King’s Meadow Primary School

Earlier this week the Parent Council wrote to Jan Wilson and the Courier to voice concerns over the sale of sweets at the Festival Cafe this year. We are pleased to have received this response from Jan Wilson today:

“I have today written to the stallholders who were selling sweets at the festival cafe and have told them that they will not be allowed to sell sweets at the festival cafes from now on. I hope this will meet with your approval and I am sorry if you have been upset by this but hopefully now we can move on. We at community council do take matters seriously and if a complaint is raised then we do look into it.”

Some P5s tell us what they did and thought of their John Muir Project.

Here are what some of the children thought about their year in P5.

5B made some quick videos today about what they enjoyed during the past year.

Once again this year the festival café was very busy. As parents we allow our children to visit the café in the good faith that they will be able to buy a reasonably healthy lunch, plus an extra cake or two, and the money all goes to good causes.

This year, for the first time one stall holder decided to sell bags of sweets as a sideline. This idea may be OK in principle, but in this instance because the items were so cheap and the quantities so large the children were able to buy an awful lot of them. Aside from the health aspect of a full-on 100% sugar lunch, the knock-on effect from this unfortunately led to some problems back at school.

The parent council will be writing to Jan Wilson of the community council. Mr McGillivray has also agreed that because this stall primarily targeted King’s Meadow children, staff will be supervising the children’s visits to the café more closely next year.

from Parent Council meeting 17 June 2009

Our web site has been evolving throughout this year as more staff and pupils have been learning how to add to it. Everyone sees the site as a great window onto the work within the school, and an opportunity for your children to share what they’ve been working on.

Hopefully the web site has also been keeping you up to speed with what issues the parent council has been discussing. Clearly the big one this current session was successfully fighting against the “efficiency” savings and proposed cuts to front line school services.

We want to continue improving communication by developing the web site next session. We have asked that all letters that are normally sent out by pupil post are also posted on the web site. If you have signed up for email alerts you will then have the information even if the paper copy has been lost in the deep recesses of the school tray or bag. We are also aware that the events calender needs to be kept more up to date.

If you have any comments or suggestions about the site please let us know.

from Parent Council meeting 17 June 2009

Some parents have raised concern that homework is either not marked, or very slow to be returned. Mr McGillivray will address this with staff at the first meeting next session and the parent council will also return to this issue when we next meet.

from Parent Council meeting 17 June 2009

A copy of the report from our recent inspection should now have been sent to everyone. The feedback from the inspectors has been extremely positive, with particular praise for the staff of the school. Mr McGillivray has set out a plan to address areas identified for improvement. These are “to increase the pace of learning and challenge for higher-attaining children” and “to provide support for children who require better social skills and greater confidence”. In order to “kick start” the work in these areas, additional time equivalent to one full time teacher will be provided for the next session. http://www.hmie.gov.uk/

from Parent Council meeting 17 June 2009

First attempt at making a video about our Woodland Area.   It is a bit quiet and unedited but we are still learning and will hopefully do more in the future.

Here are some pictures of P5 going their Year Group Walk during Health Week along with some more John Muir pics.