Dear Parents and Carers,
Happy New Year! I hope you had a lovely break and enjoyed your Christmas with family and friends. We are happy to be back together and to see the children for the start of our new term.
This week
This week, we have tried to manage the weather as best we can, balancing safety on slippery playgrounds with children’s need to get outside! Please make sure children are ready for the cold weather with warm coats, gloves and hats. Our Janitor Gordon is out early every morning salting the playgrounds but it is impossible to cover all areas of our large site. Please take extra care when coming in and try to stick to the clearly gritted pathways.
On Monday, I held an assembly where we talked about our goals for the coming year. I reminded children that we don’t have to be constantly changing or striving to be different and that being happy in ourselves is the greatest goal of them all! We talked about hopes and aspirations for 2026 and lots of pupils stood up to share their ideas!
On Tuesday, there was no ‘Stay & Play’ session, but this will be back up and running from next week.
On Wednesday, our P6s went off to Benmore for their much-anticipated residential trip! It was lovely to see them so excited on the buses and raring to go! These outdoor residential experiences offer so many learning opportunities and will hopefully create lifelong memories for them. I popped along on Thursday to say hello and everyone was in great spirits, having their lunch and full of exciting stories of their adventures! I hope you enjoyed the pictures on SeeSaw showing what they were doing. A huge thank you to the staff at Benmore for their outstanding work and massive thank you to our staff who went along and supported our pupils! Thank you Mrs. Brown, Miss Melville, Miss Mitchell, Ms. Crawford and to Mrs. Mitchell and Mrs. Wilson who went along for part of the time too. Next week we will be sending out a survey to our P5 parents, to gather your views on the P6 trip. We want to make sure that parents have an opportunity to decide which trip is suitable for their children and make decisions that reflect this. We will do this annually so that every P6 cohort will have the trip they want.
Next week
Next week, our P3 and P3/2 classes will be holding a Bake Sale to raise money for their school trip at the end of January. P3 and P3/2 parents have been asked if they can bring in any home baked goods (which do not contain nuts, strawberries or cinnamon please) and all children will be given the opportunity to buy cakes during break time and in the afternoon. The bake sale will also run after school in the dining hall, and everybody is very welcome to join us!
Also, next week, Mrs. Thomson is organising a P7 leaver’s committee to meet on Thursday at 3pm in the P7 classroom to discuss leaver events for our P7s. All P7 parents are invited and if you can spare time to come up with ideas and plans to make their send-off as special and fun as possible!
Staff updates
Before the end of term, we interviewed for a permanent Janitor at Kirn and after a huge number of excellent applications and a full day of interviewing brilliant candidates, we are delighted to have appointed Michele Mclean and are looking forward to welcoming her back to Kirn on Monday 12th January. Michele used to work at Kirn for several years and has a huge amount of experience and enthusiasm for the role, so we look forward to her starting. I want to say an enormous thank you to our wonderful temporary Janitor Gordon, who has worked with us since last year and has been a brilliant team member at Kirn. He is always warm and friendly to our children, makes us all laugh and is an incredibly kind and helpful person and we will miss him dearly. Thank you Gordon for all your hard work!
Dropping off your children
We have been informed that cars are sitting in the pickup and drop off layby for extended periods of time in the morning and afternoon, stopping parents from safely dropping off their children. Please simply use this to stop, drop and go. Please note that this includes the disabled space. I would remind you that the disabled space is for disabled badge users only and should not be used by other road users. We are lucky to have the layby feature at Kirn, but it is currently not being used well and is causing pupil endangerment.
School vision
Last term we began to gather views on our Kirn Primary School Vision, as it was time to refresh it and make sure all stakeholders had their views heard. We are keeping our Kirn Values the same as these are very well referred to and understood by our pupils (Kindness, Inspiring, Respectful and Nurture) and our motto is Excellence, Equality and Effort, as you can find on our school crest. However, we do not have a whole school vision that we are all familiar with and agree. At parents’ evening we started to gather views using a survey and I am sending out the link again today to ask that you kindly complete it so that we have your views. Once this has been collated, we will launch it at a community event before Easter! Here is the link, it will also go out on SeeSaw. https://www.menti.com/aljh6i2acxgw
Report from head pupils
The first week back is already finished!
P1a have been learning about winter and polar habitats.
P1b have been settling in with some massage, and they are very excited for their polar lands’ topic.
P2 have been learning about animal habitats. Very interesting!
P3/2 have been learning country dancing!
Quotes
Joseph and Ariana: “We are very excited for our school trip!”
Niamh: “I love being a House Captain because I get to do lots of fun jobs”
Sophie: “I have enjoyed our Scottish inventor topic!”
Our P6 pupils have gone to Benmore! So exciting! When they return to school, please give them a warm welcome!
Well done to this week's Stars of the Week
Please note our Star of the Week Assembly:
Friday Afternoons- P1- P7- 2:15pm
If your child receives a slip on a Thursday to tell them they are Star of the Week, you are very welcome to join us at our assembly on the Friday!
Have a lovely weekend!
Well done to all our Stars of the Week this week and to everyone who stayed on Green or managed to reach Bronze, Silver or Gold!
Have a lovely weekend with your families!
Best wishes,
Verity
Head Teacher