Morningside Blog

August 29, 2022
by Mr Stathis
0 comments

August Newsletter

WE STRIVE TO BE A STRONG & CARING SCHOOL COMMUNITY
WHERE EVERYONE IS; SAFE, HAPPY, INCLUDED & RESPECTED
BY BUILDING CONFIDENCE & RAISING ACHIEVEMENT
WE TRULY ARE…MAKING PUPILS SHINE!

 

August 2022 Update
We are delighted to welcome all our existing and new families back after what we hope was a fantastic
break. The children have had a very successful first few weeks back and are looking forward to the new
term. We look forward to getting to know you all over the next few weeks.

Absence Procedures
As we begin our first term for Session 2022/23, I would like to highlight our normal procedures for
reporting absence and an update was issued at the end of last week. Can we ask that you read and follow
these please?

Changes to Pick Up Arrangements:
This can be confusing to children and be challenging to ensure that children are given messages within
our busy wee school and cannot guarantee this will happen. Your support would be appreciated and the
matter could be alleviated in the following ways:
 Please try to make sure that pupils are aware of their pick up arrangements for that day.
 As far as possible, please try to ensure that arrangements are only changed if there is a genuine
emergency. We do understand that things can happen in our busy family lives!
 Please try as far as possible to adhere to our drop off and pick up times. School begins at 08.55
and pupils should arrive no earlier than 08.40 as there is no playground supervision before this
time; unless of course your child is attending the Breakfast Club, which is no earlier than 08.15.
School ends at 15.00. We ask that parents drop off and pick up at the school gates and should
not enter the school playground; the exception being Primary 1 parents who can pick up their
child at the back door at 3pm
N.B If you are contacting the school, please be aware that the office is staffed 8.30am at the earliest
until 4.15pm, 3.30pm on Friday (excluding morning and lunch breaks).

 

Birthday Cakes
REMINDER – As you know we love to celebrate your children’s birthdays with them and in recent years
quite a lot of children have very kindly brought in a cake to share with their class. Unfortunately, we
have had to put a stop to birthday cakes being brought in. We have several children with a variety of
allergies which now affects most classes. Thank you for your generosity in the past but we are sure you
will understand and support us in this decision. Your child’s birthday will still be acknowledged and
celebrated in their class.

Diary Dates
Once activities, assemblies (we are delighted to be able to return to having an Assembly for each class
based on topic work that will be presented in school to their parents) have been planned we will issue as
comprehensive a list as possible. In the meantime, here are the arrangements made so far:
Wednesday 28th September – Flu Immunisations
Thursday 13th October – Parent/Teacher Consultations – in school; timings to be confirmed.
Week commencing 12th December – Christmas Parties, 1-3pm – days for each class tbc.
Friday 16th December – Interim Reports issued to parents
Wednesday 21st December – Christmas Service, 10am at Coltness Memorial Church
Thursday 23rd March – Parent/Teacher Consultations – in school; timings to be confirmed.
Week commencing 27th March – Primary 7 Residential Trip at Ardentinny.
Friday 31st March – Easter Service, 10am in school for pupils and staff only.
Week commencing 12th June – Health Week, including Sports Day 10am Tuesday 13th
.
A list of the holiday dates for Session 2022/23 were sent out by email last week.
Holiday dates for Session 2023/24 will be issued once confirmed.

Lost Property
This is an ongoing problem. Please ensure that your child’s name is on all their clothes and personal items
as this enables us to return items to them easily.

Nut-free School
Can you please ensure that your child does not bring in any food items containing nuts, your support in
this is vital as we have pupils with nut allergies.

Parents Portal
NLC launched the Parents Portal as a means of communication between schools and parents. For this to
work effectively you need to ensure that your contact details are always up to date, to help with this
the Data Check letters for your child/children came home last week. If you have not yet returned these,
please check the form, update where required, include any updated medical information, and return as
soon as possible for us to update our systems. Thank you.
Details of the Parents Portal and instructions for this can be followed in the video available via this
link:

Parents Portal

To be able to sign up to the portal it is vital you are using the same contact details etc. that we have
for you and your child/children. Also, if you already have and use “MyAccount” please ensure your
details on this are up to date.
This portal is the main communications between schools and parents across North Lanarkshire Council;
however, it is not yet being used as our main point of communication. We currently have approximately
half of our families already linked to this, but to ensure this is a successful communication tool for all
our families we need the majority of our Parent Forum to have signed up for it and we will continue to
use Groupcall Messenger until then. We ask that you sign up to this service as it is a one stop shop to
many of our current and future communications.
If you are still having difficulties with this, we plan to have laptops and support available to parents to
assist in setting this up at our first Parent/Teacher Consultations (Thursday 13th October)

