Whole School Summer Writing Competition!

We need your help!

As you know, our school emblem is a Griffin, a mythical creature with the head, wings and front claws of an eagle but the body and back legs of a lion. Why? Well, the answer is… we don’t really know! It is a mystery that we would love to solve.

Lari Don, author of the Spellchasers Trilogy, came to visit our school at the beginning of June and as well as being impressed by our imaginative and enthusiastic pupils, she was fascinated by our emblem.

Are there still Griffins living among us? Did a Griffin protect the land that our school is built on? Maybe Mr McIntyre is actually a Griffin in disguise? It’s up to you…the more imaginative the better!

We are launching a whole school Summer Writing Competition! All you have to do is write a story about how the Griffin came to be our emblem.

Prize (in both categories):

  • Published on the school website and a signed/personalised copy of a Lari Don book

Categories:

  • P1-3
  • P4-7

Rules and regulations:

  • Stories must clearly explain why the Griffin ended up as our school emblem
  • Stories can include drawings but will be judged on the writing
  • Printed or hand written
  • Must include your name and class (as of Aug 2018)

Hand your story in to your teacher on the first day back at school and our staff will vote on one winner from each category!

Good luck!

PS If you are a grown-up who can shed any light on the real reason, feel free to get in touch!

 

 

 

 

 

 

P1 New Starts - August 2018!

This is the slideshow that Mr McIntyre used when he welcomed the new parents and carers of Primary 1 new starts.

Click the image to find out more!

Sports Day 2018

The sun was shining for our Sports Day this year! Our children were raring to go from the outset and threw themselves into every event. Miss Nixon and Mr Lithgow's amazing organisational skills meant that everything ran smoothly and everyone had fun! 

 

 A huge congratulations to the Stevenson House for coming first! 

 

We are a Rights Respecting School!
Article 29: Education must develop every child's personality, talents and abilities to the full. 

NSPCC Parent Workshops

We’re here to help you keep your child safe online

O2 and the NSPCC have joined forces on a mission to help all children and their families in the UK stay safe online. Together, they’re offering useful tools, support and guidance to help parents and carers have frequent conversations with their children about their online lives.

Our free online safety workshop for parents and carers

We would like to invite all parents, carers or family members to a free online safety workshop at Clermiston Primary on Monday the 4th of June from 2.00-3.00pm.   The content covered in the workshops is aimed at adults. Parents with children are advised to arrange childcare if possible.

The hour-long workshop will help parents, carers and other adults understand their child’s online world, build confidence to have those important conversations that can help keep children safe online and help you know where to go for help and advice.

Parents from Blackhall, Cramond and Davidson's Mains are invited too so if you know anyone you think will be interested, let them know!

If you are interested, please email admin@clermiston.edin.sch.uk

Deaf Roots and Pride Day

To celebrate the ongoing success of the British Deaf Association’s (BDA)  Deaf Roots and Pride project, BDA are inviting Deaf children and young people between the ages of 8 – 20 to join them at Dynamic Earth on Saturday 9 June from 12.00pm to 3.30pm for a fun, interactive tour of Dynamic Earth, one of our city's top visitor attractions!

 

People interested in coming along should contact Charlene at transitionscot.drp@bda.org.uk or SMS/FaceTime 07795 822102

 

There is also a BSL video available here!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Frog Squad!

Earlier this year, there was a bit of a stir going on behind the scenes at Clermiston Primary. Our beloved Frog Bin was doomed to be skipped, as the poor thing had seen better days and was no longer fit for purpose. However, when our pupils found this out they were empowered to do something about it. When it became obvious that the bin was broken beyond repair, a team of Clermiston pupils aka The Frog Squad put together a petition to replace it like for like. It turned out that they weren't alone in their thinking and managed to gather 127 signatures from their peers! 

Armed with this, they approached Mr McIntyre and the Parent Council for funds and low and behold...they did it! 

The new bin was unveiled in front of the whole school and even had a special ribbet, I mean ribbon cutting ceremony! 

