On Thursday 29th March, Headteacher Mrs Alison Noble led the whole school Easter Assembly. Mrs Ruth McVicker played the Sciennes School Song, and it was lovely to be joined by recently retired co-composer Mrs Claire Ford. Minister Stuart Irvin joined us from St Catherine's of Argyll and retold the Easter story. The children really enjoyed the Emoji theme! Congratulations to P6 pupils Rory, Isla, Ella and Evie who collected an amazing 310 Easter eggs in their Foodbank Appeal.
Mrs Noble then wished staff well, first thanking Edinburgh University Volunteer Language students Lucas and Tycho for their support this term to classes in Spanish and French and then passing on all our best wishes to Miss Kirsty Gallagher who is getting married in the Easter holidays, to Mrs Emma Kidd who is expecting her new baby soon and to Ms Chantelle Hall who is heading off on new adventures in London.
Mrs Jennie Waters has been an outstanding, devoted and much loved teacher at Sciennes for fourteen years and Mrs Noble spoke for everyone in thanking her sincerely and wishing her well in her new post at Dunbar Primary School. She will be sorely missed but hope she will keep in touch with all her friends at Sciennes.
The special whole school Assembly also marked the retirement of our incomparable and dynamic Business Manager, Ms Angela Christie, who has worked tirelessly throughout her career at Sciennes to provide the best possible experiences and learning for generations of our pupils. Her talents and capabilities are countless and the impact she has had at Sciennes is staggering.
Sciennes Legend, Angela Christie
A former Sciennes parent herself, Ms Christie has always worked indefatigably in close partnership with the Friends of Sciennes School Charity Trust and all the many Parent Council subgroups over many years. We were joined at the Assembly by several parent representatives, including Sue Lewis, Emma Kirk and Phoebe Cochrane, who presented her with a gift and a banner of messages made in secret by all the pupils.
Mrs Noble and pupil Oscar presented Ms Christie with a beautiful floorbook which Ms Anstruther had arranged to be filled with lovely and creative messages from each class in school. Mrs Noble celebrated some of Ms Christie's outstanding achievements: arranging innovative cycling programmes for P1-P7, promoting sustainability, Active Travel and Spanish, introducing online payments, driving improvements in digital learning, championing outdoor learning and our wonderful playground and ever striving to light the flame of learning in all she does. And all this on top of and far beyond her Business Manager remit, where she also excels! Truly, a Sciennes Legend and thoroughly deserving of now being able to timetable some time for herself. We wish Angela a very happy retirement, with deep love and grateful respect.
After School News, the whole school sang the 'Spring Chicken' song and Mrs Noble wished all our families a safe and happy Easter holiday. School resumes on TUESDAY 17th April.
Headteacher Mrs Alison Noble leads the whole school Easter Assembly
Stuart Irvin, St Catherine's of Argyll
Good luck in your new adventures, Ms Hall!
With love and best wishes to Jennie Waters
Much love for Mrs Jennie Waters, P4 Teacher
Chair of the Parent Council Phoebe Cochrane and Convenor of the Parent Council Communications Group Emma Kirk and Parent Sue Lewis
Sue Lewis gives a presentation on behalf of the Parent Council and families
A banner made in secret by all the children for Ms Christie
Oscar presents Ms Christie with a special book from all the classes
On Friday 23rd February P7 pupils again led everyone in the 'Step It Up' Sport Relief song with everyone in the Hall joining in the dance. P7 Sports Captains led Assembly by thanking those who had dressed up and purchased wrist bands and explaining why we were fundraising and how the money would be used in the UK and abroad.
P7 pupils Emily, Eilidh and friends announced they raised a fabulous £150 last Friday with their Sport Relief Bake Sale, completely selling out of a huge array of home baking within twenty minutes.
Thank you to P7 pupils who have been selling wrist bands over the last few weeks and P7 Louis announced that an amazing £274 had been raised!
It was lovely to welcome families to school this week to Parent Consultations on Tuesday and Thursday evening.
P7 Isaac and his brother Reuben continue with their 'Marathon in a Month' campaign and we are fortunate to have made contact, with their mum's help, with representatives from Asthma UK who will visit school next term to celebrate the boys' achievement and raise awareness of asthma.
