Head Teacher – Weekly Updates for families

This page will share our Head Teacher’s weekly updates in order to keep parents abreast of latest developments. Any attachments will be uploaded for download where necessary. 

02.06.2023 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families3

02.06.2023 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good morning, families. 

 I hope you are well.

 Winning Nation and Overall leader 

 This week’s winning Nation is SCOTS! Well done for upholding our values. 

 Our current overall leader is SCOTS! The race is on now with under a week left until Sports’ Day and the announcement of the winning Nation! 

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 Author Visit for P2-P4 – Mike Nicholson 

We are really looking forward to welcoming Mike Nicholson, Edinburgh-based children’s author, at RHPS today when he is coming into do workshops with our P2-P4 children. Thank you to Suzy for organising this link. 

You can find out more about Mike via his website – http://www.mikenicholson.co.uk/ 

He is going to have a tour of the library by some of our P4 children and has kindly offered to donate some signed copies of some of his books for us to enjoy in our library. 

We can’t wait to meet him! 

Health Week next week including Sports’ Day on Thursday 8th June, 1.30 – 3.00pm (on the community field) 

We are all really looking forward to our Health Week next week. 

Just a reminder that children should come to school in unbranded fitness gear. 

We have lots of fun activities planned for the coming week for all the children including the Sports’ Day on Thursday. 

We would welcome you coming along to watch us. Just come along to the Community Field at the back of the school ready for us to start at 1.30pm. 

Thank you, Quad Squad  

Following my thanks for Heather and all her efforts I would also like to mention and thank the other members of the Quad Squad – Louise, Mirek, Gillian, and Manuel. 

The quad is really starting to take shape now and the children are thoroughly enjoying their experiential learning and having fun! Please find attached a couple of photos of how the Quad is now looking. 

I’ll keep you updated with all the ongoing developments, supported by our wonderful Parent Council. 

Reminder – Volunteers needed! 

• The 90th Anniversary Summer Fayre, 16th June, and the Quad Development (Quad Squad) 

Please let us know if you are interested in getting involved with the 90th anniversary Summer Fayre. We are always looking for volunteers to help with set up, running stalls and clearing up. Just contact the Parent Council if you’re able to help out even if it is just for an hour or so – rhpsparents@gmail.com 

 As I said we are seeing such massive improvements already and have fabulous plans. 

 But we need your help to make it happen! 

 If you have any time to spare during the week, please get in touch with Emma, admin@royalhigh-pri.edin.sch.uk. 

 Pre-loved uniform stall  

 Just a reminder that our pre-loved uniform stall will be in the front playground on Fridays from 12-12.30pm today. 

 Sun protection! 

 We have been so lucky with some glorious sunny weather recent, and more is forecast for the coming weeks. 

 We would encourage you to put sun cream in your child’s school bag which they can apply through the day. 

 We are happy for them to have a hat to wear in the sun as well. 

 Please remember to send your child in with a water bottle full of water which they can refill during the day as they need. 

 ******************* 

 I hope you have a lovely weekend and look forward to seeing you next week. 

 Take care and see you soon. 

 Anna 

Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School

26.05.2023 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families3

26.05.2023 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good morning, families.

I hope you are well and have had another good, if somewhat short, week.

Winning Nation and Overall leader

This week’s winning Nation is ANGLES and SCOTS! A great effort by all!

Our current overall leader is SCOTS! The race is on now with under two weeks left until Sports’ Day and the announcement of the winning Nation!

****************

Parent Council Disco – Thank you!

We had a fantastic time at the Parent Council Disco, dancing into the evening. The children had great fun!

I wanted to say a huge thank you to all of the Parent Council who put in such hard work to organise this brilliant event. It is such a highlight for the children and couldn’t happen without the Parent Council.

Parent Council AGM, 6th of June – postponed until after the Summer break

Just to let you know the Parent Council AGM has been postponed until after the Summer holiday.

This is so the Parent Council can focus on the 90th anniversary celebrations and the Quad Development.

Volunteers needed! – The 90th Anniversary Summer Fayre, 16th June, and the Quad Development

Please let us know if you are interested in getting involved with the 90th anniversary Summer Fayre. We are always looking for volunteers to help with set up, running stalls and clearing up. Just contact the Parent Council if you’re able to help out even if it is just for an hour or so – rhpsparents@gmail.com

And we are working really hard on our Quad development, particularly the P1 team and Heather, one of our wonderful parents. We are seeing such massive improvements already and have fabulous plans.

But we need your help to make it happen!

If you have any time to spare during the week, please get in touch with Emma, admin@royalhigh-pri.edin.sch.uk.

School Board Cup – Well done our P6 team!

Our Primary 6 team took part in round two of the School Board Cup on Wednesday and although they played really well and tried their best, they haven’t made it through to the next round.

They shouldn’t be downhearted as they put in a fantastic effort and represented themselves and the school brilliantly.

Well done to all of the team and their coaches. We are very proud of you!

Postponed – Portobello Learning Festival, Portobello High School, 3rd of June

I am sorry to say that this learning festival has been postponed. I will keep you posted when the next date is released.

Pre-loved uniform stall

Just a reminder that our pre-loved uniform stall will be in the front playground on Fridays from 12-12.30pm today.

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I hope you have a lovely weekend and look forward to seeing you next week.

Take care and see you soon.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School

19.05.2023 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families3

19.05.2023 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good morning, families.

I hope you are well and have had a good, if somewhat short, week.

Winning Nation and Overall leader

This week’s winning Nation is SCOTS! Well done to all of you!

Our current overall leader is SCOTS! The race is on now with only 6 weeks left in this school year!

****************

Reminder – Parent Council Disco – Thursday 25th of May!

We are very excited to share that this year’s Spring Disco is going ahead!

Thank you to our Parent Council for organising.

Here are the details:

The disco timings will be P1- P3 classes from 6-7pm and the P4-P7 from 7.15- 8.15pm.

Entrance to the disco is free for all pupils.

We invite P1-P3 parents to stay with their children and join in the fun. Teas, coffees and home baking will be available to purchase for parents who stay during this first disco.

There will be a tuckshop open throughout both discoes for pupils to buy drinks and snacks.

I really hope lots of the children can come along and join in with the disco fun!

Parent Council AGM, 6th of June – in person meeting

Thank you to all of you who came to the Parent Council meeting last night. It was a really busy agenda with information from the Portobello High School Parent Council.

We met Livvie from Spectrum Arts to talk about commemorative murals using spray paints and graffiti art, enabled by the funding sourced by the Parent Council. Jenny Sandeman put in a funding request for Play Pedagogy Development resources and we spent time talking about the plans for the upcoming 90th anniversary celebrations, which is very exciting.

I would like to draw your attention to the upcoming Parent Council AGM which will be in person at the school on the 6th of June from 7pm – 8.30pm.

I will be talking through the School Improvement Plan foci as part of the agenda and we will be going through the usual AGM requirements. However, this is also very much a social event and we would really appreciate it if you could make the time to come along. I’ll send out a reminder next week too and hope you can make it.

Football success for our P6 team!

Our Primary 6 team took part in round one of the School Board Cup on Wednesday and I am delighted to share that they topped their Round One Group undefeated and are straight into Round Two.

Round Two is happening next Wednesday and I’ll keep you posted with how they get on.

Well done to the team and their coaches. We are very proud of you!

Portobello Learning Festival, Portobello High School, 3rd of June

I am delighted to share that the very popular Learning Festival is back on again this year.

It is a brilliant opportunity to hear lots of engaging and motivating key note speakers on a huge variety of subjects linked to education and learning as well as workshops.

Please see the flyer attached for more details. I would highly recommend that you go along as it will be an extremely informative and interesting event.

Please contact Portobello High School if you have any questions. Thank you.

Pre-loved uniform stall

Just a reminder that our pre-loved uniform stall will be in the front playground on Fridays from 12-12.30pm today.

Upcoming Key Dates

I thought it would be useful to remind you of a few upcoming key dates so you can make sure you have them in your diary. I have created a table at the bottom of this letter that you can print off.

If you would like a paper copy, you can pick one up from the office.

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Just a reminder that Monday 22nd May is a holiday so we look forward to seeing the children back at school on Tuesday 23rd of May.

I hope you have a lovely weekend and look forward to seeing you next week.

Take care and see you soon.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School

12.05.2023 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families3

12.05.2023 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good morning, families.

I hope you are well and have had a good, if somewhat short, week.

Winning Nation and Overall leader

This week’s winning Nation is SCOTS! These points keep coming in.

Our current overall leader is SCOTS! Not long till we start the countdown to announcing this year’s Nation’s winner!

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P1 Parent Information Event

We welcomed the parents of our incoming Primary One children with the first of our transition events. Thank you to Laura from the Parent Council for stepping in and promoting the fabulous job they do in partnership with us. Thank you to Rachel the new school nurse for coming along to introduce herself. And thank you to the P1 team for helping organise and run the event, giving our families a lovely RHPS welcome!

Active School’s Thematic Review Parent Survey

In exciting news, we have been selected as a model of good practice for our Active school’s offer and asked to take part in the Active School’s Thematic Review.

As part of this process they are keen to gather everyone’s views, from children to staff to families.

Here is their message to you:

Dear Parent/Carer
Please click on the link below or scan the QR code to complete the Active Schools Parent/Carer survey. This will take you around 2 minutes to complete. This information will be used to support a review of Active Schools provision in the City of Edinburgh. Your views will be strictly confidential and will be used to inform the strengths of Active Schools and to improve the service moving forward.

Please complete by Monday 15th May 2023.

Thank you in advance for supporting the Active Schools’ self-evaluation process.

https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=af6sSGo3tUKfacnke7-5xGjOotLu7eRDq8WmGUdlGBNUNzNQV043VEFKWE5UVTJYT0lNTlVPMERORy4u&origin=QRCode

It would really help if you could complete the survey to give them a real opinion of the model of after school clubs we provide.

Thank you!

Parent Council Disco – Thursday 25th of May!

We are very excited to share that this year’s Spring Disco is going ahead!

Thank you to our Parent Council for organising.

Here are the details:

The disco timings will be P1- P3 classes from 6-7pm and the P4-P7 from 7.15- 8.15pm.

Entrance to the disco is free for all pupils.

We invite P1-P3 parents to stay with their children and join in the fun. Teas, coffees and home baking will be available to purchase for parents who stay during this first disco.

There will be a tuckshop open throughout both discoes for pupils to buy drinks and snacks.

I really hope lots of the children can come along and join in with the disco fun!

Staffing news

This week we are sorry to say goodbye to Amanda McCune, one of our fabulous PSAs, who has left to join Abbeyhill Primary on a permanent contract. We wish her all the best in this new chapter.

Parent Council Meeting – 90th Anniversary Celebrations
Just a reminder to join us at the upcoming virtual Parent Council meeting on Wednesday 17th of May, from 7pm – 8.30pm.

Here is the link for you to join the meeting – https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_NGRiYTRhMzYtM2E5NS00ZjU3LTkzOGYtNDk2NTJiMDg1NWU3%40thread.v2/0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%2248acfe69-376a-42b5-9f69-c9e47bbfb9c4%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%223b40f9a5-8d52-4ed5-99ea-c2d6a773bb30%22%7d

If you can’t join us but would like to be involved, you can email the Parent Council on rhpsparents@gmail.com.

I very much look forward to seeing you there.

Pre-loved uniform stall

Just a reminder that our pre-loved uniform stall will be in the front playground on Fridays from 12-12.30pm today.

*******************
It has been quick but busy, positive and productive week here at RHPS.

I hope you have a lovely weekend and look forward to seeing you next week.

Take care and see you soon.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School

05.05.2023 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families3

05.05.2023 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good morning, families.

I hope you are all well and had a good day.

Apologies for the technical issues on Friday. Please see below my End of Week check from last week.

Winning Nation and Overall leader

As we have had such a short week, we haven’t announced the winning nation this week. It’s all to play for next week!

Our current overall leader is SCOTS! The competition is still on!

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Communications Survey Link

We are always working to make sure that our communications work for you. We highly value your feedback so please could you take the time to fill in this short survey to share your views, which will shape how we communicate with you –

https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=af6sSGo3tUKfacnke7-5xKX5QDtSjdVOmerC1qdzuzBUOUdNTzRGM0ZETUlMMThTV1dMSEUxNkJDNC4u

Thank you.

OSCARS’ advert

As you may be aware, we have not had a Breakfast Club for significant period of time. Having spoken to Action For Children, our out of school care providers, they have explained that this is due in part to issues with staffing recruitment.

To this end, they have asked us to share their recruitment information. If you are interested in being part of this team, please see the attached information.

Inspector’s Cup

This week saw the first round of the Inspector’s Cup, a council wide football competition. Some of our Primary 7s and an additional Primary 6 pupil went to represent RHPS. They were supported by Miss Campbell, Primary 7 teacher, Ms Rex, PSA and Primary 7 parent and a number of other parents.

Our team did extremely well, winning their first match, and drawing their second. Unfortunatley they were beaten in their third match which meant they did not progress to the second round.

Nonetheless we are extremely proud of their efforts and thank them for representing RHPS so well.

Thank you to their coaches for supporting them to reach this point.

P3 and P5 World of Work, P6 Survival Afternoons and Primary 7 transition visit

I am always very keen to share exciting and inspirational learning experiences that our children have had and this week we have had some wonderful examples of this.

Our Primary 3 and Primary 5 children have thoroughly enjoyed having parents and other members of the wider school community come into visit and talk about their jobs as a World of Work Focus. We have had such an incredible variety of parents and other visitors come in to share about their jobs and the children have been hugely motivated and engaged. Thank you to the teachers and to all who came along to make this such a special week for the children.

Further to these our Primary 6 teachers have made an excellent partnership with our Outdoor Learning colleagues and have planned some ‘Survival Thursdays’ where the children experience a huge range of outdoor learning and problem-solving activities. It has been so good to see them engaging in this motivational learning experience.

Our Primary 7 children had a great afternoon visiting Portobello High School to explore the Social Science department. It was a super opportunity for the children to experience a high school environment as part of their preparation for moving in First Year.

Library First Class visits and library poster displays

The children have all now had their first class visits to the library and they have thoroughly enjoyed spending time in this wonderful new reading space.

Suzy, Heather, Jacqui and their helpers have spent time this week displaying all of the library poster entries around the school and it is fantastic to see all of this promotion of reading.

Parent Council Meeting – 90th Anniversary Celebrations

Just a reminder to put the date in your diary!

We want as many of the wider school community involved so please join us at the upcoming virtual Parent Council meeting on Wednesday 17th of May.

We will send out a link nearer the time so you can join us. If you can’t join us but would like to be involved, you can email the Parent Council on rhpsparents@gmail.com.

I very much look forward to seeing you there.

Pre-loved uniform stall

Just a reminder that our pre-loved uniform stall will be in the front playground on Fridays from 12-12.30pm.

*******************
It was been a short but really busy but positive and productive week back at RHPS.

Take care and see you soon.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School

28.04.2023 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families3

28.04.2023 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good morning, families.

I hope you are well and have had a good week.

Winning Nation and Overall leader

This week’s winning Nation is SCOTS! Another great effort this week!

Our current overall leader is SCOTS! The competition is still on!

****************
Library Launch and competition winners

This week the children were absolutely delighted to have their first Library visit. Every single one of them was blown away by the transformation and so excited to explore their new reading haven!

Here is a link to a YouTube short so you can see what they are enjoying –
https://youtube.com/shorts/YJ1cVM-28_g?feature=share

We had a wonderful assembly on Monday to launch the library, joined by our incredible Parent Library Development team of Jacqui, Heather, Suzy and Daisy.

We announced the library poster competition winners with ten children being awarded a highly commended certificate. The overall winners were as follows:

3rd Place – Caleb, P3a
2nd Place – Jessie, P4a
1st Place – Logan, P7

A huge well done to all of them!

We will have their posters blown up and framed to proudly display in our fantastic library to encourage everyone at the Royal High Primary School to dive into a book.

Just a reminder that families can still purchase books to donate to the library from the amazon wish list.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/21ABE5XRC96BF?type=wishlist

Staffing news

At this time of year we see some changes to our staffing team.

We were sorry to say goodbye to Isobel Cartwright, one of our fabulous PSAs, who has left to pursue a career as a mental health and wellbeing practitioner. We wish her all the best in this new chapter.

I am delighted to share that Paul Strilich, another of a wonderful PSAs, has been awarded a permanent contract so he will continue to be a very valued part of the Royal High Primary School family.

We welcome back Hayley Stewart, one of our brilliant teachers, who re-joins the team after her maternity leave. She is coming back as part of the Primary 1 team to support transition and it is great to have her with us again.

Parent Council Meeting – 90th Anniversary Celebrations

As you know we are having a real focus for the last couple of weeks of this term on our (belated) 90th Anniversary celebrations.

The teachers are planning some exciting learning experiences for the children. We have all sorts of projects happening including work with artists and dancers.

We are going to have our big celebration on Friday the 16th of June and are working in close partnership with our amazing Parent Council to make it a really special event.

We want as many of the wider school community involved so please join us at the upcoming virtual Parent Council meeting on Wednesday 17th of May.

We will send out a link nearer the time so you can join us. If you can’t join us but would like to be involved, you can email the Parent Council on rhpsparents@gmail.com.

I very much look forward to seeing you there.

Pre-loved uniform stall

Just a reminder that our pre-loved uniform stall will be in the front playground on Fridays from 12-12.30pm, starting from today.

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It has been another really busy but positive and productive week back at RHPS.

Just a reminder that Monday is a holiday and Tuesday is an inservice day for staff so we look forward to seeing the children on Wednesday 3rd of May.

I hope you have a lovely long weekend, and look forward to seeing you next week.

Take care and see you soon.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School

21.04.2023 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families3

21.04.2023 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good morning, families.

I hope you are well, and have had a good week.

I would like to start this week’s end of week check in by wishing our families Eid Mubarak! I hope you have a wonderful time celebrating with your friends and families.

We have had wonderful week with lots of exciting learning including a planetarium experience for P3, P4 and P5, a Viking visit for P3, tennis at Abercorn lead by Miss Campbell and a new mud kitchen in the quad thanks to Michael and Miss Robertson.

Winning Nation and Overall leader

This week’s winning Nation is SCOTS! What a great start to the new term!

Our current overall leader is SCOTS! We’re counting down the weeks now!

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Library Launch and competition winners

We are absolutely delighted to announce that our Library will be officially opened next week. I cannot express our gratitude to Suzy, Heather and Jacqui and their other parent helpers, for the absolute transformation of the library.

Once the children have seen the library for themselves I will share photos in next week’s End of Week Check In.

We are going to have a whole school assembly on Monday to officially launch the Library, which Suzy, Heather and Jacqui are coming to lead.

They will be announcing the poster competition winners and these will be proudly displayed in the library.

I will share who the winners are next week.

Another thank you to the other parents who have helped by donating books, soft furnishings, time and creative abilities!

Thank you to the PC for granting funds.

The children will be using the library from Monday and bringing books home – please help by reminding your child to look after their book and return it when they have finished.

We have created a Library Charter which all the children will go over each time before they use this wonderful space. I will share that with you next week so you can remind them too with the books they bring home.

Just a reminder that families can still purchase books to donate to the library from the amazon wish list – attach link

Class organisation 2023-2024

We have had confirmation from the City of Edinburgh Council of the class organisation for next session, 2023 – 2024. It is as follows:

P1
P1/2
P2
P3a
P3b
P4a
P4b
P5a
P5b
P6a
P6b
P7a
P7b

We will be sharing the allocated class teachers towards the end of term.

All of the children will have the chance to meet their new teachers and go to their new classes before the end of term.

Ten villages Grant news!

This morning I was told by members of our fabulous Parent Council that our bid for the 10 Villages Grant was successful and we’ve been granted the full amount of £2,950!

This will allow us to execute all our plans for a 90th celebration on 16th June including a band, photo booth and memory boxes. It will also allow us to bring a graffiti artist into the school to work with the children on some murals and employ a local historian to help us create a living history book with all our archive material. We can collaborate with the Northfield Community Centre and Piershill Library on these activities and members of the Parent Council already been in touch with both to initiate things.

Thank you so much to everyone involved in this application and a huge well done from all at RHPS.

It is wonderful news to end the week with and I am sure you share my excitement about what a difference it will make to our 90th celebration in June.

Raising Children with Confidence Course (Next block)

We are running a second “Raising Children with Confidence” course that will be run on Thursday evenings from 6-8pm at school by Tania Evans, Kristy Dishington and Lisa Parry.

The course has had fantastic feedback from the parents attending last term and we are very excited to be able to offer this to another group.

The course is open to families of Nursery to P7 aged children and focusses on children’s mental health and wellbeing and what we as parents can do to support our children. The course will run over 6 sessions, starting on Thursday 4th May.

Please find attached a leaflet with all the information.

If you are interested in attending, please e-mail Tania Evans (tania.evans@royalhigh-pri.edin.sch.uk)

Thank you.

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It has been a really busy but positive and productive first week back at RHPS.

I hope you have a lovely weekend, enjoying the sunshine.

Take care and see you soon.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School

31.03.2023 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families3

31.03.2023 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good morning, families.

I hope you are well, have had a good week and are looking forward to the upcoming holidays!

Winning Nation and Overall leader

This week’s winning Nation is SCOTS. Well done to them for such a great effort this term!

Our current overall leader is SCOTS! Just one more term till we announce the winners so all to play for.

Reminder re Quad Squad volunteers

Just a reminder that we are looking for some volunteers to come in and help Michael, our janitor, during the Easter holidays, as part of our Quad Squad.

There will be a variety of tasks, from pruning and cutting back the foliage to stripping back and repainting the furniture as well as general tidying and organising.

If you can bring your own garden tools that would be great! If you have and could bring secateurs, shovels, trowels and gardening forks (small and large) and hoes that would be a real help.

Michael will be in each morning from 8.30am until 12 noon and would love to see you come along and help. It’s purely voluntary so just turn up at any point during these times and Michael will give you a job to do!

Thank you in advance.

Library update

Once again, the Library parents have been working their magic ably supported by Mrs Evans.

We are having some staff training on the new library scanning system the first week back after the Easter holidays.

We are hopeful the library will then officially open the following week, week beginning the 24th of April. We will be sure to share images of this momentous occasion!

The teachers have signed up for a weekly library slot so we can really build our reading community here at RHPS.

The poster competition for the library that the parents are running closes on Friday 21st April. Please make sure your child hands in their entry by then.

In other book related news, we have received our order of new class novel sets so keep an eye out for your child bringing one of them home.

We’ll continue to keep you updated with all the exciting developments happening in our fabulous new library!

Nursery Wheelathon and Newsletter

The Nursery children had a wonderful time on their sponsored Wheelathon today. They biked, scooted, buggied and even pushed a wee shopping trolley round the lap in the playground.

The P1s and some P4s came out to cheer them on as well as some of the Nursery families. It was a great fun event and I’ll let you know how much they raised after the holidays.

A huge thank you to the Nursery team for organising and running this brilliant event!

There have been lots of other exciting things happening at the Nursery. Here is the link to their March newsletter https://sway.office.com/5hZeBRmpCJngHFDx?ref=Link

Wonderful to see what they have been doing and see all the information about the upcoming Primary 1 transition events.

Parent Consultations – thank you and feedback

Thank you to all of you who came to the Parent Consultations on the 28th and 30th of March. It was so wonderful to have everyone back in the school building, meeting face to face.

It would be great to have your feedback. If you would like to let us know how you found the new booking system as well as the appointments themselves, please fill in this forms survey.
Here is the link –

https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=af6sSGo3tUKfacnke7-5xKX5QDtSjdVOmerC1qdzuzBUNlhNSTRRUzNRSjNNWVowR0xZRkFPNjFJVi4u

Thank you for helping us to make sure the parent consultations work for everyone.

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I wanted to acknowledge all of our families who are observing Ramadan and those who are observing Lent and celebrating Easter. We wish you a happy Eid Al-Fitr and happy Easter when they come.

I hope you have a lovely weekend and holiday. Looking forward to seeing you when we come back on Monday 17th of April.

Take care and see you soon.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School

17.03.2023 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families3

17.03.2023 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good morning, families.

I hope you are well and have had a good week despite the return to the wintery weather!

Winning Nation and Overall leader

This week’s winning Nation is SCOTS! A great effort, demonstrating our values!

Our current overall leader is SCOTS! It’s getting closer and there’s all to play for.

World Down’s Syndrome Day, 21st March – wear odd socks!

We are really keen to mark this special date in the calendar. We would like everyone in school to wear odd socks on Tuesday to raise awareness of World Down’s Syndrome Day.

Family members can join in too and encourage their friends and colleagues to do the same!

We’ll have a focussed assembly on Monday, 20th, and then look forward to all of the odd socks on Tuesday 21st!

P7 Fun Run Total Raised – Thank you!

The Primary 7s wanted me to share with you their thanks for all of your support for their recent Fun Run, both with your cheers and your donations.

They are delighted to announce that they raised an incredible £1615.96! They have paid for their Drumfun session at the upcoming camp and will put the rest towards their ‘Qually’ buying decorations and resources that will last for many years to come. They will also put an amount towards their Leavers’ Assembly to make it even more special.

They have decided that they want to contribute £100 to the Earthquake Appeal.

I am sure you’ll agree they have done themselves proud on every level!

