News

Merlyn Diamond!

Have you ever dreamt of being an Olympic athlete? Well, Merlyn Diamond from Namibia had that dream and now she’s going to hopefully qualify for the Olympics.

Our school has been picked for a BBC project. We have been linked to a school in Namibia. Mrs Currie went down to London and went and met up with Merlyn Diamond and other people from the BBC. She came to St Mary’s on the 18th of January and she went into P2/3 where the 1’s, 2’s and 3’s were waiting excitedly for her to come in. After that we all went outside to get a huge photo of the school and Merlyn. After those photos she came into an excited P6/7 where the p4,5,6 and 7’s were waiting. Josh Whitehead and Rory Reid – Kay were very excited! We got to ask Merlyn questions about why she wanted to become a sprinter and what it is like. Merlyn is recovering from an injury at the moment. We also asked her how fast she can run—11.2s for the 100 metres sprint! Wow!

By David and Rory

Glow Meet With Robert Burns!

On the 25th of January 2011, 8 very lucky p6/7’s got to go to the National Archives of Scotland to take part in a Glow Meet about a letter that was discovered by a man called David. David told us that on a rainy Monday morning he had discovered this letter in between pages of a book. It was written about Robert Burns, not by him, and it was not a forgery. David had to get one of his colleagues, Linda to help him find out and make definite that it was not a forgery. They told us how they found out that it was not a forgery and she had some of her tools with her and she showed them to us. She had two VERY strong magnifying glasses with her and a lot of different brushes. These are the tools that she had used to help find out about the letter, and when it was written. Robert burns died on the 21st July 1796 and the signatures in the book that we saw were written on the 14th July 1796 - a week before he died. We stayed there over lunch and before the Glow Meet we got a tour around the building and then we came back and started the Glow Meet. After the Glow Meet, and just as we were leaving the building, we were given bags full of stuff like a mug, a pencil, a bag, a pen, some sticky notes and lastly we got a copy of Robert Burns’s signature! We all had an excellent time and found it really really interesting!

By Victoria P and Kirsty G

Firemen Talk to P6/7

P6/7 had a talk from the Central Scotland Fire and Rescue Service on the 2nd February. They brought an appliance (a fire engine!) and the kinds of things they would take into a real fire, like an oxygen tank, walkie talkie, fire helmet and a flame proof suit. P6/7 found the fire talk really interesting and at the end the firemen got called out so they had to leave with their lights flashing! P 6/7 really liked it.

By Niamh and Jack

Parent Council Meeting Minutes

Here are the minutes of the Parent Council meeting held on 11th June 2013:

Parent Council 11th June 2013 Meeting Minutes

PSA Update

BBQ
Firstly, thank you to all who attended the bbq. Despite the rain and marauding midges fun was still to be had and we raised approx £380.
Sponsored Outdoor Challenge
As we thought, sponsorship money continued to come in for some time after the event, so the final amount raised was £590.33
Good News!
The PSA AGM is scheduled for 7pm, Tuesday 3rd September, in conjunction with the Parent Council AGM, (at which our final accounts will be presented) but as we have no further fundraisers planned before then, we thought you’d like to know that this year, we have raised a fantastic £2892.37!
This would not have been possible without support and the PSA would like to thank all of you who have bought tickets, sponsored children and attended events. We’d also like to say a huge………
“Thank You!”
 to everyone who has volunteered their help : staff, parents, older siblings etc. The events wouldn’t have happened without you.

14th June 2013 Podcast!

Here is this week’s podcast:

14th June 2013 Podcast

7th of June Podcast 2013

7th of june podcast 2013

Parent Council - Minutes & Agenda

Here are the minutes of the 24th April 2013 meeting of the Parent Council: PC Meeting Minutes 24th April 2013

The agenda for the next meeting to be held on 11th June 2013 can be downloaded here: 11th June Agenda

Playground Rubric

Here is the Playground Rubric document, created by P6/7 in June 2012 and updated by the Health Committee in November 2012:

Playground Rubric Document

Eco Committee Business Meeting Minutes

Global Citizens – Business meeting
Date: 07-05-13

Present: Holly Taylor, Josh Diamond, Eaun Frize, Alex Taylor, Orla Proctor, Jamie Cramb, Vienna Russell, Aron Curwen
Happy Healthy Garden Group –
Nursey Representative – Alasdair Byrne, Mrs MacGregor, Miss Lauchlan

Apologies/ absent: Izzy Gordon-Rigby

Discussion Points Actions
How are we getting on?

Our third green flag Eco Assessment happened on 18th March 2013. We got our third green flag. When we did the tour we went everywhere and it went really well, we had a lot to show and it wasn’t as scary as we thought it was going to be. They liked that we had planted bulbs and made litter posters.