This just shows the power of Pupil Voice, something we care very strongly about in Clermiston. We were so proud that the Frog Squad found a cause that they cared about and did something about it. Inspiring stuff!

Chicks!

Primary 1 are learning all about living things! 10 eggs arrived in our classes in an incubator on Monday 23rd April. By Friday, 8 eggs had hatched and we have some lovely chicks to look after! We have 3 girls (brown chicks) and 5 boys (yellow chicks). Our children have really enjoyed learning how to care for the chicks and have even had the chance to hold them! This experiences has also given the children the chance to learn about life cycles as they watched the chicks hatch.

Victorian School Trip

P6B turned the clocks back to 1897 this week, jumping straight into a Victorian classroom. Although we have been researching the Victorians in our own classrooms, nothing could have prepared us for how different it was! We were met by three teachers who, as soon as the school bell rang, became rather strict and a little scary...! We quickly realised that Victorian children were not to speak unless spoke to! As we filed into the wooden classroom (girls first) we were amazed at how different it was to our own classroom. Not a Smartboard or iPad in sight! The teacher took us through the 3 Rs - Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. Where was the Daily Mile?! 

Our ‘pencils’ were flint, our ‘paper’ was a slate board our calculator was an abacus. If we were naughty we had to sit on the cutty stool or if we were REALLY naughty, out came the strap! Don’t worry though, that bit was all pretend...

When the school bell rang, we were transported back to 2018 and the Victorian teacher was full of compliments for how well we listened, asked questions and got involved. We were just glad to know we were going home to play, rather than carry buckets of coal up three flights of stairs!

P4-7 Digital Safety Workshop

On Tuesday 6th February schools, charities, organisations and police services across the UK will be celebrating Safer Internet Day. The aim is to promote a safer internet for our young people.

The theme of Safer Internet Day this year is:

Create, Connect and Share Respect: a safer internet starts with you

Throughout the week all pupils will be involved in activities and discussions about their use of the internet, particularly social media. To find out more information about Safer Internet Day you can have a look at www.saferinternet.org.uk where you will find our very own Digital Leaders featured in information packs and videos.

We would like to invite parents and carers of P4-P7 pupils to join us at one of two digital workshops which we will be running. The aim of these events are to work with children to ensure they are safe online and to increase adult awareness of social media platforms used by pupils.

We will run identical Digital Safety Workshops on Thursday 1st February and Thursday 8th February from 3.30pm – 4.30pm.

If your child regularly uses a tablet or phone for social media you should bring this along with you. There will be opportunities to use apps and websites, time for conversations between you and your child about their use of apps and plenty of tea and coffee available!

If you would like to join us, please complete and return the slip on the letter that came home to indicate your preferred date!

Emotion Talks

We have been given the opportunity to host a group which aims to help parents to support their children with their emotions.  The group would run in school on Friday mornings from 9-10.30. If you feel this would be helpful please contact Mrs Geraldine Forsyth, Depute Head at school before Thursday 8th February. The leaflet below from the host gives further details.

Click to Download Emotion Talks Leaflet [pdf 1MB] Click to Download

Choir Performance!

As you may know, our fantastic choir have been asked to perform at St Kentigerns Church for a Christmas Concert on Tuesday 19th December 2017 at 7pm. In addition to the Clermiston School Choir, The Rolling Hills Chorus, the 'Black Velvet' Trio and the 'Open Road' Quartet will all be performing!

Tickets are free and available here  or and a small number are also available from the school office. 

There will also be a raffle on the night to raise money for Children 1st and Prostate Scotland!

Christmas Jumper Day!

We have had many people asking us if we are going to do Christmas Jumper day this year…so our Pupil Council had a vote and have decided that it is a great idea!

Christmas Jumper Day is when all the grown-ups and children come to school wearing a Christmas Jumper instead of their school jumper. Everyone is encouraged to bring a small donation of £1 (or more if you wish!) and all money raised goes towards Save the Children. 

We are looking forward to seeing your Christmas Jumpers on Friday 15th of December!!

