We have until MID-DAY THIS WEDNESDAY 30th NOVEMBER
to get enough support by voting to win £5000 money from the One Family
Foundation. (Thanks to parent, Colin Sim, we have already been successful in reaching the Judges' Final of another competition two weeks ago from Aviva, but
this is a different vote).
Just now we don't have enough votes. Can you spare five minutes to go online and support us by voting for Sciennes,
to help our pupils and school win £5,000 to support their
learning?
It's free to vote. You can register or log in using your email details,
or Facebook or twitter account. You then just vote for our project.
If you have not voted already, please get involved and vote now for Sciennes at www.sciennes.tech http://www.sciennes.tech/
Remember you have less than two days to get involved as voting closes on Wednesday.
Thank you for supporting our pupils and school. We will find out in mid December if we have had enough votes to win the money.
Sciennes was thronging throughout the afternoon on Saturday 26th November with a huge
number of families supporting the International Winter Fair. What a lovely, family event!
Thank you very much to the
army of parent volunteers who worked so hard before, during and after the event. Particular thanks to Jay and Aileen (Parent Council Events and Fundraising Group) who planned, led and co-ordinated the day so effectively.
Primary Seven elves were superb helpers and many thanks to Santa who managed an appearance. Thank you to Ms
Anstruther and Pupil Support Assistants for making Santa's Grotto look so fabulous!
Primary Seven pupils surpassed themselves with an array of fundraising activities they designed and manned themselves, made possible with Anita Neilson's help using Virgin Money's "Make £5 Grow' entrepreneurial project and funds loaned by the Parent Council.
Celebrating #iwill Week, our three P6 Junior Road Safety Officers, Amelia, Declan and Josh, showed how they can step up to serve our school community by planning and leading a Road Safety session for Assembly. They invited all pupils in P4-7 to dress up brightly in luminous, reflective clothing and gave prizes in each class for the brightest clothing to get across their message of 'Be Bright, Be Seen." They performed a stunning trick using 'Magic Thumbs' that lit up as they 'threw' lights to one another. Fantastic! Many thanks to friend of Sciennes, City of Edinburgh Road Safety Officer Mark Symonds who kindly gave each of our JRSOs a high viz vest and shone torches on pupils' clothing to re-enforce the point about being bright, day and night. Everyone was invited to think about what they could pledge to do in Active Travel to fight Climate Change.
The new P7 House and Sports Captains confidently introduced themselves and we were delighted that almost half the year group showed interest in stepping up to take on additional responsibilities, as role models and ambassadors for Sciennes. All who applied were entirely capable of taking up the posts so it was a very difficult decision but there will be lots of opportunities for all Primary Sevens to take the lead.
Grange
House: Rose and Sam
Sports: Molly and Cameron
Lauder
House: Chloe and Chris
Sports: Rachel and Cole
Sienna
House: Samrah and Chirag
Sports: Erin and Cai
Tantallon
House: Ellen and Gulliver
Sports: Rose and Robert
Our wonderful Primary Sevens have also been working hard as young entrepreneurs, using Virgin Money's' Make £5 Grow' and funds loaned by the Parent Council to plan, design and create an array of exciting stalls for the Winter Fair on Saturday 26th November 12pm-3pm as part of their Silver Junior Award for Schools (JASS). A representative from each P7 group spoke at Assembly to explain and publicise their event. Loads happening tomorrow! Come and check out what they have on offer in the new Dining Hall.
P4 stars, Molly, Rosa, Joesph, Cara and Scarlet finally got to perform their fabulous dance routine with music! They wowed the audience with their moves and confidence. Great job!
P3 have been rehearsing and performing their Dance Show in the Hall recently, so there has not been an Assembly for a few weeks. Several huge achievements to celebrate within that time, including phenomenal success in Chess, P6 Amelia being chosen as overall winner in Ian Murray MP's Christmas Card competition (from 2000 entries!) and P7 David achieving an extraordinary two gold medals in the Edinburgh and Midlothian Swimming Championships! Well done to all our high achievers who know that hard work pays off!