PE Days
Once again this session, each class is allocated 2 hours of Physical Education per week. To ensure your
child/children can take part please ensure they come to school prepared on the following days:
Primary 1 – Monday and Thursday
Primary 2 – Wednesday and Thursday
Primary 3 – Monday and Thursday
Primary 4 – Wednesday and Friday
Primary 5 – Wednesday and Friday
Primary 6/5 – Tuesday and Friday
Primary 6 – Tuesday and Wednesday
Primary 7 – Thursday and Friday

Children can come dressed in their P.E clothes on these days and should wear trainers that can be worn
both indoors and outdoors. Football colours are not permitted. For health and safety reasons children
are not allowed to wear jewellery during P.E sessions. It would be advised that children do not come to
school wearing jewellery on their P.E days. In line with the Authority PE policy, all jewellery should be
removed during PE lessons, especially earrings. If your child is unable to remove these, please provide
tape/plasters to cover their earrings, which your child must be able to do. This should however be used
as a last resort, as earrings should be removed.
Can we remind parents that P.E is not an “optional extra” therefore all pupils are expected to
participate fully in P.E. If for any reason your child is unable to participate on a specific day the
school must be notified in writing.

School Gate and Road Safety
The area around the school gate can become very busy at the beginning and end of the day. We kindly
ask that parents and carers who are dropping off and picking up their children, ensure that they leave
a path for children to come in and out through the gate safely.
The roads around the school are very busy. Please refrain from parking outside the school or near
corners where it makes it difficult to cross the road safely. We ask that parents entering/leaving the
car park, driving on School Road can be sensible and aware of pupils leaving school/crossing the road.
Your children’s safety is our priority.
Can we also remind you that School Road is the emergency access to Morningside Care Home, and the
surrounding estate, and that any blockage could have profound consequences?
School Meals Payments
We respectfully ask you again to ensure you have enough money on your child’s card to pay for their
meals, including breakfast. We already have several children who have insufficient funds which can build
up quickly.
Free School Meal Entitlement: The Scottish Government announced that they are delaying universal
free school meals provision for Primary 6 and Primary 7 pupils; stating that further expansion of free
school lunches during term-time to include children in P6 and P7 will not begin in August 2022 as had
been intended. There appears to be no indication of when/if this will be put in place and will update you
when we receive any clarification.
Therefore, it is only children attending nursery for full days and children in Primaries 1 to 5 that are
automatically entitled to receive free school meals.
If you believe that your child/children are entitled to a free school meal and the associated benefits
this could bring, please check the NLC website for the relevant criteria and claim form (please note
that this must be applied for on an annual basis and does not automatically continue each year).

Staffing Updates
We would like to welcome Miss O’Malley to our school. She has settled in well to our staff team and I
know you will look forward to meeting her during the year.

Twitter and Blog
Parents and Carers are encouraged to follow us on Twitter and our Website/Blog. You can access these
through:
Website/Blog glowscotland.gov.uk/nl/morningsideblog
Twitter Account @morningsideps
Here you will be able to follow the work your child is involved in, we will post pictures of all our big
events and staff will post pictures of the children’s learning experiences and achievements.
To gain access to the school Twitter account you must have children currently at the school. If you
would like to request to follow us then you should click follow and then email Mr Stathis
at nlstathisg@northlan.org.uk with the name of your child and also your Twitter Handle. Your Twitter
handle is the bit under your Twitter name that starts with @

Compliments, Concerns, Complaints
If you have any of the above, please make an appointment to speak with your child’s class teacher, Mrs.
White, Mr Stathis or Mrs. Gardiner. They will be available by appointment only, which can be made by
either phoning the school (01698 274938) or by emailing enquiries-at-morningside@northlan.org.uk . Can
we please remind you that all emails should be sent via this email address not to the Head Teacher,
Principal Teacher, or Class Teachers directly.
If it is regarding classroom work, please make an appointment to speak with your child’s class teacher,
through the office staff, please do not approach teachers directly during preparation time or teaching
time.
On many occasions, if it is not regarding class work, our office staff will have the information and advice
that you need.
We as a staff want your children to be safe and happy during their time at Morningside Primary and are
more than willing to discuss any concerns. It is always best to ask us directly rather than using other
forums to air your concerns. We are teaching your children about the safe usage of social media and
how our digital footprint cannot be deleted. Please be mindful of your own usage.
Your support in this would be appreciated.

Yours sincerely
Jennifer Gardiner Date: 29th August 2022

June 18, 2021
by Mrs White
0 comments

Primary 6/5 Summer Singers

The Primary 6/5 Summer Singers would like to show you something they have been working on over the last few weeks, outside, at lunchtimes.
These girls have been practising at home and in their lunch breaks and even had to record outside! What professionals!
We can’t wait to get to sing inside again. 🎶🎼🎵🎤🎸🎧
I hope their performance puts a smile on your face as we get ready to finish for the summer. Memories

March 12, 2021
by Mr Stathis
0 comments

Back to the Computer – A sustainable future

Back to the Computer 

A sustainable future

 

On this weeks blog I will be talking you through ‘what’s next?’ for Morningside Primary School when it comes to Digital technologies and online Learning platforms.

