Prestonpans Infant School Newsletter

December 2011

Christmas Shopping Night

Thank you all for coming along in such great numbers to the

Christmas Shopping Night. You came, you shopped, you chat-

ted, you listened to the great Christmas music from the band

and you raised £2500 for our Playground Fund. This brings

our total so far to £23,890, which is really amazing. Here

are some great photos from the evening.

We now have

our own Ragbag Bank in the playground. Every time we

fill it up, we will make money for the playground fund so please

have a clear out before Christmas. Bring your old clothes, shoes,

belts, curtains, towels and bed linen and put them in the Ragbag

Bank. Some of these items will be recycled, some exported to

countries that can use them and some are made into industrial

clots. Today your child will come home with a plastic bag for you

to fill. After that, please tie clothes etc up in carrier bags then

put them in the Ragbag Bank.

At Saturday’s Work Day in the grounds, some dads sawed

down the final sticking up tree trunks. The woods have now been

entirely cleared by Community Service work parties, who have

also laid a lovely path of shredded bark/leaves. The woods are

safe and ready for children to play in. We are so lucky and we

plan for all children in the school to be out there at least once

before the Christmas holidays. Families also fixed the planters

and dug in our wee ponds around the bridge. The ponds were

made from baby baths, with

rocks in and around to help small

creatures to get in and out of

them, as advised by Judith Wood,

Education Health and Safety Of-

ficer. The willow tunnel and a

path through it area also emerg-

ing by the bridge. Take your chil-

dren round after school one day

and have a look. A huge thank

you to everyone who has worked there to create these interest-

ing spaces for children. East Lothian Council are going to come

soon to do some of the heavy lifting. Everyone is working to-

gether to create safe and interesting grounds for learning.

We have a few fruit trees and some fruit

bushes but we have been awarded a grant to

plant 12 more trees. The trees will arrive

soon but at Saturday’s Work

Day some strong dads dug

some holes ready for when

they arrive. Prestonpans Primary School were

also successful in their bid for an orchard so we

plan to compare each others orchards as they

grow. We are grateful for the support received

from Forth Environment Link and the Central

Scotland Green Network Development Fund. The Forth Valley Orchard Initiative is funded by the Central Scotland Green Network Development Fund. The Central Scotland Green Net-work Orchard Grant Scheme 2011/2012, which is part of the initiative, covers the whole of the CSGN area.

The Bouncy Castle Obstacle Course that Paul

McMaster of East Lothian Bouncy Castles kindly

allowed us to use free of charge for Children in

Need raised £274.06. The children had an exciting

time. Thank you Paul. Well done everyone for your generous

giving once more..

Have you noticed our new Information Board outside

the office? We will write up the week’s diary for you

so you know what is happening in school. We hope you

find this helpful. We are also hoping to buy an

outside noticeboard for the P1 playground so that

each playground will have a noticeboard to give you information.

We are improving our systems for handling money.

If you have to give your child money for a trip or

baking etc, it would help us a lot if you could put the

money into an envelope with your child’s name,

class , what the money is for and how much it is.

If you want to buy school uniform, we

will now only accept cheques made payable to Patricia

Bewsey or cash in a sealed envelope, which we will give

to Patricia Bewsey. We will still hold a small stock of

sweatshirts but will pass all money on to Patricia. If

you prefer to contact Patricia directly you will find her at Fenton

Barns Retail Village, North Berwick, EH359 5BW. Patricia’s tele-

phone number is 01620 850788.

As you know the address for our school website is

http://edubuzz.org/prestonpansinfant

It’s not exactly catchy is it? So the Pupil Council are thinking

of a new website name. It may be www.weepanners.org for

example. We will purchase the chosen name and it will make

it much easier for you to find the lovely photos we are posting

regularly of children learning and playing at school.

You can now sign up to get a twitter, Facebook or email alert

when we post onto the website by signing up on the Right

Hand Side of the website. Nobody else will get your email ad-

dress from this. We currently have 7 folk

registered. Let’s try for 20!

Meanwhile, if you have a Smartphone and

scan this image, it will take you directly to

the school website. Amazing, isn’t it? Thanks

to Jan Barker for teaching us about this.

We are very grateful to one of our parents, Heather Dryburgh,

for using her imagination, time and energy to put on a Clairvoyant

Night which was held at Prestonpans Labour Club. Heather gave

the profits from that night, an incredible total of £640, to the

Playground Improvement Fund, boosting our total once more. Thank you so

much, Heather.