We hope to see everyone at the amazing International Winter Fair on Saturday. Many months of effort from Jay and Aileen in leading the Parent Council Events and Fundraising Group and an army of volunteers saying "#iwill!" are tremendously valued by the school. Come and see a Magic Show, bid in the Silent Auction, browse CDs, books and toys, take a chance with a Tombola raffle ticket and enjoy lunch and a mince pie. Just some of the many activities and events on offer! Check out the Parent Council and school websites for details.
Please also support our bids to win thousands of pounds for technology (see emails for information). Thank you very much to P2 Dad, Colin Sim, for all his efforts in submitting funding bids on our behalf and to everyone who has supported by voting. We are now Finalists in the Aviva Community Fund bid, beating hundreds of other bids, and have a 1 in 4 chance of gaining £5000! We would be very grateful for your continued support in voting for us again in the Aviva bid and also in the One Family Foundation bid.
Come along today to our fun-filled
event which includes a magic show, films, craft activities, tombola,
home baking, face painting, nail bar, lucky dip, hamper raffle and lots, lots
more. Santa will be making an appearance.
We have some wonderful items for silent auction at this year’s Winter
Fair. Please see below for a quick list. You could find wonderful
presents for the Christmas time or for special occasions. Come and find us at the Winter Fair on Saturday 26th November 12pm-3pm. Remember to bring your cheque books!
Family ticket to Edinburgh's Christmas show “Morgan and West”
Family ticket to “Dinosaur World” at The Festival Theatre
Lunch for two with wine at Ondine
2 x Tickets to Hearts v Inverness at Tynecastle at the Wille Bald suite with hospitality.
Wine tasting for up to 8 people with Vino
Relax Kids 1:1 voucher
Family ticket to Camera Obscura
Red Door Gallery voucher
Boden voucher
Filmhouse Tickets
Signed Alexander McCall Smith books
Lunch for two at Tanjore in South Clerk Street
Swimming Nature fast track course
Doodles voucher
2hrs of on-site massage for a workplace from Fiona D Makan, Complementary Health Therapist.
….and a few more in the pipeline!
Jay and Aileen
Events and Fundraising Group, Parent Council
What
could be even better than having acclaimed author, Janis Mackay (our
wonderful Patron of Reading), at Sciennes today for the start of Book
Week Scotland? Janis is coming back tomorrow! Fantastic workshop for P5A
and half P5B today, with P5C and half P5B tomorrow. All three classes
are thoroughly enjoying Janis' "The Accidental Time Traveller" as their
class novel and it is a delight for them to be able to work with her.
Signed books will be on sale outside the Hall from 3pm. Excellent Christmas gifts.
Very well done to Eilidh, Quinn and Robert who represented Sciennes so well in the Edinburgh and Midlothian Swimming Gala on Sunday 20th November at Ainslie Park Leisure Centre. Several Personal Bests were achieved at this high level annual sporting event. Thank you to their families who escorted and cheered on all the pupils.
Huge congratulations to David Kernohan, P7 Sciennes,
for winning a stunning double gold! His outstanding performance in the
50m Backstroke and 50m
Breaststroke will see him through to the finals in Aberdeen in 2017.
David is the first swimmer from Sciennes to receive a medal at this event and can be justly proud of his tremendous achievement which is also testament to the support and encouragement of his family.
Thank you very much to Anne Ewing (Convenor of the Edinburgh Schools Swimming Association) for inviting us to take part in this year's swimming championships and for her terrific support and organisation.
Well done to all the girls from eight South-East neighbourhood primary schools who took part in a 'Friendly Fives' netball tournament at JGHS on Friday 18th November.
Congratulations and good luck to the Sciennes' team who have progressed to the semi-final. Many thanks to JGHS Active Schools Co-ordinator Tom Scott for arranging the matches and to Lisa Maxwell for escorting the team on Friday and assisting Miss Gladstone in weekly coaching.