P7 Residential Camp, 20th – 24th of March – Lagganlia

Next Monday our P7s will be heading off on their residential experience. We are very lucky to be going to Lagganlia, which is a beautiful outdoor centre. Here’s the link if you are interested – https://www.experienceoutdoors.org.uk/

It is where we go each year so all of your children will have the chance of this wonderful experience.

I am going with the P7s as one of the staff team so Mrs Evans and Miss Heatlie will be your Senior Leadership Team contacts. You can get in touch with them through Emma in the office or by emailing the ‘admin’ email.

Parent Consultations sign up reminder

Thank you to all of you who have signed up for the Parent Consultations on the 28th and 30th of March.

Just a reminder if you haven’t signed up yet, please do this as soon as you can to make sure you book your spot.

If you are having any trouble doing this, please call or email Emma. Thank you.

Parent Council Events

Our wonderful Parent Council have been busily organising some upcoming events and I wanted to publicise the next one.

Next Tuesday, 21st of March, they are holding a Beetle Drive.

Here is the information:

Come along to our classic school fundraiser on Tuesday March 21st 6:30-8pm. A fun, easy to play family game with prizes to be won, teas coffees and home baking available to buy. £2 per adult children free. BYOB!

I hope that lots of you will be able to come along to have some family fun and support the school

Reminder – No football or Pokemon cards in school

Just a reminder that we ask children not to bring their football or Pokemon cards into school. This is to avoid the risk of them being lost or damaged. Thank you.

KoolSkool’s Fair Trade uniform option coming soon!

We are really excited about soon having a Fair Trade school uniform option.

Andy Ashcroft, from KoolSkools, is going to send a letter next week to share with families with information.

We do have a sample polo shirt and red sweatshirt if you are interested in see what they look and feel like.

I am confident you will find them to be of a very good quality and are apparently easy wash and iron – which is news to every parent and carer’s ears!

We’ll share the letter when Andy sends it through.

****************

I hope you have a lovely weekend.

Take care and speak soon.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School

10.03.2023 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families3

10.03.2023 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good morning, families.

I hope you are well and have had a good week despite the return to the wintery weather!

Winning Nation and Overall leader

This week’s winning Nation is PICTS! Well done to all of them!

Our current overall leader is SCOTS! It’s turning into a good competition so let’s keep encouraging all the children to demonstrate our values and earn those Nations’ stars!

International Woman’s Day

This Wednesday we had a focus on international woman’s day with the children being encouraged to think of women who inspire them. It was really important for us to have this focus although this is something we encourage throughout the year.

I hope all of you managed to have some time to do the same.

Library Development update

Jacqui, Suzy and Heather, ably assisted by Michael, our janitor and Mirek, one of our fantastic P7 parents, have continued to make strides forward in our library development.

I have attached the PowerPoint presentation which Jacqui shared at the Parent Council meeting on Wednesday evening so you can share in the huge progress they have made over the past few months.

I will continue to share updates, including the date for the official launch. Very exciting!

Library poster competition

Linked to our development of a reading culture at the school, the wonderful team behind the library development project asked me to share information about this opportunity.

LIBRARY POSTER COMPETITION

We would ask for submissions to be entered by Friday 21st April with a view to displaying the winners at our official library relaunch day (date to be confirmed).

We welcome entries from whole classes, smaller groups or individuals, ideally at least A3 size so it can easily be seen and lots of bright colours and eye-catching images.

We’d suggest using one of the following captions as inspiration for the poster:

– Get lost in a good book!
– Put the magic back into life with a good book!
– Plant your roots in a good book!

However, it’s also fine if you want to go down a different route and create something to celebrate a particular author you love or a specific book or even just a phrase from a book! The main thing is that you get caught up in the excitement of books and reading and the possibilities within that.

There will be a first prize and two runners-up with each prize-winner receiving a National Book Token.

Thank you to Jacqui, Suzy and Heather for organising this. I’ll share the winning entries when they have been chosen by our esteemed panel!

Update re planned Industrial Action dates

As I shared in last week’s End of Week Check In, there is planned industrial action for the 16th and 17th of March. However, since then an offer has been made to teachers and the ballot finishes today at 10am. As soon as the result is in I will let you know whether this industrial action will be going ahead.

Looking for volunteers – Quad Squad!

Another of our development projects is the refurbishment of the Quad. Some of the staff have been making some great progress but we now need your help to make a real difference.

We are looking for some volunteers to come in and help Michael, our janitor, during the Easter holidays, as part of our Quad Squad.

There will be a variety of tasks, from pruning and cutting back the foliage to stripping back and repainting the furniture as well as general tidying and organising.

Michael will be in each morning from 8.30am until 12 noon and would love to see you come along and help. It’s purely voluntary so just turn up at any point during these times and Michael will give you a job to do!

Thank you so much.

Nursery Newsletter

We are working hard at making sure we include the Nursery in our wider community so am going to share their monthly Newsletter to keep you informed about what they are doing. Here is the link to the Sway – Keeping Us Connected – February 2023 – https://sway.office.com/LBDCjcsQp39frxxC?ref=Link&loc=play

I hope you enjoy finding out all about what is happening in our wonderful Nursery.

****************

I hope you have a lovely weekend.

Take care and speak soon.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School

03.03.2023 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families3

03.03.2023 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good morning, families.

I hope you have had a good week.

Winning Nation and Overall leader

This week’s winning Nation is ANGLES! Well done to all of them!

Our current overall leader is SCOTS! It’s getting closer so let’s keep encouraging all the children to demonstrate our values and earn those Nations’ stars!

Parent Consultations – new online booking system logisitics

Emma will be sending out the link for you to book your appointments next Tuesday, 7th of March. Please look out for this email as it may go into your email spam/ junk folder.

Please note – Bookings will open on Thursday 9th March at 7pm.

The link will be sent to the e-mail address we have for the primary contact only.

It is one appointment per family. There is no facility to split the appointments into 5 minute slots to offer two appointments.

We ask that parents who are separated work out between them if they can attend together or if one person attends and update the other parent. If there are very exceptional circumstances, we ask that parents contact Mrs, Evans, Mrs Heatlie or me through the admin email account to discuss.

Please contact Emma if you are having any issues logging in or booking an appointment.

Thank you.

Building Resilience Worry Monsters

This week we had our Building Resilience Talk It Over Sharing Assembly where many of the children shared the Worry Monsters they had made.

It was fabulous to see the imagination they had used.

Thank you for your support with this learning activity. It really helped the children deepen their understanding of how important it is to talk and share their worries, so they can work through them.

Playground Murals

The team from First4Playgrounds came in this week to paint our new playground murals. They look absolutely fantastic and really give the playground a much needed splash of colour as well as more play opportunities for the children.

A huge thank you to our wonderful Parent Council for sourcing the funding for this project.

World Book Day

We had a great day celebrating the joy of reading for World Book Day. The children and staff had a lot of fun with the ‘Cosy up and Read’ bell which rang throughout the day and signalled to them to stop and read wherever they were.

A great way to spread the wonderful world of immersing yourself in a book.

Library poster competition

Linked to our development of a reading culture at the school, the wonderful team behind the library development project asked me to share information about this opportunity.

LIBRARY POSTER COMPETITION

We would ask for submissions to be entered by Friday 21st April with a view to displaying the winners at our official library relaunch day (date to be confirmed).

We welcome entries from whole classes, smaller groups or individuals, ideally at least A3 size so it can easily be seen and lots of bright colours and eye-catching images.

We’d suggest using one of the following captions as inspiration for the poster:

– Get lost in a good book!
– Put the magic back into life with a good book!
– Plant your roots in a good book!

However, it’s also fine if you want to go down a different route and create something to celebrate a particular author you love or a specific book or even just a phrase from a book! The main thing is that you get caught up in the excitement of books and reading and the possibilities within that.

There will be a first prize and two runners-up with each prize-winner receiving a National Book Token.

Thank you to Jacqui, Suzy and Heather for organising this. I’ll share the winning entries when they have been chosen by our esteemed panel!

New Industrial Action dates

The EIS union have announced the next dates for the planned industrial action. They are the 16th and 17th of March.

We will confirm if the industrial action is going ahead nearer the time, but I thought it was important that you were aware of them at this point.

Virtual Parent Council Meeting, Tuesday 7th of March, 7 – 8.30pm

A reminder that we are having our next Parent Council meeting next Tuesday. Please see Meeting Agenda attached.

This will be a virtual meeting over TEAMS and we really hope you can join us.

The link for the meeting is https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_MzliYmI5ODYtNTM1Zi00OTlkLThiYTctMDVkNDdiZjZhNTFj%40thread.v2/0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%2248acfe69-376a-42b5-9f69-c9e47bbfb9c4%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%223b40f9a5-8d52-4ed5-99ea-c2d6a773bb30%22%7d

I hope to see you there.

****************

I hope you have a lovely weekend.

Take care and speak soon.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School

24.02.2023 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

24.02.2023 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good morning, families.

I hope you have had a good week.

Winning Nation and Overall leader

This week’s winning Nation is PICTS! Well done to all of them!

Our current overall leader is SCOTS! It’s getting closer so let’s keep encouraging all the children to demonstrate our values and earn those Nations’ stars!

Fair Trade fortnight, 20th of March – 3rd April – Kool Skools Fairtrade uniform

We had two assemblies focussing on Fair Trade this week along with learning activities to deepen knowledge and understanding about Fair Trade.

Andy Ashcroft, from Kool Skools, shared with the children the processes that go into making the Fair Trade uniforms his company provide. He has left a couple of sample items for me to share with the Parent Council along with a price list for us to look at with the intention of providing a Fair Trade uniform option for families in the coming months.

I’ll keep you updated with information after the Parent Council meeting on the 7th of March. This will be a virtual meeting and the link will be shared soon. Please come along if you can.

World Book Day, 2nd of March

Just a reminder about World Book Day next week.

As mentioned in my last End of Week Check In, we invite children to come to school in their pyjamas or onesie on Thursday 2nd of March. We encourage all the children to school with a favourite book. We will have a ‘Cosy Up and Read’ bell that rings through the day where children stop what they are doing, wherever they are and read for a set period of time.

We will have a launch assembly on the 27th of February, lots of planned learning throughout the week and then a sharing assembly on the 6th of March.

Ask your child to share the learning on their class’ TEAMs page and encourage them to talk about the joy of reading!

Library update

We have seen real progress with the library development project thanks to the huge efforts of our parents, Jacqui, Suzy and Heather.
There has been painting, new furniture, new books from the Wish List and the installation of a new borrowing system so we are nearly ready for our launch!

I cannot express our gratitude to Jacqui, Suzy and Heather for all of their tireless hard work into making this all happen. We really couldn’t have done it without you.

I’ll keep you posted with updates about the official opening.

Turkey and Syria Earthquake

I met with the Pupil Councillors yesterday to discuss how we were going to show our support for those affected by the earthquake in Turkey and Syria.

We decided to form a partnership with the Braid Hills Rotary Club, who are going to come in for a special assembly on the 6th of March to share what they have been doing to help. You can find more information about their work by following this link – https://www.rotary-ribi.org/clubs/page.php?PgID=249983&ClubID=67

I will let you know how you can support their efforts following the assembly.

Industrial Action – 28th February and 1st of March

Just a reminder that the Industrial Action is taking place next week on the 28th February and 1st of March. The school and nursery will be closed for all children.

Here is the link to the Council’s webpage for Supporting Learning at home – https://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/schools/support-home-learning

****************

I hope you have a lovely weekend.

Take care and speak soon.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School

10.02.2023 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

10.02.2023 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good morning, families.

I hope you have had a good week.

Winning Nation and Overall leader

This week’s winning Nation is SCOTS! Well done to all of them!

Our current overall leader is SCOTS. It’s getting closer so let’s keep encouraging all the children to demonstrate our values and earn those Nations’ stars!

Children’s Mental Health Week

We have had a really good week of focussed learning around mental health and how important it is to share any worries we have with our ‘back up team’.

The Pupil Health and Wellbeing group did an incredible job of presenting the assembly and I wanted to say a huge thank you to them and to Mrs Evans for helping them prepare.

All of the children have been working hard in school and at home creating ‘Worry Monsters’ or ways to share their worries.

The Pupil Health and Wellbeing group have created a post box with a QR code on it for pupils say if they have a worry and would like to talk to someone about it. I am so proud of how they have taken the lead with this and what a wonderful, valuable support this will be for everyone in school.

Reporting to Parents – trial of new format

As was shared in my email yesterday, we are trialling a new reporting to parents and carers format this session.

We are really keen to gather views from all stakeholders and would appreciate your feedback. Please could you complete the short survey to share your thoughts by Friday 2nd of March – https://forms.office.com/e/MQgQDRAYbN

Thank you.

Fair Trade fortnight, 20th of March – 3rd April

We will be having a small focus on learning about Fair Trade fortnight during this allocated time. We have a special guest speaker, Andy Ashcroft, from KoolSkools, who supply sustainable, ethical school clothing. Their mantra is ‘fairness, quality and affordability’, which supports our school values.

World Book Day, 2nd of March

We are looking forward to having a focus all around reading, especially with our focus on developing our own library.

As with last year, and in line with our approach on equity for all, we invite children to come to school in their pyjamas or onesie on Thursday 2nd of March. We encourage all the children to school with a favourite book. We will have a ‘Cosy Up and Read’ bell that rings through the day where children stop what they are doing, wherever they are and read for a set period of time.

We will have a launch assembly on the 27th of February, lots of planned learning throughout the week and then a sharing assembly on the 6th of March.

Ask your child to share the learning on their class’ TEAMs page and encourage them to talk about the joy of reading!

School photographs

Just to give you advanced notice, we will be having school photographs taken later in the session. Dates and logistics will be confirmed once we have heard back from the photographer.

Turkey and Syria Earthquake

With the shocking news about the earthquake, our thoughts and heartfelt sympathies are with all of the families in our school community who are affected by this tragedy.

I will meet with the Pupil Councillors after the holidays to look at how we as a school community can offer our support.

If you or someone you know is affected, please let us know if you need any support or have ideas of how we can offer our support.

****************

I hope you have a lovely weekend and a restful break over the February holidays.

I look forward to seeing the children when they return to school on Monday 20th of February.

Take care and speak soon.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School

03.02.2023 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

03.02.2023 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good morning, families.

I hope you have had a good week.

Winning Nation and Overall leader

This week’s winning Nation is SCOTS! Well done to all of them!

Our current overall leader is SCOTS! Can the other nations catch them in this Nations’ race? We’ll keep you posted.

Values’ Champions

I thought it would be a good idea to make sure you all know that each week at assembly one child from each class is chosen as a Values Champion! Each teacher gives the reason they have been chosen, linked to one of our values.

It is such a lovely way to celebrate our children showing our values of:

* Respect All
* Be Kind
* Believe in Ourselves
* Try Our Best

Be sure to check in with your child to see if they have been chosen as our values champion each week!

February Equalities focus

This month we have a couple of key focuses. The first is for the whole month where we will be exploring LGBT+ history month, linked to inclusion and respecting diversity.

Next week is Children’s Mental Health week. Our Pupil Health and Wellbeing group will be leading next Monday’s assembly to introduce it.

We will be learning about mental health, linked in with our Building Resilience unit of ‘Talk it Over’.

All classes have planned learning around this and there is a home learning task about creating a worry monster for their class. Classes will then choose their favourite to have in class.

Ask your child to show them the home activity on their class TEAMs’ page.

We’ll be sharing their learning at the assembly on the 27th of February and I am really looking forward to seeing what they bring.

Breakfast Club update

As you are aware we use Action for Children (formally OSCARs) as our breakfast club and after school care provider. Recently there have been a number of issues with them providing this service, which I know has been the cause of frustration and stress. Whilst the school and council are not directly affiliated with the company, I felt I had to contact them and express the dissatisfaction felt by families.

I contacted the provider expressing this and was sent this reply:

Unfortunately, we cannot operate the club without a qualified staff member on site. This is the reason the breakfast club and Friday after school club are currently suspended. We are actively recruiting for staff and have a staff member who is in the last stages of assessment for their practice qualification. I am waiting for an update from their tutor for a completion date so we can reopen the club fully. I am in the process of updating our families with that information and can provide a further update once a set date is confirmed.

I’m unsure why families are not receiving messages. At Spring Oscars, all communication is done through Famly (parents are able to put the app on their devices and are notified as soon as a message is generated). If you have a list of parents that are not receiving communications, could you please ask for their permission to pass this to us? I can then look further into the issue (i.e. it may be we have an old email on file or only one parent listed for a child based on information provided to the club in August).

Thank you,
Elizabeth

Elizabeth Merritt-Simpson
Senior Operations Manager Spring Oscars
07890 401204| Elizabeth.Merritt@actionforchildren.org.uk | actionforchildren.org.uk | springnurseries.co.uk

I hope that answers some queries and I am hopeful that service is able to resume in the very near future. If you have further questions, please use the contact details above so Elizabeth and her team can answer them directly,

If you have not been receiving communications from them, please could you email Emma, admin@royalhigh-pri.edin.sch.uk, so she can pass your details on? Thank you.

Parent Consultations

A reminder that the in person Parent Consultations are taking place on Tuesday the 28th and Thursday 29th of March between 4pm and 6.30pm.

We are introducing a new online booking system for families, meaning you can choose a time a lot that works for you.

On the evening of Thursday 9th of March you will receive an email to log in and book an appointment. You will be able to do this for all of your children through the same site.

We will send out more information nearer the time and Emma will be on hand to help with any administrative queries.
Raising Children with Confidence

As part of our vision to support families, Mrs Evans (DHT), Miss Dishington (P3 Class teacher), and Miss Parry (PSA) will be running the Raising Children with Confidence course on Friday mornings from 10am – 12 noon for 6 weeks from the 24th of February to the 31st of March.

The information was sent out earlier this week.

Places are limited and we have had a good response already, however we are keen to gather information around levels of interest so if you would like to register your interest please fill in the form by following this link – https://forms.office.com/Pages/DesignPageV2.aspx?subpage=design&FormId=af6sSGo3tUKfacnke7-5xOU-NCB-sNtLsZUTVC_jTiVUN0pMTktKSVRaMFJMVTIzMUdXQTM2TzJWTC4u&Token=3367553bb8a14cd0a62b4adf13d0a335

Thank you for your interest.

A very full end of week check in this week! Lots to take on board so if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

I hope you have a lovely weekend and look forward to seeing you soon.

Take care and speak soon.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School

27.01.2023 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

27.01.2023 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good morning, families.

I hope you are well and have had a good week.

Winning Nation and Current Leader

This week our winning nation is………………Angles and our current overall leader is………….SCOTS!

Well done to all of you in those Nations.

Parent Council Burns’ Night

A huge thank you to our wonderful Parent Council for organising the Burns’ Night last night. It was a real success with a great turn out!

Special mention to our GLEE choir who did a fabulous performance of ‘You’ll take the High Road’, which everyone loved.
We look forward to seeing just as many if not more of you at the next Parent Council event.

Library Update
We were delighted that the contractors came in last week and took out the old workstations, so our library is really taking shape.

We have managed to allocate some funds to the refurbishment and Mrs Evans is meeting with the Library Development parents to agree what resources we are going to buy.

As ever I will keep you updated with progress in the coming weeks. If you are interested in getting involved, please email Emma so we can put you in touch with the other parents.

Upcoming Fun Run events – P7 and RHPS Running Club

I just wanted to let you know of two upcoming fundraising events we are planning.

Ahead of their P7 residential trip to Lagganlia the P7 pupils are organising a sponsored fun run. P7 raising money by running 2km. The Fun Run will be on the 27th of February at 11.30.

They are selling raffle tickets at £1 per strip. Prizes are:
• Set a dare
• Throw water balloons at P7s
• Throw flour bombs at P7s
• Shoot water pistols at P7s
• Start the fun run
The RHPS Running Club is also organising a fun run, in place of their postponed run before Christmas. We are going to be having the event on Friday 31st of March from 1 – 2pm.

We’ll send further information nearer the time for both these events.

Playground volunteers

Thank you to those of you who responded offering your support for playground cover. You are still more than welcome to let us know if you can help out as we welcome all volunteers.

Just contact Emma in the office who will pass you details on. Thank you.
******************************

I hope you all have a good day today and a fun weekend.
Take care and see you soon.
Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School

20.01.2023 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

20.01.2023 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good afternoon, families.

And happy 90th Anniversary (technically our 92nd I know!) as we celebrate the official opening of the school on the 20th of January 1931.

We had a fabulous morning this morning with the Lord Provost Robert Aldridge cutting the ribbon as the Lord Provost did on this date in 1931, watched by the whole school and some of our wider school community.

Joining us, as well as the Lord Provost, were
• Councillor Iain Whyte
• Gavin Booth (an ex-pupil who attended RHPS from 1948-1955)
• Barbara Middleton (Northfield Willowbrae Community Centre)
• Susan Cochrane (Head Teacher at Parson’s Green Primary)
• Rachel Glover (Head Teacher at Duddingston Primary)
• Helen Peoples (Early Year’s QIEO)
and
• Stephen Kelly (Senior Education Manager)

This was a lovely start to the morning, after which the whole school and our special guests, who we were delighted to welcome, enjoyed a special assembly celebrating the past, present and looking to the future.

We took a peek at the Time Capsule made at the 80th anniversary event, which provided a good few laughs!

Then it was time for a 1930’s inspired Fitness Session starting with a very strict physical training workout in lines in the gym hall before stations with 1930s activities. All of the children did really well at taking part and getting into the spirit of the event. Thank you to all of them!

Another thank you to Emily, one of our Parent Council committee, who organised some Memory boxes for the children to explore over the coming week, looking at resources and objects from the 1930s.

We’ll put together a collage of events from the day but here are a couple to whet your appetite.

It was a wonderful event, which was thoroughly enjoyed by all who were involved.

We are already looking forward to our big end of session celebration on the 16th of June so please remember to save that date in your diary!

Equalities Focus

This month we introduced our next Building Resilience unit, ‘Talk Things Over’. The focus of this unit is all around sharing your worries and not letting them build up; remembering there are people all around us who can help us and that the first step is asking for help.

Remember to speak to your children about the work they are doing around this and help them with the home learning activity which was shared on TEAMs.

Nursery to P3 Campfire and Marshmallow Toasting, Operation Play Outdoors

The children had a fun time in the Wildlife Garden with Operation Play Outdoors. Thank you to Miss Torrance, P1b teacher for organising and our wonderful Parent Council for funding this. It was such a good experience for the children to start the year with.

Looking for Playground volunteers

We are really keen to involve you as parents and would like to ask if any of you are available to come and help out in the playground at lunchtimes.

The times would be on Monday to Thursday either:
• 12 – 1pm
• 12.30 – 1.20pm
• 12 – 1.20pm

It wouldn’t matter if you can’t do all 4 days; it would just be what works for you.

If you are interested and able to help out, please email us at admin@royalhigh-pri.edin.sch.uk.

Thank you.

**********************
So a fabulous end to our week here at the 90 (plus 2!) year old Royal High Primary School!

I hope you all have a lovely weekend and I look forward to seeing you next week.

Take care and speak soon.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School

13.01.2023 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

13.01.2023 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good morning, families.

I hope you are well and have had a good week.

Winning Nation and Current Overall Leader
This week’s winning nation is PICTS! Well done to all of them! Great effort leading the way in representing our school values.

The current overall leader is SCOTS!

January Equalities focus
Our focus for this month centres around traditions and special cultural events. We will be focussing our learning around Chinese New Year and Burns’ Night.

Security reminder – coming into the school building
As we start the new year, I thought it would be useful to remind everyone about the procedure for coming into school.
If you need to come into the school at any point, you must come to the front door and sign in.
This is the case even if you are just popping in to pick up a forgotten item.
As you will agree it is vital that we keep our children and staff safe in school, so we need to be very vigilant when it comes to security. We also have to consider fire risk. Both of these elements require tight monitoring of who is in the building.
So please if you are needing to come into the school building, please remember to come to the front door and sign in.
Thank you for your continued support with this.

Considerate and legal parking
Another reminder centres around considerate and legal parking. Please remember not to park on the zig-zag lines across the school gates at any time.
Thank you to all of you who respect this and do your part in keeping everyone safe.

Industrial Action, 25th January
It has been confirmed by the EIS teacher’s union last night that the planned industrial action is going ahead on Wednesday 25th of January. The schools will be shut for the children on that day.

The Council will be releasing further information but I wanted to give you advanced warning.

Building Resilience – Talk Things Over – Parent leaflet
We are starting the next unit of our Building Resilience programme, which is called ‘Talk Things Over’.
Your child’s teacher will share the home activity with the children on their TEAMs page.
Please find attached the leaflet for parents and carers telling you what this unit will cover.

Library Update
I am delighted to announce that we have had confirmation that contractors will be coming in next Monday and Tuesday to remove the old computer workstations. This means we can really start to develop our wonderful space for reading.
Thank you again to the dedicated parent Library Development team who came in yesterday to make sure the room was ready for this next stage in its transformation.
I will keep you updated with the progress around this exciting project!

Library Books Wish List
Thank you to all of you who have used the QR code to buy the school a book from our wish list. We have been so touched by the generosity of our school community and thank you very much.
If you would like to buy a book for our library, please scan the QR code on the poster in the noticeboard.
Thank you in advance.

90th Anniversary ‘Re-opening’ event, Friday 20th January 9.15 – 11.30am
As you know we are having an event next Friday, which will be a re-enactment of the school opening to pupils on the 20th of January 1931.
The Lord Provost is coming along to ‘open’ the school at 9.30am as happened on this date in 1931.
We would like to invite you to come along and support this ‘cutting of the ribbon’ so we can experience it as a school community.
The children, staff and special guests will then go inside for an assembly and visits from our special guests.
Later in the morning we will be having a 30s-themed outdoor fitness session.
We would like to encourage all the children to dress up in traditional style school uniform if they can.
We are really looking forward to this event and feel it will mark the start of our long overdue celebrations.

