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DUNDONALD PRIMARY AND

EARLY YEARS CENTRE

OCTOBER NEWSLETTER

……………………………………………………………………… SESSION 2019-2020

UNCRC Article 13 – I have the right to find out and share

information.

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OCTOBER NEWSLETTER

Welcome to our October Newsletter. The purpose of our newsletter is to share information about

the learning which has taken place this term as well as information about the wider life of our school.

OUR LEARNING THIS TERM

Early Years Centre

The children in our Early Years Centre have enjoyed learning about Autumn. In September, we

visited Dundonald woods and saw lots of different signs of autumn there. We explored the woods

and found leaves and sticks. Our vegetable garden is in full bloom and we have enjoyed looking after

our tomatoes and beetroot! We have also been learning to say hello and goodbye in Gaelic.

Primary 1

Primary 1 have settled well into school and have been working very hard. In Literacy, we have been

learning to read by sounding out and we are beginning to blend. We are also working on being able to

recognise some common words by sight.

In Numeracy, we have been working on numbers to 10 and how to form them correctly. We have also

been participating in lots of counting songs, games and activities.

We started off the term by learning about all the people in school who help us and have explored the

Bible story David and Goliath.

Primary 2

In Primary 2, we have been learning about Romans. We have been finding out about how they lived,

what they wore, what weapons they used and what their houses looked like. We have compared this to

our own lives. During Literacy, we have been practising the single letter sounds and have been learning

more phonic sounds to help us read and write words. We have been learning to spell some

tricky, common words and we have been working on forming our letters correctly. During Numeracy

and Maths, we have been identifying and naming 2D shapes and comparing their features. We

continued and created our own repeat patterns using shapes. Our numeracy skills are progressing as

we discuss and explore lots of ways to make a specific total – we have fun using the Rekenreks or

colourful cubes to do this!

Primary 2/3

Primary 2/3 have been working very hard during term 1. We have really enjoyed working together as

a class and learning all about Castles. We have enjoyed making our very own castles using different

construction materials, making our own coat of arms, learning about kings, queens and knights and

what life was like inside a castle. We have been working really hard in Numeracy and Literacy and

learning lots of new things. We loved writing our very own imaginative stories about our adventures in

a medieval castle. We have also been working very hard on our addition, subtraction and

multiplication strategies. We have enjoyed playing lots of games in Numeracy. In ICT we have also

learnt how to log in to our GLOW accounts. We are now using these to create our very own Word

documents and PowerPoints.

Primary 4

This session we have been working very hard to learn our times tables. We now have lots of new

maths resources which are making our learning active and fun. Our class have also spent some time

learning about place value and we have taken part in lots of challenges involving rounding numbers to

the nearest ten, hundred, thousand and beyond.

We have also spent time in class reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. Some

people have even dressed up as Mr Willy Wonka. It is very funny seeing people wearing costumes

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whilst reading in class. We have also enjoyed comparing the book to scenes from the movie. In

addition to this, we have been learning to use descriptive language to make our writing more exciting.

Our topic is ‘Titanic’. We have been learning lots of different exciting facts and have enjoyed making

a timeline of the various events. We are very excited to share this information with you at our Class

Assembly on the 15th November.

Primary 5 Our topic this term in Primary 5 is Vikings. We have enjoyed researching information for our Viking

passports, drawing long ships and writing newspaper articles about Viking raids.

In Maths, we have been focusing on our addition and subtraction skills and developing our ability to

solve mental calculations and word problems.

In Literacy, we have enjoyed reading our class novel Billionaire Boy. We have also participated in

activities to learn about the phonemes (sounds) ‘sh’ and ‘ch’.

In Health and Wellbeing we have been learning about emotions. We are developing our understanding

of why we might be feeling a certain way. In P.E., we have loved having coaches Colin and Eilidh in to

teach us to play Handball and Rugby.

Primary 5/6

Primary 5/6 have been working hard over this first term. We have enjoyed exploring Living Things as

our topic focussing on animals and had some very special creepy crawly visitors!