Sciennes is one of two teams from this event who qualified for a citywide finals at Forrester/ St Augustine’s on 2nd December between 2-4pm.
Each year group, P1-7, has been asked to fill a Christmas hamper. The seven hampers will be raffled at the Winter Fair on Saturday 26th November. Can you help by donating a seasonal item for the hampers? Hand in to your child's Class Teacher.
I'm Jude, and I am sad
And I hope you can make it better
Please let
me into your heart
So you can start to make it better.
I'm Jude, don't
let me down
You have found me
Now write down my birthday
If you get it
right
Then I will begin to be your housemate
And be happy
Naaa naaa naa na na na na
Hey Jude!
Thank you to P7 pupil Anna for Fair Bear Lyrics!
Anna and P7 pupils will take 50p birthday guesses from Monday 21st November until Friday 25th, outside the Hall at 9am, break and at the end of the day.
Winner will be announced at the Winter Fair on Saturday 26th November 12pm-3pm
We would be very grateful if you can take five minutes to help us
win £5,000 by registering and voting for Sciennes in the Aviva community
fund awards.
The money will help support learning at Sciennes by buying
mini tablets for a class set that are shared across a year group.
There is just a week left to vote (until Friday 18 November). We are very grateful for the support already received.
If we get 100 more Sciennes parents to vote, we think we can make it through to the judges' round, where we can win £5,000.
Costumes are ready and routines are reaching their final rehearsals this week.Families are in for a real treat watching P3 perform at their Dance Show on Friday 18th November. Well done to all our P3 pupils for all their hard work and to Ms Anstruther, Aimee from Dance Division, P3 Class Teachers and Pupil Support Assistants for preparing the children so well for this annual, wonderful event. Keeeep dancing!
Primary 3 Dance Show
The P3 pupils put on a marvellous performance for their parents /
carers on Friday showcasing their excellent skills and enthusiasm for dance.
The theme this year was ‘Dances from the Shows’ and ranged from dramatic, eerie
Phantom of The Opera to downcast Annie to upbeat Fame. Thank you to Aimee from
Dance Division and all of the P3 staff for making this a morning to remember.
We
are looking forward to a fantastic International Winter Fair this year
on Saturday, November 26th between 12pm and 3pm.
Thank you for coming to the first craft morning and making the first
craft morning into a great fun time. Hope you and the children enjoyed
making crafts. they look fabulous. Hope to see more parents, carers and
children turn up for the second one next week. All ages welcome, bring
your parents, grand parents, siblings and make it a huge success.
Looking forward to seeing you all next week.
Jay & Aileen
Parent Council Events and Fundraising Group
There will be another
craft morning before the Fair on Saturday 19th November from
10am to 12pm to make lovely crafts from all over the world, ready for the Winter Fair. Children are most welcome to help with
the crafts.
We are tremendously excited about an upcoming return visit to Sciennes on Wednesday 7th December from WE Free the Children, again arranged for us by Schools Co-ordinator Harriet Morgan.
Jacob, from WE Free the Children, visited in June to work with half of our (then P6) pupils and it was a superb and inspirational day, providing a wealth of opportunities for our children to embrace pupil leadership. Wednesday 7th December will mark a return visit from the charity, where a Speaker and Facilitator will work with the remaining half of our P7 pupils.
P6 and P7 pupils have been invited to a special assembly at 9am and then half the P7 year group will take part in Free the Children workshops throughout the day, while Ms Sellar will lead the remaining pupils in a repeat of her excellent Global Goals workshop, focusing on Gender Equality.
Team Building/Issues Module – exploring prevalent issues in society, and globally to build confidence,
identify leadership skills and also get pupils thinking about issues
they care about. Reflective Module - enabling pupils to think how they can use their skills for
issues that are important to them. Action Planning - putting pen to paper to create a
tangible action plan for children to develop and put into practice.