Parent Council Burns’ Night, Thursday 26th January 2023, 6.30 – 8.00pm
An important date for your diary! Please come along to this event to support the Parent Council and the school.

There will be haggis, neeps and tatties to eat, and ceilidh dancing to be done. There will be performances from some of our children from Primary 2 and 3, who will be singing and dancing.

It is free for children and £2.50 for adults. It is also BYOB and there will be a tuck shop for those sweet treats!

It would be great to see as many of you as possible at this event to start the New Year off with a guid auld hoolie!
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I hope you have a lovey weekend

Best wishes.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School

06.01.2023 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

06.01.2023 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good afternoon, families and happy New Year!

I hope you all had a lovely break over the festive period.

It has been lovely having the children back these past couple of days and they have all settled back into the school routine really well.

Nations’ update

As it has been a short week, we have not totalled up the last day and half’s Nation stars and will add them to next week.

Industrial Action, Tuesday 10th January

As you are aware the planned industrial action is going ahead on Tuesday 10th of January.

The school and nursery will be closed on that day.

If the situation changes, we will inform you as soon as possible. Due to employee rights around this industrial action, we are unable to collate accurate advance information about which teachers will be striking. As most teaching staff are likely to be taking industrial action, Learning and Teaching will be affected for most learners in City of Edinburgh Council.

There are Learning Grids provided by City of Edinburgh Council with tasks which can be completed at home, if you wish: www.edinburgh.gov.uk/homelearning

Alternative forms of digital learning, including e-sgoil, are also available on this page.

You can also refer to the home learning activities on your child’s class TEAMS page.

Parent Pay refunds will be provided to those families who have prepaid lunch on Tuesday 10th of January, as soon as possible.

We look forward to seeing the children back in school on Wednesday 11th of January.

Thank you for your ongoing support.

Term Three Newsletters

The teachers will be sending out their newsletters at the end of next week, giving you information about the planned learning for the coming term.

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I hope you all have a lovely weekend and look forward to seeing you next week.

Best wishes.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School

16.12.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

16.12.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good morning, families,

I hope you have had good week.

Wining Nation and current leader

This week it was the Angles who were our winning nation. Well done to all of them!

The current leader is Scots! Congratulations to them all.

Fabulous festive fun!

We had a great start to the week with our very successful Parent Council Christmas Fayre. A huge thank you to all involved with the organisation and running of this event as well as all of you who came along to support it.

The Primary 7 children did an amazing job at their enterprise stalls, raising £604 for Crisis, their chosen charity, and £137 to put towards their Lagganlia experience evening activities. What an incredible effort! Well done to all of them and thank to you for your support.

This week we have enjoyed the wonderful performances from our Primary 1, 2 and 3 children. The staff have worked incredibly hard to put these together and all their hard work was worth it as the children were amazing!

All of them have created wonderful memories for the adults who came to see them on stage.

Change of doors in infant playground from 5th of January 2023

Due to P2b and Miss Macleod’s classroom move, we are going to make a slight change to the allocated doors for drop off and pick up in the Infant Playground.

The arrangements are as follows:

Top door (nearest roadside) – Primary 2b, Primary 3a, Primary 3b and Primary 7

Bottom door – Primary 1a, Primary 1b and Primary 2a

The staff will keep you right on the 5th.

Reminder re the 1pm finish on Tuesday 20th December

Just a wee reminder that the school will be closing at 1pm next Tuesday.

We are having our Festive Concert for our P4-7 children with a guest appearance from our Musical Theatre Group and our Dance Troupe.

Doors will be open from 10.45am. Please remember we are having to limit numbers to 2 adults maximum per family.

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As we head into the final few days of the term, we are really looking forward to the P6 Panto (Oh yes, we are!) and our end of term Festive concert.

Remember the children are returning to school on Thursday 5th of January 2023.

I hope you all have a lovely break over the festive holidays and very much look forward to seeing you all in the New Year.

Best wishes.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School

09.12.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

09.12.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good morning, all.

I hope you are well and have had a good week.

This week’s winning nation are the Angles! Well done to all of them!

Our current overall Nations winner is SCOTS… All to play for!

Santa Run and Christmas Fayre, Saturday 10th of December

Just a reminder that you are all welcome to come along tomorrow morning to join the RHPS running club at 11am for their Santa run to raise funds for their club.

All participants will be awarded a medal for taking part and there will be hot rolls to buy after your efforts!

Then from 12 – 3pm we will be having our Parent Council Christmas Fayre. There will be loads of stalls, raffle, tombola, home baking and the P7 Enterprise.

There is still time to buy your raffle tickets. Please see the email from earlier this week with the details of how to buy them as well as being able to buy them on the day.

We look forward to seeing you there to join in with the festive fun!

Festive cards and gifts for staff

With the end of term fast approaching and Christmas well and truly on its way, I wanted to share our thoughts as a school, along with guidance from the City of Edinburgh Council, about cards and gifts.

In this time of a cost of living crisis and with a focus on sustainability and being eco-friendly, we would ask that children who want to send cards should send a class card as opposed to individual cards.

We know that some families very kindly give gifts to staff at this time of year. We would like to suggest that you don’t have to buy anything as an email or message are very gratefully received. If you would like to give something, we suggest that you give something homemade. There is absolutely no expectation but we wanted to reassure you with these options.

Parent Council minutes

Please find attached the minutes from the recent Parent Council meeting as promised.

Gordon retiring, 20th December

Just a reminder that the lovely Gordon is retiring on the 20th of December. He’s the VIP at the festive concert on the 20th so you have an opportunity to say your farewells then with the school.

One o’clock finish, Tuesday 20th December and Ordering Packed Lunches

Just a reminder that the school will be finishing for the holidays at 1 o’clock. Our festive concert will be finishing around 12 and the children will then have their lunch.

Please remember to order your packed lunches by the 14th of December. Thank you.

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I hope you all have a lovely weekend and look forward to seeing you at our upcoming festive events.

Take care and speak soon.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School

02.12.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

02.12.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good morning, all.

I hope you are well and have had a good week.

We can’t believe it is already December and we are all very excited about the upcoming festive events!

Here are the key bits of information from this week:

Winning Nation and current Overall Nations’ Winner

This week’s winning nation is……PICTS! Well done to all of them!

And our currently overall leader is ………SCOTS! Congratulations to them!

Nations’ Craft Days – thank you!
This Tuesday and Wednesday mornings saw the very welcome return of the Nations’ Craft mornings.
A huge thank you goes out to the Parent Council and our other parent volunteers for all their hard work in organising and running these events.
They were ably assisted by our Nations Captains, who did a great job of being fantastic role models and a super help. Thank you to all of them.
All of the children had a wonderful time taking part in a wide range of exciting tasks, from reindeer hats to Christmas spice bags and snowman tea lights.
There was such a festive buzz around the school and it was great to have this tradition reintroduced to the school.
Thank you again to all involved.

Parent Council Meeting thanks
Thank you to all who attended the meeting on Wednesday evening. It was a very full and productive meeting. The minutes will be shared with you in due course.
Please contact them on rhpsparents@gmail.com if you are interested in finding out more about what they do and how you can get involved.

Christmas Lunch reminder, Wednesday 7th of December
Just a reminder that we will be having our Christmas lunch next Wednesday. All children are invited to wear something festive and we are going to have the hall (and staff) all decorated and getting involved!

Festive Events – reminder
Here is a quick reference reminder about all our upcoming festive events:

Sat 10th Dec
11am-12pm Santa Run (Community field) – everyone welcome!

12-3pm School Fayre

Wed 14th Dec
(Doors 1.45pm) 2-3PM P2/ 3 Nativity

Thurs 15th Dec
2-2.45pm P1 Nativity

5-6pm P2 /3 Nativity

Mon 19th Dec
5-6pm P6 Panto

Tues 20th Dec
11am – 12pm P4 -P7 Festive Concert

90th Anniversary celebration, 20th January 2023 – calling all ex-pupils and staff
Along with the Pupil Council and some of our wonderful parents, Jacqui, Hannah and Emily, we are going to have our first 90th Anniversary celebration on Friday 20th of January.
This is the day the school officially opened to the first pupils in 1931.
We are planning recreation of the opening on the morning of the 20th of January and would like to invite ex-pupils and ex-staff to come along.
It would be wonderful if any of them would like to speak to the children and share their experiences of being at the Royal High Primary school.
If you know any ex-pupils or ex-staff, please get them to phone (0131 669 3200) or email Emma in the office (admin@royalhigh-pri.edin.sch.uk) so we can send them details of the event.
Thank you.

Gordon, crossing patrol, retiring
Our wonderful crossing patrol man, Gordon, will be retiring on Tuesday 20th of December after over 12 years of safely helping our children and families get to school.
We are making him a VIP for the festive concert on the 20th of December.
If you would like to give him a card or gift, please drop these off to the office by Friday 16th of December.
Thank you.
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So much to look forward to in the coming weeks!

I hope you all have a great weekend and look forward to seeing you soon.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School

25.11.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

25.11.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good afternoon, families.

I hope you are well and have had a good week.

Just a couple of items for the check in this week.

Winning Nations

Our winning Nation this week is……..ANGLES! This is the second week in a row so a huge well done to them.

The current overall Nations leader is…………………….SCOTS!

Equalities focus for December

As we approach the end of the month, we are looking ahead to our December Equalities focus. We are going to be raising awareness about Save the Children and their Christmas Jumper Day appeal.

We will be enjoying all of our Christmas and festive events, being mindful of the fact this can be a really difficult time of year for some people for various reasons and being thankful for what we have.

Nations’ Crafts Days, 29th and 30th of November

Some of our fabulous Parent Council have organised some wonderful festive activities for the Nations’ Crafts Days next week.

The Nations Captains are helping out with the organisation and on the days themselves.

We’re very excited about being able to do these days again and thank the parents involved for all the hard work they are putting in to make these happen.

P1, 2 and 3 Bookbug bags

All of our P1 to 3 children are coming home today with their Bookbug bag. I know families will enjoy exploring the stories and the activities with the children over the coming weeks.

90th Anniversary plans
I met with some of our parents this week and with the Pupil Councillors to plan our events.

We are going to have one event on the 20th of January, the day the school officially opened to pupils in 1931, and then one on the 16th of June, coinciding with our Summer Fair.

I will be in touch with more details soon but in the meantime. I am looking for any ex-pupils or staff who would be interested in coming in to talk to the children and be part of the events to get in touch.

If you know anyone, please ask them to email the school admin account or phone. Thank you.

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I hope you have a lovely weekend and look forward to seeing you next week.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School

18.11.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

18.11.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good afternoon, everyone.

I hope you are well and have had a good week.

Another busy week at the Royal High Primary and lots coming up so here is the information for this week:

This week’s Winning Nation and current leader

This week’s winner is………ANGLES and the current leader is SCOTS. Well done to all the SCOTS.

Industrial strike action – 24th November – RHPS School and Nursery closed

Just to make sure you are clear, both the school and nursery will be closed next Thursday.

Library Renovation Project

I wanted to make a special mention of three of our fantastic parents, Jacqui, Suzy and Heather, who have been working tirelessly to turn our old ICT suite/ library into a wonderful space for reading, relaxing, drama, singing and our violinists.

I cannot wait until it is finally finished and we have our opening ceremony!

However in the meantime I wanted to say a huge thanks to Jacqui, Suzy and Heather for giving up their time every Friday morning to completely turn this space around.

As part of their work, they have identified books which we can give to charity and have organised for 8 boxes to be sent to the charity Books2Africa. I am delighted that they are making sure this renovation is as sustainable and equitable as possible as well as donating to charity.

Thank you again, Jacqui, Suzy and Heather!

Reach Out -Anti-bullying week

The children and staff have been really engaged with this focus week and really highlighting our values.

A special mention to Elliot and Livia, our pupil Anti-Bullying Ambassador leads. They have re-established the pupil anti-bullying ambassadors for break times and promoted this during assembly on Monday.

Another special mention to our P7 Charities Group, who organised Odd Sock Monday and Pyjama/ Crazy Hair day for Friday. Such a fun way to raise awareness for both anti-bullying week and Children In Need.

I’m so proud of the strong pupil voice in our school community. Well done to all of them!

Nursery update – Thank you

I wanted to say thank you to our Nursery parents who set up a GoFundMe page after the fire-raising incident. They have managed to raise an amazing £400 which the Nursery team are going to use to buy sturdy, secure outdoor storage for their outdoor equipment.

A huge thank you to all of those parents involved. Your efforts and support are hugely appreciated by the whole school community.

Dates for the diary – Saturday 10th of December – RHPS Christmas Fair and RHPS Running Club Santa Run!

Just to remind you that our Parent Council Christmas Fair is on Saturday 10th of December from 12 – 3pm. We will send out reminders nearer the time.

On the same day, from 11am, the RHPS Running Club have organised a Santa Run to raise funds to buy running club t-shirts. We will be setting up a running course round the community field, with two lengths of courses so everyone can take part.

Everyone is invited to take part, from the very young to the more mature in years!

The Running Club members would like everyone taking part to be as festive as possible, coming either as Santa or something suitably Christmassy.

At the end of the run, there will be bacon and sausage sandwiches for all participants as well as a medal to recognise you taking part!

We’ll send more information nearer the time but wanted to let you know so you can put it in your diaries.

Council announcement – All Edinburgh Schools and Nurseries to close at 1pm (not 12 noon) on Tuesday 20th December

The Council have decided that schools and nurseries will stay open until 1pm on the last day of term.

We will use this additional hour for children to have lunch. Our planned P4-7 Festive Concert will go ahead as planned from 11am – 12 noon, with doors opening from 10.50am.

We have shared with staff the order for lunches.

All children will be dismissed?at 1pm.?

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I hope all of you have a lovely weekend and look forward to seeing next week.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn

Head Teacher

The Royal High Primary School

11.11.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

11.11.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good afternoon, everyone.

I hope you are well and have had a good week. It’s been another busy week at RHPS with lots of news to share.

Anti-bullying week, 14^th – 18^th November – Odd Sock Monday and Pyjama/ Crazy Hair Day Friday

Our P7 Charities Group have been working hard to raise awareness of Anti-bullying week. They have decided to invite everyone to wear odd socks on Monday 14^th, linking with this year’s theme of ‘Reach Out’ and celebrating the fact that everyone is different.

Then on Friday they want to invite everyone to wear their pyjamas and/ or have crazy hair to raise awareness of Children in Need. Your child can bring in an optional donation for Children in Need if they would like.

I look forward to this colourful start and end to the week for such an important focus.

 Head Lice Advice

At this time of year, I like to send out a reminder about head lice to families. If you follow this link https://www.nhsinform.scot/illnesses-and-conditions/skin-hair-and-nails/head-lice-and-nits you will find advice about recognising head lice and how to treat it.

Parent Supporter for P7 Equalities Group (Wednesday afternoons) and extra curricular activities kit donations

We are looking for a volunteer to come in and support our P7 Equalities Group on Wednesday afternoons. They are going to be organising and running our Pre-loved uniform stall and if we have a volunteer we can run this stall twice a week, which would be great!

They are also looking to expand their stock and would like donations for extra curricular activities.

If you have any of the following items which your child has outgrown, and you would like to donate, please drop it off at the office and let Emma know it is for the Equalities Group.

• Gymnastics leotards
• Ballet kits and shoes
• Football kits and boots
• Judo kits
• Karate kits
• Beavers uniform
• Cubs uniform
• Scouts uniform
• Rainbows uniform

Thank you!

Information re Teacher Strike, 24^th November

As you may be aware, the EIS Teacher’s Union had a ballot around striking and it was announced that there will be a teacher’s strike on the 24^th of November.

I have no further information at this time and will keep you updated as soon as I am told.

Playground Murals update

We have been in touch with the company who are going to paint our new murals in the playground and they will be coming in on a Friday in the near future when the weather looks favourable.

A huge thank you to our wonderful Parent Council who were granted the funding for this project.

Everyone in school is very excited about this playground upgrade.

We’ll share pictures when they have been done.

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I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

Take care and speak soon.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn

Head Teacher

The Royal High Primary School

04.11.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

04.11.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good morning families.

I hope you are well and have had a good week despite the autumnal days drawing in.

This Week’s Winning Nation and Current Overall Leader

I am delighted to announce that this week’s winning nation is ……………..Scots! Well done to all of them.

Our current overall leader is………………Picts!
Second place is currently held by Brits, with Angles in third and Scots in fourth. It’s a tight competition so please keep encouraging your children to earn those nation stars by showing our values of:
* Respect All
* Be Kind
* Try Our Best
* Believe in Ourselves

November Equalities focus
This month we will be linking our equalities focus to Anti-bullying week which is taking place week beginning 14th of November. We will be linking our learning to our values of ‘Be Kind’ and ‘Respect All’.

Staffing news
I am delighted to share that we have a permanent Facilities Technicians (school janitor!) who has been successfully recruited. Michael Simpson will be starting with us on the 14th of November and we are really looking forward to welcoming him to the RHPS team.

Reminder – No sweets to be brought in
I know the children had a lovely time going out on Hallowe’en and got lots of sweet treats. Some of the children have been bringing them in for snacks and lunch.
Can I please remind you of our ‘No Snacks in Packs’ policy and our focus on healthy eating.
Please do send in sweets or lollipops for them. They can enjoy these after school. Thank you.

Religious Prayers
We have had a request from some families for their children to have a prayer space. We have organised this to take place just after lunch each day.
If you would like your child to make use of this, please let Emma know through the admin email, admin@royalhigh-pri.edin.sch.uk.

Congratulations to our Pupil Councillors and Health and Wellbeing Pupil Reps
This week we have finalised our Pupil Councillors and Health and Wellbeing Pupil Reps. I will be working with Pupil Councillors and Mrs Evans will be working with our Health and Wellbeing reps.
We will keep you posted with what our focus will be and how you can get involved.

P1 2023 Open Day
We had our P1 2023 Open Day on Wednesday and had a good number of visitors. I wanted to say a huge thank you and well done to our P7 Nations Captains who did an incredible job of leading the tours and received 5 star reviews from all of our visitors.
They did a brilliant job of representing the school and themselves and we are all very proud of the amazing job they did!

Update re Festive Events
We are really excited about the upcoming festive events. Just to remind you here are the dates for what we have planned:

Wednesday 7th December – Christmas Lunch with festive jumpers

Wednesday 14th (1.45 – 2.45pm) – P2 and P3 Nativity

Thursday 15th December (5 – 6pm) – P2 and P3 Nativity

Thursday 15th December (2.00 – 2.45pm) – P1 Nativity

Monday 19th December (early evening performance – times tbc) – P6 Panto

Tuesday 20th December (11am – 12 noon) – P4 – P7 Christmas assembly
(Doors from 10.45am)

Tickets for the P4-P7 assembly will be limited to two tickets per family in line with fire safety restrictions and health and safety regulations.

We will send out further details in the coming weeks.

Please note school finishes at 12 noon on Tuesday 20th December.

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I hope you have a lovely weekend and look forward to seeing you next week.

Take care and keep in touch.
Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School

28.10.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

28.10.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good morning families.

I hope you are well and have had a good week.

This Week’s Winning Nation and Current Leader
This week our winning nations is SCOTS. Well done to all of our SCOTS!
Our current leader in the Winning Nation is PICTS!

Equalities focus
This month our Equalities focus is based around two of our values – Respect All and Be Kind.
We will be focussing on Anti-Bullying Week, all about friendships, respecting each other, being kind and making sure that we all feel included.
Check your child’s class TEAMS page in the coming weeks to see the linked learning taking place.

Staffing News
We are delighted to welcome Mrs Hannah McGregor to the Royal High Primary team. Hannah has been recruited as a cluster Primary 7 Transition teacher and will be working with Miss Campbell and the Primary 7s every Thursday morning for this term.
We are also delighted to share the Mrs Michelle Coutts will be returning to the Royal High Primary team. She will be working on Mondays and Tuesday with Ms Cairns, Mrs Grant and the Primary 4s with a focus on raising attainment.

Reminder re Safe Parking
As we start the new term, can I remind you of the importance of respecting safe, legal parking outside of the school gates?
Please do not park on the zig-zag lines or the ‘Keep Clear’ area as not only is this illegal, it is really dangerous.
Our focus is on keeping all of our children safe and we thank you for your support with this.

Parent Council Hallowe’en Discos
The discos last night were a huge success with the children from Primary 1 to Primary 7 looking suitably spooky and having a great time! The DJ from Chaplin’s kept them dancing the whole time, wonderfully supported by some very energetic teachers!

A huge thank you to the fabulous Parent Council and all of the parent helpers for all of their hard work in organising and running this event and making it such a brilliant success!

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I hope you all have a lovely weekend ahead and I look forward to seeing you next week.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School

14.10.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

14.10.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good morning families.

I hope you are well and looking forward to the October holidays. Lots of ‘well dones’ and ‘thank yous’ to be said this week so I’ll get started straight away!

Winning Nation

This week’s winning Nation is……………Brits! Well done to them.

In the overall leader board, our current leader is Scots.

Nation Captain’s Election results

This week some of our Primary 7 pupils presented their election campaign for the Nations’ Captain.

They all presented brilliant and made the choice really difficult for the other children and staff!

A huge well done to all of our candidates. You really did yourself proud!

So to the results (drum roll, please!):

Angles – Martijn and Lexie
Brits – Ava and Archie
Picts – Jas and Kayla
Scots – Oscar and Abi

Congratulations to all of you!

I am really excited about them taking forward these roles and know they will be an absolute credit to themselves and their Nation.

Miss Campbell is going to be working with them and they will be in regular contact to let you know what they are up to and how you can get involved!

Pupil Voice Groups

After the holidays we will be finalising the other pupil groups and will share the group members with you and their plan for the rest of the year.

We will be starting with the following groups:
• Pupil Councillors
• Charity/ Fundraising Group
• Equalities Group
• Eco Group

Parent Consultations – thank you

Thank you to everyone for attending their parent appointments this week. There has been such positive feedback from both parents and staff which is lovely to hear and a fabulous way to end the term.

Summer Reading Challenge Champions

Dawn Birkinshaw from Piershill Library contacted me to let me know of 7 pupils have successfully completed the Summer Reading Challenge, reading at least 6 books! As we are really focussing on developing a reading culture at the school, I am so proud of these children.

Well done to:
Jessie, Emily and Sophie, Amala and Esme, Samarth and Samitha.

Library Development – Thank you, Billie and Kavi

A group of our wonderful parents have continued to work wonders in our library development and have made great progress.

Two of our P6 pupils, Billie and Kavi, have been busy fundraising through selling homemade lemonade, home baking and homemade dog treats and made an amazing total of £100!

These two fabulous young people have decided that instead of spending the money on themselves, they spent it on buying beanbags, footrests and a reading tent for our library.

I am so touched by this gesture and so very grateful for this gift from them. Thank you, Billie and Kavi!

I know these gifts will be very well used by the children when we are able to open our new reading zone. Watch this space!

Playground Mural Designs

In more exciting news, the children chose their designs for the Playground Murals, which I have shared with the Parent Council so they can organise the company to come and paint them.

We are going to have the following:

Upper playground – Smiley clock face and Danger Trail

Infant playground – Alphabet Tree, Number Spiral and Spell Jump

You can check out the designs on the website www.first4playgrounds.co.uk

Community support

I just wanted to end my Check In with another heartfelt thank you for all of your support this year so far, in particular with the most recent incident of vandalism and fire-raising.

The whole staff team felt so supported and surrounded by the community which meant so much to all of us and to the children.

I am hopeful that we will see some action taken to increase security so we can focus on the wonderful development projects we have, making the best learning environment possible for our children.

Thank you.

I hope you all have a wonderful break and I really look forward to seeing the children back at school on Wednesday 26th of October.

Take care and keep in touch.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School

06.10.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

06.10.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good morning families.

I hope you are well and have had a good week.

Autumn is definitely drawing in with darker mornings and rainy days. Nonetheless we have had a good week here at the Royal High Primary School.

Autumn wear and pre-loved uniform

As the weather becomes more unsettled, can I please ask that you send your children to school with a warm, waterproof coat and outdoor shoes as we will still be going out as much as we can?

It is also helpful for your children to have a change of socks in their back in case their feet get wet.

We have a large number of pre-loved items in lost property so if you would like to come in and have a rummage, please let Emma in the office know or just come to the school door.

We are setting up a pre-loved uniform bank for next term and will let you know when this will be and how this will work.

Flu Vaccination reminder – 12^th October

Just a reminder that the flu vaccinations will be happening in school on Wednesday next week.

Festive Events for families

We are really looking forward to the festive season and are already busily preparing.

I wanted to let you know the dates for our various events to which parents are invited so you can put them in your diaries:

P1 Nativity

Thursday 15^th December – 2-2.45pm afternoon performance

P2/3 Nativity

Wednesday 14^th      December 1.45–2.45pm – afternoon performance

Thursday 15^th          December  5.00 – 6.00pm -early evening performance

  P6 Panto

Monday 19^th December – afternoon performance – timings to be confirmed

Whole school Christmas Assembly

Tuesday 20^th December – 11-12 noon

Due to numbers having to be restricted for health and safety, these events will be ticketed with two tickets available for each family for each performance.

