About
Our CommunitySchool Holidays 2022/23
Winter Break: 14 – 18 February
Spring Break: 4 – 18 April
Summer Holiday: 27 June -16 August
Autumn Holiday: 10 – 21 October
Support St Mary's EPS with your shop at Coop
You can now support St Mary’s Episcopal Primary School when you shop at Coop with a Coop Membership card. Membership costs only £1 (one off fee). Whenever you shop Coop products, the Coop donates 2p for every £1 spent to the school.
Members need to select the school as beneficiary via this community funding link. This link can also be shared with friends and family across the UK and they will be able to contribute as well if they are Coop members.
Thank you for sharing.
Our Community
St. Mary’s Primary School is part of a thriving community in the heart of Dunblane. A small, friendly school, our families get to know each other and our staff well.
We have strong links with St. Mary’s Episcopal Church – the Rector of St. Mary’s leads school assemblies and provides pastoral care for families and staff. The Church community runs regular ‘Messy Church’ activities after school, and these are open for school pupils to attend.
We encourage our pupils to take care of our wider community – for example through visits to the residents of Randolph Hill care home, or litter picking at Holmehill woodland. We also have links with Dunblane initiatives such as the Dementia Café.
St. Mary’s is part of the Dunblane Learning Community. We work with the other Dunblane primary schools and Dunblane High School to develop joint learning and sporting activities and to support the transition of Primary 7 children to secondary school.
Communicating with parents
Maintaining great communication between the school staff and the school community is really important to us. The staff team at St. Mary’s communicates regularly and often with our school families.
Our monthly newsletter is sent to every family by email, and via our school app. Using the school app, we share news, events and important messages and reminders.
Teachers communicate with parents/carers using ClassDojo, sharing photos and insights from the school day. Regular parent evenings are an opportunity for parents/carers to meet the class teacher, and to see what the children have been working on.
Community activities and fundraising
Lots of community and fundraising activities take place at St Mary’s throughout the year. These bring our parent body together, and connect our school community with our local community.
Our unmissable Christmas Fair in early December is a lovely start to the Christmas season with food, mulled wine/juice, games, raffle, tombola and the chance for children to visit Santa in his grotto. The whole community is welcome to enjoy this festive afternoon. In the weeks beforehand, our school crafting group works with every school class to create beautiful crafts and decorations to sell as gifts.
At the end of each academic year our families come together for our summer celebration, enjoying a BBQ, games and ceilidh dancing. The pupils v. parents football match is always a highlight!
Our annual community picnic in the school grounds is a chance for the school community and local community to get together over a picnic lunch. We also invite local residents to school for a Daffodil Tea at Easter, and have hosted the Memory Café together with St. Mary’s church. School families also participate in the Kilt Walk and mini Kilt Walk.
In addition to these events, our fundraising team develops all sorts of smaller fundraising initiatives throughout the year. The funds that we raise through school activities are used to support the development of the school, for example through the purchase of IT equipment such as interactive whiteboards and ipads.
We also hold regular fundraising activities in support of the wider community, including Start-Up Stirling’s Reverse Advent Calendar, annual Christmas shoebox appeals, and collections of clothes and toys in support of refugee charities.
Easyfundraising
Easyfundraising offers a brilliant way for you to support our school when you shop online. Please go to the Easyfundraising website, register, and search for St. Mary’s Episcopal Primary School – Dunblane. Every time you shop with registered online retailers, St. Mary’s will receive a percentage of the price of your order.
Hello from
the Parent Council
“We are excited that you are considering St. Mary’s for your child and believe it would be a positive choice. As Chair of the Parent Council I would encourage you to come along for a visit and see first-hand how ‘small is beautiful.’ We pride ourselves in being friendly, welcoming and inclusive and are proud of what our small school achieves – both with its ability to ‘grow’ children who are creative, competent and confident but also with the links to the local community. We work to foster a sense of identity and belonging that endures.”
, Our Parent Forum and Parent Council
Every carer or parent of a school pupil is invited and encouraged to participate in the school parent forum. The parent forum is invited to attend Parent Council meetings, and to elect Parent Council representatives. Each year group has an elected representative on the Parent Council, to represent their views, concerns and ideas to the school.
Our Parent Council meets regularly with the school leadership. We support the development of the school in many different ways, including helping to develop school plans and initiatives; representing parent views on key issues affecting the school; fundraising; and organizing school events.
Our friendly Parent Council welcomes new members. If you are a parent or carer who has time to volunteer, please join us in our efforts to make St. Mary’s a great place to learn & play.
Calendar
Tuesday, 10 May
Bikeability
Thursday, 26 May
Safari Park Trip
6-10 June
Health Week
SATurday, 18 June
St Mary’s Summer BBQ
Location
Smithy Loan
Dunblane, FK15 0HQ
Scotland - UK
Phone & Email
01786 822740
stmaryeps@stirling.gov.uk
School Hours
Mon-Fri: 9am - 3:15pm
Spring Term: 5 Jan - 1 Apr