Report from Nursery
• Plant butterfly flowers
• Learn about butterflies
• Waiting for the caterpillars to arrive
• Learning about Fair trade with Charlie and Lola book
• Maybe could use lolly sticks as plant markers

What we’ve enjoyed and what we might do next
Going outside with the big buddies
Learning about habitats up in the forest and building Hex bug habitats with re-cycled materials

Report from Happy Healthy Garden Group
• Keep on finding out about bugs
• Build bug hotel
• Finish books and make them about birds and bugs
• Team challenges
• Learning the difference between insects and spiders
What we enjoyed and might do next
The team games were fun, they helped me not fall off the climbing wall.
They helped do team work.
Helped support bugs to find them a nice home.
Learning about birds, made a book and learned there were lots of different types.
We listened to the birds and took pictures of them

Report from Global Citizens
• Litter and recycling
• Mud Kitchen, leaflet needs to go out and stuff needs to be donated
• Build the mud kitchen
• Share rules about mud kitchen in assembly
• Find out about being a Fair Trade school
• Start looking at our energy use
• Assessment went really well.
• Rota seems to be working, well done to everyone for putting equipment away when it’s finished with.
• Making mud kitchen for making potions and mud pies.

Health Committee Annual Review

In 2012-2013 the Health Committee have worked together to do the following:

• We chose one global and one local charity to support – Comic Relief and Guide Dogs for the Blind.
• We had a snack survey to see the choices pupils were making with their snacks and we contacted a local greengrocers to get prices for fruit to consider having a healthy snack day.
• We made an ICT charter for the computer suite to remind people about their rights and responsibilities when using computers.
• We redid the Lunch Hall charter as the other one went missing
• We tried to organise a new playground rota, to include new games like Handball but it didn’t really work. The Peer Supporters have taken over the role of creating a new one.
• We are really proud to have organised the first ever Highland Games at St. Mary’s to celebrate our Scottish Culture and this was held on Burns Day. We hope to have another one.
• We organised a fun day to raise money for Comic Relief. We made a joke book and sold it to pupils and asked pupils to donate money to come to school in red clothes. We raised awareness of this by doing an assembly for the nursery and then another assembly for the whole school. We raised £252.01!
• We looked at and amended a playground rubric which we plan to launch to the school in May 2013
• We will also be helping organise Sports Day and we plan to have a special sponsored event to raise money for Guide Dogs for the Blind.

Plans for the future
• We want to do another snack survey to see if the school is healthier or not!
• We want to provide the classes with more information about the importance of healthy snacks.
• We would love to do another Highland Games.
• Keep sharing information about Rights and being a Rights Respecting School (possibly a special Rights event)
• Create a Health Award (linked to playground or lunch hall behaviour?)
• Develop Playground Rubric
• More input from Active Stirling, especially for playground games.

Our views on our committee
Everybody has worked together really hard and given lots of exceptional ideas, some of which we have taken forward. It has been really worthwhile and we are proud of what we have achieved. We would recommend keeping the number of meetings (once a week) the same for next year, as we always have loads to do! The only thing we would try to change would be the time because it would be nice to have more ideas from the nursery. It would also be good to have a Health suggestion box in each class so that everybody can make suggestions, even if they’re not on the committee. It is great that pupils run the committees because it’s a good experience and they have loads of great ideas but it is also important to have the adults helping us to make our ideas happen.

Alban Sayers (P6), Eve Tarvit (P6) and Fraser Barrell (P6)

Health Committee Annual Review

In 2012-2013 the Health Committee have worked together to do the following:

• We chose one global and one local charity to support – Comic Relief and Guide Dogs for the Blind.

• We had a snack survey to see the choices pupils were making with their snacks and we contacted a local greengrocers to get prices for fruit to consider having a healthy snack day.

• We made an ICT charter for the computer suite to remind people about their rights and responsibilities when using computers.

• We redid the Lunch Hall charter as the other one went missing

• We tried to organise a new playground rota, to include new games like Handball but it didn’t really work. The Peer Supporters have taken over the role of creating a new one.

• We are really proud to have organised the first ever Highland Games at St. Mary’s to celebrate our Scottish Culture and this was held on Burns Day. We hope to have another one.

• We organised a fun day to raise money for Comic Relief. We made a joke book and sold it to pupils and asked pupils to donate money to come to school in red clothes. We raised awareness of this by doing an assembly for the nursery and then another assembly for the whole school. We raised £252.01!

• We looked at and amended a playground rubric which we plan to launch to the school in May 2013

• We will also be helping organise Sports Day and we plan to have a special sponsored event to raise money for Guide Dogs for the Blind.

Plans for the Future

• We want to do another snack survey to see if the school is healthier or not!

• We want to provide the classes with more information about the importance of healthy snacks.

• We would love to do another Highland Games.

• Keep sharing information about Rights and being a Rights Respecting School (possibly a special Rights event)

• Create a Health Award (linked to playground or lunch hall behaviour?)

• Develop Playground Rubric

• More input from Active Stirling, especially for playground games.

Our views on our committee

Everybody has worked together really hard and given lots of exceptional ideas, some of which we have taken forward. It has been really worthwhile and we are proud of what we have achieved. We would recommend keeping the number of meetings (once a week) the same for next year, as we always have loads to do! The only thing we would try to change would be the time because it would be nice to have more ideas from the nursery. It would also be good to have a Health suggestion box in each class so that everybody can make suggestions, even if they’re not on the committee. It is great that pupils run the committees because it’s a good experience and they have loads of great ideas but it is also important to have the adults helping us to make our ideas happen.

Alban Sayers (P6), Eve Tarvit (P6) and Fraser Barrell (P6)

3rd of May Podcast

3rd of May 2013

 
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