We will be sending out more details after the October holiday.

Christmas lunch and Festive Jumper collection

We are just waiting to confirm the date for our Christmas lunch and we would like all children to have a festive t-shirt or jumper to wear.

As part of the planning, we are organising a Festive jumper collection.

We are looking for donations of festive t-shirts and jumpers which your children have outgrown.

If you have anything you would like to donate, please drop them off at the office in the coming weeks so every child can have a bit of sparkle and festive cheer to wear.

Thank you.

Donations of old t-shirts and shirts – Art activities

We are very keen for our children to enjoy a wide variety of art and craft activities but are aware that this can be messy fun.

We want to protect the children’s uniforms so are looking for donations of any old t-shirts or shirts that they could wear.

If you do have anything you could donate, please drop them off at the office.

Thank you.

Upcoming Parent council Fundraising Events

We have been working hard with our Parent Council to finalise dates for their upcoming events.

We are going to be having a Hallowe’en disco, Nations Crafts days Christmas Fair, Burns Supper and a 90^th anniversary celebration to name but a few.

We will send you out a list of dates so you can put them in your diary.

A reminder that there is a virtual Parent Council Event on Wednesday 12^th, where you can learn more about the events and how you can get involved.

We’ll share the link so you can go along.

Parent Consultations, Tuesday 11^th and Thursday 13^th October

Thank you for signing up for your appointments. The link for the TEAMs meeting will be sent to the email address we have on file for you.

If you haven’t received the link by the end of Monday 10^th, please let Emma in the office know.

Remember to check your junk folder incase it has come in there.

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I hope you all have a lovely weekend and I look forward to seeing you next week.

Take care and keep in touch.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn

Head Teacher

The Royal High Primary School

30.09.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

30.09.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good morning families.

I hope you are well and have had a good week.

This week I would like to start by announcing the winning Nation! This week’s winners are…….Angles & Scots!

Staffing news

Today we bid a find farewell to Miss Cruikshank as she leaves to start her new post as a social work assistant. We will really miss having her at school but wish her all the best in her new career.

Parent Consultations, 11^th and 13^th of October

Thank you to everyone who has signed up for their appointment.

Just a reminder that today is your last day to sign up. If you don’t choose an appointment, your child’s teacher will select a slot for you.

The link to your TEAMS appointment will be sent to the email we have on file for you next week.  Please look out for this. Remember to check your junk folder in case it goes there.

If you haven’t received a link by the end of next week please contact the office.

Support for Learning consultations

Mrs Brown has been carrying out baseline assessments this week and has finalised her timetable. This will start from next Monday.

She will be carrying out consultations in November and will contact parents of the children she is working with.

Parent Council event dates

Our Parent Council have been working hard to put together their dates for the coming year. We will send them out to you when they have been finalised so you can put them in your diary.

The Parent Council are going to have a virtual meeting on Wednesday 12^th of October from 7.30 – 8.30pm to share their aims, projects for 2022-2023, how you can help and get involved as well as current volunteer groups and roles they need volunteers for.

They would love you to come along to find out more.

A TEAMS link will be sent out soon.

Reminder – No snacks in packs and only water in water bottles

Just a reminder of our fantastic healthy eating policy where all children should bring a healthy snack into school. It is wonderful to see so many of our children being sent in with healthy snacks and I thank you for your support.

Please remember they should not bring in sweets, chocolate, pastries or crisps.

We encourage children to keep hydrated during the day and have a water bottle with them. Please make sure that you only put water in the bottles, not flavoured, fizzy water or diluting juice.

Thank you for your ongoing support with this. It really makes a difference with children’s energy and focus for learning, as well as encouraging healthy choices.

Exceptional school closure – Monday 24^th October

I sent out a letter yesterday letting you know if the council’s decision to grant an additional holiday.

Schools will be closed on Monday 24^th of October and the inservice day will be on Tuesday 25^th of October.

Children will return to school on Wednesday 26^th of October.

**************

I hope you all have a lovely weekend and I look forward to seeing you next week.

Take care and keep in touch.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn

Head Teacher

The Royal High Primary School

23.09.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

23.09.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good morning families.

I hope you are well and have had a good week.

It’s been another busy week at the Royal High Primary School with our first Values Champions assembly for our P3-P7 children. It was wonderful to see the joy and pride on the children receiving certificates. We are so proud to celebrate our children demonstrating our values of:

• Be kind
• Respect All
• Try Our Best
• Believe in Ourselves

Values Wall

In further work around our values, Mrs Evans has organised for every child and staff member to create a brick on one of the values, showing all the ways we can demonstrate our values and that they are part of our day every day at school.

We will share photos of the finished display so you can see how important they are to us.

Primary 6 Football Team

A huge thank you to Lynsey Wright and our our P6 parent volunteers for coming together to form our Primary 6 football team. The children are delighted to have a football team and are looking forward to the coming season.

We’ll keep you posted with how they and all our other teams do throughout the year.

Statement around Empowered Learning and the use of iPads to enhance learning, particularly P6 and P7 1:1 devices

At the Royal High Primary, we are enthusiastic about using the latest digital technology to enhance all our children’s learning experiences. 

We have a responsibility to prepare our learners for their future studies and employment in our technology-rich society. 

The use of iPads is not intended to replace traditional learning methods. It will be used in a supplementary manner. 

Teachers will use iPads in a variety of ways and the use of iPads in class will be carefully managed and monitored.  

Children will only have access to apps which are teacher-approved, and time spent on iPads will be carefully planned to support the learning in class. 

Home learning tasks are set through the class TEAMs page. Children can choose to complete the tasks in their homework jotter or upload them to their individual channels on TEAMS. 

To find further information and Frequently Asked Questions about Empowered Learning, please follow the following links: 

FAQ: https://digitaleducationteam.com/empowered-learning/  

Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kwyo5xcCN8  

Baby news – Miss Torrens and Nina

I am delighted to share the news that Miss Torrens, our Nursery EY teacher, has had her baby. Nina arrived on the 17^th of September and both Mummy and baby are doing well.

We send our love and congratulations to Miss Torrens and her family.

Parent Consultations, 11^th and 13^th of October

I wanted to remind you that our first Parent Consultations will be taking place on the 11^th and 13^th of October.

Your child’s teacher will share an appointment sign up sheet on the class TEAMs for you to choose a time slot.

I’ll let you know when these are up on the TEAMs pages.

***************

I hope you have a lovely weekend and look forward to seeing you next week.

Take care and keep in touch.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn

Head Teacher

The Royal High Primary School

16.09.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

16.09.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good morning, families.

I hope you are well this beautiful sunny morning and looking forward to the long weekend ahead.

We have had another busy week at the Royal High Primary with lots of news to share.

School clubs

We are delighted at the wide range of clubs we are offering and at the engagement of the children.

This week saw the return of our Gardening Group led by Mrs Bayraktar, who are continuing their work on our front grass area and making such a difference.

Our Chess Club has proved a huge success and thank you to Phil Dickson and Miss McKee for leading and supporting this. I’ve attached a photo so you can see all of our budding Garry Kasparovs and Judit Polgárs hard at the game!

We will continue to be looking for new opportunities for our children and will keep you updated with any new clubs that are starting.

We are still looking for someone to support the Art Club so please get in touch if this is something you can help with on a Tuesday after school.

If you are interested in starting a club, please let us know.

Only water in water bottles, please and remember ‘No snacks in packs’!

Just a reminder that we ask children only have water in their water bottles. This is in line with the Council guidelines and promotes healthy choices and good dental care.

Thank you to everyone who sends their child in with a snack that’s not in a pack. Remember we encourage healthy snacks, such as fruit, veggie sticks, oatcakes, crackers, rice cakes, and popcorn. Again this is to support and encourage healthy choices.

Thank you for your support with this.

Staff news

Next week will be Miss Cruikshank last week with us before she heads off to start her new job as a Social Work Assistant. I wanted to thank her for all of her hard work and dedication during her time here with us. She will be sorely missed by both children and staff alike but we wish her well on her new venture.

Ms. Watt has asked me to let you know that unfortunately due to ongoing health issues she will be absent until the October holidays. We have sent our love and best wishes to her as she goes through these challenges. Miss Clarissa Cheong will be teaching P1b on Mondays and Tuesdays.

Hilary Brown, our new Support for Learning teacher, will be starting with us next Tuesday. She will be working on Mondays to Thursday, 9.30am – 2.30pm. Next week she will be meeting the children and the staff and putting together her timetable in partnership with Mrs Heatlie. If your child is going to be receiving additional support for learning we will be in touch with information.

We are very much looking forward to welcoming her to our team.

Lost property and Pre-loved uniforms

We are so proud of how smart our children look in their uniforms. We are aware that it can be a challenge for families to make sure their children have a uniform so I wanted to let you know that we have a huge amount of unnamed lost property and pre-loved uniforms which looking for new homes.

We are going to have a Primary 7 pupil group who will organise a pre-loved stall in the near future and we will let you know when this is set up.

In the meantime, please make sure that all personal belongings have your child’s name on them.

Thank you.

Thank you from the Friends of Figgate Park

Here is a lovely message from the Friends of Figgate Park after the campaign for a new park:

The Friends of Figgate park would love to say a huge thank you to the children at Royal High Primary School.

Back in 2019 children in this school, along with the other schools in the area, helped us by telling us why they wanted a new play area in the Figgie park. You even drew some amazing pictures of the play equipment you would like to see there.

After a lot of fundraising effort we are so very pleased to let you know that your new play park is now open for you to enjoy.

We hope you all have lots of fun playing there.

Thank you for helping us get our new park.

I look forward to hearing about all the fun the children have in their new park!

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As you will be aware it is a holiday on Monday for the Queen’s funeral so I wish you a lovely long weekend and look forward to seeing you on Tuesday.

Take care and keep in touch.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary

09.09.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

09.09.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good morning, all.

I hope you are well and have had a good week.

Marking the death of Queen Elizabeth II

With the news of the Queen’s passing, I think it is important to acknowledge this for the children as she was our longest serving monarch.

P3 – P7 watched a short film this morning to celebrate her life.

Parent Council AGM

Thank you to those of you who managed to make it along to the Parent Council AGM on Wednesday evening which was really positive and supportive. I shared the School and Nursery Improvement plans which I have attached to this update.

Values Champions certificates

Thank you to Derek, one of our wonderful parents, has printed our Values Champions certificates.

Each teacher is going to nominate one child each week as their Values Champion which will be presented at our Monday assemblies.

We are all excited about starting to present these and continue to celebrate and champion our school values.

Names on all belongings

Even though we are only 4 weeks in, we have accumulated a large amount of lost property.

We would love to return the items to their owners but none of them have names on them.

Please could you make sure that you put the name on all of your child’s belongings?

Thank you.

Parking – please be considerate and legal!

As the darker mornings and nights draw in and more of us driving in, could you please make sure that we are considerate of our neighbours and park considerately and legally?

There is no parking on zig zags, double yellow lines or blocking road or house entrances.

Our neighbours are so much part of our community and we want to show them our school value of ‘Respect All’ as a school community.

Thank you.

Volunteers needed! – supporting learning activities in class

We are really keen to have parents in school and have an excellent opportunity for anyone available.

We are looking for people who have some time to come in and work with classes, supporting small groups with learning activities.

You don’t need any training or specialist skills; just enthusiasm and a love for learning!

If you are interested, please email Emma on our admin email, letting us know your name, your child’s name and the times you are available.

We will not be putting you in your child’s class so if there is a particular stage or age you are interested in working with then please include that in your email.

We are looking forward to hearing from you!

Reminder re rules about personal belongings, including trading cards in school

I wanted to ask you to remind children that they are not allowed to bring personal belongings into school.

As we explain to them, they are not insured so there is nothing we can do if they get lost, damaged or broken.

This includes trading cards, which are expensive to buy and so easily damaged and / lost.

We want children to know how valuable and precious their belongings are and that we just want to make sure they are kept special.

Thank you for your support with this.

Art Club Volunteer needed!

One of our fabulous P7 pupils delivered an amazing pitch to Mrs Heatlie and me about wanting to set up an Art Club.

We are really keen to support this but need one thing to make this happen – you!

If you are a lover of all things arty and craft, we would love you to come in and support this pupil led club.

The club will be on Tuesdays from 3.25pm till 4.15pm.

Please email Emma through the admin account if you are interested. We can’t start the club without you!

****************

We have a full school week ahead and then a holiday on Monday 19th.

I hope you have a lovely weekend and I look forward to seeing you next week.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School

02.09.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

02.09.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good morning families,

I hope you have had a lovely week.

It’s been a great week here at the Royal High Primary School with everyone getting settled back into the school routine.

Meet the Teacher Event

Thank you for coming to our ‘Meet the Teacher’ event. It was a really good turn out and a very successful event in allowing families and teachers to connect.

It is really important that we gather your feedback from events so I have put together a short Feedback Forms survey to complete. It should take you no more than 5 – 10 minutes to complete and we really appreciate and value every response.

I do acknowledge that a small number of families had difficulties around child care and this is something we will address for next time.

Please follow this link for the survey:

https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=af6sSGo3tUKfacnke7-5xKX5QDtSjdVOmerC1qdzuzBUQjA0VVpCTUhJVDZHQlBENldEU00xVzk0SS4u

Support for Learning Update

Mrs Emma Gardner has confirmed that her last day with us before starting her secondment will be Tuesday the 5th of September. Mr Martin Vilanova is our interim Support for Learning teacher. I will be able to update about our new Support for Learning teacher next week.

Extra Curricular clubs and Additional Parkour spaces – P4 – 7

There has been a really positive response to our extra curricular clubs offer. We are continuing to build our offer, thanks to parent volunteers and I will keep you updated with any additional clubs.

I am delighted to announce an 12 extra spaces for Parkour to the P4-7s, on Thursdays, from 3.25 – 4.25pm. If you would like to sign up your child, please do so through Active Schools.

**********************

As a reminder for your calendar, there is a holiday on Monday 19th of September and the school will be closed.

We are looking forward to the next two weeks of school with lots happening. Keep up to date through your child’s class TEAMs page.

I hope you have a lovely weekend and I look forward to seeing you next week.

Take care and keep in touch.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School

26.08.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

26.08.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good afternoon, all.

I hope you have had a good week. We have had a wonderful first week back and the children have been enjoying being in their classes and getting to know their new teachers.

Just a short end of week check in this week.

‘Meet the teacher’ Event, Wednesday 31st August, 5-6pm

We are looking forward to seeing you next week at this event. As a reminder, the teachers will be running two half hour sessions in their classrooms, so those of you who have more than one child can visit both teachers.

The teachers will share and talk through the term 1 newsletter with you at this event.

The newsletter will also be shared on class TEAMs’ pages so those of you who can’t make it have this information.

We are really looking forward to seeing you back in school!

Change of shoes

As we are spending lots of time learning outdoors, shoes are getting muddy, I am happy for and would encourage children to bring in a pair of shoes which they can keep on their peg in school.

These can either be indoor or outdoor shoes.

Parent Council AGM – date change to Wednesday 7th of September 7 – 9pm

We are hoping lots of you will be able to come to the Parent Council AGM and so have changed the date to the following week to avoid a clash with the ‘Meet the Teacher’ event.

The AGM will be held in person in school from 7-9pm.

More details will follow next week.

Playground planters

As you may have seen our planters in the playground are a wonderful array of colours. This is down to two of our parents, Heather and Phi, giving up some of their time in the holidays to paint them.

I just wanted to thank them on behalf of the staff and children. It’s lovely to have this splash of colour!

TEAMS log in details

Your child will have brought home their updated TEAMs log in details. Please could you support them to log in the first time to make sure they work? Thank you.

All of the teachers will be regularly posting on the class TEAMs pages, sharing learning experiences with you, adding reminders and any key information.

If you have any questions, please contact Emma in the office – admin@royalhigh-pri.edin.sch.uk or 0131 669 3200.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend and look forward to seeing you next week.

Take care and keep in touch.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School

19.08.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

19.08.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good morning families and welcome back.

I hope you all had a wonderful Summer break. It has been fabulous to see the children back at school, so settled and ready to learn.

We have had a great first couple of days and are very much looking forward to the coming weeks.

Our focus has been around our school values:

• Respect All
• Try Our Best
• Be Kind
• Believe in Ourselves

These values underpin our school ethos and form part of everyday life at our school.

Staffing news

I am delighted to share that Miss Stewart and her partner are proud parents of a baby boy, Finn, who arrived 13 days late on the 1st of August. Huge congratulations to them and welcome to the world, Finn!

We have been joined by some new staff this term whose photo I have attached to this update. They are (from left to right):

• Mrs. Eve Heatlie, Principal Teacher (Second level remit – P5 to P7)
• Mr. Lucas Bloare, PSA (P7)
• Miss. Isobel Cartwright, PSA (P1)
• Mr. Stewart Johnson, P6a teacher
• Mrs. Fiona Rickis, EYP
• Mr. Paul Strilich, PSA (P4b and P2)
• Miss. Lucy Kirkup, P2a teacher
• Ms. Clarissa Cheung, P7 teacher (Fridays)
• Miss. Niamh Tweedie, P5b teacher

It is wonderful to have them as part of the RHPS team.

Update re Support for Learning

I am delighted to share that Mrs Gardner has been successfully appointed to the Literacy and Dyslexia Service on secondment. She will gain a wealth of knowledge which will be a real asset on her return to us at the end of the secondment.

Mrs Gardner will be with us for the next few weeks on a Monday and Tuesday. We have begun the recruitment process to find an interim Support for Learning teacher.

In the meantime, children will be supported by their class teachers and Pupil Support Assistants.

PE kit to be worn on curricular PE days only (twice a week)

Just a reminder that children should come to school in their PE kit on their PE days.

This is a red or white top, dark coloured leggings, shorts or tracksuit bottoms and a school sweater for extra warmth when outside.

This is to maximise the time spent in their entitlement to curricular physical education.

For the Primary 3 to 7 Outdoor Fitness sessions on Fridays the children should wear their school uniform and footwear suitable for outdoor games.

Your child’s teacher will let you know what days curricular PE are on.

Reminder re informing about any changes to pick up arrangements

If your child is being collected by anyone other than their normal ‘pick up’ adult, you must let the school office know before the end of the day.

The teachers will not let the children go with another adult, even if it is a known adult, if we have not been told in advance.

‘Meet the Teacher’ Event, Wednesday 31st August 2022, 5 – 6pm

We would like to invite you in to meet your child’s teacher so they can introduce themselves to you and talk through the planned learning for this term.

They will be running two half hour sessions for those of you who have more than one child at school.

You don’t have to book into a session. You can just turn up.

If you can’t make it, the teachers will be sharing the Term One Newsletter on the class TEAMS page.

No Nut products in school and No Snacks in Packs

Just a reminder that we have a strict policy of no nuts or nut products in school due to some of our children having severe nut allergies. Please be mindful of this when sending in food items.

We are very proud of our ‘No Snack in Packs’ policy and would like to remind you of the type of snacks that can be brought in:

• Fruit
• Vegetable sticks
• Crackers
• Oatcakes
• Rice cakes
• Popcorn

Please do not send in chocolate, sweets or crisps.

We want to encourage children to have a healthy diet and support them in making positive food choices. Thank you for your support with this.

Key Dates for the school calendar
We have attached a copy of the key dates for you so you have them for your diaries. We will be adding other dates through the year and will send out information to give you advanced notice.

We have our Parent Council AGM on Wednesday 31st of August from 7 – 9pm, which we would encourage you to come along to. More details to follow soon from our Parent Council.

We have had a wonderful first week back and are really looking forward to next week with a full school week with the children.

We hope you have a lovely weekend and look forward to seeing you on Monday.

Take care and keep in touch.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School

01.07.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

01.07.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good morning families.

Well, we made it to the last day of the session and what a year it’s been! We have faced challenges along the way but have pulled together, worked through them and managed to have a year full of exciting opportunities, wonderful learning and new experiences. We have rebuilt ourselves as a school community and finish the year full of excitement about what lies ahead for us.

The end of the year brings some change with some people moving on.

We wish a fond farewell to Miss Seeger, Miss Anderson, Miss Morrow, and Miss Foy, who are all leaving us to start the next chapter in their lives.

Mrs Megaw has also decided to move on and we thank her for her many years of dedicated service to the Royal High Primary School. We wish her luck with her plans and hope she will keep in touch to let us know how she is getting on.

Mrs Heron will be staying at Prospect Bank and will continue to be a real asset to their team.

Miss Stewart and Miss Torrens are both leaving to have their babies and we look forward to hearing from them about the arrival of their little bundles of joy!

We welcome Miss Tweedie, Mrs Heatlie, Miss Kirkup, Mr, Johnson, Mr Bloare and Mr Strilich in August and look forward to welcoming them to the Royal High Primary team.

We had a wonderful Leavers’ Assembly for our fabulous Primary 7 children and wish them all the best as they move to high school. They have been an amazing Primary 7, being exemplary role models for the rest of the children. We will miss them and thank them for all they have brought to the school in their time with us. Primary 7, you will be a real asset to the high schools you are joining and we know you have bright futures ahead of you. Good luck!

We had our final Nations’ event yesterday with our flat races, which were great fun. Well done to all the participants and to the winners.

The final scores have been added up and the winning Nation for 2022 is …………………….the ANGLES!!!

Congratulations to them!

I would like to say a heartfelt thank you to all of our parents and carers who have volunteered in all manner of ways. Thank you to the football coaches, those who lead the running club and our wonderful Parent Council committee. You really helped to make sure the children had brilliant experiences in the wider community for which I thank you.

Thank you to our amazing staff who have worked tirelessly through all of the challenges of the year to give our children wonderful learning experiences and kept them all safe and happy at school. I cannot thank you enough for your dedication and commitment and I know I say that on behalf of the children and their families.

I hope that all of you have a wonderful Summer holiday and really look forward to seeing you back in August, as we welcome our new Nursery and Primary One children to the Royal High Primary School family.

Take care, be safe and see you in August!

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn

Head Teacher

The Royal High Primary School

24.06.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

24.06.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good morning, families.

I hope you are well.

Another week with some glorious sunshine and some fabulous events taking place at RHPS!

There were the Nursery graduation last Friday, trips to the zoo for P4b, P6 Games at the Hub, more learning showcase events and, to top it all off, our first Sports’ day with families invited for over 2 years. More about that later.

This Week’s Winning Nation

 The winning nation this week was……..Angles!

Well done to all of them.

 Pupil Councillors Talent Show winners!

 The Pupil Councillors did a fantastic job of running our Talent Show on Monday this week. There were some fantastic acts and they did really well to pick winners.

Congratulations to all the finalists! You did brilliantly.

But there had to be winners so well done to:

3^rd Place P1-3 – Charlie and David

3^rd Place P4-7 – Anna, Max and Harris, playing their violins

2^nd Place P1-3 – Holly, singing and playing her ukelele

2^nd Place P4-7 – Olivia and Lucy’s gymnastics routine

1^st Place P1-3 – Boon with his dance to Raka Taka Taka

1^st Place P4-7 – Oscar and his hula hooping to ‘Yes, Sir, I can boogie!’

What a talented bunch of children we have at RHPS J

Sports’ day 2022

 The weather was perfect for Miss Campbell’s superbly organised Sports’ day on Thursday afternoon. It was wonderful to have the whole school out on the field, joined by so many of you, cheering the children on.

A huge thank you to Miss Campbell for all her hard work and to Mrs Evans, Mr Dearlove, the PHS Senior School helpers and P7a for helping to set up and run the stations.

A fabulous afternoon was had by all!

We will be totalling up the score sheets and sharing the winning Nation next week after we have the competitive races for P3-P7 at Outdoor Fitness next week.

I’ll let you know the result in my final End of Week Check in for this session next Friday.

Reminder – all P6 and P7 1:1 iPads and chargers to be returned on Monday

 We are preparing these iPads for next year’s P5, P6 and P7 so can you please make sure your P6 and P7 child brings their iPad and charger to school on Monday?

They will still use them in school but keep them at school next week instead of taking them home.

Thank you.

P1 team request for resources

 I’ve attached a poster on behalf of the P1 team who are looking for some resources for their classrooms.

If you are having a Summer clear out, we would gladly take things off your hands.

Just drop them off at the office by Friday 1^st of July or from Wednesday the 17^th of August.

Thank you in advance.

Parent Council Summer Fair, today (Friday), 12.15pm – 2.30pm

 After the very successful car boot sale organised by Sara, one of our lovely parents, and supported by the Parent Council, we are having our final community event of this session.

We would love you all to come along and support our school fair to finish the year with that sense of community we are delighted to be able to have again.

Hope to see you there tomorrow!

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We have the P7s’ Qually next Tuesday and then the Leavers’ Assembly on Thursday afternoon as well as most of the children moving into their new classrooms.

It’s going to be a busy but very fun week ahead.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

Take care and speak soon.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn

Head Teacher

The Royal High Primary School

17.06.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

17.06.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good morning, families.

I hope you are well and have managed to enjoy some of the lovely sunshine this week.

We have had a busy and fun filled week at RHPS this week. We ended Health week with an impressive number of children, parents and staff taking part in the Parkrun Takeover on Saturday. In addition to our usual P4 swimming and tennis we have been planting in the newly revamped Growing Area with Heather, one of our parents and her willing parent volunteers, playing rugby with Darren, another one of our parents, and his Portobello Rugby colleagues, our P1 Welcome event, ‘Meet the Teacher’, P4 trip to the zoo, P5 Beach Games, P1/2 and P2 show, Learning Showcases and a choir trip to ‘Our School’s Got Soul’ at the Usher Hall!

