Author: cairnn97

Spring Newsletter

Message from the Head Teacher
As another busy term draws to a close I’m delighted to look back on all our children and communities achievements. As a school we have been recognised nationally by a Ministerial Visit, people across the country have heard about the Lawfield Community Project; our Walking bus, Smoothie Bar, Forest School and our Dad Proofing though being invited to give presentations at conferences in Edinburgh, Inverness and Aberdeen. Our Basketball team have been crowned champions of the participation court as well as all the individual achievements every day of each and every one of our pupils, parents, staff and wider community. It’s exciting times for Lawfield and to top it all off we’ve been awarded £135,000 in PEF funding.
Hope you have a fantastic Easter Break—we all deserve it!

Important Dates
Start of Term
Tuesday 18th April
Monday Holidays
1st & 22nd May
End of Term
Friday 30th June

Thank you...
...to every one who took part in Christmas Jumper Day last term. We raised £50 for VOCAL and £50 for Save the Children, two fantastic charities who support some of our children here at Lawfield. It is great to be able to give back for some of the help we receive.

World Book Day
On Thursday 2nd of March we saw a fantastic array of characters in and around Lawfield Primary to celebrate World Book Day. We saw everything from the Hungry Caterpillar and Beatrix Potter, to WW2 Auxiliary Core and Gangster Granny! In classes, our pupils took part in a wide range of activities including story telling and looking at the work of different authors. Many thanks to all the families who supported their children to take part. An exciting day was had by all.

Ministerial Visit
On 8th March we welcomed Kevin Stewart MSP to Lawfield. In his letter of thanks he said;
‘It is very heartening to see the enthusiasm for leaning and improvement that has been created throughout the school. I am sure that the hard work of pupils, parents and the wider community, supported by teachers, assistants and colleagues throughout Midlothian will continue to lead to further progress.’

Farewell
Mrs Anne Glodek retires after 23 year service. She started at Langlaw and moved to Lawfield when the new school opened. Miss Amy Sampson also leaves us after two years to move to South Lanarkshire Council, closer to her home.
We wish them both all the best in the new chapter of their lives.

Children’s University
Congratulations to John P1, Ailsa, Thomas, Alfie & Balinor P2, Kerrie P3, Millie P4, Hannah & Struan, P6, P3, Bali for receiving their Bronze Undergraduate Award from Children’s University’s. Hayley Jones from Queen Margaret University came in to present them with their certificates. They have all participated in at least 30 hours of activities. We look forward to many more of our children achieving this award next term.

P5 Global Citizenship
Global Warming is a dramatically important issue these days. P5A is taking this global problem seriously. What do we do? We recycle and reuse plastic bottles and bottle caps! We have already collected 205 plastic bottles and 350 bottle caps. Now, we are going to use these recycled materials to create art!
What about you? P5A believes that everyone can make a difference.

P3 Science
P3a have enjoyed learning about the Sun, Earth and Moon in Science. They have been working in groups to create the phases of moon using Oreo Cookies. They especially enjoyed being able to eat the cookies when they were finished! They also made sundials from paper plates and went outside to test their effectiveness.

Active School Club
There are 7 Active Schools clubs running this term and these have provided a fantastic variety of sport and physical activity opportunities to pupils before and after school. These range from Basketball and Football, to Dance and Movement Skills including climbing, gymnastics and parkour. We have over 100 pupils taking part from P1-P7. The clubs are a great way to start the day: being physically active energizes body and mind to be ready for lots of great learning in class!

Champions!
Congratulations to our Basketball team who recently won the participation court tournament at the Midlothian Basketball Festival at Danderhall Leisure Centre.

Burns Night
Wednesday 25th January saw Lawfield relocate to the church hall for an evening of food, friends and fine entertainment. Pupils from all across the school performed poems, dances and drama to celebrate the life and works of Robert Burns. A good evening was has by all. Well done to everyone involved both front of house and in the kitchen. Many thanks to the parents for supporting such a successful evening.

Red Nose Day
Primary 6 took responsibility for the running of the Comic Relief, ‘Red Nose Day’. The children encouraged us all to wear ‘Red’ on Friday 24 March 2017 and enthusiastically undertook a wide range of wonderful and wacky sponsored challenges to raise as money as they could for this worthwhile charity. A huge thank-you to all who donated their money on the day.

Ready Teddy Go Science Workshop
P1’s investigated forces and what influenced their the effectiveness. They discovered that the force of push and pull can be affected by gravity and friction. They also explored floating and sinking. As scientists they had to estimate what they might discover and then carry out experiments to find out.
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Story Telling
P6B have been enthusiastically working with Lea, our resident Storyteller. The children have taken on roles as ‘Storytelling Ambassadors’ and have entertained the younger classes with their versions of much loved and well-known fairytales. This term the children have also received certificates for their fantastic effort and talent through their work. They have also been learning more about local history and were enthralled to hear the story of ‘Camp Meg’ who lived around Mayfield during the 18th Century. They also saw photographs of her original teapot and gravestone. A massive thank-you to Lea for all her amazing work at Lawfield PS.

Forest School
Over 70 pupils have enjoyed attending Forest School this year as well as P2 making a visit for a class trip. The pupils have been learning about themselves and each other whilst having fun developing their skills in tool use, staying safe and problem solving. They have even learned how to cook on a campfire.

Great Place to Grow
Congratulations go to Mrs Cath Harding who recently was a finalist in the Midlothian ‘Great Place to Grow Awards’. Mrs Harding was nominated by the school for going that ‘extra mile’ to support our children to learn and achieve. Well done Mrs Harding, we are proud of you and lucky to have you!

PEF Funding
Lawfield Primary School has been given an additional £135,000 as part of the Pupil Equity Funding is provided by the Scottish Government. We will be receiving this money each year for the next four years. It has been allocated to us to support our children and young people in greatest need and close the attainment gap which affects our pupils.
Miss Richardson has given presentation about the work we are already doing at Lawfield Primary to support our children at conferences in Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Inverness. This funding is to be used to support new projects and initiatives in school.
The management team have been gathering data to identify where our needs are so we can target our spending and use the money wisely. As always we would like your thought on how you think it would be best to spend this additional funding. For more information please contact the school.

International Visitors
Lawfield is set to play host to visitors from the top 20 performing countries in the world as part of the International Summit on the Teaching Profession hosted by the Scottish Government. The theme of the conference is around equity and improvement. We were delighted to be nominated by Education Scotland as a school which exhibited these features. We are very proud that Lawfield’s achievements will be getting recognised across the world! .

Walking Bus
Our Walking bus is as popular as ever, however we are in danger of no being able to provide it unless we get volunteers to help. If you can help out on a rotational basis, please contact the school. It would be sad loose such a popular and fun activity. For more information, please contact the school office or through Facebbook.

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