Carrongrange School

www.carrongrange.falkirk.sch.uk 26.11.10 No. 4

Dear Parents/Carers,

Welcome to our end of November newsletter.

We have just completed a very successful 3 days of In-service, during which time all staff have worked very hard, focusing on Curriculum for Excellence.

It seems unbelievable that it will soon be December, and that we have our Pantomime Trips and other Christmas preparations under way already!!

Tension is mounting as auditions are taking place for ‘Carrongrange Has Got Talent’ – Mrs Peat and Mr McGinley are working hard to keep up the incredibly high standard of last year - - who will be the 2010 winner??

Please note changes in dates for our ‘Christmas Coffee Morning’ and the Christmas Disco. Our end of term service will be held in Larbert East Church at 10.00 am on Thursday, 23rd December.

November has been a very busy month as usual, and I hope you will enjoy reading about some of our activities, including our Eco Warriors, led by Mrs. Burton, have done a great job organising ‘Gardening Days’ to keep on top of all the work that has to be done at this time of year, and our Student Council had their first meeting last week.

Our great news is that, earlier this term, we were awarded a ‘Star Performer’ ‘Learning to Achieve’ Award for our Social Enterprise Café Project, and just this week, Ross Paget and Lynsay Carson came with me to Falkirk Town Hall for the Council-wide Celebrating Success Awards. We won the ‘Provost’s Award’ and a Silver Award for the Category of Employment and Economy. This is a tremendous achievement and a great compliment to all the hard work of staff and pupils. Particular mention goes to Mrs Hutton and Mrs Hastings, to Mrs Macguire and to Mrs Maxtone who is currently covering for Mrs Hutton in her absence. The project, which now gives Carrongrange pupils opportunities at both Muiravonside and the Tryst Cafes, has widened to give opportunities to pupils from Denny and Grangemouth High Schools, students from Forth Valley College and Clients from ASSET. This would not be possible without the fantastic support from Real Jobs Falkirk, who have also given pupils the opportunity to volunteer at Muiravonside during the holidays, and, during term time at the café in the Dawson Centre.

In order to keep the project going, we are looking for parents/carers who might be interested in joining the Board of a Social Firm. If you are interested, please give me a call.

Mrs Moore has worked very hard to put together a portfolio showing all the work that is done in the school for Enterprise, and we are keeping our fingers crossed that we will receive our second Falkirk Council Education Services Enterprise Gold Award at the end of the month.

We are very excited at the prospect of hosting the Forth Valley ‘Young Scotland’s Got Talent’ event on 22nd January. There are more details in the attached flyer – put the date in your diary!!

A brief reminder that, with the increasing possibility of wintry weather, can you please ensure that we have up-to- date mobile telephone numbers – please see the advice regarding inclement weather below.

Also – a reminder that, if your child is absent from school, please phone the office to let us know. This prevents us from having to send a Groupcall text message, which is quite costly.

In the event of the school having to close after 9.00am, we will contact you on our Groupcall system, by text message. The Groupcall system will show us when you have received our call, and we will assume that we can send your child home, unless we hear otherwise. If there are any difficulties with this, please contact the school directly.

If road conditions have prevented school transport from picking up your child, please keep them at home, as a safe return home cannot be guaranteed.

If it was not possible to contact all parents by Groupcall, and the bus or taxi was ready to leave, parents of pupils remaining in school would then be responsible for transporting their children home. Pupils would remain in school until alternative arrangements had been made by the parents concerned.

PTO

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Assembly Date

Tuesday 30th November at 9.15am - Whole School Assembly

This day will be a dress down day and pupils are asked to bring in food items for our Christmas Food Appeal for Age Concern.

You are welcome to join us for a cuppa after each assembly.

The Award System is as follows -

6 Blue Cards = Bronze Award

5 Bronze Awards = Silver Award

5 more Bronze Awards =

Gold Award

Bronze Awards 1A - Tom Hutchens, Kieran Kane, Lewis McPhail

1F - Cameron Brown, Chloe Ann Connell, Bradley Finch, Holly Moffat, Lyle Rettie, Conner Purcell, Erin Swinton

1R - Jordan Aikman, Tommy Couper, Ross Neil, Gary Scott

1W - Darren Anderson, Lewis Broadley, Ashley Horne, Aaron Kiloh

2A - Stewart Adams, Bekka Blackwood, Tommy Buller, Jon Eadie, Jordan Grivas, David Jinks, Cameron Johnston

2E - Dylan Beveridge, Avril Graham, Keith Monteith, Tommy Rutherford

2G - Jamie Cieslak, Asad Hussein, Jordan Kilgour, Cameron Lewandowski, Abby McLaren