 

15TH OF MARCH 2021

This is a significant date in our road to recovery; not only as a school but as a nation that is desperate to get back to some sort of ‘normal’. The confirmation from Scottish Parliament that all Primary age children would be able to return to school on this date was very well received by all the staff at Morningside Primary School, in fact I haven’t personally spoken to one teacher who wasn’t happy or had reservations about this happening.

We can’t wait to welcome all our children back with open arms (for a socially distanced virtual hug) and get to work on supporting learning and moving our kids forward.

 

But what have we learned in this period of remote learning and what can we now use to enhance our teaching pedagogy? 

These important questions have led me to one word; ‘sustainability’. The staff in Morningside have worked so hard this past year to upskill themselves in digital technologies and have embraced Office 365 and Microsoft Teams to bring high quality teaching, learning and assessment to a remote setting. We are very proud as a school with what we have achieved and with the children coming back to the classroom we can now shut down Teams, forget about Office 365 and get those text books open, right?

Wrong!

We now have the chance to integrate these new skills that children and staff have gained over this period and use it to enhance the classroom environment and enrich the learning experiences of our young people. This leads me onto my enquiry which will look at how; as a school, we can look towards sustaining the use of digital technologies to implement a blended learning approach. I will focus on Literacy first of all and look to see how we can utilise various features of Microsoft Teams to support Asynchronous and Synchronous learning.

 

How will I know what is working and what data will I use to help inform my decisions?

Insights

I will utilise the Insights feature on Microsoft Teams to track pupil engagement. This has been a really useful feature of Teams throughout the pandemic as it has allowed us not to only track pupil engagement but to really maximise the value of the data available to identify pupils who were not engaging at different levels and offer the appropriate support to these children.

Assignments

All tasks set will be through the Assignments tab on Teams. This will allow me to track pupil submissions and engagement. Assignments is another fabulous tool that we have benefitted from as it allows teachers to set specific work to their groups, utilise the rubrics feature and to give personalised feedback to children with clear next steps.

Professional judgment and dialogue

I will liaise with class teachers to measure the engagement and productivity of a blended learning approach within Literacy. Nobody knows the children’s progress in learning better than their class teacher, therefore I will look to gather as much information and evidence from this invaluable resource to support my enquiry.

 

What will the enquiry actually involve?

  • Literacy tasks (mainly reading) will be set via assignments for the children to do away from
    the classroom environment.
  • Children will be asked to record part of their reading via assignments at home to allow class teachers to maximise teaching and task time within the class.
  • I will also look at the possibility of learners having access to short teaching videos at home, before completing a linked task back in the class.

What am I hoping to achieve and when will I want to achieve it by?

The hope is that teacher’s will be able embed the use of Teams and Office 365 within their classroom and that pupils and teachers will be able make use of all their new skills. furthermore;

  • Pupils will have carried out tasks at home (monitored via assignments and insights).
  • Teachers will have a reduced workload and more time to interact and engage with more pupils during Literacy lessons.

I will write an initial report around May/ June to share my initial findings but hope that this will just be the beginning of a bright future where Digital technologies is very much embedded throughout Morningside Primary school.

What can you do to help?

I have put together a survey for parents to complete that has been included in this week’s assembly but you can also access it by clicking here. 

If you have any other additional thoughts about anything I have talked about in this blog post you can also fill out the form below and share those thoughts with me.

 

March 3, 2021
by Mr Stathis
0 comments

Primary 4 – SWAY

Primary 4 have been busy creating more amazing Sway presentations!!

 

What a fabulous way to present your work boys and girls! 

 

🔰 Check out the presentations below 🔰

 

Go to this Sway
Go to this Sway
Go to this Sway
Go to this Sway
Go to this Sway

 

Go to this Sway

If you would like to make your own Sway then check out this quick video – Sway tutorial

March 2, 2021
by Mr Stathis
0 comments

Back to the Computer (Lockdown version 2)

Back to the Computer

January 2021

Hi everyone and welcome to Morningside Primary school’s first blog post around our Digital
Journey. Every week I will update the Blog with more things digital.

Arriving back in the digital classroom

This time around things were a bit different and as a school we were in a much better place. Microsoft Teams was well established with both children and staff having set clear foundations in the first lockdown; Class Teams were set up, children had clear guidance (written and video) of how to access Teams on a variety of devices and staff had looked at different ways to provide learning experiences for our learners.

 

So, What next?

  • Expectations
  • Consistency
  • Improved learning experiences

 

Let’s look at expectations

It was clear this time round that expectations had risen, Digital Progress phone calls from HMIE, NLC updated their Digital Guidance issued to schools of what was expected and Digital training was being thrusted upon us from all directions!