In numeracy and mathematics, we have been exploring place value and rounding and Primary 6 have

also been applying this knowledge to decimals.

In Literacy, we have been researching and creating excellent fact files on a chosen animal. We chose

to read Wonder by R.J Palacio as our class novel using our comprehension strategies to explore the

book in more depth.

Primary 6/7

In Primary 6/7, we have been reading ‘Why the Whales Came’ by Michael Morpurgo and completing a

variety of comprehension tasks about it. Also in Literacy, we have been doing spelling, handwriting and

imaginative writing.

In Maths, we have looked at measure and learned how to change between millimetres, centimetres

and metres. We are beginning to learn about fractions.

Our topic this term has been the Victorians. We have really enjoyed investigating how the Victorians

lived; looking at the lifestyles of both rich and poor Victorians, the jobs children did and how

different the schools were.

Primary 7

In Numeracy we have recently been focusing on converting measurements from millimetres to

centimetres, metres and kilometres – we have used our skills in multiplying and dividing numbers by 10

100 and 1000 when making these conversions. We are currently focusing on number patterns and

algebra.

In Literacy we have been looking at auxiliary verbs, speech marks, commas and adjectives. In Writing

we have been up-levelling texts and creating imaginative pieces of our own. We are really enjoying

our class novel, ‘Divided City’, which explores the themes of sectarianism, racism and loyalty.

French has been very fun and engaging. We have revised the alphabet and numbers from 1-50. We

also did the months of the year and the days of the week. We are also able to list classroom items

in French. It has been a very busy and enjoyable first term and we have learned a lot.

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SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT PLAN 2019-2020

Our improvement plan for this school year focuses on three key priorities:

Raising attainment in literacy

Raising attainment in numeracy

Improving children’s health and wellbeing

Our improvement plan has been published on our school website and is available under the heading of

‘Our School’. We have also created posters showing how we plan to achieve each of the three

priorities noted above – the posters will be displayed in our school foyer. Mrs Kerr and I will both be

on hand at our Parents’ Afternoon and Evening on Thursday 10th October – we would be delighted to

discuss our school improvement plan and hear your views then.

SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT UPDATE - IMPROVING CHILDREN’S HEALTH AND WELLBEING

Promoting Physical Fitness and Enjoyment of Sport – Partnership with Sport Leaders

This term, pupils across the school have benefitted from working with Sports Leaders from Marr

College and visiting coaches during their P.E. lessons. This has included:

P1 Multi-Sports with

Active Schools Sports

Leaders from Marr

College

P2/3, P4 and P5

Handball with Active

Schools Coach Eilidh

P5 Rugby with Marr

Rugby and Sports

Leaders from Marr

College

P5/6 and P6/7

Volleyball with Active

Schools Coach Vince

As the school year progresses, all classes will have opportunities to learn from specialist coaches.

This helps to bring learning to life for the pupils and fosters a lifelong enjoyment of sport and

keeping active.

Sportscotland Gold School Sport Award

Our commitment to providing a range of high quality learning experiences in

sport has been recognised by Sportscotland, who awarded us with a Gold

School Sport Award. Sincere thanks to our staff, pupils and parents for

their hard work in helping us to achieve this award. Special thanks go to Mrs

McDowall, our Acting Principal Teacher, and to Duncan Sturgeon, our Active

Schools Coordinator, who coordinate sport and sports coaches for our school.

Outdoor Learning - Diggin’ Dundonald

All classes enjoyed participating in a Diggin’ Dundonald, a local

archaeological dig at Dundonald Castle. One of our Primary 4

pupils made an incredible find and uncovered a piece of pottery

thought to be around 600 years old! We are extremely grateful to

Kirsteen and her team at Dundonald Castle for providing such

inspirational learning opportunities for the children.