And the next two weeks see lots of other exciting events so here is the key information for the coming week.

Parent Council Car Boot Sale, 10am – 1pm, Saturday 18th June, RHPS Upper Playground

Our wonderful parent council have organised this fundraising event for tomorrow.

It would be great if you could come along and show your support as well as picking up a bargain!

Junior Voice Project partnership with SpeakUnique

We met Lynda, another of our parents, this week when she came into our assembly to share about how we can take part in the Junior Voice Project.

The aim is to have as many of our P4-P7 children go onto the SpeakUnique website and record their voice so they can be used to create regional, age appropriate computer voices for children and young people without a voice.

The information on how to do this was sent home on Tuesday and if you have any questions you can contact them by emailing junior@speakunique.co.uk.

We hope lots of children take part so we can support as many children and young people find their voice as possible.

Returning School cups and awards

As we approach the end of the school session after the past couple years of Covid, we are gathering in all the school cups and awards.

If you have any of our cups or awards, we would really appreciate you handing them into the office.

These cups and awards have such great historic value that we’d love to have them back.

Thank you for your help in relocating them.

Welcome to Miss Eve Murray, soon to be Mrs Eve Heatlie

Miss Murray, our new Principal Teacher, came in for her first visit this week and it was lovely to welcome her to our school. She is going to be getting married over the holidays so when she joins us she will be Mrs Heatlie. We wish her all the best for her wedding and look forward to her joining us in August.

Christmas Jumper Swap Donations!

Although we are fast approaching Summer, our thoughts have already turned to the year ahead and plans for events.

It is that time of year when you are putting away all of your winter gear so we thought it was a good opportunity for us to ask you to hand in any Christmas Jumpers for our Christmas Jumper Swap.

We do this to make sure that every child in our school has a jumper to wear for the festive season so if you have any that have been outgrown, we would love to take them off your hands!

More information to follow from Mrs Belfall.

Thank you in advance for any donations you can make.

Plans for our 90th anniversary celebrations!

Our beautiful school turned 90 in 2021 but with all the restrictions that were in place we have decided to hold the celebrations next year.

We are working in partnership with our Parent Council and local community to make it a year of special events and would love to get you involved.

We’ll be in touch after the holidays to share our plan but if you would be interested in finding out how you can get involved please email RHPSparents@gmail.com so we have your contact details.

Thank you.

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I hope you have a lovely weekend and that I see as many of you as possible at the Car Boot Sale tomorrow morning!

Take care and keep in touch.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School

10.06.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

10.06.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good morning, families.

We have reached the end of another week and what a week it has been here at RHPS!

Lots to share so without further ado I’ll get started.

Winning Nation
This week the winning Nation was the Picts!
The current overall winner is the Angles with the Scots second, Picts third and Brits fourth. With just a few weeks left please encourage your children to do their best to earn those Nations’ Stars for demonstrating our school values!

Health Week
We have had a wonderful Health Week, despite our Sports’ day being postponed. There will have been pictures and messages shared on the class TEAMS pages which will give you a taster of the fun learning that has been taking place.
A huge thank you to the members of our parent community who came in to lead sessions in dance and rugby. And to Miss Campbell and Miss Dishington, who lead the hockey and volleyball sessions. The children were really engaged with the CPR training and will hopefully have shared their learning with you around this.

We had a wonderful One Planet Picnic on Tuesday with all of the children sampling sustainable, seasonal, local Scottish produce after learning based around the importance of buying this kind of produce. We had fruit, vegetables, cheese, oatcakes and even homemade butter! Thank you to Miss Stewart for leading the organisation of this event. We will definitely be repeating it next year.

On Thursday we announced the winners of the Cooking competition. Emma, our administrator, has shared some information and photos sent by Mrs Belfall, who lead the organisation of this event, which give a sneak peek into the amazing success that it was. There was wonderful learning around this for the P7s and the catering team judges and they were thoroughly impressed by the imagination and creativity of the recipes.

Mrs Belfall and the P7s created tasting plates for all classes during the One Planet Picnic so everyone could sample these healthier sweet and savoury treats. Safe to say they were quickly munched by all of the children…..and staff!

The runners up were Lily, P7b in third place and Taylor and Lara, P7b, in second place, with Dominic, P3a, the overall winner.
Well done to all of you who took part. Another event which will be happening again next year so get planning!

We have moved Sports’ Day to Thursday 23rd of June from 1.45 – 3.00pm in the Community Field next to the school. Parents and carers are invited and we would love you to come and cheer the children along.
We’ll send out a reminder nearer the time, including the colours for the Nations so your child can choose to wear a t-shirt or top of that colour.

Donation from Baronscourt Surgery for hockey equipment
We were delighted to receive a donation of £250 from Baronscourt Surgery who sent us the money after hearing we were looking for hockey equipment. They wanted to support the initiative which will directly benefit from the school in their practice area.
What a wonderful example of community spirit!

Growing Area – Volunteers needed for planting sessions
Last Thursday, Heather and some of our other parents made a fantastic job of clearing out the planters in the Growing Area. Thank you to everyone who helped out. It already looks transformed.
Heather is coming into school to work with every class and plant up the planters on the 15th and 16th of June.
She has some volunteers but really needs some more.

The following times are available, you can volunteer for as many sessions as you would like, please send an email to rhpsparents@gmail.com
***

Wed 15th June:
P1a – 09.20 – 09.50
P1b – 10.00 – 10.30
P1/2 – 10.50 -11.20
Nursery 11.30 – 12.00
P2b – 14.05 – 14.35
P3a – 14.45 – 15.15

Thursday 16th June:
P5a – 11.10 – 11.40
P5b – 11.45 – 12.15
P6 – 14.45 – 15.15

Thank you in advance!

June Equalities Focus – Pride Month
This month we will be focussing on learning around Pride Month. Please check your child’s class TEAMs page for updates about their learning.

Pupil Gardening Group
The Gardening Group lead by Mrs Bayraktar, continue to do a sterling job in making the front lawn areas beautiful.
They are really keen for children to use the lawn for relaxing and enjoying at break time but are very keen that the flowers and plants are looked after.
They have made a ‘Bark Bridge’ at the corner of each lawn which they would like everyone to use as a crossing point on and off the lawn.
If you are in the front playground, particularly with younger children, could you please show them the ‘Bark Bridges’ and encourage them to use them to keep our plants beautiful?
Thank you.

Communication policy
Just as a reminder that we use ParentPay for all our communications about whole school business and class trips.
For information and updates about your child’s learning and information from class teachers, please check their TEAMs pages regularly.
We will continue to use these channels of communication next session and will send out reminders about checking in. We love to share our learning with you.

Volunteers needed to run pupil groups – Lego, chess, sewing…….
Now we are able to have volunteers back in our school to run clubs, we would love to start up our Lego and Chess clubs again next session.
We are really keen to expand what we offer to the children so if you have another skill or talent for which you’d like to run a wee club, we would love to hear from you.
If you or anyone you know would have the skills and time to come in and run a club either before or after school or at lunchtime, please get in touch through admin@royalhigh-pri.edin.sch.uk

We look forward to hearing from you.
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As I said it has been a very busy but very enjoyable week for all!

We did say farewell to Mrs Arico, one of our wonderful PSAs. She will be sorely missed but we wish her all the best in her new permanent job.

I will be sharing the class teachers for next session on Monday so please make sure you check your emails. The children will be meeting their new teacher on Thursday and are already very excited about having this event to look forward to.

I hope you have a lovely weekend when it comes.

Take care and keep in touch.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School

01.06.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

01.06.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good evening, families.

I hope you are well.

Even though it’s been a short week, lots has been happening at the Royal High Primary School!

P7 Interscholastics Participation and Results

Miss Campbell took a number of our P7s to take part in this citywide event. Our children represented us brilliantly both with their performances and behaviour. Billy made it to the finals of the 600m race, which is really impressive. Heidi was the winner of the 80m race, which is an amazing achievement!

A huge well done to all of the participants – you did us and yourselves proud! ?

Staffing News

At this time of year thoughts begin to turn to staffing for next year.

We will be sharing the staffing for next session with you week beginning the 13th of June, with all children having the opportunity to meet their new teacher on Thursday 16th of June.

End of Session Reports

This year we are able to send out paper copies of reports to families.

These will be in your child’s school bag on Monday 20th of June.

Reminder – Health Week next week

The weather looks good for our Health Week. We have a range of activities planned in school for the children, including volleyball, hockey, dance, rugby and, of course, Sports’ Day on Thursday afternoon.

Children can come into school in their school PE kit every day. This is a red or white t-shirt or polo shirt with black leggings, tracksuit bottoms or shorts. No football strips should be worn.

Please remember if the weather is warm to apply sun cream or send some in your child’s bag as they will be outside for large parts of the day.

For Sports’ Day, the children will be earning points for their Nation at each event. If you have a t-shirt or top in your child’s nation’s colour, please send them in wearing this on Thursday.

The colours are:
Angles – Yellow
Brits – Red
Picts – Green
Scots – Blue

We will announce the winning Nation at the whole school assembly on Friday 10th June and I’ll share this in my End of Week Check In.

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Reminder that the school is on holiday tomorrow and Friday as part of the Jubilee celebrations and we look forward to seeing everyone on Monday ready for a fun week of healthy, outdoor activities!

Take care and keep in touch.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School

27.05.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

27.05.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good morning families.

I hope you are well.

Another wonderful week at RHPS with the return of Parent Council lead events and plans coming together for lots of other school community activities in the coming weeks.

This Week’s Winning Nation

This week’s winning Nation was the Scots. Congratulations to all of them!

P7 Cross Country Competition

 I had the privilege of taking 7 of our P7 pupils to a cross country event at the start of the week. It was a city-wide competition and all of the children participated brilliantly.

Whilst we didn’t have any top ten placed runners, all of the children tried their absolute best and were excellent representatives for our school.

Well done to all of them who did so well and made me proud to be their Head Teacher.

P7 Football Team – Inspector’s Cup

 Our P7 Football Team had their semi-final match this Wednesday and, although they all played the best that they could, unfortunately they didn’t make it through to the finals.

We are so proud that they made it so far in the competition and thank the coaches for all their hard work in helping them get there.

All the team can be very proud of their efforts and take comfort from the excellent feedback they received from the organisers.

Links to photographs sent out

 Emma has sent out the links to the photographs to all families, so you can now order online.

If you have any questions, please contact us at the school office.

 Parent Council Disco

 Last night’s discos were a fantastic success!

Thank you so much to all of the parent helpers and to the Parent Council for all of their hard work in organising them.

There was a huge turnout and all of the children had a wonderful time.

Thank you to all of the staff who came along to support the event and to Bryan the DJ, who made sure the children had a brilliant time.

And the biggest thank you goes to all of the children for behaving beautifully, dancing their socks off and having so much fun. You all made the adults extremely proud and we can’t wait till the next event when we can all get together.

Jubilee holiday – Thursday 1^st and Friday 2^nd of June

Just a reminder that next Thursday and Friday are holidays. I hope you enjoy the long weekend to come and we look forward to seeing the children back on the Monday 6^th.

Before then we have a short but busy week and I will send a short update on Wednesday before we break for the holiday.

I hope you have a good day today and a lovely weekend.

Take care and speak soon.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn

Head Teacher

The Royal High Primary School

20.05.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

20.05.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good morning families.

I hope you are well and have had a good week.

Lots to share with you today.

 Winning Nation wb 16^th May

This week’s winning Nation is……………………the Angles!

Well done to them ?

They had their 10 minutes reward time after the Outdoor Fitness Session and really enjoyed their time in the sun!

 Inspector’s Cup – P7 Football Team

The team played their match on Wednesday and I am delighted to say they are through to the semi-finals!

I’ll keep you updated with how they get on in their next match.

 School Board’s Cup – P6 Football Team

The team played their match this week and, despite playing really well, they did not get through to the next round.

Well done to them for their efforts.

 One Planet Picnic, 7^th June

This is going to be an in school event just for the children and the staff. Each class will be exploring Scottish produce with a focus on sustainability and seasonality, coming together on the afternoon of the 7^th of June to enjoy the fruits of their labour.

We are asking for an optional donation so the ingredients for this project can be bought. If you would like to donate please send money in with your child by Wednesday 1^st June 2022.

Look out for photos on class TEAMs’ pages.

 RHPS Cooking Competition

Our P7 Charities and Equalities Groups have organised a Cooking Competition, open to all of the school community.

The focus will be in line with the newly updated Guidelines for Nutrition and Food in Schools and on producing healthy products and enjoying the process of cooking and baking.

There are three categories:

• Lucky Dip – where children pick a fruit or vegetable and have to use this in their product
• Low or No Sugar Bake
• Adult category

Entries are to be in for the 7^th of June.

I have attached the children’s presentation with all of the details. Entry forms will be sent out soon!

 ‘No Snacks in Packs’ policy

Thank you to all of you who support our policy on the children having no snacks in packs.

So many of our children enjoy healthy snacks, ranging from fruit to vegetable sticks to popcorn, oatcakes, rice cakes and crackers.

As some of you are new to the school I thought it important to let you know about this policy and how proud we are of promoting this in school.

It is in line with the recently updated Nutrition and Food in Schools Guidelines so it is key that we make sure all children enjoy their ‘no snack in packs’.

Please remember that we are a ‘no nuts’ school due to some children having severe nut allergies.

Mobile phones in school

As we are all settled back into school, I thought it was timely to clarify the policy on mobile phones in school.

Many of our older children bring their phones into school. These are collected in the morning and kept securely in the office for the course of the day, collected just before home time.

Phones are brought in at the owner’s own risk and the school are not liable for any accidental damage caused.

This applies to children and staff.

Please make sure that your child’s phone is covered on your personal insurance.

Parent Council School Disco, 26^th May

You will have received the information about these discos in an email yesterday.

P1-P3 have their disco from 6 – 7pm.

P4 – P7 have their disco from 7.15 – 8.15pm.

We are looking for volunteers to help supervise and tidy up so please let Emma in the office know if you are able to come along.

Thank you.

Parent Council Fundraising Car Boot Sale

Just to give you advanced warning the Parent Council are organising a car boot sale in the playground towards the end of June, date to be confirmed.

The idea centres around supporting families, and they are looking for pre-loved items with an ecological, sustainable focus.

Pitches will be £15 and can be booked soon – folk can share a boot if they haven’t got enough stuff

The Parent Council wanted to give you notice so you can start collecting stuff for it.

Thank you to the Parent Council for organising this. They will be in touch with more details in the coming weeks.

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As ever, if you have any questions around anything in this update, please contact us by either phoning, 669 3200, or emailing, admin@royalhigh-pri.edin.sch.uk.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Take care and speak soon.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn

Head Teacher

The Royal High Primary School

13.05.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

13.05.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good morning families.

I hope you are well and have had a good week.

Lots of exciting plans to share with you this week.

Winning Nation Weekly update

In school we announce weekly who the winning nation is at the end of the Outdoor Fitness Sessions on Thursdays.

We keep a running total which will determine who is the winning Nation for the year and wins the Nations’ Cup.

I felt it was important for me to keep you informed so you can encourage the children to earn Nations’ stars for showing our school values.

This week the winning Nation was……..ANGLES!

Well done to them!

P7 Football team – Inspector’s Cup

I am delighted to share that our P7 team have made it to the next round of the Inspector’s Cup, a citywide football competition. They have their next match on the 18^th of May and I know you will join me in wishing them the best of luck.

I’ll let you know next week how they got on.

Building Resilience -Respect Yourself

For the month of May we will be focussing on our final Building Resilience Unit for this session.

In line with our wider Equalities focus of Respect and matching our ‘Respect All’ value, this unit is ‘Respect Yourself’.

Teachers will share information and the home learning task on the class TEAMS pages.

Vandalism – broken windows

Unfortunately we had more windows broken last weekend. Mr Wall, our business manager, is working closely with Anna Morrison, our community Police Officer, to identify those responsible.

Thank you to those of you who continue to report to the police any young people in our school grounds out of school hours.

We are determined to stop this happens and really appreciate your support in achieving this.

Schools’ Recycling Roll Out

Across the city all schools are being provided with improved recycling facilities.

I am meeting with the Eco Crew today to agree how they are going to promote and manage this.

They will keep you posted with their ideas.

Health Week, week beginning 6^th of June

This week we are delighted that we can celebrate our Health Week.

Mrs Evans and Miss Campbell are working with Paddy Dearlove of Active Schools to plan a jam-packed activity week for the children.

All of the activities will take place in school and will be free to all, in line with our inclusion policy.

The children will take part in lots of different sessions such as hockey, rugby, netball, tennis, yoga, CPR training from Save A Life Scotland, aerobics,  and a really special treat on Wednesday.

We’re also having our One Planet picnic on Tuesday 7^th of June which you are invited to join. We’ll send out details nearer the time.

To finish the week Laura, our fabulous parent who oversees the Running Club, has organised a Park Run take over for Saturday 11^th of June at 9.30am in Figgate Park. We are looking for parents and carers as both participants and volunteers and will send out information about how you can take part.

We are so looking forward to this week and will keep you posted with updates.

Key Dates for your diaries

26^th May                      Disco – Organised by the Parent council

                                    6.00 – 7.00pm Primary 1 and 2 children

                                    7.15 – 8.15pm Primary 4 to Primary 7 children

                                    Details coming soon!

Week of 6^th June         Health Week – children to wear sports’ gear all week

7^th June                        One Planet Picnic

9^th June                        Whole School Sports’ Day (2.00 – 3.00pm – families invited)

11^th June                      RHPS Park Run Take Over, Figgate Park 9.30am

17^th June                      Dress Down Day – optional donation for Save A Life

Scotland

23rd June                     P7 ‘Qually’ (evening)

30^th June                      P7 Leavers’ Assembly (parents and carers invited – more

details to follow)

As you can see we have lots of exciting things planned as a whole school.

You will also be invited by your child’s teacher to come into school and some classes are heading out on trips. The details for all of this will be on the class TEAMS’ pages.

 We are very excited about this return to what feels so much more like normal school life and are delighted you can be part of it too.

I hope you have a lovely weekend and look forward to seeing you next week.

Take care and speak soon.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn

Head Teacher

The Royal High Primary School

06.05.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

06.05.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Good morning families.

I hope you are well, enjoyed the long weekend and had a good week albeit a short one.

To match the short week, this check in will be brief.

It’s been lovely to be back at Abercorn for the first block of our tennis sessions. A huge thank you to the Parent Council for funding this. We have had great feedback from children, staff and the coach alike.

A reminder that school photos will be taken next week on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. 

As we are in a new month, we have a new equalities focus. For the month of May we will be focusing on our value of ‘Respect All’. Keep an eye out for linked learning through the class TEAMS pages.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend.

Take care and speak soon.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn

Head Teacher

The Royal High Primary School

29.04.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

29.04.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families – Key Dates for Calendars; New Nursery staff; Reminder re holiday Monday and Tuesday

Good morning families.

I hope you had a wonderful break over the holidays.

It has been a busy first week back for us here at school, and it has been really exciting having our first whole school assembly in over 2 years, complete with singing and audience participation. What a great feeling that was!

We are now planning more events, some of which involved you being invited in to the school after all this time, some of you for the first time.

Key Dates for Calendars

Here are a couple of key dates for your calendars:

• Tuesday 10^th – Thursday 12^th May – School photographs – individual, sibling and class – timetable to follow next week
• Week beginning 6^th of June – Health Week – Children will be invited to come into school in their PE kit

(Please remember no branded items and trainers suitable for using outdoors, possibly in the field)

• Tuesday 7^th of June, afternoon – Whole School One Planet Picnic (pupils only)
• Thursday 9^th of June, 1.45pm – 3.00pm – Sports’ Day – parents and carers invited to come along

All classes will be organising a time for you to come in for a visit at some point this term and teachers will be in touch with more information about the date and time for this.

More details will be coming soon but I wanted to make sure you had plenty of notice.

Welcoming new staff to the RHPS team

We are delighted to welcome the following new staff:

• Jodi Little and Lesley Hood, both Early Years Assistants, who joined our Nursery Team
• Nicola Robertson, Early Years Practitioner focussing on Transition to P1 and development of play. Nicola will be spending her time as part of the Nursery team before support the transition of the children into Primary 1.
• Mehreen Parvez will join the team from next week as our Early Years Domestic support
• Amanda McCune will be joining us as a Pupil Support Assistant

REMINDER – HOLIDAY MONDAY, 2^nd, AND TUESDAY, 3^rd, MAY

Please remember that Monday and Tuesday of next week are holidays for the children.

The children will come back to school on Wednesday 4^th May.

***************

I hope you have a lovely long weekend and look forward to seeing the children back at school on Wednesday.

Take care, keep well and stay in touch.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn

Head Teacher

The Royal High Primary School

08.04.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

08.04.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check in – Changes to Covid Infection Control Restrictions; Thank you and farewell to Karyn Porteous, EYP; Reminder re no parking on yellow zig-zag line and considerate parking in nearby streets; Playground Development Plans; We need you! Playground Equipment Boxes Planning Group; Dates for Photographs – 10^th, 11^th and 12^th of May

Good morning families.

I hope you are well and looking forward to the Easter holidays.

We have had a lovely last week of term starting to enjoy the relaxing of the infection control mitigations in school.

Changes to Covid Infection Control Restrictions

With regards to the changes to restrictions, here is a summary of how it affects us at the Royal High Primary School.

The key priorities are:

• Hand hygiene
• Ventilation in and around the building
• Face coverings worn in communal areas
• Encourage adult:adult physical distancing of 1 metre
• One-way systems removed
• No Warn and Inform letters will be sent
• No testing requirement unless symptomatic
• All absences reported by calling the office
• We will be able to have gatherings and assemblies.
• No requirement to wear face coverings for drop off and pick up as you are outside.

We would encourage you to take a cautious approach, in line with Council advice, as cases are still at a high level in the wider community.

Parents and carers are now able to come into school and we are very excited about being able to welcome you back into the school!

We will be in touch soon with details and dates for the usual Summer term events.

Thank you and farewell to Karyn Porteous, EYP

Today is Karyn’s last day as part of our Nursery Team. She is a valuable member of the team who is loved by children, families and staff alike. She will be sorely missed but we are excited for her as she starts this next chapter in her career.

I know you will join in me in wishing her all the best.

Reminder re no parking on yellow zig-zag line and considerate parking in nearby streets

Just as a reminder to those who drive to drop off and pick up, please park considerately and legally.

There are still a number of people parking on the yellow lines outside school which, as you know, is highly dangerous for our children and families.

Please be considerate for our residential neighbours, particularly on Mountcastle Green, Mountcastle Place and South Elixir, by not parking on the double yellow lines.

If you do have any concerns about parking related issues, please contact us at the school.

Thank you.

Playground Development Plans

Following on from the huge success by our wonderful Parent Council in the 10 Villages Grant application, we have been able to purchase a wide range of items for the quad and the playground.

We have:

• 2 colourful buddy benches
• A large water butt
• 4 large, wooden, raised outdoor planters
• A large amount of compost
• An outdoor wooden arch shelter
• 2 playground murals – 1 for the infant playground and 1 for the upper playground

Our wonderful Pupil Gardening Group will be working with the Parent Council to plan where these items are going to go and the design for the murals.

We will be sure to keep you updated with progress.

We need you! Playground Equipment Boxes Planning Group

Next term we are going to work with the Pupil Councillors to discuss the creation of playground equipment boxes for areas and/ or year groups.

We will have a Football Day Rota for all classes with each having one lunchtime a week they play football.

We are going to come up with ideas for the resources for each Playground Equipment Box to make sure that everyone has something they can play with but that will last; an inclusive, equitable, sustainable approach.

We are looking for parents and carers to join us with this mini-project.

If you are interested, please either phone or email the school and give your name by the 6^th of May.

Thank you.

Dates for Photographs – 10^th, 11^th and 12^th of May

I am delighted to share that we have booked Susan from Clear Photography, to take our photographs this year.

Susan will be taking individual, sibling and class photographs, which you will be able to view and order online.

We will send out more details after the Easter break but wanted you to have the dates for your diary.

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And with that, it is time for me to sign off before the holidays. I hope you all have a wonderful break with lots of memories created and fun times had.

We look forward to seeing the children back on Monday 25^th of April for the last term of this session and all the excitement that brings!

Take care, keep well and speak soon.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn

Head Teacher

The Royal High Primary School

01.04.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

01.04.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check in – Parent Consultations, Ramadan, Primary 5 – Primary 7 Health and Wellbeing census, Changes to Infection Control Guidance from after the Easter holidays, Staffing update

Good morning families.

I hope you are well and have had a good week.

I am delighted to be back at school today after my period of absence.

I wanted to start by thanking Mrs Evans for leading the school so superbly during my absence and to the whole staff team for pulling together through all the challenges Covid continues to present us with.

Thank you for your continued support and understanding as we navigate through this.

Parent Consultations

Thank you to all of the teachers for carrying out the parent consultations this week. We have had really positive feedback about them for which we thank you.

Ramadan

Many of our families will be beginning Ramadan this weekend. We are keen to support our children who are taking part in Ramadan and have invited families to get in touch to let us know what we can do as a school.

We are looking forward to Eid al-Fitr around the beginning of May and will mark that as a school. We will work with our children to come up with ideas of how we can celebrate. We’ll share details of our plans nearer the time.

Primary 5 – Primary 7 Health and Wellbeing census

Information about this survey has been shared with our Primary 5 to Primary 7 families. The children will be undertaking the survey next week as part of a nation wide study.

