Fairtrade and Get Ready for Red Nose Day Assembly

Sciennes Fairtrade P4-7 Assembly 3.3.17 from Sciennes Primary School

On Friday 3rd March we held a Fairtrade Assembly to highlight how paying a fair, minimum price to Fairtrade farmers can make a real difference to their livelihoods. Mr Hutchison (with the support of the One World Shop based at  Nicolson Square) is organising a Fairtrade Craft and Tuckshop on Thursday 9th March and will provide further details next week.


Make Bananas Fair: Foncho film for Schools from Fairtrade Schools on Vimeo.


We watched a video of Kid President meeting Former President Barack Obama where his key question was, "How can adults and children work together to change the world?" and the answer was to treat everyone with kindness and respect,




Mr Obama has encouraged the next generation to 'take up the mic' through his Obama Foundation and we are encouraging pupils to get involved in Red Nose Day by 'saying something funny for money.'



We are mindful of our 1 in 5 Child Poverty Awareness project and so pupils need only bring a donation if they wish, rather than be sponsored. Pupils will be asked to share a joke, funny story, rhyme, poem or drawing with their class as part of our whole school Comedy Festival later in the month and we are looking forward to encouraging their confidence in performance and their Listening and Talking skills in a fun way, and as part of Health and Wellbeing programmes.

P7 pupils will soon be selling red noses in school and their P7 Comedy Book "BaDUMtsh", professionally published by Sciennes' parent Mary Turner Thomson through her Whitewater Publishing Company launches on 17th March, with profits donated to Comic Relief. Please respond to the email you will shorty receive to place advance orders by 8th March, ahead of printing dates.

P7 Comedy Book

Sciennes' parent Richard Melvin, comedian and compere at The Stand, has very kindly offered to provide comedy workshops for P6 pupils and we continue to use the BBC Learning resource "Comedy Classroom" to develop literacy skills through comedy. We are very grateful for the support and encouragement we have received from the Gilded Balloon. We began to learn the new Red Nose Day song for Comic Relief and everyone who takes part in our Comedy Festival will receive a certificate.




P5 pupil Cole blew everyone away with his outstanding street dance skills and he gained deserved applause for his confident performance. P7 Sports Captains congratulated pupils on many recent achievements.

P3 Led Foodbank Appeal WE Scare Hunger Assembly

Sciennes WE Scare Hunger Foodbank Assembly 28.10.2016 from Sciennes Primary School

On Friday 28th October, Ewan from Edinburgh Central and Northwest Foodbank thanked all the pupils and families for their tremendous generosity in donating non perishable food items in response to the P3 led whole school Harvest Assembly. Ewan explained to the pupils how their donations will make a real difference to families across Edinburgh. P3 pupils, Ms Anstruther, Mr Scott and Mr Reid helped Ewan and his team load up their van at the end of Assemblies.

WE Free the Children is a charity sponsored by the Queen's Trust that we have been working with and the P3 Appeal linked very well with their 'WE Scare Hunger' Halloween Foodbank campaign.


Parent Kirstin Unger contacted us to let us know about the 'Carve A Heart' in a pumpkin campaign for Syria. Families wishing to take part can text HEART to 70060 to donate £3 and can use the hashtag #carveaheart to Tweet their support.



Pupils sang along to a Spanish song "Los Monstruos" suggested by Miss Stewardson and learned a new song about self belief by Will.i.am.






We were delighted to see that even more pupils have taken up the challenge of joining a library and we continue to aim for all our pupils to become library members as part of the First Minister's Reading Passport Challenge.

We shared exciting news that Google Expeditions will visit school on Wednesday 30th November with special Virtual Reality Google Goggles!

P7 will begin selling poppies to classes on Monday 31st October for the next two weeks and will accept any donations offered. (Our poppies have stickers rather than pins.) Mr Howie told everyone about white poppies and explained how money raised in our poppy appeal will help ex-service people, as well as showing that those who lost their lives in war are remembered.

Article 27

The right to have a good enough standard of living.

Make A Difference and Sport Relief Assembly 18.3.16

Sciennes Make A Difference and Sport Relief Assembly 18.3.16 from SciennesPS

Pattie Santelices and Ms Anstruther present at Assembly

 

Pattie Santelices, City of Edinburgh Principal Officer Health and Wellbeing, joined our Assembly on Friday 18th March to share information about City of Edinburgh's 1 in 5 Child Poverty Awareness project. Ms Anstruther accompanied five Sciennes Pupil Council members to the Scottish Parliament on Wednesday 14th March and she announced that two of our P2 pupils, Emma and Bella, have won an award for their idea to 'Make a Difference!' They cleverly suggested that school could keep a 'dressing up' box of costumes for pupils to borrow and their idea was awarded £250! Ms Anstruther invited everyone to donate any unused costumes to school to add to the collection for borrowing.