Advance Notice that on Thursday 9 February 2012 from

7-9pm, our lovely School Administrator, Elaine Harris, has

come up with the idea of having a BINGO NIGHT to raise

much needed funds for the Prestonpans Gala 2012. More

information to follow but put the date in your diary, tell

your friends and let us know if you are able to help us on the night. Elaine is

calling the numbers and getting a bingo machine. HOUSE!

Our Pupil Council have made a great start to the year

and are consulting children on a name for the website,

playing on the field and the route for upstairs classes to

come up the stairs after break. All important issues for

them.

We held a competition and one design from each class was

chosen. A very kind parent, Kate Fenton, has had these

printed up with 12 different cards in every pack. These

will sell at £3 and are a great way to spread some Preston-

pans Infant Christmas Cheer amongst your family and the

community. They are on sale from the office.

Every page of this lovely calendar, which is the brainchild of Mrs Colquhoun,

is created by the children . The calendar has a wee space for you to write

your appointments in and will sell for £4 each or 2 for £7. These are for

sale from the office.

This year, P1 will have Christmas Lunch on Tues-

day 13th December and on that day, P2 and P3 will have a packed

lunch from the school. When P2 and P3 have their lunch on Wed

14th December, P1 will have packed lunches from the school.

As you know, we work in partnership with Prestonpans Primary.

Some of their P6 and P7 pupils will come to help at our parties and

P2+3 children will go to see them perform The Snow Queen on

Wed 14th December, which will be lovely.

As you will know from the letter you got earlier this

week, we are taking every child in P1-3 to see Aladdin

at the Brunton Theatre on Monday 12 December

2011. This will cost us almost £10 per child but we

are subsidising each ticket by £2 from our School

Fund( actually a subsidy of £354), leaving families

to pay £8 per child. We will give every child

juice and a sweetie treat at the interval so you won’t have to buy

any treats for them to bring or pay more than £8. We are sorry

this is so expensive, especially for families with a few children.

Next year, we will collect this money earlier so you are not having

to pay for it over Christmas time. It will be a lovely Christmas

treat for the whole school to enjoy.

From Monday 5 December, the children can post

Christmas cards to their friends in school. Please make

sure the envelope is marked clearly with the name and

class of who you are sending the card to. You may want

to consider sending one card to the whole class for cost

and environmental reasons.

We have a large hall but

it’s not big enough to ac-

commodate everyone who

wants to see our chil-

dren's Nativity Perform-

ance safely in compliance

with Health and Safety

regulations. So as in pre-

vious years, each P3 fam-

ily will be given the

chance to buy 1 tickets

for the afternoon and 1

ticket for the evening performance of the Nativity, which is on

Thursday 15th December at 2pm and at 6.30pm. Please swap tick-

ets with another family if the times don’t suit you. The tickets

cost £3 each and the money made will pay for Prestonpans Infant

School to sponsor our 2 African children so they can attend school

throughout 2012. Our children’s photos are by the office. They

are Brenda from Uganda and Barri from India. So as well as having

a really lovely time at our Nativity, you can know that you are sup-

porting children to have an education around the world.

We have made a plan with East Lothian Coun-

cil for really bad weather. If we have deep

snow, the janitor will clear a path to the main

door and to the fire exits. However, the East

Loan gate will remain locked at such times as

that is not an emergency path.

9 Dec Parent Council Christmas Party 6pm

12 Dec P1-3 go to Aladdin at the Brunton

13 Dec P1 Christmas Lunch

14 Dec P2 and P3 to Primary to see Snow Queen

14 Dec P2-P3 Christmas Lunch

15 Dec Nativity 2pm and 6.30pm

15 Dec P2s singing on Radio FM East Coast

19 Dec P3 Christmas Party 1.10pm

20 Dec P3 Carol Singing

21 Dec P2 Christmas Party 1.10pm

22 Dec Dress Down/Dress Up day £1

22 Dec P1 Christmas Party 8.50 am

22 Dec Nursery Party 9.15—11.15am

22 Dec Nursery Party 12.45—2.30

22 Dec Christmas holidays at 3.05 or 3.10pm

10 January 2012 Back to School

On the last day of term, Thursday 22 December

2011, we invite staff and children to pay £1 to

dress up or dress down. This is optional and is one

of 3 dress down/up days between now and June to

help us achieve the target for the playground

developments for the children to

play on. Use a smartphone to scan this and

it will take you straight to our

school website.

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