If parents or carers have any questions around this, they are to contact the school through the usual channels.

Changes to Infection Control Guidance from after the Easter holidays

As you will be aware there have been some significant changes announced around the guidelines from Scottish Government. These changes will have an impact on the day to day routines in school.

Our Health and Safety Committee are meeting next week to discuss these changes and we will share information next week as to what these changes will look like at our school.

Staffing update

Miss Sarah Elam, PSA, had her last day with us yesterday as she moves to Prestonfield Primary to take up a permanent post. We thank her for her work with us.

In our Nursery team, we bid a fond farewell to Karyn Porteous, EYP, as she moves to Towerbank Primary, to focus on developing play pedagogy and transition.

We wish them both well in their new ventures.

Miss Maria Fay, EYP, joined the Nursery team earlier in March and has proved to be a real asset, forming positive relationships with children, families and staff alike.

We are entering a key period in recruitment in the weeks after the Easter holidays and I will keep you updated with any news around this.

We are looking forward to the final week of term next week before the Easter holidays, with term finishing on Friday 8th of March at the usual finishing time.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend ahead and manage to enjoy some of the forecast sunshine.

Take care and keep in touch.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School

18.03.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

18.03.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check in – P7 Residential thank you; Parent Consultations; Support for Ukraine; Parent Council Funding news; Respect – April Equalities focus

Good afternoon all on this beautiful sunny morning.

I hope you have all had a good week, despite the challenges Covid continues to bring.

It has been a busy week again particularly due to the impact of staff absences due to self-isolating. However the team have pulled together and supported each other to ensure that the children continue to have high quality learning experiences and receive the support they need. I just wanted to share this with you and thank the staff for their incredible efforts this week. It has been a real team effort and I am so grateful to everyone for their hard work and dedication to the children.

P7 Residential – Lagganlia

The children had a wonderful week at Lagganlia last week, full of adventures, new experiences and fun. They were exemplary in their behaviour and superb ambassadors for the Royal High Primary School. The Centre staff were so positive in their feedback from the experience and I, along with Miss Campbell and Mrs Belfall are so proud of how well they fully engaged and enjoyed their experience.

Thank you to Miss Campbell, Mrs Belfall and Mrs Bayraktar for support them in this experience, from the behind the scenes planning to going away for the week and ensuring the children had such a wonderful time.

We are all booked up for next March and are already very excited about planning for next year’s Primary 7 children’s residential experience.

Parent Consultations – sign up sheets on class TEAMS pages
Thank you to those of you who have already signed up for your parent consultation. The appointments are happening week beginning the 28th of March.

If you haven’t signed up yet, please do this as soon as possible on the appointment sheets on your child’s class TEAMs page. If you do not sign up you will be allocated one of the available time slots.

If you are having any issues accessing the sign up sheet, please contact your child’s teacher through the TEAMs page or contact us by phoning the office or email the admin account, admin@royalhigh-pri.edin.sch.uk.

Thank you.

Support for Ukraine

Thank you for all of your donations so far. Mrs Grant and Miss Sandeman were able to take a car load of donations to our chosen charity and I have added some photos to Twitter.

We are still accepting donations so please continue to drop them off at school.

You also have the option to donate to Unicef through the details Mrs Grant shared last week.

Thank you for your support as we do our best to show our support for those affected by the crisis in Ukraine.

Thank you to Miss Colbert and Mr Fletcher, students on placement

Miss Colbert and Mr Fletcher are finishing their student placement with us today. Miss Colbert has been teaching in P5b and Mr Fletcher in P4b. They have had very successful placements and been well supported by Mrs Justice, Mrs McCurry and Mrs Grant. We have thoroughly enjoyed having them as part of the Royal High Primary Team and wish them all the best for the rest of their studies and future as class teachers.

Parent Council – 10 villages Grant Fund success

Our wonderful Parent Council, ably lead by the chair, Phil Dickson, have been successful in being granted funds.

Thank you to all of the Parent council members involved for all of their hard work.

Mrs Evans and I will be meeting with Phil soon to discuss what we are going to be using the funds for and will share the information following this.

Great to have some positive news to share and we are excited by what this will enable us to do.

April Equalities focus – Respect, linked to our value of Respect for All

Looking ahead our equalities focus next month will be on Respect linked to our value of Respect for All.

Our P7 Pupil Charities committee have chosen to focus on World Autism Day and will be in touch with how they are going to celebrate this.

We will keep you updated with the learning that takes place around this.

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I hope you all have lovely weekend.

Take care and keep in touch.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School

04.03.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

04.03.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check in – P7 Sponsored Run; Ukraine Support; Update on vandalism; World Book Day 2022; P7 Residential next week

Good morning families.

I hope you are well.

We have had another busy week this week, enjoying the P7 Sponsored Run, our first whole school event since March 2020, which was fantastic.

P7 Sponsored Run Update

A huge thank you to everyone who supported this event and bought a raffle ticket. The children manage to raise an incredible £942.70!

This will pay for the Drum Fun evening activity whilst we are away at camp and the children will decide what to use the rest of the monies raised for when we are back from camp.

It was great to be out on the field as a whole school, with the P1-P6 children and staff cheering the children and staff on. Inaaya started the run off with a blow on a vuvuzela. Water balloons were thrown by the raffle winners. Fancy dress was worn and every single P7 complete the 10-lap challenge.

Thank you to Mrs Belfall and Miss Campbell for organising this with the children. Memories were made that day!

Ukraine Support

Thank you to all of you who have already donated to our Ukraine Support campaign. In these times of humanitarian crisis it is wonderful how well we pull together as a school community.

We will keep you updated with our future plans to support the people of Ukraine in the coming weeks.

Thank you again.

Update on vandalism

I am delighted to report that we have had no further incidents of vandalism in the past two weeks.

Thank you for your support in reporting anyone hanging around in the playground after hours. Our combined effort supported by the community policy and Facilities Management team seem to have had the desired effect.

Long may that continue!

World Book Day 2022

We had a great day yesterday taking part in the World Book Day Activities that our pupil councillors organised. Thank you them for their work with those.

We are looking forward to our ‘Cosy Up and Read’ morning today, in the comfort of our pyjamas and onesies.

I hope the children enjoy buying a book with their National Book Day token.

It is great to be able to celebrate the importance and joy of reading as a school community.

P7 Residential Camp to Lagganlia

We are very excited about the P7s heading off to camp on Monday. Accompanying them will be Mrs Belfall, Miss Campbell, Mrs Bayraktar and me. Mrs Evans will be the Senior Leadership Team contact for the week in school.

We’ll be sure to share our experiences on our return!

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I hope you all have a good day today and a lovely weekend.

Take care and keep in touch.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School

25.02.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families – News about Miss Stewart; Changes to Guidelines; World Book Day 2022 (3rd of March)

Good morning families.

I hope you are well and have had a good week.

Happy news about Miss Stewart
I would like to start this week’s update with some lovely news that Miss Hayley Stewart, our P1a teacher, is expecting a baby. Miss Stewart will be continuing to teach her class up until the end of term . We are all delighted for her and it’s wonderful to have such a positive piece of news to share with you.

Changes to Covid Risk Management guidelines

As you will be aware there have been a few changes to the guidelines announced by the Scottish Government. The impact on school is not that wide reaching but they will build as we go through the coming weeks.

The immediate change is that the bubbles no longer exist in schools so children can mix. This will mean they will mix in the dining hall and in the playground.

We still have to continue with the other mitigations – adult:adult and child:adult physical distancing; wearing face coverings in the school grounds unless medically exempt; hand hygiene, one way system and ventilation.

There is a meeting of the Senior Managers and Risk Management Team happening today and I will share any updates with you next week as they come out.

World Book Day 2022

This year sees World Book Day taking place on Thursday 3rd of March.

Our P7 Pupil Councillors are taking the lead in organising this event and I wanted to share their plans with you.

For Thursday, they have organised a number of events for the children to take part in.

On Monday, they will be sharing information about their Picture Book/ Comic design competition. They are looking for children to create a Picture Book or Comic, either inspired by their favourite book or entirely their own creation. It’s a fantastic opportunity for all our budding authors. More information to come next week with regards to the timeline for this.

On Thursday, they will be sharing a Reading quiz, Timed Tongue Twister challenge, and a number of other reading related fun activities.

On Friday, they have planned a ‘Cosy Up and Read’ event. They would like all children to come into school with a book, which they will carry around with them for the morning, and something cosy. Children can wear their pyjamas, a onesie, bring a blanket or bring a soft toy.

Throughout the day, we will be having a ‘Book Bell’. One of the P7s will ring a hand bell at various times throughout the morning at which point everyone will stop what they are doing, wherever they are around the school and read their book for 5 minutes.

It should be really good fun as well as promoting the joy of reading.

I’ll make sure that we take photos to share on Twitter and I know teachers will share some images on the class TEAMs’ pages.

Lovely to have this to look forward to next week.

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I hope you all have a lovely weekend and I look forward to seeing you next week.

Take care and stay in touch.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School

11.02.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families – Farewell to Miss Le Tissier; Covid support thank you; Book Station; Active Schools; Reminders re restrictions and health snacks; RSHP; Empowered Learning; P7 Sponsored Run

Good morning families.

I hope you have had a good week and are looking forward to the February break.

It’s been another busy week at the Royal High Primary School, with lots of great learning experiences for the children across the curriculum.

We had a really good Parent Council meeting on Wednesday night and I have attached a copy of my update for families.

Farewell to Miss Le Tissier

I’d like to start by wishing Miss Le Tissier all the best as she leaves us to day to take up her new post as Depute Head Teacher at Currie Primary. We have loved having her as part of our team and she will be missed. However, we are excited for her as she takes on this new role and know she will be a real asset to the Currie Primary School team.

Thank you for your support during Covid restrictions

I wanted to thank you for your continued support as we work our way through these continued mitigations. It has made such a difference with everyone keeping to the restrictions we have in place and I wanted to acknowledge your efforts in helping us.

Book Station

Our Book Station continues to be a real success and very popular. Thank you for all of your donations and remember we are still happy to receive any books that you no longer need.

On that note, please look out for the World Book Day Token in your child’s bag today.

Active Schools Update

We have been working hard with Laura, one of our wonderful parents, and Paddy Dearlove, Active Schools Coordinator, to build up the clubs we can offer through the new City of Edinburgh Council Active School’s model.

Currently running we have:

• P5 Hockey club with Miss Dishington
• Basketball club with sourced coach
• P4 Drama club with Miss Wallace

Starting after the holidays we have:

• P5-P7 Running Club with Laura
• P2-P3 Dance Club

We are continuing to build on this model and will be in touch looking for more information about the clubs that the children would like to see and for parent volunteers.

Reminders about restrictions

Just a reminder as we go into the next part of the term, that children should not bring in toys or items from home. This is part of our infection control.

Reminder re Healthy snacks and only water in water bottles

I wanted to remind all families of our ‘No Snacks in Packs’ policy.

Children should bring healthy snacks in for break. These are things like:

• Fruit
• Vegetable sticks
• Oat cakes
• Rice cakes
• Crackers

Children should not bring:

• Crisps
• Chocolate
• Biscuits
• Sweeties

Water bottles should just contain water.

Water bottles should not contain juice, due to the high sugar content.

We have drinking water in all classrooms for children to fill up their water bottles throughout the day.

This is part of our healthy eating policy that we are very proud of and thank you for your support.

Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenthood programme

Miss Sandeman lead our Parent Information event last night and thank you to those of you who attended. It was a really informative night and greatly appreciated by those who came along.

I have attached the presentation for your information and children will start their learning after the holidays.

Please contact us if you have any questions about the programme.

Empowered Learning update

Our P6 and P7 children will be receiving their 1:1 iPads after the February break and we will keep you posted with updates about the roll out.

P7 Sponsored Run, 23rd February – Raffle tickets still for sale

Ahead of this great fundraising event, I wanted to remind you that the children are still selling tickets for this event.

They cost £1 and you can send your children in with the money to purchase a ticket.

Thank you to those of you who have already bought a ticket and supported this event.

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I’d like to finish by wishing you a lovely, restful break over the February holiday.

Please take care, and keep well.

We look forward to seeing you on the 21st.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School

04.02.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families – No vandalism to report; Pick up by another adult; Reminder re masks and social distancing; Mr Scott absent; P7 Sponsored Run; Empowered Learning update (p6 and P7)

Good morning families.

I hope you are well and have had a good week.

Update re tackling recent vandalism

I am delighted to report that we had no vandalism last weekend or through this week. Thank you for all of your support in tackling this issue together.

We continue to work closely with PC Anna Morrison, Community Policing Team, to try to identify those involved.

We have had site visits from Security and Property Management to take forward our increased security and lighting.

If you do see anyone in our grounds after hours or over the weekend, please continue to report this to the police as each incident is logged and added to the record.

All is looking positive and we hope for another weekend free from damage.

Updated Guidance from the Scottish Government

Earlier this week Nicola Sturgeon announced some relaxing of restrictions for the wider community.

The restrictions and mitigations we have in school remain largely unaffected by these updates.

Children are no longer required to remain in bubbles but, due to the number of cases rising in our school community, we are going to continue to keep the children in their year groups and the Buddy Bubbles for P1 and P7.

We continue with our hand hygiene, one way system and adults maintaining a 2-metre distance from each other. Adults will wear masks whilst in the school building and the school grounds, unless they are a member of our P1 and P2 team who have slightly different guidance around face coverings.

Any adults in the school grounds must still wear a face covering unless medically exempt.

All adults in the school grounds must keep 2-metres from other adults from a different household.

As I said cases are still on the rise and we are determined to keep everyone as safe as we can by continuing to work together.

If you have any questions around this, please contact us in the usual way. Thank you.

Reminder re procedure if another adult is picking up your child

Just to clarify, if your child is being picked up by another adult, you must call the office to inform us.

We will not let a child go with another adult unless we have spoken to the child’s parent and permission has been given by them.

Thank you.

Information re Darren Scott, Janitor’s absence

I am aware that I haven’t let you know that our janitor, Darren Scott, has been absent for a couple of weeks now. I wanted to reassure you that he is doing fine and I will keep you updated.

Arek has been working in school as our supply janitor and has been doing a fantastic job in Darren’s absence.

P7 Fundraiser for Evening Camp Activity

I wanted to let you know that our wonderful Primary 7 children are hard at work preparing for their residential camp in Lagganlia. They leave on the 7th of March and are busily preparing for this exciting experience.

There are lots of activities throughout the day and we have the opportunity to have a drumming workshop on one of the evenings.

The children are really excited about this and have organised a sponsored Fun Run in Figgate Park to raise money to pay for this.

They are selling raffle tickets for £1 and would love your support.

Information coming soon!

Empowered Learning update – Primary 6 and Primary 7 1:1 iPads

We have continued to get ourselves ready for the roll out of the Empowered Learning programme for our Primary 6s and Primary 7s.

Our deployment is happening the first week back and we will be in touch with the P6 and P7 families with the Code of Conduct contracts as well as the information about purpose and expectations for the use of the iPads for learning.

We are going to make sure we take our time with this roll out as it is key everyone in P6 and P7 has a clear understanding about the Empowered Learning programme.

We’ll be in touch soon after the deployment.

Exciting times!

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And on that positive note, I would like to wish you all a lovely weekend.

As ever, please take care, keep safe and stay in touch.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School

28.01.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families

Scots’ Week; Equalities Update; Vandalism update; Nations update

Good morning families.

I hope you are well and have had a good week.

National Holocaust Remembrance Day

Yesterday and today see us remember all of those effected by these horrific events. Children spent time learning about the impact of them , what lessons can be learnt and appreciating how fortunate we are to be part of a loving, accepting, respectful community.

Vandalism update

All of our school and wider community have been working together to tackle the recent episodes of vandalism we have suffered.

Our local Crime Prevention officer, Anna Morrison, has been working closely with John Wall, our Business Manager, to tackle the issues and look for solutions.

We are currently applying for funding for the increased security measures of CCTV and lighting, which will make such a difference.

John is working with Senior Managers from Facilities Management and Property to ensure actions are taking place as a matter of urgency. This includes the replacing of the glass in the broken windows so we can return our school to its former glory.

Our local high school, Portobello High School, is working in partnership with us to raise the issue with their pupils in an effort to create a community drive to stop further incidents.

I am working with our Pupil Councillors to create a local campaign as well as writing an article for the local magazines to promote their work in tackling the vandalism. I’ll keep you updated with our progress with this.

Thank you to all of you for your support and your continued efforts to report seeing any young people in the playground after school and over the weekend.

Together we will make a difference.

Scots’ Week

This week the children have been having great fun celebrating Robert Burns and all things Scottish. We are having a virtual sharing assembly today so we can all learn about what has been happening across the school.

There has been singing, dancing, poetry, writing, and art and design, bringing real joy around our wonderful Nation and some of its history. Great to have such positivity around the school.

Equalities update and February Equalities Focus – LGBTQ+ History Month

This month we will be focussing on celebrating and learning about Pride Month.

Mrs Grant is working with our Antibullying Ambassadors, who have set up an Antibullying stop in the Upper Playground. They base themselves at the benches and wear bright tabards so children know where to find them if they need them.

Our Equalities crew are working on setting up their Uniform Swap Shop with all of the unnamed and unclaimed lost property can be offered to our families. They’ll keep you posted with updates about how this is going to work.

Nations Stars and Winning Nations

As you know all of our children are the proud member of either the Angles, Brits, Picts or Scots nations. The children work to earn Nations’ stars through the week for upholding our school values, aiming to be the Nation who lifts the Winning Nations’ Cup at the end of the session.

We have been discussing how we make sure we promote the earning of Nations Stars, linked to our Values, and celebrate the winning Nation, during these times of restrictions when we can’t all be together.

Children earn the stars during the week and, this week, we have started to announce the winning nation at the start of the Outdoor Fitness Session, with a flag parade. The P7 Nations Captains come out of the front door with a Nations flag in reverse order, with the winning Nation’s flag coming out last, to great applause! It is such a fun way to share with the children and they had great fun greeting their Nation’s flag as it came out the front door!

We want to share the success of the Nations with you too so each week I will let you know who has won.

This week the winning Nation is…………………………….the Picts!

Congratulations to all of our Picts.

From next week, I’ll share the running total so you are kept up to date with who is in the lead for the race to become the wining Nation for 2021-22.

I am working with the classes and the Nations Captains to come up with class challenges so we can continue to build on promoting the importance of our Values and taking pride in being part of a Nation.

I’ll share details about them as they are decided.

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Life continues to have its challenges for us in school but we are all making a concerted effort to make sure this doesn’t stop us learning, being creative, creating a community spirit and connecting with each other and you.

Thank you for your continued support during these times. It is really appreciated by the children and staff alike.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend.

Take care, keep in touch and speak soon.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn

Head Teacher

The Royal High Primary School

 21.01.2022 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families 

Empowered Learning; National Health & Well-being Census; Vandalism Update; Youth Music Initiative 

Good morning families. 

I hope you are well and have had a good week. 

It’s been another busy week at the Royal High Primary, particularly with our focus on ‘See, Share, Stop’, our anti-bullying approach. I hope you have been able to see the work that has been happening through the class TEAMs pages. This is something that we are going to continue focussing on and will keep you updated with all of the progress we are making in ensuring we are an anti-bullying school. 

Empowered Learning Roll Out 

I wanted to give you some information about the very exciting Empowered Learning programme which is being rolled out across schools in Edinburgh. 

The Empowered Learning programme will give every school pupil from P6 to S6 in Edinburgh their own digital device as part of our ambitious and inclusive education strategy, Edinburgh Learns for Life. 

We are fortunate to be one of the first schools to have this rolled out and we will be receiving our 1:1 devices for our Primary 6 and 7 pupils at the start of February. 

There is a lot to do in preparation for and the logistics involved in the roll out. Miss Sandeman, Mr Wall and myself will be working with the Primary 6 and 7 staff and pupils to make sure we have a smooth and positive roll out. 

We will keep you updated with progress over the coming weeks. 

for more information please follow this link to the Digital Learning Team – https://digitaleducationteam.com/empowered-learning/

National Health and Wellbeing Census 

All Primary 5 to S3 pupils are being asked to take part in a national Health and Wellbeing Survey. this is to gather information from the children about what they do and how they feel about their life. They will complete a short online questionnaire during class time. 

The questions will be about school, family, things they do, how they feel, their friendships and a range of other things. 

The City of Edinburgh Council will collect answers and look at them, so they can understand what children from Primary 5 to S3 think and do. 

The survey will be completed anonymously, and all answers will be confidential. 

We are planning to complete this survey before the Easter holidays and will be sending out information to the families of Primary 5 to Primary 7 children nearer the time. 

There is more information on the following links: 

www.edinburgh.gov.uk/healthandwellbeingcensus 

www.gov.scot/publications/health-and-wellbeing-census-2 

Vandalism update 

Thank you to all of you who have taken the time to contact us about the broken windows and for your words of support. 

We really appreciate you reporting any incidents to the police by calling 101. 

We have been working closely with both Facilities Management and the Community Police to tackle this issue, which, sadly, is rife in the local community just now. 

We are hoping to have the windows repaired in the coming week. 

I am going to be working with some of our Primary 7 pupil groups to raise awareness of the issue in the local community and encouraging local residents to help us stop any more incidents. 

Youth Music Initiative 

We are really looking forward to being joined by a music tutor in our P1, P2, P4 and P5 classes from next week. 

P1 will be enjoying the ‘Magic of Music’. Primary 2 will be exploring ‘Scots’ Song’ and Primaries 4 and 5 will be learning to play the ukulele through ‘Sounds like Music’. I have attached a document with more information and am sure you will receive updates through the class TEAMs pages. 

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I hope you all have a lovely weekend and look forward to being in touch next week. 

Take care and keep in touch. 

Anna 

Anna Hazel-Dunn 

Head Teacher 

The Royal High Primary School 

14.01.2021 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check in for Families 

Parking; Clarification re non-uniform; ‘No snacks in packs’ reminder; Active Schools’ Clubs: Anti-bullying focus and Equalities Crew; Gardening Group; 

 Good afternoon families.

I hope you are all well and have had a good week, despite the continued challenges of Covid.

A few reminders and some lovely updates for you this week.

Reminder re No Parking on Yellow Zig-zag lines

Thank you to everyone for parking considerately and parking away from the zig-zag lines at the main school gate. This space has to be kept clear legally so it is very important that we work together to respect this. I know parking is difficult, particularly with the road works just now, however there are lots of streets nearby so please make use of them as well as an opportunity to ‘Park and Stride’. Please let me know if there are any continued issues and I’ll come out again to monitor. Thank you for your ongoing support.

Clarification re ventilation and non-uniform permitted

I just wanted to clarify that children and staff are permitted to wear non-uniform to school just now. This is to make sure we are well wrapped up due to us having to keep the building so well ventilated as part of infection control.

Please be reassured that we are monitoring temperatures and taking action if anywhere falls below the Council minimum limit of 16 degrees.

Active School’s Clubs

All of you recently received our leaflet about the Active School’s provision. Please encourage your children to sign up and take part now the restrictions have been relaxed. We are continuing to work with Paddy Dearlove, our Active School’s Coordinator, to develop more clubs and will keep you updated.

‘No snacks in packs’ policy

As we enter a New Year, I just wanted to remind all families about our ‘No Snacks in Packs’ policy. This is unique to our school and we are very proud to be encouraging healthy eating choices for all of our children. The snack should either be a piece of fruit or a tub or box of crackers, vegetable sticks, rice cakes, oatcakes, natural popcorn or things like that. 

Please make sure your child comes to school with a snack each day.

‘See, Share, Stop’ Anti-bullying campaign and Equalities Crew video

Next week as part of our ongoing ‘Respect All’ Anti-bullying focus we will be looking at our ‘See, Share, Stop’ campaign. The children will be learning about being upstanding citizens and making sure everyone at the Royal High Primary School respects all and is kind. Our Equalities Crew are keen to introduce themselves. The link to the video they have made for you will be shared on the class TEAMs pages, so you children can share it with you. 

The Gardening Group

The Gardening Group is making super progress with the grass area at the front. They have reclaimed the flower beds up the side of the path and are now starting to work on the round flower beds.

I’ll continue to send you photos that they share with me.

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As you can see there is lots going on in and around the school and lots of exciting things coming up in the coming weeks.

If you have any questions or queries, please keep in touch by either phoning the school office, 0131 669 3200, or emailing the admin account, admin@royalhigh-pri.edin.sch.uk.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend.

Take care, keep well and speak soon.

Anna
Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School 

 07.01.2021

Head Teacher’s End of Week Check in for Families 

Welcome back, Please ask if any testing/ isolation queries; P3 Pupil Winter Wonderland Windows Winner! 

 Good afternoon families.

It was wonderful to have the children back this week and we have had a couple of really lovely days getting back into learning and seeing each other again.

I know I normally open my updates by saying I hope you are all well.

Whilst I still send well wishes, I wanted to acknowledge that the past couple of weeks have been and continue to be very challenging due to isolation.

Thank you to all of you for working your way through the complex maze of new guidance and contacting us with your questions.

Please continue to keep in touch with any queries around testing, isolation and returning to school and we will give you the information you need.

Thank you for sending your children into school very well wrapped up for this chilly weather. Please continue to do so for the coming weeks as we will be having the windows open and be outside when we can and want the children dressed appropriately.