Free The
Children is an
international charity and educational partner that believes in a world
where all young people are free to achieve their fullest potential as
change-makers. Over the last 20 years, Free The Children has grown into
an international movement supporting youth empowerment through
educational service-learning initiatives in North America and the United
Kingdom, and a holistic and sustainable international development
model. It is supported by the Queen's Trust, the UN, Virgin Atlantic and
has many international supporters - Malala, Desmond Tutu, Prince
Harry, Oprah will give a flavour. Their model is 'children helping
children' and they promote pupil
leadership and taking action, here and abroad. The scheme began in
Canada, initiated by one of the CEOs when he was 12, and is a social
enterprise
endeavour.
For more information about Free the Children, visit their website.
The 'Free the Children' programme fits extremely well with our well established Junior Awards
Scheme Scotland (JASS) programme in P6 and P7 where pupils are asked to
take their own action to achieve a 'Me and My World' element. JASS is a
children's version of The Duke of Edinburgh Award, and the idea for it
actually came from Sciennes! It is now adopted throughout Edinburgh and
beyond so has been retitled Junior Award Scheme for Schools.
The Junior Award Scheme Schools
(JASS) is an accredited learning programme, celebrating wider
achievement, for young people (P6-S2). Sciennes and Tollcross Primary
Schools have been implementing this scheme since we piloted it in 2009. The concept emerged from a discussion during a Sciennes P7 visit
to Lagganlia between Alice Brown, Gael Logan and Barry Hewitt who came
up with the idea to set up a 'Duke of Edinburgh' style award scheme for
upper primary pupils. The scheme has since been developed from a city
wide, to UK wide to international programme.
There are three levels (bronze, silver and gold), each requiring a
higher degree of commitment. Each level also includes four sections to
be completed:
My interest - a hobby or interest
Get Active, Stay Active - involvement in a sport or physical activity
Me and My World - a community or environmental project
Adventure - a teamwork challenge through involvement in an outdoor activity (e.g Benmore and Lagganlia)
Sciennes helped develop an online version - eJASS.
Free the Children also fits well with our Unicef Rights Respecting Schools programme. We have recently achieved Level One and our next
steps are to continue to extend knowledge of UNCRC and to expand
global citizenship. The Free the Children programme will assist us with that. We
have highlighted the relevance of the Global Goals for Sustainable
Development since their launch in September 2015 and the programme also
supports this extremely well.
Thank you very much to Joan Alexander and all at the Junior Award Scheme for Schools (JASS) team as well as Friends of the Award (FOTA) for inviting Sciennes to the FOTA Annual General Meeting on Thursday 10th November.
P7 pupils Anna and Cameron received a special certificate on
behalf of the school, in kind recognition of Sciennes' ongoing
contribution and commitment to JASS and eJASS.
Anna's sister, Sarah, also attended with their mum, Mrs Aileen Nimmo. Thank you also to Mrs Claire Marshall for accompanying her son Cameron to the event, held in the prestigious European Room of the City Chambers. Councillor Elaine Aitken, deputising for the Lord Provost, presented our pupils with the certificate and they were also congratulated by MSP Miles Briggs.
What a wonderful celebration of volunteering, pupil-led social action and wider achievement! Many adult volunteers were recognised and celebrated for their contribution, as well as the young people they have supported in achieving both Duke of Edinburgh Awards and the Junior Award for Schools. A lovely evening and we were very proud of all three of our pupil ambassadors.
Superb P7 Sciennes' ambassadors, proudly sporting their Bronze JASS medals and already aiming for the Silver JASS award
Councillor Elaine Aitken, deputising for the Lord Provost, presents Anna and Cameron with a special certificate for Sciennes
Our next P4-7 Assembly will take place on Friday 25th November and has a Road Safety theme. It is being planned and will be led by our three P6 Junior Road Safety Officers (JRSOs) Amelia, Declan and Josh. We are delighted that City of Edinburgh's Road Safety Officer, and friend of Sciennes, Mark Symonds, will be joining us to support.
Our JRSOs will be reminding everyone to 'Be Bold and Bright Both Morning and Night' and they particularly want to invite pupils to wear not only bright but also luminous clothing and/or accessories on Friday 25th November.