Clermiston on Camera!

There was a bit of excitement here at Clermiston Primary today! Safer Internet Day UK asked us if we would like to be filmed for their 2018 education pack. The packs will be used to teach children all across the UK about internet safety. In fact, Peter from SID told us that last year over 1 million children watched their videos, which is VERY exciting!!

Peter, Chris and Gareth set up a mini film set in our ICT suite. It looked so different! We started off with a workshop about what kinds of games we play online, who we speak to and how we might react to people saying things to us. After the workshop, Peter had to choose 6 of us to film mini interviews a very difficult task indeed, as he told us we were all brilliant!

Our pupils represented us so well today and we can't wait to see the finished product!

Create, Connect and Share Respect

A Better Internet Starts with You!

Safer Internet Day

Tuesday 6th of February 2018

Anti-Bullying Week 2017-18

Our Pupil Council worked together to make this Powerpoint to share with the school to mark Anti-Bullying week. They used the Top Tips from Anti-Bullying Alliance but changed the words so that everyone could understand. The PPT was shared both in our Nursery to P3 assembly and our P4-P7 assembly. Following the presentation, the Pupil Council decided to show the videos below and thought you might want to see them too!

Odd Socks Song P1 - P3

Being a Bully P4 - P7

Our classes will be chatting about Anti-Bullying week and we hope that they take this conversation home!

Edinburgh Schools Open Day

Thank you to all who came to visit Clermiston Primary School as part of the Edinburgh Schools Open Day! Our P7s and Pupil Group representatives were the stars of the show, confidently and enthusatically showing off our school to our many visitors. As well as this, our Parent Council were fantastic in sharing the wonderful work that they do for our school.  We received some amazing feedback (in the form of Tickled Pink and Green for Growth) that made all the hard work and preparation worth while. 

A Spooky Gathering at Clermiston Primary!

We are a very sleepy school today after another fantastic Hallowe'en disco at Clermiston Primary School. A HUGE thank you to our Parent Council for organising this event!

"It was fun! It looked quite scary, especially Abby who was dressed like a mummy!" Olivia P4

"My favourite bit was the Macarena! I can do it really fast!" Caity P4

ThinkTastic Pupil Conference

On Tuesday 19th September, the P5-7 Pupil Council went to the Royal High School to learn about what we can do for our world and our school. Mike from ThinkTastic was big-minded and funny, and he helped us to understand how to turn things around. He is one of those people who tries his best and never gives up. He was so inspiring because he used to live on the streets and now he owns a company that inspires people to think big. He opened our eyes to all of the amazing things that are going on in our world just now, all because someone had an idea. We can make our OWN world and we're never too young or too old to be leaders and make a difference!

Now that we are back in our own school, we can't WAIT to make a real change! 

By Victoria, Harrison, Charlotte, Brandon, Ben, Frankie, Ellie and Callie

 

We are a Rights Respecting School!
Article 15: Every child has the right to meet with other children and join groups and organisations as long as this does not stop other people enjoying their rights. 

'Take One Action!' Film Festival

Today, members of our pupil groups (Pupil Council, Super Rights, Eco and Digital Leaders) visited the Filmhouse to participate in the ‘Take One Action!’ film festival.  We had the privilege of watching various short films about children’s rights.  Films were sad, funny and intriguing.  They were a variety of real life documentaries and animations coming from countries such as Kenya, Iran, Scotland, Netherlands and Latvia.  We all definitely enjoyed it and think everyone else would find it a great experience.  Thank you also to the Parent Council for funding this trip and to Mrs Thomson (Parent Council Chair) who came along to help!

 

By Calum (P7B Super Rights Rep), Callie (P7A Pupil Council Rep), Kate (P6A Eco Rep) and Innes (P7A Digital Leader).

Clermiston Primary School 2017-18

Welcome back to another session at Clermiston Primary School and a brand new website to explore. We are still building it up section by section but we hope you agree it is a big improvement! 

Keep checking back for regular updates from all areas of school life.