We were all absolutely delighted when Pattie announced that P6B pupil Asma's poster, highlighting 1 in 5 Child Poverty, has been selected as overall winner and will be used in campaign literature throughout Edinburgh! Pattie presented Asma with a framed copy of her artwork and a certificate. Runner up P6C pupil Samara also received a framed copy of her artwork. All the children who entered the competition received special highlighter pens for their contribution in highlighting 1 in 5 child poverty. Thank you to Art Club Teacher, Heather Lucchesi, and to Ms Anstruther for helping the pupils express their ideas so well visually.

Overall 1 in 5 Poster competition winner, Asma, with Pattie Santelices

Great achievement, Asma!

Runner up Samara

Highlighting 1 in 5 Child Poverty

All the pupils were congratulated for helping to Make a Difference by dressing up in sports gear and P.E. kit and donating to Sport Relief. Our end of day total was £450! Congratulations to Ella, Ailsa and Sarah for showing great initiative in organising their own bake sale and raising £14. Very well done to P7A and P5C girls who raised an incredible total of more than £400 rollerskating across the Forth Road Bridge! We look forward to hearing about any other personal fundraising efforts from our pupils since many are taking part in local run, swim or cycle events this weekend.

Extraordinary Sport Relief fundraising P7A and P5c girls!

Ella, Ailsa and Sarah baked to raise £14 for Sport Relief. Great initiative!

P7 Sports Captains congratulated pupils for their achievements this week and led everyone in singing the Sport Relief song, "Step It Up".

Special commendation to Alex, Rory and Alex for their initiative in Making a Difference by organising a school collection of Easter eggs for Foodbank. Outstanding citizens! Thank you to everyone who donated.



Article 26 The right to have help if you are poor or in need
Article 27 The right to have a good enough standard of living

Philanthropy: Mr Howie's P4-7 Assembly 11.3.16

Mr Howie led our P4-7 Assembly on Friday 11th March, cleverly linking recent learning in P5 Old Edinburgh, P6 Jacobites, World Book Day and International Women's Day with Rights Education in his tale of the mightily impressive Victorian philanthropist, Angela Burdett-Coutts. Her philanthropy and influence were even more remarkable at a time when women could not yet vote.

Mr Howie encouraged everyone to keep thinking about how we can each make a difference and praised pupils Alex and Rory for their initiative in organising donations of Easter eggs for Foodbank at school.

P7 Reader Leader, Toby, explained how everyone can help keep the Playground Reading Shed organised and Lena told us about the Eurochild Drawing competition.

Sport Relief is on Friday 18th March and our P7 Sports Captains demonstrated Out of the Ark's "Step It Up" Sport Relief dance. They informed pupils about signing up online to local Run, Cycle, Swim events next weekend and invited us to dress up in sports gear or P.E. kit on Friday. Sports Captains will collect any donations on the day.

Philanthropy P4-7 Assembly 11.3.16 from SciennesPS

Article 2 The right to protection against discrimination
Article 26 The right to have help if you are poor or in need
Article 27 The right to have a good enough standard of living 

 

  

P4-7 One World Week Assembly 25.10.15

On Friday 25th October at P4-7 Assembly we marked One World Week by sharing how our P3 pupils have successfully led a whole school project with Mercy Corps to change 'Hope into Action.'

Sciennes P4-7 One World Week Assembly 25.10.15 from SciennesPS

To date, the P3 Harvest Appeal has raised a fantastic £2100 which will provide SEVEN PLAYGROUNDS in Syrian refugee camps.

Together, we thought about Article 31: All children have a right to play and thanked everyone for their generous donations.



We looked forward to the opening of our new wildlife garden/corridor/strip on Monday 26th October and have asked pupils to give us their ideas for a name for this exciting new area for outdoor learning which will be available between 12.50pm and 1.15pm Monday to Thursday. Only one gate will be used with the adults who will escort and supervise and pupils were reminded that they must visit the toilet before going across.

We will officially open Sciennes' Playground with a ceremony on Saturday 31st October 11.00am - 12.30pm.

The Eco Group gave a presentation about their House Pine Cone competition. They weighed all the collections from each class and announced that Lauder is the winning House. Lauder will have an extra playtime as a reward for all their efforts in collecting cones for the new playground area.

Mr Howie explained the significance of our Poppy Appeal. Donations will be accepted for poppies from next week. P7 pupils will man a stall outside the Hall in the morning and at breaks.

Everyone was introduced to our new P7 House and Sports Captains. They take on these roles alongside the rest of our P7 leaders who are all Prefects within school.

Grange – Lewis, Lily, Chiara, Yash

Lauder – Joanne, Saul, Archie, Lena

Sienna – Ammar, Esther, Milenka, Luke,  

Tantallon – Holly, Shawn, Rose, Matthew C