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CELEBRATING SUCCESS IN SPORT AND THE EXPRESSIVE ARTS

Dundonald Flower Show – Sunday 8th September All pupils, from our 2 year olds in the Early Years Centre to our Primary 7s, entered a piece of art

work to Dundonald Flower Show’s Art Competition. Our Early Years Centre also entered the

vegetables which they have been growing this season and received a special commendation for their

beetroot! We look forward to celebrating the children’s achievements at the Flower Show at our

‘Harvest and Flower Show’ Celebration Assembly on Friday 11th October at 9.20am.

Live@Troon – Troon’s Got Talent – Saturday 14th September Congratulations to our P4 and P7 pupils who performed brilliantly at Troon’s Got

Talent earlier in the term. They entertained their audience with a fantastic

keyboard solo and a superb pipe and drum duet. Thank you to all of our families

who joined us in the Concert Hall to support the children at this event.

Gaelic Choir – South Ayrshire Ceremony – Saturday 14th September Congratulations also go to our Gaelic Choir who sang and performed beautifully at

South Ayrshire’s official ceremony for the unveiling of the Mahatma Ghandi statue

in Ayr Town Hall. Our Gaelic Choir was invited to sing by South Ayrshire’s Music

Service who wrote to our school following the performance to praise the children

for their work. Sincere thanks to our pupils and their families for supporting this

event.

South Ayrshire Active Schools Competitive Sports – Badminton – Fri 27th September Dundonald’s Badminton team achieved great success at South Ayrshire’s first competitive badminton

event of this school year. Our team of four players worked extremely hard and showed excellent

skills. It was an all Dundonald final, with our pupils achieving first place and runner-up! We are very

grateful to the families of the children for supporting them to attend the tournament.

Marr Rugby Festival for Primary 5 Pupils – Friday 27th September – Marr Playing Fields Our primary five pupils thoroughly enjoyed participating in

the Marr Rugby Festival. This event provided the children

with the opportunities to develop their skills in rugby

through taking part in a variety of activities and games. We

are grateful to Marr Rugby for organizing this event and for

providing our school with rugby coaches over the past term.

South Ayrshire Active Schools Competitive Sports – Football – Wednesday 2nd October Dundonald Primary entered two football teams for the above event and again achieved great success.

Dundonald played six matches in total and each game either ended in a win for Dundonald or in a draw

with the opposing team. Sincere thanks to staff and parents for supporting the children to attend.

PARENT COUNCIL ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

Thank you to everyone who joined us for our Parent Council AGM on Monday 16th September 2019. It

was a very successful meeting at which our office bearers were elected and a calendar of events for

children and families was planned.

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We are grateful to Sam Anderson who will be secretary for our Parent Council this session and we

are also grateful to Vicky Clark who will be treasurer.

The post of Chairperson of our Parent Council remains vacant. On behalf of our school community,

please may I take this opportunity to encourage parents to put themselves forward for the role of

Chairperson – this can be a role which is shared between a Chair and a Vice-Chairperson. You will

receive excellent support from our Parent Council and from our school staff. Please do not hesitate

to contact Mrs Paterson or Mrs Kerr at school for more information. Our next Parent Council

meeting will take place on Monday 4th November, from 6.30-7.30pm in school.

PARENT COUNCIL HALLOWE’EN PARTIES – THURSDAY 31ST OCTOBER – IN SCHOOL

Our Hallowe’en Parties will take place during the school day on Thursday 31st October. The parties

will include a mixture of Hallowe’en themed games and activities. We are grateful to Mrs Kerr and

our volunteers from our Parent Council for organising this.

Children may come to school dressed in their Hallowe’en costume on Thursday 31st October – or they

may come dressed-down in casual clothes. For very important safety reasons, no masks or pretend

weapons should be brought to school. Thank you in advance for your support with this.

HARVEST AND FLOWER SHOW CELEBRATION ASSEMBLY

Please join us for our Harvest and Flower Show Celebration Assembly on Friday 11th October at

9.20am in school. This will be led by our P7 House and Vice Captains and is an opportunity for us to

give thanks for harvest and to celebrate the achievements of our children at Dundonald Flower Show.