This a fun-filled
event which includes a magic show, films, craft activities, tombola,
home baking, face painting, nail bar, lucky dip, hamper raffle and lots, lots
more. Santa will be making an appearance.
You can order your film and magic show tickets NOW on Wisepay.
Please
bring donations of home baking into school on Friday 25th November
(items to be individually wrapped please) or on the day of the fair.
From anytime NOW you can drop off the following items at school reception:
Send in bottles/jars/toiletries for the Tombola
Send in DVDs/Computer Games/Toys/Books – good quality only please
Send in a box of mince pies, shortbread or biscuits for the refreshments stall
Send in GOOD QUALITY Sciennes uniform/football strips
Wrap and send in small gifts (pencil, rubbers, small note pads, hair clips) for the lucky dip, value 50p (labelled boy/girl/either).
Donate something for the Christmas Hampers Raffle such as Christmas pudding, pies, wine. (Each year group
is making a hamper, so please hand in donations to class teacher.)
Food for the Central and North Edinburgh Food bank, non perishable items or, for example, a chocolate advent calendar/seasonal food.
Jams and preserves
Home baking (on Fri 25th or Sat 27th only please)
VOLUNTEERS NEEDED! We would be grateful for your support if you can donate some time to set up and/or run the stalls. Please add your name to the Doodle Poll which has been circulated
Sciennes Events and Fundraising Group, Parent Council
Edinburgh Printmakers is a local arts charity dedicated to
the medium of printmaking. Saturday November 19th is their annual Open Day. The day is completely free, and is great
for children wanting to explore their creative side.
There will be dynamic and fascinating printmaking workshops for children, as well as
printmaking demonstrations and studio tours. Also
delicious cakes and pastries courtesy of The Manna House Bakery.
Superb seats in the stalls of the Festival Theatre for P6 and P7
Thank you very much to Audrey Blake and our friends at Scottish Opera
for a lovely opportunity for six of our classes ( P6 and P7) to
visit the Festival Theatre on Thursday 10th November for Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro
Unwrapped. Fantastic orchestra, beautiful singing and wonderful story
telling, with a fascinating behind the scenes exploration of all that is
involved in staging an opera production. And what a great introduction to our pupils to the many different roles and careers within the production, from costume designer to stage manager, from special effects designer to singer and from musician to conductor. Bravo!
We would be very grateful if you can take five minutes to help us
win £5,000 by registering and voting for Sciennes in the Aviva community
fund awards. The money will help support learning at Sciennes by buying mini tablets for a class set that are shared across a year group.
There is just a week left to vote (until Friday 18 November). We are very grateful for the support already received.
If we get 100 more Sciennes parents to vote, we think we can make it through to the judges' round, where we can win £5,000.
Thank you very much to Lorna Telford from UK Charity 'Changing Faces' for providing thought provoking workshops to our three P6 classes on Wednesday 9th November, linked to their Class Novel study of "Wonder" by R. J. Palacio
We are delighted to share the progress made with our improvement priorities for 2015 – 2016 and an outline of the school improvement priorities for 2016 – 2017. We will post the full current plan on our website but do feel free to request a hard copy from the school office. The Plan is dynamic and as we progress our priorities we will be up-dating the working document and will include information in the school flyer.
Dr Robert Fraser, instrument tutor for 13 years, is
retiring on 10th November and his last day of teaching at Sciennes
will be Wednesday 9th. I am sure families and children who have
known Dr. Fraser will join in offering him very best wishes for a long, healthy
and happy retirement.
We are very grateful for all the support Dr Fraser has provided for school incountless musical performances and for all his advice on Music provision and policy over many years.
We have been informed that the post has been
advertised and the closing date is 3rd November. We will inform
children and families when a tutor has been appointed.
