Winter Weather




Snow has fallen which makes us all think of school closures! Please check that you have the school hotline number. 0870 054 6999 (pin 04 2310) Please also make sure that you notify school of updated contact details and SOS contacts.


Panto practice and preparation is getting into top gear, working with all the other classes in school as well as their own acting roles. The children made masks for Mrs Walker's class and started work on the scenery with Mr Hayes, who is very kindly giving his time and expertise.


All of the work that goes into the panto fulfils the requirements of curriculum for excellence in many areas - as we want to see confident children who are comfortable producing public performances and who have experiences of drama and music that they are involved in performing themselves.

You can now buy tickets for the Wednesday and Thursday night performances from the school office £3.

The Great Glen Rangers helped us build our willow dome. It's brilliant - what d'you think?


Pr 123 and Pr 345 have also been learning the songs for Busy Busy Bethlehem.

We also welcomed this Advent season at the church this morning with a short Advent Service. The children who read the lesson did so beautifully.

Please also remember that school is closed on Monday for inservice training.

The big maths lesson will happen on Wednesday 1st December at 1.00 in the GP room all are welcome, we will have another Maths evening on the 14th December at 7pm.

The parents council AGM will be held on the 1st December at 7pm in the Academy Library please come along and lend your support to the school.

We wish you a fun weekend.

Kindest regards

W S Scollay

We been having a foot tapping time

A HUGE thank you to all the parents and friends of Kilchuimen who have sponsored the children as part of the British Heart Foundation big skip. The money is still coming in and we don't have a final total but people have been very generous. 20% of money raised will go towards school funds.
We raised £38 for Children in Need as part of our dress down day today. Every little helps.
Next week we shall be having another dress down day on Friday and the money will be used to raise money for Christmas activities.
On Wednesday we had a super afternoon of music when Mhairead Green and Anna Massie played the accordion, small pipes, guitar, banjo and fiddle to us. Everyone loved singing the song, Sam the Skull. We also learned about jigs, strathspeys and reels and how to decide which tune was which.
All the children have been working hard on their safety posters so we will be finding out soon who will win a prize.
Pr 123 have begun work on their nativity this week, Busy Busy Bethlehem, Mrs Walker thinks that they have nearly learned the piece already! Brilliant work P 123.
The singing for the Pantomine has really been improving it's sounding fantastic, we know lots of the words as well. Actors have been learning their lines and will be without the script soon!
The nurse was in school on Monday and did the P1 health checks.
The nursery have a mini hospital set up and there are a few sick teddies and dolls.
You will also be pleased to hear that the missing teddy from last week was found. He had a huge adventure. The children wrote about the teddy's adventure, that teddy had had a busy time!
We would like to invite all our parents and friends to come to the Advent Service in the church on Friday at 9.30, this is nice way to start off the Advent season. We hope to see you there.
Have a lovely weekend.
W S Scollay

Newsletter

The school newsletter was put into school bag mail today, so check that out for the latest information. The letter will appear on the website later next week.

The children have been taking part in a Health and Safety poster competition for Glendoe. The posters will be displayed up at the dam and will help to remind the workers to keep safe. Having seen a few of them there are some excellent posters, some are very gruesome!

Mrs MacDonald's class and Miss Starr's class have been taking part in the League of Nations maths challenge. The children have really enjoyed competing with other children around the world. The maths is certainly challenging but lots of fun. All the children have been given user names and passwords which they can use at home. The competition starts for real next week.

Rehearsals have begun for Jack and the Beanstalk. I am delighted at the improvement in the singing, it would bring tears to a glass eye! (and not of pain!!) The actors have been rehearsing their parts as well, it should be good.

We stopped at 11am on Thursday as part of Rememberance day and George from the Academy collected money for a collection to the poppy fund. He looked really smart in his Army Cadets uniform.

A bid has been put in this week for Leader funding, many thanks to those who wrote letters of support for the project.

Next week we are going to be having a live performance of Scottish music from Anna Massie and Mhaird Green. That will be a real treat for us. P 5 have been learning the whistle with Feis, they are beginning to get quite tuneful!

On Fridays we are going to be having dress down day each week for £1 this will help to raise funds for the Christmas Parties.