2J - Megan Jamieson, Eilidh Leadbetter, Dan Ware

2M - Darius Aikman, Lamara Boyce, Julie Ann Butler, Chloe Hamilton, Alexander Johnstone, Alexander Rankin, Ben Scobie

3B - Ian Anderson, Allan Crowe, Liam Egan, Lewis Fleming, Michael Lapsley, Nicholas Peberdy, Grant Waplington

3S - Olivia Day, Melissa McIntyre, Shannon McPhillips, Jordan Montgomery, Zoe Murphy, Christopher Rooney, Nicole Sligo, Ashleigh Taylor, Ashleigh Tetsil, Kieran Wells

6L - Martyn Donnelly, Alan Farquhar, Ryan McIntosh, Andrew Snedden

Monday 29th November - S1-S3 Parents Night - 4.00 - 6.30pm

We are looking forward to welcoming Mr Keenan to our staff. He is our new ICT/DET teacher, and he will be joining us before the end of term.

Mrs Hutton and Mrs Hardie are both absent just now, and we all send them our very best wishes and look forward to seeing them both back. Thanks just now to Mrs Maxtone and Mrs Haddifon who are covering in their absence.

Good luck with all of your Christmas preparations – we look forward to seeing you at the various events during December.

Very Best Wishes

From

Gillian Robertson

Headteacher

Christmas Coffee Morning

Friday 17th December in the Chill Out 10.00 - 12noon

Stalls, Carols and Refreshments £2.00 per ticket

Christmas Disco

Wednesday 22nd December

2.00 - 3.00pm

Carrongrange School Page 3

Pupils of the Month

Bruce House Scott House Wallace House

December Birthdays 1F - Holly Moffat 2E - Avril Graham, Tom Rutherford, Iain Wightman 2M -Conner Georgeson 3S - Christopher Rooney 3W - Craig McCallum, Scott Morton 4M - Patricia Pender 5N - David Harley, Jack Wilson 6G - Joe Ure

Xmas Service

Thursday 23rd December at 10.00am - Larbert East Church

Everyone Welcome

Mrs Moore’s group sold poppies to staff and pupils and raised £87.50.

Hallowee’n Party

On Friday 30th October, the DJ group held a Hallowe’en Disco. Prizes were given out for the best fancy dress outfit.

Lucky Horseshoes

Class 5N are making Horseshoes to sell at the Christmas Coffee Morning. Here are some photos of them working hard to get them ready to sell.

Morrisons "Let's Grow" We have collected 1,784 vouchers and are planning to use them to buy much needed gardening gloves, trowels and seeds. Without your support this would not have been possible, so a big thank you.

School Funds

If you shop on the internet you can help raise funds for the school by using the following link which will take you to the websites you require. The school will receive a percentage of the cost of your purchases. http://www.edupayment.co.uk/schools/Carrongrange+School-85571

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Christmas and New Year Holidays

School Closes for Christmas and New Year Holidays on Thursday 23rd December at 1.00pm

School Re-opens on Thursday 6th January at 9.00am

Carrongrange Has Got Talent

Wednesday 15th December

2.00pm

Tickets £2.00

Letter will be issued next week giving full details.

The Family Fund helps families with severely disabled children and young people aged 17 and under to have choices and the opportunity to enjoy ordinary life. They give grants for things that make life easier and more enjoyable to the disabled child, young person and their family. The Fund is a registered charity, helping around 55,000 families in the UK with around 33million in grants a year.

An application pack can be downloaded from www.familyfund.org.uk or telephone 0845 130 4542.

Parents Support Group

There will be a regular drop-in meeting in the Parents Room on the last Thursday in the month from 10am to 11 am, starting on Thursday 27 January 2011. A warm welcome and a cuppa are guaranteed, and Liz Storey, the Family Support Worker for the school, will be at the meetings. Parents can decide to organise future sessions on topics of interest with guest speakers or therapists, but initially just pop in for a chat at the end of every month.

Class 1R have been learning about money in the classroom and have put into practice using money at Morrison’s supermarket and café.

Pupils in Class 1W enjoy art, music and sensory experiences. They have visited the Falkirk Wheel and Dobbies Garden Centre. Pupils in the class are awarded small silver cups during the month in recognition of their achievements. The child with four silver cups becomes class champion. Darren Anderson was named Class Champion because of his consistently pleasant personality, happy outlook, contribution in class and physical determination. He needed no prompting or support to instinctively raise the cup as his class mates looked on.

S1 and S2 - Carol Singing

10.00 - 10.40am

Tuesday 7th December - Carron Co-op

Classes 1A, 1F, 2A, 2E and 2M

Wednesday 8th December - Asda, Stenhousemuir

Classes - 1A, 2A, 2E, 2G, 2J and 2M