Saturday 26 August 2017

NEW! Book your Parents' Evening Consultation Online from Monday



http://www.parents-booking.co.uk/sciennes

We now have a new booking system for Parent Consultation Evenings. Our Parent Consultations are on Tuesday 26th and Thursday 28th September from 4-7pm. The new GroupCall system will allow you to choose appointments for your child/children and bookings will open on Monday 28th August at 9am. 
 
Go to:

http://www.parents-booking.co.uk/sciennes


PLEASE NOTE: You must type this address into your website browser’s ‘address bar’. Do not try to ‘Google’ this website address or use a search engine as that will not work. This is a common mistake on phones and tablets especially.
Login to see which appointments are available and select one that is convenient for you.
 

You will need:
•Your title and surname (these must match those we have on record for you)
•Your child’s first name, surname and date of birth


Video Help Guides

The system is live from Monday 28th August and will be open to take your bookings until 17th September at 3.25pm.


Once you have selected your preferred booking method and once in the correct parents’ evening, follow the relevant instructions from below:
  1. Individual Bookings:
    1. Scroll down until you see the booking table. Above it are the departments and teachers which are available to you.
    2. Select the department, then teacher, and click on an available time to make a booking. When you selected a time, you’re able to add any issues or comments for the teacher to take note of before the appointment.
    3. Repeat this process, making bookings for all of the teachers you need to.
    4. If you need to cancel or rearrange an appointment, click on the correct department and teacher, then click on the green appointment to change it.
    5. If you need to make bookings for another child, scroll to the top of the page. In the top left corner you should see a ‘Make a Booking for Another Child’ icon. Click this. If there is no icon, the software does not recognise that you have multiple children. This just means that you’ll need to log out and log back in again using the other child’s details.
    6. Once you have made all of your bookings, click on either E-Mail or Print my Appointments. Appointments are saved when they are made, so you don’t have to e-mail or print to ‘save’ them, but doing so will provide a confirmation with further information, possibly including rooms and instructions from the school.
  2. Automated Booking Wizard
    1. Select the teacher you wish to book. You can press ‘Select All’ to select all options
    2. If you have a second child to make bookings for then select their tab and repeat the teacher selecting process
    3. Proceed to the bottom of the page and specify your personal availability, then press Make My Bookings For Me
      1. If the wizard replies that bookings are not feasible, you have not left enough time and need tp reduce the number of teachers or increase the amount of time you’re available.
    4. Now see a list of your booking suggestions. Feel free to add comments to teachers you wish to book, if allowed
    5. Press Confirm to confirm these appointments as your bookings
    6. Press Print or E-Mail to initiate your confirmation.





    How do I login to the Parents' Evening Booking System? from Parents' Evening Booking System on Vimeo.


    How do I make an appointment? from Parents' Evening Booking System on Vimeo.


    How do I cancel or rearrange appointments? from Parents' Evening Booking System on Vimeo.


    How do I make an appointment for my other child? from Parents' Evening Booking System on Vimeo.


    How do I print my Parents' Evening Booking System appointments? from Parents' Evening Booking System on Vimeo.

Friday 25 August 2017

Be The Captain of Your Ship



On Friday 25th August 2017 we introduced pupils to Skipper, the lead character in a Health and Wellbeing programme called 'Building Resilience' which has been developed by a group of Edinburgh staff led by Karen Richmond (South Morningside Primary) and Pattie Santelices (Principal Officer Mental Health & Welllbeing, City of Edinburgh Council.) The programme complements and re-enforces our own Health and Wellbeing programme, developed by Carolyn Anstruther and staff, with support from our Parent Council Health and Wellbeing group, and well established over several years.

Primary Seven pupils from P7B helped introduce ten strategies that we will focus on throughout the year to help our pupils build resilience to support good mental health. We all got on our feet to sing 'Stronger' and considered Kid President's message that things in life may not always be 'awesome', but our response can be. Pupils were invited to research 'Resilience Role Models' at home and create a poster. A selection will be shared at next week's Assembly.






We congratulated our two Fringe Festival actresses Hannah and Faye who have had rave reviews for their stage performances. Zoe in P4A wowed us with her Spanish language skills and we celebrated Aiden and Louis' tremendous achievements competing in an international mathematics competition in Beijing over the summer holiday.

Pupils were reminded that Pupil Council and ECO rep elections will soon take place and to prepare speeches if they wish to stand for election.

Article 24

You have the right to the best health possible and to medical care and information.

Saturday 19 August 2017

Aim High, Let Your Ambitions Fly!



On Friday 18th August we welcomed Primary Four pupils and all new pupils to their first upper school assembly. We also welcomed Miss Jennifer Ferguson and Miss Sophie Mitchell to the Primary Five team and Ms Anisimoviene to the Primary Four team.

This year, we are revisiting our school vision and values so pupils were invited to think about what is most important to us in the Sciennes Family.  We are extremely grateful to parent Emma Kirk (CEO User Vision and Convenor of the Parent Council Communications Group) who recently led an excellent session to help the whole staff revisit and reflect on our vision and values. Pupil Council leaders will soon be elected, one from each class P2-P7, who will then be able to join in on discussions and support the process.

We explored ways to respect everyone's right to be safe and right to learn at Sciennes. Primary Seven pupils helped explain what 'The Golden Rule' means.



Showing respect universally unites us all: in the classroom, in the school and beyond, as global citizens.  Brad Montague's moving film ' Smuggling Hope' was shown to help us all continue to believe that we can all make a difference by upholding our values.


Thursday 17 August 2017

Off To A Great Start!


We have all enjoyed welcoming back pupils to Sciennes, refreshed and ready for learning after the summer break. We are very grateful for your support with school uniform and helping us to discourage the children from wearing jeans.  Please note that P1-P6 pupils wear navy blue, with our royal blue uniform reserved to distinguish our P7 senior pupils. (Summer dresses for girls should be blue or red.)

As well as our new Primary One pupils, we have many new pupils throughout the school who are already settling extremely well . We warmly welcome back Principal Teacher Ms Shona Pearmain and Class Teachers Ms Jenny Gaffney, Mrs Emma Kidd and Mrs Kat Watson from maternity leave. We are delighted to welcome Miss Jennifer Ferguson to P5 and Miss Nicolle Chewun to P3. Miss Sophie Mitchell, MA Student, joins the P5 team and will later join the P2 team.

Thank you for equipping pupils with sharp pencils, rulers, glue sticks, coloured pencils and erasers (which can also be borrowed) in pencil cases as well as a water bottle and full P.E. kit which includes a change of clothes and a change of indoor shoes in a P.E. bag. Pupils will require P.E. kits in school each week and we appreciate labelling of ALL items of clothing. P7 pupils will have the privilege of using the Meadows at lunch break from 12.45pm-1.15pm from Monday so should bring a change of shoes in a bag.

We encourage our pupils to be punctual, arriving ready to enter school by 8.50am at the latest and are grateful for your support in ensuring the children are ready to make their way into school from 8.45am. P1 classes will continue to line up and be escorted into school by their Class Teachers at 8.50am.

Further information can be found in our online weekly newsletter from Mrs Noble - The Sciennes Flyer.  Each year group will soon receive a paper copy Class Newsletter from their Class Teachers containing an overview of the term and detailing forthcoming informal 'Meet the Teacher' sessions. Each class has its own blog which will be added to throughout the year and you can access using the CLASSES tab above.

We regularly Tweet updates (which include posts from each of our school blogs, and also publish posts on our Facebook page) so we encourage you to sign up to Twitter and follow us to keep informed.