Have a good weekend.

Kindest regards

W S Scollay

Halloween is coming! Skeletons will be after YOU!

Welcome back to school after the holidays!

What a ghostly night we had last night. The children all seemed to have lots of fun at the Halloween Disco. The costumes which the children wore were all brilliant. I did not recognise quite a few of the children.

The Pupils did a great job organising the event, but our secret weapon of Mrs Collins certainly helped the council a lot! We have to send a very big and special, "Thank you!" to Mrs Collins who baked vast amounts of spider cakes, skeleton biscuits and other goodies, she made gloopy gunk for the children that dared put their hand in the bowl, and created a Gruesome feely box. Dee also helped the council think of exciting Halloween games. Everyone loved the wrap the mummy. A hall full of mummified children was a sight to see! Dee also went all the way to Tesco and bought all the prizes and some decorations on behalf of the pupil council. (Getting hopelessly caught up in the road closure!) We really have much to thank her for.

Alison Bowcott bought the apples for the very popular dooking for apples. The children really enjoyed that. Thank you Alison!

Tina Cameron kindly came in and helped to decorate the hall with the children. The secondary pupils had let us use some of their Halloween decorations and we all added many of our own. The hall looked really great.

Thank you also to all the staff and other mums who helped at the disco and made sure that the evening went off without a hitch.

Wonderful fun!

Today we had a right motley bunch of children come to school, many were dressed up again. Mrs Walkers class and Ms Scollay's class went to the Telford Centre, there the children sang some Halloween songs and spoke the residents and visitors.

£50 was won for the P 567 class by four children. They are delighted and I am not sure what they intend to buy for their class yet.

The Oban Times on Thursday had a super picture of the playground leaders, with the Pr 1 children. The children were proudly showing their new playground equipment which had been fund raised for by the last pupil council.

So a very busy start to the term, without mentioning that the P 567 and P 345 classes have begun work on the Panto! Jack and the Beanstalk. P 567 are learning about Africa, P 345 are learning about Victorians and P 123 are learning about the seasonal festivals.

Happy Halloween! :-)

W S Scollay

The holidays are here!

I would like to wish you all a safe and happy holiday. The children and staff have once more worked really hard and it is great to see the progress in learning which the children have had.

The staff returns to school on the 25th October for an Inservice day and we will welcome the children back on Tuesday 26th October. There will be a Halloween disco on Thursday 28th October 6.00 - 7.30 in the school hall. Children will be able to were their Halloween costumes to school on the 29th October if they bring £1. Mrs Walker and Ms Scollay's class will visit the Telford Centre on 29th October wearing our Halloween costumes.

Auditions will begin for the Pantomime during the first week back, Jack and the Beanstalk will be performed on the 9th December.

So lots of exciting events will be happening next term.

This week, P567 had a great time working on Africa. Our North Highland Cross Country representatives (Laura, Andrew, Ben J, Kieran, Mungo and James) ran really well. We're very proud of their efforts! On Thursday, they logged on to a web chat with the author or the Young Bond series of books, Charlie Higson. He's now writing scary stories for children, but we weren't scared! It was totally cool.

P 345 have been continuing to learn about maps, we took a very short walk along station road on Thursday. We noted all the mistakes which were on the Google earth map. The children have also been working on co-ordinates in their maths lessons. We will finish off work on this next term. We also spent lots of time redrafting our best pieces of writing work from this term. After the chats at parents night the children produced some fantastic work, showing us exactly how super they can do their work. No excuses now!

P 123 have been learning about lady pirates this week, and they wrote about them during their writing lesson where they had to use headings in their writing. The P 123 also led our assembly today, they put on a short play about Noah's ark, and taught the rest of the school a song about Noah.

The nursery have been pretending to catch and eat fish from their boat. That boat really travels in the nursery. They were also building planks to walk from the boat, and one wee boy made a barbeque where they cooked their fish. The children enjoyed salmon, mackeral for snack this week, and they all enjoyed that. The new guttering is also causing lots of fun and learning.

So... it's no wonder we all need a well earned break.

I look forward the fun and games of next term.

Kindest regards

W S Scollay

Rain stops play :-(

With the wind whirling it feels like late autumn today. I always say this, but once again the term has simply flown past and the last week of term if fast approaching.