P7 Sports Captain Sam congratulated and presented certificates to the P7
Basketball team who played very well in the recent Hope Trust
Basketball Final at the Crags (which was won by Broughton Primary in an
exciting match against James Gillespie's Primary).
Sports Captain
Eilidh presented Cross Country certificates to P6 pupils (with P7
certificates to follow) and Louis congratulated P6 Dylan on 4th place
and P7 Sam on his Bronze medal at the Lothian Schools Cross Country
League. Grateful thanks to Mrs Kitchen and all the families who have
supported P6 and P7 participation throughout the year.
Three of our ECO Reps, P7 pupils Alejandro, Camille and Rachel told everyone about Earth Hour on Saturday 24th March 8.30pm-9.30pm and encouraged pupils to take part in switching off lights during the hour. They also explained ways we can live more sustainably, beyond Earth Hour, including walking and cycling to school.
What a truly wonderful Cycle to School event this morning, in honour of our truly wonderful Business Manager Ms Angela Christie who retires next week. (Video and photos to follow.) Thank you to all the secret organisers who managed to keep it a complete surprise and to the spectacular masses of parents, pupils and staff who turned out in force to meet at King's Buildings at 8.15am and escort her in style en route to school. Ms Christie has been fundamental in Sciennes' Active Travel movement, providing innovative cycle training programmes for all age groups over many years and developing generations of cyclists. It was a perfect tribute and show of respect and thanks to truly remarkable, inspirational and much loved Angela.
P6 pupils Rory, Isla, Ella and Evie thanked everyone for the tremendous generosity of families in donating Easter eggs to their Foodbank appeal. The big count took place at the end of the day and is in excess of 300 eggs! Thank you very much to all who contributed and to Rory, Isla, Ella and Evie for leading their campaign so confidently and successfully.
Next week, Mrs Noble will lead a whole school Easter Assembly on Thursday 29th March at 1.30pm and we will be joined by Stuart Irvin, Minister at St Catherine of Argyll's Church. In preparation, P4-7 pupils practised the 'Spring Chicken' song.
After Assembly, P.E. Specialist Mrs Beth Walker kindly arranged a practice for P7 pupils taking part in the forthcoming EPSSA Swim and Dive gala on Wednesday 28th March 9.45am-12.30pm.
Term ends next week at 3.20pm on THURSDAY 29th March and all resume on TUESDAY 17th April.
On Friday 16th March we got 'reddy' for Sport Relief 2018, continuing our focus on "Be Kind to Others" from City of Edinburgh's "Be Resilient' Health and Wellbeing programme.
We watched two video clips showing how money raised has been used abroad and in the UK and sang the 'Step It Up" song. P7s led at the front to demonstrate dance moves and encourage everyone to sing along.
P7 Sports Captains have been selling Sport Relief wrist bands for £1 and on Friday 23rd March pupils can wear red or sports clothes and bring a donation if they wish. P7 Emily and her friends have arranged a Bake Sale for 12pm Friday 16th March in aid of Sport Relief.
P7 Isaac gave an update on his 'Marathon in a Month' for Asthma UK with brother Reuben. P7 pupils Niamh, Alice, Stella and Margret shared their idea to help a new P6 group carry on their gender equality projects next year and have designed their own application forms. P6 pupils Rory, Isla, Ella and Evie reminded everyone about their Easter Egg Foodbank appeal which closes on Friday 23rd March and they will man stalls at both Parent Consultation Evenings.
What a wonderful P4/5 disco and many thanks to families and staff who came along to support.
P7 Captains congratulated P7 Lucy on her Grade 4 Musical Theatre certificate, P6 William on his First Place at the recent Edinburgh Music Competition Festival and P6 Machlan on becoming SCOTTISH boxing champion!
Hannah in P6 gave a stunning performance of Tam O'Shanter which won her the Steven Lui Cup 2018 for Burns Recitation. There were six extremely strong P6 Finalists this year and congratulations to all who took part.
'Create, Connect and Share with Respect' is this year's Safer Internet theme and ties with our City of Edinburgh Health and Wellbeing 'Be Resilient' topic - 'Be Kind to Others'.