And as a final piece of lovely news, one of our P3 pupils, was selected as a winner of the Winter Wonderland windows competition! Some of you may have been lucky enough to see his lightbox on display over the holidays. He enjoyed his prize of some free rides and a hot chocolate at the Winter Market. He is picking up his poster in the coming weeks and I will make sure I’ll ask him to share it with you. Congratulations to him!

I’ll keep my update short this week and make sure that I keep you informed with any updates.

As ever, please keep in touch with any questions or queries.

We are here to help.

Take care and speak soon.

Anna
Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School 

17.12.2021

Head Teacher’s End of Week Update for Families

 Pupil Council Christmas Fair; Primary Three Food Bank; Equalities focus; Welcome back Miss Le Tissier 

 Good afternoon families. 

I hope you are all well and looking forward to the festive break. 

I am so sorry that some of you will have to be isolating over Christmas but hope that you manage to enjoy some alternative celebrations, with plenty of rest and relaxation. 

We have had worked really hard to provide some lovely festive experiences over the past few weeks to bring some cheer to these challenging times. There have been craft activities, parties, Christmas Jumper days, and even a visit from a well-known gent in a red suit! 

Pupil Council Christmas Fair 

We also had our first Pupil Council led Christmas Fair which was supported wonderfully by our Parent Council. 

This two-day event went absolutely brilliantly, with all of the children really enjoying the games and the crafts the Pupil Councillors and Parent Council had organised for them. 

A massive thank you to all of you involved with making this such a success! 

Primary Three Food Bank 

The Primary 3s delivered the food donations to Wilson Memorial Hall and Reverend Mike and the congregation were delighted at all the children, Miss Wallace and Miss Dishington brought. A huge thank you to them for organising and to all of you who donated. It will make such a difference to families in need in our local community. 

Equalities focus for January 

Looking ahead to the New Year, we are going to be focussing on ‘See, Stop, Share’ as part of our anti-bullying campaign, linked to our values. 

The Anti-bullying ambassadors will be working with Mrs Grant and Miss Le Tissier, who is returning from maternity leave. 

I’ll keep you updated with news from them. 

Welcome back to Miss Le Tissier 

Miss Le Tissier will be back at school from January and we are looking forward to seeing her again. 

Her key priorities will be leading on our Equalities development work and working with the Primary 1 team on Play Pedagogy and learning and teaching. 

We look forward to welcoming her back in the New Year. 

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And so we have reached the end of another term. It has definitely had its challenges but I am so proud of the way the RHPS family have risen to and come through them. A big thank you to all the staff for all of their hard work. 

And a thank you to all the families for your support over the last two terms. 

We don’t know what next year will bring but in the meantime, I hope you have a lovely break over the festive season. 

Enjoy! 

Take care, keep well and we’ll see you in 2022! 

Anna 

Anna Hazel-Dunn 

Head Teacher 

The Royal High Primary School 

10.12.2021

 Head Teacher’s End of Week Update for Families

Safe parking; P3 Food bank; New Isolation rules; Values competition winners 

 Good afternoon everyone. 

I hope you are well and have had a good week. 

I have a couple of reminders this week and some important information about the updated guidance from Nicola Sturgeon about isolation. 

I also want to share with you the winners of our Values logo competition, which we are so delighted with. 

Safe Parking – not on zig zag lines 

Thank you to all of you who ‘park and stride’ or park considerately and safely. 

Please remember not to park on the zig zag lines in front of the school gates. This is against the law and causes a real safety issue as we need access to the gate at all times. 

Thank you. 

Primary 3 Food Bank 

We have been overwhelmed by the generosity of our families for this food bank. They have asked me to say a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who has donated. 

The donations are going to be delivered to the Wilson Memorial Church on Wednesday 15th so the deadline for making a donation is Tuesday 14th. 

We will make sure and share some photographs of the delivery. 

New rules around isolation 

From tomorrow, the advice is that all household contacts of any confirmed Covid case should isolate for 10 days, regardless of vaccination status, even if they initially get a negative PCR test. 

So if someone in your house tests positive for Covid, everyone else in the house must isolate for 10 days. 

Non-household contacts should isolate pending a PCR result. If it is negative they can leave isolation at this point as long as they are double vaccinated. 

More guidance is going to be shared by the City of Edinburgh Council at the start of next week. 

I will share it with you as soon as I can. 

If you have any questions, please either phone or email us at school. We will do our best to help you. 

Values Winners 

I am delighted to share the winners of our Values logo design. There were so many wonderful creations that Mrs Evans and I have chosen a good selection. 

We are planning to have them printed up professionally to display around the school as well as add them to school communication. 

If you know of anyone in the printing business who could help us out with this please get in touch to let us know. 

Any help much appreciated! 

The winners’ names are: 

Billie and Isobel, P5a 

Rachel, P3b 

Taylor, P7b 

Grace, P1/2 

Finn,P2b 

Heidi, P7a 

Matthew, P7b 

Lena, P7b 

Cameron, P5a 

James, P7b 

Olivia,P4a 

Max, P7b 

Isla, P7b 

Lennon, P7a 

Ava, P4b 

Anna, P4b 

Erin, P5b 

Suzanna, P4a 

Liam, P7b 

Freddie, P3b 

Freya, P3b 

Congratulations to you all! 

********************* 

And on that happy note, I’ll wish you a very enjoyable weekend. 

We’re looking forward to a week of festive fun next week and will be sure to share photos, so you can see what’s going on. 

Take care, keep well and speak soon. 

Anna 

Anna Hazel-Dunn 

Head Teacher 

The Royal High Primary School 

03.12.2021

 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In for Families 

Christmas Events; Infection Control Reminders; Anti-bullying Ambassadors; Primary 3 Food Bank 

 Good morning families. 

I hope you are well and have had a good week. 

With Christmas fast approaching we have some exciting events coming up. 

Christmas Lunch 

Thank you to all of you who have ordered a Christmas lunch for your child. 

We will be having the lunch on Wednesday 8th of December in the newly repaired dining hall. 

All children, whether school dinner or packed lunch will be eating in the dining hall, which will be decorated with festive tunes playing. 

Our nursery children will be enjoying their Christmas lunch in the Nursery on the same day. 

We would encourage children to wear a festive jumper for the occasion to bring more Christmas cheer! 

Christmas Fair 

This year, as we can’t have families into school, our Pupil Councillors will be leading our Christmas Fair. 

There will be an optional entrance fee of £1, which is a donation to school funds and this will allow the children to enjoy all of the games and craft stalls the Pupil Councillors, with the help of the Parent Council, have organised. 

Whilst you can’t be there, we will make sure there are lots of photos of the event so you can share in the fun. 

Primaries 1a, 7a, 4a, 3a, P1/2, 5a and P6 will be going to the Christmas Fair on Tuesday 14th of December. 

Primaries 1b, 7b, 4b, 3b, 2b and 5b will be going to the Christmas Fair on Wednesday 15th of December. 

The Parent Council will share a poster with all the information as a reminder. 

Christmas Jumper Swap 

Thank you to all of you who have donated a pre-loved, outgrown Christmas jumper. 

We are still accepting donations. 

If your child would like to buy a jumper, please send them in with £3 for the Equalities Crew and Charities Group to collect. 

Infection control and Risk Mitigation reminders 

As cases continue to rise in the school community, we thank you for continuing to adhere to our infection controls. 

The key points are: 

• All adults, unless exempt, to wear a face covering whilst in the school grounds 
• All adults to keep 2 metres from other adults and children not from their household 
• Children should not bring in items from home 
• If your child is waiting the results of a PCR test, please phone the school to let them know the result before sending them back to school 
• If your child or anyone in the household has symptoms, please self-isolate, book a PCR and remain in isolation until you receive your result 

If you have any questions around this, please phone us at school on 669 3200 or email admin@royalhigh-pri.edin.sch.uk. 

Thank you. 

Anti-bullying Ambassadors 

I am delighted to share that we have recruited our Anti-bullying Ambassadors, who will be working with Mrs Grant. 

They are: 

Sam, Rory and Foozy from p5a 

Farah, Leona and Ethan from p5b 

Cristina, Livia and Elliot in p6. 

These fabulous ambassadors will be meeting next week to come up with their Action Plan which we will share with you. 

Primary 3 Food Bank 

A huge thank you on behalf of Primary 3 for all of the donations received so far for our food bank. 

We are still accepting donations. 

Reverend Mike, our local minister, has sent this message: 

‘My volunteers have provided me with a list of ‘Christmas Goodies’ which, if you were able to donate, would make a big difference for our clients this year. 

Here is the list: 

Mince Pies 

Iced Fruit Cake 

Christmas Puddings 

Selection Boxes 

Chocolates (boxes, coins, etc) 

Biscuits (Christmas type) 

Shortbread 

Trifle Kits (these are the one what you make up at home) 

Hot Chocolate 

Packets of powdered custard 

Crisps/Snacks/Pringles/etc. 

Tinned salmon/ham/chicken 

Cooking oil 

Christmas napkins 

Thank you in advance for anything on the list you are able to donate. 

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With the excitement around Christmas building, I hope you have a lovely weekend and look forward to sharing lots of photos of the festive fun we will be having at the Royal High Primary School in the next two weeks. 

Take care, keep well and stay in touch. 

Anna 

Anna Hazel-Dunn 

Head Teacher 

The Royal High Primary School 

26.11.2021 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In 

Dining Hall Ceiling Repairs, Christmas Lunch, Wednesday 8th of December, Christmas Fair, 

Primary 3 Food Bank, Keeping everyone safe over the last few weeks of term 

Good morning families. 

I hope you are well and have had a good week. 

Dining Hall Ceiling Repairs 

I am delighted to share with you that our Dining Hall ceiling repairs are almost complete, and we will have our much missed hall space back from the 6th of December. An early Christmas present for us! 

All of the children will be having their lunch in the Dining Hall, which will be an exciting experience for our Primary 1 and 2 children who have never eaten in there before. 

Christmas Lunch, Wednesday 8th of December 

As our Dining Hall will be in use, we are going to be able to have a fabulously festive Christmas lunch on Wednesday 8th of December. 

Emma is going to send out details of how you order the Christmas lunch menu to make sure everyone is clear on how to place their order. 

Christmas Fair 

We have had to be creative with our Christmas Fair arrangements this year and are going to have an in-house event, led by the Pupil Council and supported by the Parent Council. 

This year the focus will be on the fun of the festive season. 

Because we want all children to be able to come and enjoy the fair, there will be a suggested donation of £1 per child as an entrance fee with all the stalls being free. 

Emily, from the Parent Council Fundraising Committee, will be sending out more information shortly. 

Primary 3 Food Bank 

Thank you to everyone who has donated long life goods to the Primary 3 Food Bank so far. The children wanted me to thank you for your support and to remind you that they are still accepting donations of long life, non-perishable food. 

We will share photos of them delivering the Food Bank to our local charity so you can share in their positive experience. 

Keeping everyone safe over the last few weeks of term 

Along with the festivities, unfortunately the usual bugs are starting to make an appearance. We are still having to be vigilant with our risk mitigations and infection control. 

This does mean that staff will have to go for PCR tests if there is a positive case in their class and they are identified as a close contact (within 2 metres for 15 minutes or 1 metre for any length of time). 

There may also be seasonal absences and I wanted to reassure you that we are working hard to ensure that this doesn’t impact on the children’s learning. Where possible we request supply staff who we know will provide high quality learning experiences and are familiar to the children. 

I know you will appreciate illness is something we cannot control but we are doing our best to minimise the impact of any staff absences. 

If your child does show any Covid symptoms or suffers from a sickness episode, please keep them off school and follow the guidelines for absence. 

A PCR test must be taken if a child is symptomatic and the whole household must isolate until the result comes back. 

If a child is sick or has diarrhoea, they must be off for 48 hours from their last bout of sickness or diarrhoea. 

Please call the office if you are unsure about any of this. 

Thank you for your continued support in respecting the infection control measures we have to have in place. 

It is so important that adults wear masks, unless exempt, when in the school grounds, and that a 2- metre distance is maintained from people not from your household. 

We all want to be here to enjoy the last three weeks of term and will work hard together to make sure we all keep safe and well. 

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I hope you all have a good day today and enjoy the weekend. 

Take care, keep safe and speak soon. 

Anna 

Anna Hazel-Dunn 

Head Teacher 

The Royal High Primary School 

19.11.2021 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In

 Festive events; Roof Repairs Update; TEAMS communication; Self isolation guidance links 

 Good afternoon families. 

I hope you are well and have had a good week. 

We have had another busy week at the Royal High Primary school with lots of exciting learning experiences and events. 

These have included: 

• • Anti-bullying week 
• • Black History Month 
• • P7 Charities Group – Children in Need ‘Wear What You Want’ Friday 
• • P7b trip to Dynamic Earth 
• • Official opening of the Pupil Council Book Station 
• • Building Resilience ‘Keep Connected’ Launch Assembly 

We are putting our plans together for our festive events and being as creative as we can whilst adhering strictly to the guidance shared last week. 

• Christmas Cards for Care Homes – all classes making cards to support the elderly or isolated in our local community to be handed out at the start of December 
• Pupil Council led Christmas Market – in partnership with Parent Council – In school for pupils only – Details to follow soon 
• Primary 3 Food Bank – P3a and P3b, Miss Wallace and Miss Dishington are organising a collection for our local Food Bank – watch out for their posters giving information of what they need 

Roof Repairs update 

I have attached a copy of the letter sent by Ashwood to give clarity about the inspections carried out and confirmation of the safety of the roof. 

Communication via TEAMs 

This week as a staff we reviewed how we are using TEAMs and I then asked the parents and carers at the Parent Council meeting on Thursday for their views on TEAMs. 

I will share this information with staff and we will work together to ensure this platform is a valuable way of learning about your child’s learning as well as a consistent form of communication about what is happening in school. 

Just to clarify class Twitter accounts are no longer used. All communications can be found through TEAMs. 

Emma has resent the Parents’ Guide to Using TEAMS. 

If you have any questions or issues, please let us know. 

Useful links for Covid-19 Isolation periods – PCRs and positive cases 

With cases rising in the community, I thought it would be useful to share these links: 

https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance-on-reducing-the-risks-in-schools/pages/changes-to-previous-guidance/#self-isolation-policy 

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/self-isolation-and-treatment/how-long-to-self-isolate/ 

Please contact Emma in the office if you have any questions around this. 

************ 

We will be in touch in the coming weeks to share more information about our plans for the festive period as it draws ever nearer! 

I hope you have a lovely weekend. 

Take care, keep safe and speak soon. 

Anna 

Anna Hazel-Dunn 

Head Teacher 

The Royal High Primary School 

11.11.2021 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In

 Rising cases: Reminder re FACTS; Isolating while waiting for PCR – whole household; 19th Nov ‘Wear What You Want‘ Day 

 Good evening families.

I hope you are well and have had a good week. I am sending my End of Week check in a day early as I am not in school tomorrow. I have a couple of really important messages to share with you linked to Covid-19 and the rising cases we are seeing in our school community. We need to be extra vigilant just now, making sure we strictly adhere to the FACTS. Please make sure you always wear a face covering when in the school grounds unless medically exempt. Please keep 2 metres between adults who are not from the same household. In school all staff continue to wear face coverings in the school as well as sticking rigidly to the hand hygiene routines. We are all doing our part to keep the school community safe and we just need to make sure we are extra vigilant to avoid any further cases. Thank you for your continued support.

As a reminder if someone in your household is going for a PCR test because they have symptoms or have had a positive lateral flow test, everyone in the household must isolate and stay at home until the test result comes through.

Please feel free to phone the school if you have any questions around this. Thank you.

In other news I have been working with the Pupil and Parent councils to look at our events over the festive period. There are still very strict infection controls in place so the events will be different again this year. I will send out moreI information next week.

Finally next week we have two main focuses.

The first is Anti-bullying week with lots of learning planned around this. The second is being organised by our P7 Charities Group in aid of Children In Need. They are organising a ‘Wear What You Want’ day on Friday 19th November.

A fun date for your diary!

I hope you have a good end of week and very enjoyable weekend.

Take care, keep well and speak soon.

Anna
Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School 

05.11.2021 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In

New Trim Trail; Welcome to Mrs Arico, new Pupil Support Assistant; Follow up from vandalism; Pupil Council  Book Station; Christmas Card ordering; Christmas Lunch, 8th of December

Good morning families.

I hope you are well and have had a good week.

We had some lovely celebrations for Divali and Bani Chhor this week and wish all of our families celebrating it a very happy Divali!

It’s been great to have some of our classes out on trips in the past two weeks, both to Calton Hill and Dynamic Earth. The children and staff really enjoyed their excursions and we were very proud of how well the children represented the Royal High Primary School.

New Trim Trail

Our new Trim Trail in the front playground is now finished and the children had great fun trying it out yesterday. So lovely for them to have this new addition to the playground!

Welcome to Mrs Arico, new Pupil Support Assistant

This week we welcomed Mrs Nardina Arico to the staff. She has had a great week getting to know the school, children and staff. She is a wonderful addition to the team. I have added a photo to this update so you recognise her if you see her.

Follow up from vandalism

We have been working hard with Facilities Management, the contractors and the police to limit the risk of vandalism after school and over the weekend.

We are looking at ways we can increase security around the building and will keep you updated with any progress on this.

As a reminder there is no access to the school grounds after school hours or over the weekend.

If you are passing during these times and see anyone in or around the grounds, could you please phone 101 to report it as the police will send a crew round to investigate.

Thank you for your support.

Pupil Council  Book Station

The Pupil Council are almost ready to launch their Book Station. The launch will be happening next week so keep your eye out for information from them. I’m so proud of how they have lead this project.

Thank you to all of you who have handed in books. Donations are still very welcome. Please bring them to the front door so the Pupil Councillors can sort them after quarantine.

Photos of the Book Station to follow next week.

Christmas Card ordering

Your children’s Christmas card designs are now ready to order. Thank you to Emily from our Parent Council for organising this for us.

Information will be coming out today about how you can place your order and claim a 10% discount.

Christmas Lunch, 8th of December

We are planning to have our Christmas Lunch on the 8th of December in the dining hall.

We will send out details in the coming weeks so you can order this for your children.

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With the clocks going back and the temperature dropping, just a reminder for your children to come to school with warm, waterproof jackets as we will still be getting out as much as possible to enjoy our school grounds.

For those of you enjoying Bonfire Night tonight, I hope you have a fun, safe time.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Take care and stay in touch.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn

Head Teacher

The Royal High Primary School

29.10.2021 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In

Equalities – Anti-bullying and RespectMe Parents’ Zone; Book Station – Pupil Council and Parent Council joint initiative; Active Schools’ Update; Celebration of Diwali or Bandi chor, Wednesday 3rd November – Wear bright colours!; Dyslexia Awareness Week, 1st – 7th November; COP26 – Brass Blast video and information about joining their band; ‘It’s Good to Grow’ Campaign; Dining Room Ceiling update; IMPORTANT REMINDER – NUT FREE SCHOOL and NO SNACKS IN PACKS

Good afternoon families,

I hope you are well, had a good October break and have had a good week.

This week at our staff Inservice Day, we spent the time on a variety of focuses including auditing resources, Equalities development work, and all took part in a session about supporting Young Carers.

Equalities – Anti-bullying and RespectMe Parents’ Zone

Each month, as part of our work on Equalities, we will have a focus round which learning will be planned.

For November our focus will be on anti-bullying. We will participate in anti-bullying week, ‘One Kind Word’, mid-November, and be using our value of ‘Be Kind’ and ‘Respect All’ as a springboard for this.

I have a couple of links to share with you which take you to the RespectMe website and will give you more information about the work we will be doing around addressing bullying behaviour.

Guide for parents and carers – https://respectme.org.uk/adults/bullying-a-guide-for-parents-and-carers/

Online safety video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhuL8iHSE64&t=2s

Anti-bullying help, advice and resources – https://respectme.org.uk/resources/

We are working on our Equalities policy, which will include tackling bullying behaviour.

In the New Year, we will be having an information session for parents and carers around our Equalities work. I will send you more details later in the term.

Book Station – Pupil Council and Parent Council joint initiative

Thank you to all of the families who have donated books for our donation station.

We are still really keen to receive more donations so please drop them off at the school office.

Our Pupil Councillors are finishing their campaign so look out for their posters coming out soon!

Active Schools’ Update

As you know, due to the change in provision with Active Schools, we have been working on pulling together a programme for our children.

Paddy Dearlove, our Active Schools’ Coordinator, has put together a Pupil Survey to find out the activities our children are keen to have on offer.

He is also going to send out a Volunteer Survey asking for parents and carers who would be interested in running or helping to run a club.

We are going to be starting a Running Club, thanks to one of our parents offering to take the lead on this. We are going to meet next week to finalise the logistics and will share the details with you soon.

Celebration of Diwali or Bandi chor, Wednesday 3rd November – Wear bright colours!

This year Diwali or Bandi chor is being celebrated on Thursday 4th of November.

Across the week we are going to be learning about the importance of this religious day for our Sikh and Hindu families and how they celebrate it.

I would like to invite all children to come to school wearing bright colours on Wednesday to celebrate Diwali or Bani chor with our Sikh and Hindu children, before the main celebration on Thursday 4th of November.

I look forward to us bringing some light in these dark, wintery days.

Dyslexia Awareness Week, 1st – 7th November

I wanted to raise awareness of this week as we have a number of children and adults in our school community who are dyslexic.

Here is a link to the campaign – www.dyslexiascotland.org.uk/dyslexia-awareness-week-scotland

Emma will be sending you out some more information next week.

COP26 – Brass Blast video and information about joining their band

I just wanted to draw your attention to this production by Oi Musica, who are based in Porty and who run Brass Blast, a street music initiative for children in the Portobello school cluster.

They have been doing some campaigning in preparation for COP26 and this is the culmination of their work in collaboration with folk singer Karine Polwart and a number of other street music bands for young people in the UK.

With the current focus on COP26, I wanted to share this fabulous video, as the production is very child focused and easy to watch. You may even spot one of our pupils tootling away on the trumpet as well!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t01g-gfVJbk&t=3s

If your child would be interested in joining Brass Blast, here is the link to their website – http://oimusica.co.uk/brass-blast/

‘It’s Good to Grow’ Campaign

A huge thank you to all our families for supporting us in this campaign. We have smashed our target of 800 vouchers, with a current total of 1577!

There is still time for you to submit your vouchers with the campaign closing on 31st of October. Each and every voucher is hugely appreciated.

The total vouchers collected will enable our soon to be formed Pupil Gardening Group to select lots of items to help return our front grassy area and quad to their former glory.

We will be in touch to let you know what the children chose.

Dining Room Ceiling update

Work has continued this week on the repair and they remain on track to have it completed in a few weeks. I will be in touch to let you know as soon as we are able to start having lunches in the dining hall once again.

IMPORTANT REMINDER – NUT FREE SCHOOL and NO SNACKS IN PACKS

Just to remind you, due to some of our pupils having severe nut allergies, we are a nut-free school.

Children should not have snacks that contain any form of nut.

We are very proud of our ‘No snacks in packs’ policy, where children are encouraged to bring snacks in reusable tubs.

They should bring things like fruit, vegetables, oatcakes, crackers and rice cakes.

They should not bring sweets, crisps, cakes or pre-wrapped items.

This is in line with our eco-friendly approach, recycling and healthy eating.

Thank you so much for your support with this.

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There is a lot of information today so please feel free to get in touch if you have any questions about anything I have mentioned.

Thank you so much for your continued support in keeping the children, staff and each other safe by wearing masks in the school playground, keeping 2 metres apart from each other.

Please continue to keep up with these efforts so we can all be safe, keep well and enjoying being in school.

Have a lovely weekend and I look forward to seeing you next week.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn

Head Teacher

The Royal High Primary School

15.10.2021 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In

‘It’s Good to Grow’ Morrison’s campaign; Parent Consultations Feedback survey; Update re Dining Hall Ceiling Repairs; Reminder  – Email admin@royalhigh-pri.edin.sch.uk to contact teachers; RHPS Values – next steps; Hallowe’en Dress Up and Scary Hair Day, 29th October; Pupil Council and Parent Council Partnership – Book Station

Good morning families.

I hope you are well and looking forward to the holidays. Lots of news today in my final Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In so I’ll get started straight away.

‘It’s Good to Grow’ Morrison’s campaign

Thank you so much to everyone who has already donated vouchers to our school. We are doing really well, with over 500 vouchers and it’d be great to keep seeing this total growing – pardon the pun!

We are going to make really good use of the vouchers, buying lots of tools to help look after our front garden and quad to return them to their former glory.

There is still time to add your vouchers and we appreciate each and every one.

Parent Consultations Feedback survey

We are really interested to hear from you about your recent parent consultation appointment. Could you please complete this short survey so we can gather your views?

https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=af6sSGo3tUKfacnke7-5xKX5QDtSjdVOmerC1qdzuzBUQUtYVjVTMkYyQVJQUjFITUY0RzZIWVUyNi4u

We’ll use this information along with the views from the teachers to organise our next Parent Consultations in March.

Update re Dining Hall Ceiling Repairs

We had a meeting this week with the contractors who confirmed that work will be starting on repairing the ceiling during the October holidays. Due to the complex nature of the repairs, this week will continue for 5 weeks following the October holidays so children will continue with their current lunch arrangements, eating in their classrooms, except for Primary 1/ 2 and Primary 2 who will continue eating in the gym hall.

I’ll continue to keep you updated with progress after the holidays.