We are collecting donations of food to gift to our local foodbank at our Harvest Assembly.

PARENTS’ AFTERNOON AND EVENING – THURSDAY 10TH OCTOBER 2019

We look forward to extending a very warm welcome to families at our Parents’

Afternoon and Evening on Thursday 10th October. This is an important opportunity for

you to meet with your child’s teacher to discuss their progress at school. Appointments

were sent home in school bags last week.

BREAKFAST BLETHER WITH MRS LYNSEY BRENNAN – MONDAY 28TH OCTOBER, 9AM

Our school chaplain, Lynsey Brennan, will be hosting a Breakfast Blether on Monday 28th October at

9am in our GP Room. Please come along and join Lynsey for an informal chat and enjoy a tea, coffee

and breakfast bun. This is a lovely opportunity to get to know Lynsey and other parents from our

village.

ALLERGIES – IMPORTANT INFORMATION RE. NUTS AND NUT BASED PRODUCTS

We have several children in school with very serious nut allergies. We are grateful for

the continued support of all parents and carers in ensuring that children do not bring

nuts or nut based products (such as Nutella, chocolate spread or cereal bars containing

nuts) to school for their snack or packed lunch.

IMPORTANT SAFETY ADVICE REGARDING GRAPES

Many of you will have read information in the press about the importance of

cutting grapes into quarters to help reduce the risk of children choking on

them. If your child brings grapes to school for snack, please may we ask that

these are cut into quarters?

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HOME-SCHOOL PARTNERSHIP – THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT

On behalf of everyone at Dundonald, please may I take this opportunity to thank families for their

support over the past term. We wish you a relaxing October break and look forward to seeing the

children back on Tuesday 22nd October.

With very best wishes,

Fiona Paterson

Head Teacher

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY OCTOBER 2019 – JUNE 2020

We hope that the following list of dates is helpful in planning your family calendar. As the term progresses,

this will be added to and I will keep you informed of important dates as they emerge.

October 2019

Friday 11th Oct: Harvest Service and Flower Show Celebration at 9.20am – all welcome

Friday 11th Oct: School closes for October holiday at 3.05pm

Monday 21st Oct: Inservice day for staff (school closed to pupils)

Tuesday 22nd Oct: Pupils return

Sunday 27th Oct: Pumpkin Carving and Pumpkin Trail at Dundonald Castle (local event)

Wed 30th Oct: Children’s Hallowe’en Event at Dundonald Castle (local event)

Thursday 31st Oct: Hallowe’en Parties in School – Children may come to school dressed in their costumes or

dressed in casual clothes. For safety, no masks or pretend weapons are permitted.

November 2019

Monday 4th November: Parent Council Meeting, 6.30-7.30pm in school – warm welcome extended to all

parents to join us (children may come along with a parent – there will be activities set out for them)

Friday 15th Nov: P4 Class Assembly at 9.20am – Warm welcome to families to join us for this in our gym hall

Monday 18th – Friday 22nd Nov: Money and Finance Week – Whole school focus on financial education

Friday 22nd Nov: ‘Sharing Our Learning’ Open Afternoon at 2.30pm – Warm welcome extended to families

to visit school and talk with their children about what they have been learning in numeracy and maths

December 2019

Friday 6th Dec: School Christmas Fayre 2pm-4pm – Warm welcome extended to families and the local

community to join us for our Christmas Fayre which will take place in the activity centre. Children and

staff may add a Christmas twist to their usual school uniform if they wish e.g. Christmas hat, tinsel in hair,

Christmas headband, Christmas tie or Christmas jumper.

Tuesday 10th Dec: Flu Immunisation for P1-7

Wednesday 11th Dec: P1-3 Nativity at 1.45pm and 6pm – Warm welcome extended to families to join us for

this very special performance

Thursday 12th Dec: Early Years Centre Nativity at 10.00am – Warm welcome extended to families to join us

for this very special performance

Thursday 12th Dec: Christmas Lunch served by our school catering team for pupils

Friday 13th Dec: P6 and P7 Christmas Party at 1.45pm with Mr Nutt, Miss Riddell and Mrs Kerr. This year,

our P6 and P7 pupils voted for an afternoon party with a hot buffet.