P 3/4/5 and P 5/6/7 were disappointed once more this week, as they were not able to go to Auchterawe. The rain poured down and making dens in the rain is not so much fun! Unfortunately we are unable to rerun this trip before the holidays, so we will see if we can manage this early next term.

Thank you to all the parents who joined us at parents night. It was lovely to see you all.

I hope that everyone now has a copy of the Quality and Standards report and the school newsletter. If you did not get a copy please ask for one from the school office. They will go live on the website later next week.

A quick reminder to all parents, that for PE lessons children should have shorts, a t- shirt and a pair of suitable indoor shoes. Mrs Campbell comes in every Thursday and expects all the children to be suitably dressed so that they can access all the activities.

P5/6/7

We are enjoying finishing off our model village, complete with garage, corner shop, cinema, floating boathouse, skyscraper, skateboard park.. powered by solar panels and wind turbines.

Sadly for us this was our last week of swimming for a while...it's one of the highlights of our week. We've had a brilliant time, and we've gained a lot of confidence from our lessons.

We are looking forward to seeing our new junior road safety officers back from their training session at Kirkhill Primary....we're going to ask them lots of questions about being safe near roads, especially now that the nights are beginning to get darker.


P 3/4/5

The children began thinking the big C word... sorry yes, I did mean Christmas!!! As part of the Blue Peter Whizz kids appeal we created Christmas cards. The cards have to be sent back at the end of next week. The children did some super decorations. These cards will be distributed through out the UK and sold in Tesco Extra stores. Look out for the packs, one of them may contain your children's card! All money raised will help to support wheel chair assessment clinics. If you want to find out more, log onto the Blue Peter website.

The children also wrote letters to Mr Salmond, about the state of our beaches, with rubbish. We will have a go at redrafing some of these next week and send them to the man himself! I await his response!


P 1/2/3

Did a salt water experience with Laura from the Nursery. We should see the results next week. The children have been singing about Mice! Discussing hand- washing and making posters. We had a vote for the Pupil Council. The rest of the new toys arrived the dolls house and the garage are very well equipped. We have been learning about blurbs, and about using headings when writing reports. We also read about lady pirates too.


Nursery

The nursery ate some of their harvested brussel sprouts for snack. The children have been looking at patterns in nature, and one wee one painted a beautiful fish. Another child painted a super picture of a shell with all the ridges and bumps on it. The children have had great fun with lengths of guttering in the playground, running water through the pipes. Mrs Macleod came into nursery and helped the children make plant pots with shells stuck on to them.

I wish you a happy weekend.

Kindest regards

W S Scollay

Parents Evenings and other bits n bobs.

Please check school bag mail, appointments for parents night have been given out today. We have tried where possible to accommodate appointment requests but I know that this has not always been possible. If the time is not convenient please contact the school to arrange another mutually convenient time to speak to you child's teacher.

There will also be a parent council meeting on Wednesday 29th at 2.00pm. We are looking for a parent volunteer to help with the creche as we do not have extra staff available this week.

The order for sweatshirts is now closed. The order is being sent away today.

Pr 1/2/3 have been learning about Pirates, they have written Pirate Juice recipes, and they REALLY DID NOT have rum!!! I was slightly alarmed when I was assured by the children they had! Mrs Walker was mortified. The children have also been learning about pirate parrots and ships. In maths the children have also been taking part in addition.

Pr 3/4/5/ drew beautiful shells in chalk and finished their seascape pictures, they all turned out really well. They enjoyed a singing session with John Thomson this week, and they were keeping the beat to the music. John really knows how to get everyone to enjoy singing with his games and catchy songs.

Pr 5/6/7 have been creating their designed houses. These cardboard constructions have been built from an initial plan. The children have worked hard on them and have enjoyed making them.

The cross country team has been picked this week. Well done to those who got through and also well done to the others who have worked very hard at the training but did not make the final team.

We had Robbie in for work experience this week and he saw all aspects of how the school works, I hope that he enjoyed his time with us.

I hope that I see may see many of you next week at the parents evening.

Kindest regards

W S Scollay

Kilchuimen Primary

Fort Augustus, Scotland, United Kingdom

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