301 OCTOBER 19 - Gryffe Advertizer

Next deadline - Friday 18th October
Gryffe Advertizer | www.advertizer.co.uk
Messy play on the way for every
nursery in Renfrewshire
St. Fillan’s Primary School
Skills Development Academy –
‘BUDS’ Afternoons:
After a long and relaxing Summer
holiday, we have all settled well
into a new school session and our
Primary one children already feel at
home and part of our family! Their
Primary seven Buddies have been
keen to support them as they settle
into their new school routines.
This session, we are keen to ensure
that our children develop skills for
learning, life and work progressively across the school from Primary one
to seven.
We have planned afternoons which focus on skills development through a
variety of interesting and varied learning contexts including coding, health
and well being and fi nancial education.
Our children have been super excited and enthusiastic to participate in
these afternoon sessions which are based on enhancing our children’s
understanding of our school aims.
Already, Primary one have taken part in a ‘Construction Workshop’ and we
hope to share further news of our progress as the session continues.
House Captains & Leadership:
Our new House Captains and
Vice Captains have been elected
to serve their ‘House Family’
within one of the four houses in
our school.
They have publicly taken their
pledge to commit to upholding our
school vision, aims and values
and leading by example by their
words, actions and behaviour.
During our fi rst ‘Meet the Teacher’ event, they performed their duties well by
welcoming our families and visitors and organising consultations with our
parents and carers around the launch of our ‘Curriculum Rationale’ and our
‘Nurturing Schools’ work around transition and change.
We wish them well in their journey to drive forward school improvement!
Three of our Primary seven children
were successful at interview to
facilitate our ‘Credit Union’ in
partnership with the Johnstone Credit
Union and one of our Parent helpers.
They have been keen to encourage
their peers to save their pennies for a
rainy day and we wish them well with
their mission!
We look forward to the new school
year ahead and to sharing our progress with you.
Brand-new mud kitchens designed to inspire imagination and creativity
through messy play are on their way to every council nursery in Renfrewshire
thanks to an inspiring volunteer.
Renfrewshire Council’s Senior
Warden Gail Scoular came up with
the idea to provide the kitchens and
fundraised in her own time to ensure
there was no cost to the thirty-four
nurseries, with the council’s Unpaid
Work Team carrying out the work to
create them.
Made from recycled pallets, they
provide an immersive, multi-sensory experience for children to get their
hands dirty making mud pies and soil smoothies while interacting with their
peers.
The kitchens aim to encourage little green fingers to fl ourish by helping
children discover the benefits of outdoor play and encourages them to use
their imaginations to create culinary inventions.
The young children will see the benefits of working together and fi nd
enjoyment in the great outdoors, ensuring they appreciate their local
environment which is a key tie with Renfrewshire’s Team Up to Clean Up
campaign.
Donations were made by UNITE, GMB Union and enva which facilitated the
purchase of tools for use in the mud kitchens.
For more information on the Team Up to Clean Up campaign, visit www.
renfrewshire.gov.uk/teamuptocleanup.
Kilbarchan Community Nursery
All the children have now settled back into the familiar routines and have
been planning what they would like to learn. In the outside area, the
children have been interested in making their own pirate ship, complete
with sails, flag and cannons. The children worked well together using the
community blocks and one of the boys said ‘‘we need a cannon to shoot
the other pirate ship, that’s on the pirate film I saw at grandpa’s house, it
was Blackbeard.”
As part of our improvement plan we are developing a link with a local care
home. This project is beneficial to both children and the older adults as the
children develop confidence as well as respect and understanding for older
adults. While they were there, they created
playdough models and played threading
games.
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