Monday 16th Dec: P7 Induction morning at Marr College (walkabout)

Monday 16th Dec: P5 Christmas Party (all P5 pupils) at 1.45pm with Mrs Mitchell and Mrs Spraggs

Tuesday 17th Dec: P3 and P4 Christmas Party at 1.45pm with Mrs Dunsmuir and Mrs McDowall

Wednesday 18th Dec: P1 and P2 Christmas Party at 1.45pm with Mrs Muir and Mrs Street

Thursday 19th Dec: EYC Christmas Parties at 10.30am and 2.00pm

Friday 20th Dec: Christmas Service – Warm welcome extended to families to join us for this

Friday 20th Dec: School closes at 2.30pm for holiday

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January 2020

Monday 6th Jan: Pupils and staff return following holiday

Monday 6th Jan until Fri 24th Jan: Scottish Culture Month – Whole school focus on Scotland and Scottish

Culture

Monday 20th Jan: Parent Council Meeting, 6.30-7.30pm in school – warm welcome extended to all parents to

join us (children may come along with a parent – there will be activities set out for them)

Friday 24th Jan: 2pm P1-7 Scottish Showcase – Warm welcome extended to all families to join us in our

school gym hall (activity centre) for our P1-7 Scottish Showcase. This will be followed by our Early Years

Showcase which will take place for Early Years families in our EYC at 2.30pm.

February 2020

Thursday 6th Feb: P7 Burns Supper – Warm welcome extended to P7 parents to join us for our annual Burns

Supper in our school gym hall at 2pm.

Friday 7th Feb: School closed (local holiday)

Monday 10th Feb: School closed (local holiday)

Tuesday 11th Feb: Inservice day for staff (school closed to pupils)

Wednesday 12th Feb: Pupils return

Friday 14th Feb: P6/7 Class Assembly at 9.20am – Warm welcome to families to join us for this

Thursday 20th Feb: P7 Marr Transition Day – Including a focus on Careers Education

Friday 21st Feb: Finalists from Dundonald P7 Debate to compete against Cluster Schools – Marr Cluster

Debating Competition

Friday 27th Feb: Parents’ Appointments 3.30-9.00pm

Friday 28th Feb: P2 Class Assembly

March 2020

Friday 6th March: P5 Class Assembly

Tuesday 10th March: Marr Welcome Evening for P7 Parents (6pm, Marr College)

Friday 27th March: P2/3 Class Assembly

April 2020

Thursday 2nd April: Easter Service – Warm welcome extended to families to join us

Thursday 2nd April: School closes for holiday at 2.30pm

Monday 20th April: School re-opens to staff and pupils

Monday 27th April: Parent Council Meeting, 6.30-7.30pm in school – Warm welcome extended to all parents

to join us (children may come along with a parent – there will be activities set out for them)

May 2020

Monday 4th May: Holiday

Friday 15th May: P5/6 Class Assembly

Monday 18th May until Thursday 21st May: P7 Residential Visit to Dolphin House (letter to follow for P7

pupils)

Monday 25th May: Holiday

Tuesday 26th May: Inservice day for staff (school closed to pupils)

Wednesday 27th May: Pupils return

Thursday 28th May: Early Years Centre Sports Afternoon – Warm welcome to families to join us

Friday 29th May: P1-7 Sports Afternoon – Warm welcome to families to join us

June 2020

Thursday 11th June: P7 Transition Day – Marr College

Friday 12th June: P7 Transition Day – Marr College; ‘Bump-Up Day’ in Dundonald Primary

Wednesday 24th June: Early Years Centre Graduation – Warm welcome to families to join us

Thursday 25th June: P7 Moving On Ceremony – Warm welcome to families to join us

Friday 26th June: Closing Service – Warm welcome to families to join us

Friday 26th June: School closes for holiday at 1pm