PANIC…….NOT! Well not at MPS anyway!

We had a clear plan married with a focussed and motivated staff! Ready to learn, improve and deliver on these raised expectations!

What do they want from us and how will we deliver it?

The main change from the first lockdown was that there was a huge shift from revision and consolidation of learning to new learning. But how do we deliver this online and ensure consistency across our school?

Teams! Teams! Teams!

As part of our Glow access we are lucky to have access to Microsoft Office, including the ever improving Teams. We were already lucky to have set our class Teams up in the first lockdown so this time around it was all about consistency and utilising its resources.

NLC Digital guidance were looking for a blend of synchronous and asynchronous learning (fancy words for at the same time and not at the same time). What was important here was creating a sense of equity for our children within our learning experiences but at the same time ensure we were delivering engaging, challenging and suitable content to our learners.; bringing consistency across the school.

Channels

We decided to limit the number of channels on our Class Teams to keep it simple and accessible. The General Channel would be locked so important information wasn’t lost and additionally a Social channel and a Questions and support channel were created; I am sure these are pretty self explanatory and I don’t need to go into much detail.

The General channel would later have a tab added along the top to include a weekly suggested timetable for children to follow.

Assignments (class work)

We decided that all work would be issued through assignments. This meant that class teachers could issue work specifically to the correct groups just as they would in the class. It also meant they could schedule the assignments to go out at specific times of the week and it would organise the tasks for the children for ease of access.

This is where assignments gets really useful ….

Feedback

How were we going to deliver meaningful feedback just as we would in class? In the previous lockdown we would use the ‘Praise’ button to issue praise to children but this was more praise for the sake of praise and wasn’t giving children any next steps as it would appear on the channel chat for everyone to see!

Little did we know at the time that assignments had the solution all along!!

When you click on a child’s assignment you can issue feedback directly to the child where it is kept private for them so see! WOW! Game changer for sure. This allowed our staff to adopt the same approach to feedback as we do in class where we give the children two stars and a wish. A clear next step of how they can improve and better achieve their Success Criteria.

It doesn’t end there though!

Rubrics

Sound confusing, right?

Wrong!

This feature will change your online assessment and feedback for sure! Don’t believe me ? Here is what one of our teachers had to say;

‘Have just finished marking Taught Writing using a rubric – game changer!!’
Easy to set up and can be used over and over again! Here is an example of how it can be utilised to include LI and SC to show children clear expectation for their work. You can also include points for how well they achieve each of the success criteria to help give the children a clear visual representation of how successful they have been.

Wait! it doesn’t give me the option to add the little coloured dots to mine? When you are working on a computer or laptop and using windows you can insert emojis anywhere you type… just hit the windows button and period (the full stop) and it will bring up the emoji pane.

 

Improved Learning experiences

Having brought consistency to the appearance of our Teams and how we would issue our work, what would the work actually be like?

Live

We decided to go with live check ins every day that would be scheduled by the class teacher on Teams. These check in would essentially be a Health and Wellbeing check in and an opportunity for the children to ask their teacher about their work.

Teachers were keen to evolve and improve the content of live sessions, sending out forms/ surveys to their kids asking for points for improvement. This led to a wide variety of engaging activities such as quizzes through Kahoot, Number Talks strategies being discussed, virtual scavenger hunts and much more.

 

Recorded

Teachers would provide at least one recorded lesson for Literacy or Numeracy each day. This meant that children could access the recorded content when they wanted and as many times as they wanted. We felt this was important in terms of equity of access as not all children would be able to access live lessons for various reasons meaning any teaching done during lives would essentially be lost and with the record screen function disabled on Teams then this really just was not an option.

The recorded lesson would be uploaded within the assignment along with any tasks to go with it.

 

So has it worked and how do we know?

In a word, Yes!

Engagement has massively improved during this lockdown and we consistently have over 95% engagement on Teams each week which we monitor daily through the use of the Insights tab available on Teams. Along with this we also use the tracking features on both Sumdog and Active Learn to.

 

So where do we go now?

In next weeks blog I am going to begin to look at where we can go now with delivering a more blended learning approach as we begin to welcome back more and more of our children to our not so virtual classrooms.

 

If you would like to discuss my blog in any more detail please don’t hesitate to contact me at gw10stathisgeorge@glow.sch.uk

 

You can also check out our Digital Journey here.

Mr Stathis

PEF Principal Teacher

Morningside Primary School

February 26, 2021
by Mr Stathis
0 comments

Primary 4 Sway Presentations

Primary 4 are certainly out to impress this week with some amazing Sway presentations!!

 

⬇ Check out their amazing work below ⬇

Go to this Sway
Go to this Sway
Go to this Sway
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