On Friday 23rd February we welcomed P.C. Alan Jenkins (Schools Liaison Officer for James Gillespie's and Boroughmuir High Cluster Schools) to give a presentation on safer, respectful use of the Internet as part of our schoolwide Digital Safety month. P.C. Jenkins described the Internet being a place rather than a thing and used a clever analogy, comparing it to a Library, which was perfectly pitched for our P4-7 pupils to understand, in terms of benefits and risks.
P.C. Jenkins and P.C. Fowler delivered a Safer Internet presentation
P.C. Jenkins is soon to begin a secondment to Barra in the Western Isles so introduced us to P.C. Amy Fowler who will take over from him in working with our schools over the next six months.
Nine P6 pupils spoke confidently and articulately about the impact of our recent residential to Benmore Outdoor Education Centre and the entire year group was thanked and praised for an outstanding week of team work, cooperation and kindness to one another.
Special tribute was paid to our very own Outdoor Learning Queen, Business Manager Ms Angela Christie, who is retiring at Easter having given her sterling support on countless residential trips to both Benmore and Lagganlia for countless young people.
On Friday 2nd February we were delighted to welcome a delegation of eight teachers and staff from Laugarnesskóli Primary School in Reykjavik. Laugarnesskóli is the first Icelandic school to gain a Silver Unicef Rights Respecting Schools Award and we welcomed the opportunity to share practice and ideas. After a tour of the school and classrooms, the Headteacher (Sigridur Heida Bragadottir) very kindly spoke at Assembly and gifted a beautiful book about Iceland for our Library. We are really looking forward to establishing a new International partnership between our schools.
As global citizens, pupils were encourage to participate in this year's Climate Coalition #showthelove climate action campaign, by noticing and recording evidence of climate change over the next few weeks. Like Sciennes, Laugarnesskóli is working towards its fifth green ECO flag and it would be wonderful to link on Eco topics too.
We concluded Week Three of our City of Edinburgh 'Be Resilient' Health and Wellbeing topic 'Have a Goal' by sharing pupil examples of goals they have recently set as a family.
Sigridur Heida Bragadottir, Headteacher of Rights Respecting School Laugarnesskóli, Reykjavik, Iceland addressing Assembly
On Friday 26th January we celebrated the many ways pupils are already participating and making their voices heard.
P6 pupils Eve and Hannah told everyone about their recent visit to the 'Burns Unbroke' Exhibition at Summerhall, including an ‘Oor Rabbie’ performance by Andy Cannon. This was a follow up to two wonderful art workshops with the artist Ciara Veronica Dunne where the class explored the poem Tam O’Shanter, chose favourite scenes from the poem and used Indian ink to create final masterpieces now on display at Summerhall. Huge congratulations to James H, Hugo and Oscar whose recreation of Alloway Kirk was chosen as the winning design for a Burns Unbroke tote bag. A wonderful opportunity to pARTicipate in one of the first Year of Young People events.
P7 Grange Captains Flora, Iain, Maisie and David explained their plans for a House Quiz and P6 pupil Dylan encouraged everyone to take part in the RSPB Big Garden Watch at the weekend. P7 pupil Camille explained her idea for creating Bug Hotels with the ECO Group. We are grateful for advice and encouragement from Anne O'Connell and Sarah Tolley organiser of the Meadows Community garden and head of community group "Greening our Street." P4 Fern and P7 Alejandro showed their new ECO Suggestion Boxes and siblings P5 Sam and P6 Eliza encouraged us to participate in forthcoming Edinburgh Southern Orienteering Club events.
P7 pupils Isaac and Nils explained their Marathon in a Month idea to raise awareness of Asthma UK which will be supported by PE Specialist Mrs Walker at P7.
Pupil Council members were at Blackwell's Bookshop with Ms French today and will report back on their suggestions for purchases. P7 pupil Niamh shared examples of books which provide strong female role models and will also contribute her ideas for future book purchases at school.
Sports Captains congratulated the P7 Basketball Team on their recent win in the first round of the Hope Trust Basketball Cup and presented certificates. Thank you to PE Specialist Mrs Walker for organising and running the event and to Mrs Tariq for accompanying the team.
Everyone was encouraged to continue to 'Participate! 'and 'Have a Goal' this session, sharing and celebrating achievements with us.