Reminder  – Email admin@royalhigh-pri.edin.sch.uk to contact teachers

Thank you to everyone who have been using this email account to contact their child’s teacher. We are using this model to make sure that communications between parents, carers and teachers are as efficient as possible so please continue to use the email address above with your child’s teacher’s name in the subject line. Thank you.

RHPS Values – next steps

Now we have our Values agreed, our next steps are to embed them.

During the first week back the children will engage in lots of activities around the Values so they become part of every day life in school.

In addition to this we are launching a competition to design logos for each of the Values. I have attached the information about how your child can enter.

We are really looking forward to seeing what the children come up with and are excited about using the winning entries to represent our Values.

Hallowe’en Dress Up and Scary Hair Day, 29th October

Although we can’t have our usual Hallowe’en Disco this year, we wanted to give the children to have a ‘spooktacular’ time.

Everyone is invited to come to school on Friday 29th of October in a Hallowe’en costume and/ or have scary hair!

Masks should not be worn.

Props should not be brought into school, in line with our Infection Control policy.

Please don’t feel the need to buy any costumes. We would encourage you to use what you already have to come up with some Hallowe’en themed outfits.

We look forward to seeing what creative costumes you come up with!

Pupil Council and Parent Council Partnership – Book Station

I have been working hard with the Pupil Councillors to put together our campaign to make sure that everyone has access to books and has something they enjoy reading.

We are looking for donations of pre-loved books in good condition.

Please drop off any books that you have to school, where they will be quarantined and sorted in to categories.

The Pupil Councillors will be sharing information about how the Book Station is going to work week beginning 1st of November.

We are excited about our plans to make sure that everyone in our school has access to the wonderful world of reading and thank you in advance for any books you give to us.

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This first term has been a real roller coaster but we have reached the end tired but happy.

The children have been enjoying some fabulous learning experiences thanks to the hard work and creativity of the teachers and support staff.

I cannot thank them enough for everything they have done for the children and know you will join me in wishing them a very well deserved break over the October holidays.

And I extend that wish to you all.

I hope you have a very enjoyable week off, relaxing and recharging, and very much look forward to seeing you all again on Tuesday the 26th of  October.

Take care, keep well and speak soon.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn

Head Teacher

The Royal High Primary School

 08.10.2021 Head Teacher’s End of Week Check In 

Active Schools’ Update; Be Resilient Task; Let’s Grow campaign; School lunches; Parking issues; Book Donation Station; Hallowe’en Trail and Sharing RHPS Values 

Good afternoon families.

I hope you are well and have had a good week. There a few things I would like to share with you this week so will start without further ado.

Active Schools Update

Thank you for your patience whilst we wait for this programme to be pulled together. It is almost finalised now and we are just working out a plan for venues what with our Dining Hall being out of action and our Gym Hall being used by OSCARs for Breakfast Club and After School Care club. I will bring you an update as soon as I can.

Be Resilient Tasks – due Friday 15th October for the Sharing Assembly

I have received a number of really fabulous ‘Resilience Role Models’ posters and pieces of writing so far. I am looking for as many as possible, so I can share them at the Sharing Assembly as well as display them on the ‘Building Resilience’ notice board I am setting up. Please could you either upload your child’s work to their class TEAMs page or have them bring it in to give to me in person? I look forward to learning all about their inspirational role models.

It’s Good To Grow Campaign

Thank you so much to all of you who have signed up to this campaign. We have already got 434 tokens available and would love to double this total if possible before the end of the campaign on the 24th of October (though you do have until the 31st of October to donate Grow tokens!) We are really keen to be able to exchange the vouchers for a variety of gardening equipment, so we can work on the front grass area, the quad and the growing area at the back of the school. We are so lucky to have so much green space and are really keen to make sure we have the tools to make the most of it. Thank you in advance!

School Lunches – ordering and choices

Just a reminder to make sure you order your school lunches on the Wednesday of the week before. 

Please be aware of dietary requirements as there are meat and fish on the menu. There is always a vegetarian option for you to select.

Park and Stride

I am aware that there have been a few issues with parking, particularly around the Infant Gate at drop off and pick up times. Please make sure you avoid parking:

• On or over corners

• On double yellow lines

• On zigzags

I am raising this as a health and safety matter as we all want to keep our children and families safe on their route to school. I am a huge advocate of a ‘Park and Stride’ approach and would encourage you, if you have to drive, to park slightly further from the school and walk the last part of the journey. Please feel free to contact me if you have any further comments, concerns or suggestions about parking around the school and promoting environmentally friendly travel to school. Thank you.

P7 Pupil Councillor and Parent Council Book Donation Station

I am delighted to announce the start of our joint pupil and parent partnership with our Book Donation Station. Our mission is to make sure that all children and families at the Royal High Primary school have access to a diverse and varied selection of books. And we need your help! We are looking for donations of books from you. We will accept any book as long as it is in new or nearly new condition. Please drop any donations you have to the school from next week. Books will be quarantined then sorted by our P7 Pupil Councillors and members of the Parent Council. They will be in touch to let you know how the Donation Station is going to work. It is the start of a really exciting project which we are really proud to be part of.

Parent Council Hallowe’en Trail A

fter the success of last year’s trail, our wonderful Parent Council have created a Hallowe’en trail for you and your children to take part in. I’ll send out the information following this update but the trail maps will be on sale in the field next Monday, Wednesday and Friday after school. It’s a great way to have a spook-tacular Hallowe’en and support the school!

Head Teacher’s End of Week Twitter Check In Update

It is not technology that thwarted me this week but the fact that I have picked up a throat infection this week so am lacking in voice. Hopefully next week I’ll be able to pick it up before the holidays and get that started up again.

Result of RHPS Values Consultation

And in my final piece of information for this week, as promised I am able to share with you the values selected by the children, staff, parents and carers.

The Values of the Royal High Primary School are:

• Be kind to others

• Try our best

• Believe in ourselves

• Respect all

I am delighted at these choices as they encompass such a wide range of the other values and really sum up what it means to be part of the Royal High Primary School. As a staff we will be working on the next step of introducing and embedding these wonderful values and we’ll keep you updated with our plans as we’d love you to continue to be involved.

*******************

And on that very positive note, I would like to wish you a wonderful, relaxing, fun weekend.

Take care, keep well and see you soon.
Anna Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School 

24.09.2021 – Head Teacher’s Update for families – Reminder re wearing masks and adult/ adult distancing; Parent Consultations

Good morning families.

I hope you are well and have had a good week.

I’ve a shorter End of Week Check in for you this week with consists of two important pieces of information.

Reminder re wearing masks in the school grounds and 2-metre social distancing (adult/ adult)

The first is a reminder about the importance of wearing masks when in the school grounds, unless you have a medical exemption. The Covid guidelines for schools still require masks to be worn so please remember if you are in the school grounds, you are to wear a mask.

Please also remember that the highest risk of infection comes from adult to adult contact.

When in the school grounds, please remember to maintain a 2-metre distance from each other to minimise the risk of infection and support our infection control measures.

Thank you for your support in ensuring all of our school community are kept as safe as possible and infection free.

Parent Consultations, Sign Up Sheets go live today at 12.30pm on your child’s class TEAMs page

The parent consultations will be virtual and done through TEAMs.

Please make sure that you check your child’s class TEAMs page today as the sign-up sheets go live at 12.30pm today, Friday 24^th September 2021.

The link to your meeting will be sent out to the email we have for you in school by Thursday 30^th of September.

Please to check their junk mail if you haven’t received your invitation. If you can’t find it in your junk mail, please let Emma, our administrator, know. 

If parents are joining the call from two separate locations, can you please email your child’s teacher and email the additional email address, so an appointment can be sent out to you both?

If you are having any issues accessing or connecting to TEAMS, please contact Emma in the office so we can support you to ensure you can make your appointment.

Mrs Gardner, our Support for Learning teacher, will not be holding separate appointments this time. If there is something specific you would like to discuss with her she would be more than happy to meet with you. Please contact Emma in the office to arrange an appointment time on one of her working days, which are Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

If you have any questions, please let us know.

************************

I am still unable to create my video End of Week check in and am working hard with the Digital Learning Team to fix this problem.

I hope you have a lovely weekend.

Take care, keep well and stay in touch.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn

Head Teacher

The Royal High Primary School

17.09.2021 – Head Teacher’s Update for families – School Values Consultation, Parent Consultations W/B 4th October, Communication via TEAMs, Active Schools Update, School Day Consultation, School Renewal Plan, Parent Council Fundraising, Building Resilience, Mental Health Awareness Day 8th October, School PE Kit & Uniform

Good morning families.

I hope you are well and have had a good week.

It’s been another busy week at the Royal High Primary School with lots of great learning experiences for the children.

School Values Consultation

https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=af6sSGo3tUKfacnke7-5xKX5QDtSjdVOmerC1qdzuzBUOEJWUVNFQjJORjI1N1pJUFBaOVMyMVZIQy4u

Thank you to all of you who have contributed to our School Values consultation. The deadline is at 12.30pm today so you still have time to share your views. The link is https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=af6sSGo3tUKfacnke7-5xKX5QDtSjdVOmerC1qdzuzBUOEJWUVNFQjJORjI1N1pJUFBaOVMyMVZIQy4u

We will collate the responses and share the chosen values before the October holidays.

Parent Consultations, week beginning 4^th of October

We are going to have our first parent consultations during the week beginning the 4^th of October. Due to current restrictions and Council guidance, these consultations will take place over TEAMs.

Your child’s teacher will be putting up the appointment sign up sheets on the class TEAMs page. These sheets will go live at 12.30pm on Friday 24^th of September.

Please let us know if you are having any issues accessing the appointment sheets by calling the school on 0131 669 3200 or emailing admin@royalhigh-pri.edin.sch.uk.

Parent and teacher communications through TEAMs

Thank you all for using your child’s TEAMS page or teacher emails to communicate with your child’s teacher. I just wanted to remind you that, in general, staff will respond to your messages during their working hours across the school week. If you have a more pressing matter, please contact us through the admin account, admin@royalhigh-pri.edin.sch.uk, marking the subject to the attention of your child’s teacher or myself.

Active Schools Update

In partnership with Paddy Dearlove and the Parent Council Committee, we have been working hard at putting together a model of Active Schools clubs for our children. Due to the changes put in place by the Council, we are having to look at clubs being supported by parent volunteers. Paddy is very keen to support any volunteers start up a club, which could be before or after school. We shared information about clubs which are happening at Portobello High School and will continue to share any further opportunities as they arise.

If you are interested in finding out more about running a club, please let us know by email admin@royalhigh-pri.edin.sch.uk.

School Day consultation

A small number of parents have asked about the possibility of changing the school day hours so there is less of a gap between the Infant and Upper finishing times. The school day hours can only be changed through a consultation process which takes a full school year to undertake. This is due to the complexities of staffing contracts and hours. Any changes would happen from August 2022.

The first step of the consultation is to gain opinion from all of the parent body to gauge the level of interest in making this change. I am working with the Parent Council Committee and Senior managers to start this process and will be in touch with details as they are organised.

School Renewal Plan (formally the School Improvement Plan)

At the recent Parent Council meeting I shared the overview of our School Renewal Plan. The key areas have been identified by the City of Edinburgh Council. They are:

• Equalities, Equity and Inclusion
• Equalities
• Teaching, Learning and Assessment
• Health, Wellbeing and Resilience

We have taken these four priorities and made them relevant to our context at the Royal High Primary School.

I have attached a PDF of the Renewal Plan overview for your information.

Parent Council Fundraising

We are working with our wonderful Parent Council Fundraising group to come up with innovative ideas to raise money for the school with events which are in line with the current guidance. We will be in touch with more information about these events in the coming weeks.

Building Resilience

We are starting our work on the Building Resilience Programme this week and in the next week or so your child’s teacher will be uploading information about the first unit, ‘Be Resilient’. Each unit have a launch assembly that we do in school, with a linked class task and home activity. We will then share the learning on our Building Resilience TEAMs channel and create a Noticeboard in school to showcase our progress. Thank you in advance for your support at home.

Mental  Health Awareness Day, 8^th October 2021

Our Primary 7 pupils have been working hard on plans for our Mental Health Awareness Day on the 8^th of October. They will be in touch with details of what they have planned and look forward to having a really positive pupil lead morning.

School PE kit and uniform

Thank you for all your efforts to ensure that your children are coming to school in their school uniform and PE kit. It is great to see them all in so smart in their uniforms and their white t-shirts and black shorts, trousers or leggings, for PE as it provides equity for all learners and is a really positive representation of the Royal High Primary School. Please remember that they should not wear any branded items or items with company names on them or football colours.

If you need help to provide the correct uniform gym kit for your child, please let us know as we have pre-loved items, for both gym kits and school uniforms which we can give to you.

*****************

Thank you all for continuing to adhere to the current guidelines with regards to FACTS so we can continue to minimise the risk to our children, staff and wider school community.

If you have any questions with regards to Covid symptoms, testing or isolation periods, please contact us at the office so we can share the current information with you.

I hope you are all looking forward to the long weekend and take the time to enjoy days with your family and friends.

So until next week, take care, keep well and stay in touch.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn

Head Teacher

The Royal High Primary School

10.09.2021 – Head Teacher’s Update for families –Avoiding risk of infection, Gym kit on PE days, Home work (TEAMS), Road safety, and RHPS School Values consultation

Good evening families.

I hope you are well and have had a good week.

There is plenty for me to update you with, so I will get started straight away.

Avoiding Risk of Infection

As you may be aware we have had number of positive cases at the school over the past couple of weeks. We are managing to contain them through strict adherence to the current guidelines and thank you for your support in doing the same.

Please remember to isolate your child if they are symptomatic and book them in for a PCR test. They may return to school once they have a negative PCR result.

Encourage your children not to bring personal items into school, such as toys or trading cards, to help us minimise risk.

Confirmation of children wearing their gym kit on PE days

Children are to come into school on their PE day in their gym kits as well as on Thursdays for their outdoor fitness session.

As a reminder our school PE kit is as follows:

• A white or red t-shirt
• School jumper
• Black shorts, cycling shorts (to the knee), leggings or jogging bottoms
• Trainers suitable for both indoor and outdoor activities

Children should not wear

• Branded items, eg hoodies jogging bottoms with company names on them
• Short cycling shorts (ie to the top of the thigh)
• Crop tops
• Football colours

We have a Uniform Station in school with lots of school uniform. If you need any school uniform, please just call us or email so we can check if we have what you need.

As a general reminder, children should not be coming to school wearing make-up, fake nails or jewellery, other than small studs in their ears. This is all around health and safety as well as promoting a positive self-attitude.

Our Pupil Councillors are going to mock up some photos of both the school uniform and the school gym kit so the children are really clear on the expectations and take pride in representing their school through the uniform.

Home Work

All homework is set and shared by teachers on the class TEAMs pages.

Please make sure that you log in with your child and check their class page regularly.

You will also find lots of updates, information about learning and reminders.

It is the main communication from the teachers to you, so it is key that you get in the habit of checking it with your child as part of the school routine.

If you or anyone you know of is still having difficulties accessing TEAMs for any reason, such as devices, WIFI issues, lack of confidence, we encourage you to contact the school so we can help resolve these issues.

Road safety

Gordon, our wonderful crossing patrol man, has asked me to remind your children to use the crossing at the end of the day. He is very concerned about the dangers of the children crossing at other points near the crossing due to the busy nature of Northfield Broadway.

He is always at the crossing, come rain, shine, snow, hail or fog, so let’s do him the honour of respecting what he does, and all use the service he provides to keep us all safe.

The Royal High Primary School Values Consultation

This is the key point for this End of Week Check In from me.

All across the city of Edinburgh, schools are revisiting their school values and making sure they truly represent their school.

Here at the Royal High Primary School, we have decided to review our values and have worked with pupils and staff to create a list of the values we feel are most important to us as a school community.

As you are a core part of our school community, we want to hear your voice too.

I have created a survey with a list of the values chosen by the pupils and staff and would like to ask you to choose the four you consider most important for us here at the Royal High Primary School.

There is an option at the bottom for you to add a suggestion if you have one and a comment box for any thoughts.

I have attached a Values Word Cloud sharing all of the values from which you will be choosing.

Here is the link for the survey – https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=af6sSGo3tUKfacnke7-5xKX5QDtSjdVOmerC1qdzuzBUOEJWUVNFQjJORjI1N1pJUFBaOVMyMVZIQy4u

Please complete the survey by 1pm on Friday 17^th of September.

We will collate all of the responses with the pupil and staff choices and share the selected values before the October holidays.

Thank you for being involved with this really exciting process.

 ****************************

As I said there is quite a lot of information this week, so I’ll end my check in here.

I am still having technical and storage issues with my video messages so sadly no link to share this week. I will endeavour to have that sorted for next week.

In the meantime, please get in touch if you have any questions through the usual channels – by phoning 0131 669 3200 or admin@royalhigh-pri.edin.sch.uk.

Thank you.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend.

Take care, keep well and see you next week.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn

Head Teacher

The Royal High Primary School

27.08.2021 – Head Teacher’s Update for families – ParentPay, Communication with teachers, ‘No Snacks in Packs’ and PE kit reminder

Good evening families.

I hope you are well and have had a good week.

It’s been a very busy first week back at school but wonderful to see all of the children enjoying being back with their friends and their new teachers.

This week we hope to have resolved the issues with regards to ParentPay. All new families should have been sent their activation codes for their ParentPay accounts and should soon be receiving all of our communications.

Please let anyone know who is still having issues accessing their account that they should contact the school office so we can look into this.

Talking about communication, we have devised a new model for communication between you and your child’s teachers. We are going to be using the class TEAMs pages as the main form of communication between teachers and families. There will be updates about learning and teaching as well as general reminders.

If you want to contact the teacher directly about learning and teaching or a general query about your child, you can do so by either sending a message to them through your child’s private channel or emailing their work email.

All the teachers email addresses are their first name followed by a dot,  ‘.’ , then their surname with the @royalhigh-pri.edin.sch.uk at the end.

If your question is about the wider school community, please send an email to the admin@royalhigh-pri.edin.sch.uk account.

If you have a query directly for me, please contact me by emailing anna.hazel-dunn@royalhigh-pri.edin.sch.uk, copying in the admin email to ensure that it is brought to my attention.

We have enjoyed lots of opportunities for outdoor learning and PE this week so I thought I would send a reminder with regards to our gym kit.

There should be no branded items or football colours.

The children should wear a red or white  t-shirt or polo shirt, black knee-length cycling shorts, black leggings, black jogging bottoms or black shorts.

We are very proud of our ‘No Snacks in Packs’ policy, which was created by our Eco Committee a number of years ago.

Just to remind you we would like all children to bring in a small healthy snack in a tub. By healthy we mean snacks such as fruit, oatcakes, veg sticks, crackers or rice cakes.

Children shouldn’t bring packets of crisps, sugary cereal bars, sweets or chocolate. This will help to ensure they have the right energy for the school day.

We have a number of children who have a severe nut allergy in our school so we ask that you make sure your children don’t bring anything into school that contains nuts. Thank you for your support with this.

We have enjoyed lots of sunshine this week and so I will leave you now to enjoy the lovely weather this evening.

I hope you have a lovely weekend.

Take care, keep well and see you next week.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn

Head Teacher

The Royal High Primary School

14.06.2021 – Head Teacher’s Update for families – Class photos, Staff update and Meet the Teacher

Good evening families.

I hope you are well and had a good weekend.

Apologies for the lack of End of Week Check in from me but my time was taken up with the comms following the positive Covid test result in school. My thoughts are with those of you who are currently having to isolate.

Thank you to everyone for their support in responding to this situation and ensuring that everyone not affected was able to come into school safely today.

We will continue to strictly adhere to the guidelines we have in place to do our best to make sure that we can all remain at school until the end of term.

Life continues at a rapid pace as we head towards the end of this school year with lots happening.

Tomorrow the class photographs are taking place and I look forward to seeing all the children coming in looking extra smart! The photos will be taken outside with the photographer following our risk mitigation guidelines and practices. It will be a lovely memory for the children to have after such a tough year. I will share the link to order the photos as soon as Susan from Clear Photography sends it to me.

It was a real pleasure to share the names of the class teachers for this coming school year. I am really excited about our team and the year ahead your children will have.

We look forward to welcoming Miss Stephanie Wallace, Miss Kristy Dishington, Miss Caitlin Morrow and Miss Hayley Stewart to the school. I have attached photos to this update so you can recognise them when you see them.

We are really pleased Miss Lisa Macleod is staying with us for this coming year.

We are very sorry to say good bye to Miss Voss, Miss Anderson, Miss Kinghorn, and Mrs Mughal. We thank them for all their hard work, dedication and love for the children during their time with us and wish them all the best for the future. We will miss them and hope that they keep in touch to let us know how they are getting on.

Mrs Heron is taking a secondment at a special school for the year and we look forward to hearing how she is getting on through the coming months.

Mrs Megaw is taking a career break and we wish her well in her new ventures.

I would like to make a special mention of thanks to Tracy Goldie, our Parent Council Chair, who is leaving at the end of this session. She has been a fantastic support for the school and will be sorely missed.

Mr Phil Dickson has been voted in as our new Parent Council chair and we are really looking forward to continuing to work closely with him and the rest of the Parent Council in the coming
year.

Mr Brian Cairnie and Mrs Diane Chapman are both retiring at the end of this term and we hope that they are very much looking forward to some much deserved rest and relaxation over the
Summer and beyond! We thank them for their years of service to the school and the memories they have given to all those they have worked with. We aren’t able to have a celebration for them but are going to have a special TEAMs assembly in their honour. I know many of you have known them for a lot of years and would like to acknowledge this. Both Mr Cairnie and Mrs Chapman have asked that you don’t send them in gifts but simply show your appreciation by sending an email to them. That will mean an awful lot to them. You can send your messages to them via the school admin account, admin@royalhigh-pri.edin.sch.uk. I know they will be delighted to hear from you.

We have received advice from the Senior managers at the City of Edinburgh Council that we politely encourage you not to give the staff gifts at the end of the Summer term. Their reasons for
this are linked to our infection control restrictions and risk mitigation but also as an acknowledgement of avoiding an equity issue. As with Mr Cairnie and Mrs Chapman, an email of support and thanks would be gratefully received by staff, particularly after the tremendous effort they have made during the Covid pandemic. Your words will have a long lasting effect and give the staff a real feeling of appreciation and support as they start their very well earned Summer holidays. Thank you.

The children are excited about meeting their teachers on Wednesday and will no doubt want to share with you what they did with them so please take a moment to chat to them about this.
Here is the link for my Head Teacher’s End of Week check in video from Friday – https://youtu.be/IZp6Y4oZ-Mw

I’ll be in touch at the end of this week with my usual Check In but until then, take care, stay well and keep in touch.

Anna

Anna Hazel-Dunn
Head Teacher
The Royal High Primary School

Update attachments

HT Update – 21.05.2021  HT P7 Update 21.05.2021  P7 Open Evening Book day dress up World Book day Remote learning challenges Lingo Box Friday Healthy respect Information on PPT Team guides Jason Leith Letter Teams Log in guide Assignment via teams Support for families Keyworker Survey  Keyworker Flow-chart Keyworker definition Teams via games console Teams code of conduct Remote learning communication Guide for Parents and carersParent Council Update 30.09.2020 Keyworker Hub Provision Blended learning letter Carers week activity ideas Tree-mendous-Trees Connect online Q&A Holding online meetings Coping with loss and bereavement Being at home during school closure Letter about transition to school Transition information booklet Seesaw Privacy Policy Supporting home learning – children Supporting home learning – adults Daily live activities  Supporting children with learning disability / ASD

Update Archive

June

Update 14.06.2021

May

Update 14.05.2021

April

Update 30.04.2021 

February

Update 01.02.2021 Update 19.02.2021 Update 19.02.2021 Update 25.02.2021 Update 01.03.2021

January

Update 12.01.2021 Update 13.01.2021 Update 14.01.2021 Update 15.01.2021 Update 18.01.2021 Update 21.01.2021 Update 22.01.2021 Update 26.01.2021 Update 27.01.2021

December

Update 21.12.2020 – 1 Update 21.12.2020 – 2

November

Update 06.11.2020

October

Update 27.10.2020 Update 02.10.2020

September

Update 28.09.2020 Update 25.09.2020 Update 22.09.2020 Update 15.09.2020 Update 02.09.2020 

August

Update 26.08.2020 Update 10.08.2020

June

Update 18.06.2020 Update 17.06.2020 Update 15.06.2020 

Class Teachers update 12.06.2020 Health week Update 12.06.2020 Blended learning update 12.06.2020 Update 11.06.2020 Update 10.06.2020 Update 09.06.2020 Update 08.06.2020 Update 03.06.2020 Update 02.06.2020 Update 01.06.2020

May

Update 29.05.2020 Update 28.05.2020 Update 27.05.2020 Update 26.05.2020 Update 25.05.2020 Update 21.05.2020 Update 20.05.2020 Update 19.05.2020 Bear Hunt 19.05.20 Update 13.05.2020 Update 12.05.2020  Added  12.05.2020 Update 11.05.2020 Update 07.05.2020 Update 06.05.2020 Update 05.05.2020 Update 04.05.2020 Update 01.05.2020

April

Added  28.04.2020 Update 28.04.2020 Update 27.04.2020 Update 23.04.2020 Update 22.04.2020 Update 03.04.2020 Update 01.04.2020

March

Update 31.03.2020 Update 30.03.2020 Update 27.03.2020 Update 26.03.2020 Update 25.03.2020 Update 24.03.2020 Update 23.03.2020