new kitchen -  and thanked Mr MacSween for his Address to the Haggis, the very tasty sampling menu and also for generously giving each child a meat and vegetarian haggis.

More photographs on the Primary Two Class Page.

PTA Meeting Mon 20th January 7-8pm

Sciennes Primary School PTA

Our Parent Teacher Association is a subgroup of the Sciennes School Council.
Agenda for meeting on Monday 20 January 2014

Business 7pm-8pm, Catch up 8pm – 8.30pm in Staffroom.

1.  Welcome and apologies

2.  Minutes of Last Meeting and matters arising not dealt with elsewhere in Agenda

3.  Financial Report

4.  After School Clubs

5.  Grant Application Strategy (“GAS”)

6.  Forthcoming Fundraising Events

7.  AOB – new ideas ?

8.  Date of next meeting – 20 April 2014

All Welcome ! Happy New Year Everyone

Ceilidh in the Playground

Pupils returned to school on Tuesday to an activity packed week with a Scottish theme, culminating in a fabulous Upper School ceilidh in the playground on Friday 10th January led by Mrs Walker. Thank you to both our P.E. Specialists, Mrs Walker and Mrs Berry, for providing wonderful Scottish Country dancing for all our pupils P1-P7 throughout Scotland Week. There's still time to pick up your tickets for our PTA Family Ceilidhs!

Zoe and May in P6B wrote:
"Today is Friday 10th January. We had our P5-P7 ceilidh today. We started with the Virginia Reel and soon after the Flying Scotsman. The Flying Scotsman is a train that goes from Edinburgh to London. We then did our school dance and it was really fun."

Thanks to Mr Howie for these super, high resolution photographs.

Instrument Tuition in City of Edinburgh

As a direct result of the School Council's Parent/Carer Survey (conducted in the summer term last session) parents Fiona Denvir and Bethan McEwan (PTA Clubs Co-ordinators) have organised additional music clubs, including Acapella Choir, Guitar, Spanish Guitar, Fiddle, Recorder and a Music Club. See PTA Clubs for more information.

Some families in the survey expressed an interest in receiving more information about City of Edinburgh Council's Instrumental Music Service. Details about Music provision at Sciennes specifically will be published in due course on the school website. Meanwhile here is a link to the Council's information.

James Gillespie's High School has produced a policy detailing instrumental music tuition in the feeder primary schools and high school which can be found in the POLICIES section of our school website or by clicking here.

Secondary Transition into JGHS: Note for Parents/Carers

"Your child will not be required to audition again in S1 for lessons at James Gillespie’s High School if they received lessons at primary school - their lessons will automatically continue with the appropriate instrumental teacher and they will be contacted at the start of S1.

At James Gillespie’s High School, the expectation is that pupils who embark on learning an instrument in primary school should continue this journey into secondary on the same instrument.
The school instrumental policy states that pupils who have learned an instrument for 18 months or more since the first audition process (if auditioned in P. 4 or 5), have thus entered into the agreement of progressing these skills on this instrument and will hopefully benefit from the skills, teaching and  many opportunities available at secondary level.

If a pupil gives up instrumental lessons after 18 months of learning, or during P.7 (unless auditioned in P6), they will not be given priority for auditioning for an alternative instrument at James Gillespie’s High School. They will be placed on a waiting list and, if a place does become available, will then be called for audition.

Please refer to the JGHS school website and music department for more details."

Information about opportunities between the primary and secondary school in Music is also available on the Sciennes school website> Policies.

Edinburgh Young Musicians

It also emerged through last session's parental survey, organised by the School Council Communications Group, that some parents were interested in pursuing music outwith school. Edinburgh Young Musicians offer Saturday morning Music Classes at local high school St Thomas of Aquin's:

http://www.e-y-m.org.uk/index.htm

Benmore 2014

http://www.benmorecentre.co.uk

Looking forward to Benmore 10th-14th February, Primary Six.

Families will be able to follow our adventures on our blog:

http://sciennesbenmore2014.blogspot.co.uk/

Sciennes PTA Family Ceilidhs

Sciennes PTA Family Ceilidh

6.30pm – 8.00pm

Thursday 23 and 30 January

A great family event with children welcome

Ceilidh dancing with the McAlastair Ceilidh Band with Jane Underwood. A fabulous evening for everyone. Tickets on Wisepay NOW and are selling fast! Adults £4 and Children £3 each.(Tickets include a glass of wine/soft drink and shortbread.)

Grace Plays Mandolin

Grace played beautifully when accompanying P7B singing "Caledonia" during Scotland Week.

P7B QR Code Quiz

Great to see P7B using QR Code technology in their learning. More photos on the P7 Class Page.

Commonwealth Theme at Sportshall

 Very well done to our P7 Sportshall Athletics team who came a respectable fourth place in the Edinburgh Final at Meadowbank on Monday 13th January. Congratulations to Bonaly Primary who came first and St Peter's who came second and will go on to represent Edinburgh in the East Scotland event. Mrs Beth Walker, our P.E. Specialist, organised the entire event for the city which this year was themed, with participating teams representing countries within the Commonwealth. Thank you to Jonathan Wallace (Active Schools Co-ordinator) for assisting Mrs Walker with the event and to Mrs Barker,  Lesley Ann Chessor (Active Schools Co-ordinator) and Scott Noble for escorting the team. Great result, P7, and excellent sporting attitudes! More photographs on the P7 Class Page.

PTA Clubs and Active Schools Clubs Now Online

Sciennes' Parent and Teacher Association (PTA) runs a fantastic range of clubs and activities. Click on the link below for the latest timetable and contact info on PTA Clubs:

PTA CLUBS
http://sciennesschool.wordpress.com/pta-clubs/

We are hugely indebted to parents Fiona Denvir and Bethan McEwan for their tremendous - and highly valued -organisational skills and efforts. Thank you also to our fantastic Active Sports Co-ordinator, Jonathan Wallace, who has worked closely with the PTA to align both sets of clubs.

ACTIVE SCHOOLS CLUBS
All Active School Club details, can be accessed via Jonathan Wallace's extra curricular blog http://sciennesactiveschools.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/sciennes-active-schools-term-2-clubs.html

N.B. All Active Schools Clubs continue to be paid for through Sciennes online WISEPAY system.  
For PTA Clubs, contact tutors directly to arrange a place.

School Council Feedback Tree

A wonderfully innovative way of sharing the work of the School Council is being tried out this year. The School Council Feedback Tree has been created by parents Estelle Keller and Misol Bae. Each leaf details a goal met from the School Council Action Plan which was informed by parent feedback. Please take the time to look at the tree when you see it on display – it is informative and a work of art. Thank you Estelle and Misol.

Next School Council meeting is on Thursday 16th January 7.00-9.00pm in the Staff Room. All welcome.

Tuesday 7th January

Best wishes for health and happiness in 2014 to all our families and we look forward to welcoming the children back to school on Tuesday 7th January.


We greatly appreciate pupils arriving fully equipped with a pencil case stocked with labelled sharp pencils, coloured pencils, ruler, eraser and glue stick as well as full P.E. kit which includes a change of clothing and a pair of indoor gym shoes.

Sciennes Mention in Tatler Magazine

The PTA Bike Club run by Ross Crook is mentioned in the February edition of Tatler Magazine.

http://www.tatler.com/news/articles/january-2014/the-tatler-guide-to-state-schools---part-one

"Sport doesn't get top billing, but there are lots of parent-run clubs and great after-school activities - one pupil we spoke to happily skips off to bike club after lessons."