On Monday 15th January we welcomed back pupils by holding our first House Assemblies of the new year for Grange (Ms Anstruther), Lauder (Ms Gallagher), Sienna (Ms Pearmain) and Tantallon (Mrs Noble). House and
Sports Captains explained 'The Year of Young People', reflected on goals already achieved, shared their own goals for the coming year and asked pupils to think about their own goals.
Grange House - Maisie, James
Grange Sports - Iain, Flora
Lauder House - Fraser, Molly
Lauder Sports - Eilidh, Sam S
Sienna House - Sophia, Sam B
Sienna Sports - Louis, Emma
Tantallon House - Alice, Caspar
Tantallon Sports - Saad, Arwen
As part of the Scottish Government’s programme of themed years, 2018 is the Year of Young People (YoYP 2018).
YoYP 2018 activities and events are focusing on six themes that young
people identified as most important for them as young Scots:
Participation – looking at how young people can influence public services and decisions which affect their lives
Education – creating a stronger role for young people in shaping their learning
Health and Wellbeing –supporting young people to
lead healthier, active lives and have opportunities to learn about and
improve their mental health and resilience
Equality and Discrimination – broadcasting the
value of young Scots, challenging negative perceptions of young people,
and supporting young people to take leading roles in challenging
discrimination in all its forms.
Enterprise and Regeneration – celebrating young
people’s role in innovation, entrepreneurship and the Scottish economy
as well as making Scotland a greener and more pleasant place to live
Culture –celebrating young people’s talent and contribution to Scottish culture and arts.
Great to see
almost all of our pupils in school uniform, and we appreciate parental
support in continuing to encourage this. Warm, hooded jackets with hats,
gloves and scarves at the ready, please, for the colder weather.
On Friday 24th November our three P6 Junior Road Safety Officers (JRSOs) took the lead to encourage everyone to be bright and be seen this winter and showed a video to explain why 20mph speed limits make roads safer. Mrs Gibb and P4C received reflective prizes for being the most brightly dressed.
The Pupil Council is leading a consultation on a proposal to extend the playground and everyone in the Hall was asked to signal with a show of hands if they were in favour. Pupil Council reps from P2-P7 are also debating this proposal in class and collecting feedback comments for Mrs Noble.
Mr Howie led an inspirational presentation, designed to help pupils realise how they can take the lead to work individually and as a team to create and leave a lasting legacy, using the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team's philosophies as a theme.
P7 Sports Captains led congratulations on pupils' recent achievements and issued certificates to P7 Sportshall Athletics Finalists.
On Friday 17th November we celebrated the many ways our pupils continue to take the lead, ahead of UN World Children's Day on Monday 20th November. We watched a UNICEF film, made by children, for children, to inspire action.
Sixteen House and Sports Captains were introduced and we congratulated everyone who applied, encouraging all Primary Seven pupils to keep being excellent prefects and role models.
P7 pupils Niamh and Alice approached our Senior Leadership earlier in the term, inspired to take action by a BBC documentary (No More Boys and Girls - Can Our Kids Go Gender Free?) on gender bias, set in a school in England. Both girls recently spoke at a whole staff meeting, inviting all classes P1-P7 to take part in a survey designed to investigate gender bias in our own school. 650 boys and girls were asked to draw their future occupations and Niamh and Alice analysed results to explore attitudes. They presented their findings at Assembly and have many other ideas for challenging views and raising awareness of gender equality.
Mr Howie gave an inspirational presentation designed to encourage everyone to be the 'best version' of themselves possible, taking small actions to make a difference to others.
Six classes - our entire P6 and P7 year groups - are working with Ms Pearmain and class teachers to take the lead in supporting the Winter Fair on Saturday 25th November 12pm-3pm in #iwill Week. Sorla and Eliza explained how P6 have taken on Virgin Money's challenge to 'Make £5 Grow' and Henry explained P7's equally enterprising approaches to fundraising. Thank you to Mr McKenna for all his support in creating magical boxes in the Science and Technology lab.
Our ECO reps met with Mr Hutchison and Miss Ferguson this week and are taking the lead on Switch Off Fortnight. Our P6 JRSOs asked everyone to wear something bright or reflective next week at their Road Safety Assembly.