Linked to our involvement in
the City of Edinburgh 1:5 Poverty Awareness pilot, one of our aims is
to spread the impact of fundraising across the year. We are extremely grateful for the hugely generous support for
the recent P3 led Harvest Appeal with Central and North West Edinburgh Foodbankand we feel the ChildreninNeed appeal follows the P3 appeal too closely. Please note,
therefore, that this is the reason why this year Sciennes is not holding any ChildreninNeed fundraising events in
school. However, we are always interested to hear of pupils who have taken their own initiative at home, if any child wishes to get involved outside school.
If your child's date of birth is between 1 March 2012 and 28 February
2013 they are due to start primary school in August 2017. If you are in
the City of Edinburgh Council area you must register your child for P1
at one of your catchment schools during registration week.
If you live in catchment, please come along on Thursday 10th November 2016, 9.00–3.30pm to complete an enrolment form.
Please bring the following with you:
Child’s birth certificate
Name, address and telephone number of doctor
2016/2017 Council Tax payment book or
Council Tax letter in parent's name
a current utility bill within last six months (in parent's name)
Names, addresses and telephone number of three emergency
contacts.
N.B. these are the ONLY accepted forms of proof. Please feel free to bring your child but this is not essential if
s/he is attending nursery. There will be transition and induction opportunities
for your child to visit school in the summer term.
Mrs Noble thanks The Breadwinner Bakery and Scotmid Co-operative
Mrs Noble welcomed back to Sciennes the family behind long established local artisan business "The Breadwinner Baker" - Sean McVey, wife Lesley and son Kris - to thank them for the extraordinary opportunity they provided for current P5B class last year.
Scotmid Co-operative and The Breadwinner Bakery generously donate proceeds of £607.50 to Sciennes
The McVeys and their team, generously supported and sponsored by Scotmid Co-operative, helped our pupils learn so much about baking and breadmaking, create their own loaves and muffins, advertise them then they actually sold winning team recipes in our local Scotmid Co-operative, with all proceeds to school!
The family returned to Sciennes on Friday 4th November and generously donated an incredible £607.50 to school! Thank you to all the Sciennes' families who supported the project in buying produce. Such an exciting, memorable and commendable project and Mrs Noble thanked all involved wholeheartedly on behalf of the school. Former teacher Lesley and pupil Nina Peden spoke to all the children about the project and Lesley noted that from a range of options each team of pupils had elected to use wholemeal flour in their own recipes.
Nina tells everyone about the amazing Breadwinner Bakery project
Lesley McVey from The Breadwinner Bakery
This is what The McVeys say about their company:
At The Breadwinner Bakery we’re passionate about baking. Since 1973 our master craftsmen bakers have been baking in Edinburgh – kneading and shaping dough by hand. We prefer to use traditional, simple methods and allow time to naturally enhance our products, rather than adding anything that would change the quality or flavour of our breads. We’re proud of our heritage – and work hard to supply breads, cakes and pastries that are locally made, freshly baked and full of flavour.
Sciennes' Muffins and Loaves went on sale on International Picnic Day and provided the perfect produce for Eco Schools' One Planet Picnic campaign.
You can read more about this extraordinary project partnership with The Breadwinner Bakery on the P5 Class Page of our website:
Mr Howie gave a presentation on forthcoming Remembrance Day and explained reasons why and how poppies are used as well as commenting on recent controversy around wearing poppies. P7 pupils will again be accepting donations for poppies this week until next Friday.
Mr Howie talks about Remembrance
P4 pupils Joseph, Molly, Scarlet, Cara and Rosie performed a dance they have choreographed themselves, extremely admirably given that an oversight led it to being without music! Well done to them all for carrying on and they will perform it again - this time with musical accompaniment! - at our next Assembly on Friday 25th November.
More P4 stars - Elsie, Suzanna, Cara and Petra - performed a clapping routine (for added danger, with eyes closed). We congratulated P6 pupil Arwen on achieving a gold medal in a recent Diving competition.
Messages from the Lothian Fire and Police Services about bonfire and fireworks safety were explained. Our P6 Junior Road Safety Officers (JRSOs) - Amelia, Declan and Josh - will take the lead at our next Assembly on 25th November.