P4B girls highlighted the need to ask first if equipment or toys are being used, before taking. They reminded everyone to 'treat others as you would like to be treated', follow the 'Three Steps' and work together to make sure we respect everyone's right to be happy and safe in our playground.
Pupils were reminded that they should always come back into school if an adult is unexpectedly not there to pick them up at the end of the day.
House Captains congratulated pupils on recent achievements and announced that Tantallon is leading in House points this week.
Grange House - Maisie, James
Grange Sports - Iain, Flora
Lauder House - Fraser, Molly
Lauder Sports - Eilidh, Sam S
Sienna House - Sophia, Sam B
Sienna Sports - Louis, Emma
Tantallon House - Alice, Caspar
Tantallon Sports - Saad, Arwen
Next week's P4-7 Assembly will take place immediately after P1-3 Assembly 9.50-10.30am to allow Hall space for nativity rehearsals.
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.
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.
Happy 125th Birthday, Sciennes!
Well done to all our pupils, staff and
families for working so hard and so well together throughout 2016-2017, "in all the good times and in all the bad times."
Once
a year we all come together in the Hall - twenty two classes from
Primary 1 to Primary 7 - for our End of Year Assembly, led by
Headteacher Mrs Alison Noble. We were delighted
to welcome Parent Council representatives: outgoing Co-Convenor of Fundraising and
Events (EFG), Aileen Nimmo and new Chair of EFG, Jayamthi Sanahanam. Mrs
Noble thanked them both, and also Phoebe Cochrane (Chair of Parent Council) and Tim Pask
(Vice Chair of Parent Council, for the huge contribution they have made
to the school throughout the year, particularly in creating
opportunities to WOW our pupils with the World of Work Summer Fair. Phoebe and Tim will continue in their posts as Chair and Vice Chair of the Parent Council in August.
Mrs Noble led everyone in our fond farewells to staff and pupils who
are moving on.
We wished Miss Stewardson well in taking up a teaching position in Madrid for a year
We wished Mrs Joanne Hogan well in taking some time out to study.
The Sciennes Family wished Mrs Sally Nowell, Pupil Support Assistant a very happy retirement after 17 years of tireless dedication at school. Mrs Nowell's knowledge and love of literacy have successfully developed and honed reading skills in hundreds of pupils over the years and we will miss her sorely, as a colleague and friend.
Mrs Claire Ford, Senior Teacher and Class Teacher to P1D is retiring after 33
years dedicated service to the children and families at Sciennes. Mrs Ford
has
made a wonderful contribution to the life and work of the school and is loved and respected by all. We
will miss Mrs Ford tremendously but we are very glad that she will keep in touch and keeping our fingers crossed we might be able to coax her back from time to time!
A rainbow bench, using designs created by P5A, is being developed for the playground to commemorate Mr Hewitt
We marked the recent passing of our very dear friend and colleague, Mrs Linda Young, who retired from Sciennes in 2014 after a teaching career which began at Corstorphine, then Rosewell before she joined Sciennes, dedicating herself to all the many children in her care here for over twenty years. Mrs Young was full of fun and very thorough in supporting her pupils' learning. She also had a wonderful ability to enable each of her pupils to create outstanding artwork. She was dearly loved by us all and will be sadly missed. Our thoughts and best wishes are with her family.
We wished fond farewell to our wonderful Primary Sevens, very proud
of
their confidence and readiness for the next steps to secondary school
and beyond. Mr Howie provided an
end of term
treat with a video of staff dancing to The Soupdragons "I'm Free." P7 sang the finale song from their show beautifully and it was a joy to see them dance a conga together in the Hall at the end of Assembly.
Words penned by Mrs Claire Ford for Sciennes' 120th Anniversary
Mr Howie created a funny video of staff dancing to "I'm Free' by the Soupdragons as an end of term treat for our wonderful P7s. Publishing our end of term staff videos makes it less likely the will join in, so below is the next best thing...
Mrs
Noble rang the bell and led them out in
procession as the other classes lined the stairwell on the last day of
term. Keep in touch,
Primary Seven! A wonderful year group and you can be truly proud of all you have achieved together. We look forward to hearing of your continuing success.
Wishing all our families a safe, happy and relaxing holiday. We look forward to welcoming pupils back to Sciennes on WEDNESDAY 16th AUGUST.
