🌈 Health and Wellbeing – Can you help? 🌱

As the Health and Wellbeing lead, I am excited to be involved in  rolling out the new RSHP (Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenthood) Programme this school year.  This is a Government resource to support Curriculum for Excellence.  More information will come out to Parents and Carers in the coming school year. 🌈

💚I would like to invite a small number of parents in to explore and discuss the new resource with me.  I am looking for a group of parents across Early to Second levels to chat through the resource and get parental views. The resource is live and being used across Scotland at various levels so this is not about changing the resource but just gaining views in advance of the roll out.

🍎 If you are interested please drop me an email and availability (within the school week) and I will confirm in the next week or so.

As part of the Health and Wellbeing role, we are looking at our Nurturing environment.  If anyone has any cushions, bean bags, rugs that are good quality which they would be willing to donate please contact me.  We are also on the lookout for indoor plants, easy to maintain etc. 🌱

Thanks in advance

Karen Hinton

K.hinton@midlothian.education

Welcome back P4!

Welcome back to school P4!

It really has been lovely to see the children back in school this week. There has been a lot of changes and new ways of working to get used to but we are sure, in a week or two, these will become second nature to the children and staff within the school.

This is a short message to inform parents that P4 will have Mrs Duncan once per week alternating between Tuesday and Thursday mornings for Health & Wellbeing activities, including PE.

PE will be an outdoor activity where possible and to that end, can children please come dressed for outdoor PE on the allocated day each week (see dates below).  An outdoor kit will consist of trainers, jogging bottoms/leggings, t-shirt, outdoor showerproof jacket. We have no changing areas at present so children will wear their kit for the day.

Date P.E. / Health & Wellbeing Activity Day
18.08.20 Tuesday
27.08.20 Thursday
01.09.20 Tuesday
10.09.20 Thursday
15.09.20 Tuesday
24.09.20 Thursday
29.09.20 Tuesday
05.10.20 Thursday
13.10.20 Tuesday

Homework will commence week beginning Monday 24th August and details about that will follow nearer the time.

Finally, can pupils bring a reading book/magazine from home to keep for reading in school when required.

Many thanks,

Mrs Watts & Mrs Roy

P4 Class Teachers

Dear Parents…

Dear parents,

You might be inclined to create a minute by minute schedule for your kids. You have high hopes of hours of learning, including online activities, science experiments, and book reports. You’ll limit technology until everything is done! But here’s the thing…

Our kids are just as scared as we are right now. Our kids not only can hear everything that is going on around them, but they feel our constant tension and anxiety. They have never experienced anything like this before. Although the idea of being off of school for weeks sounds awesome, they are probably picturing a fun time like summer break, not the reality of being trapped at home and not seeing their friends.

Over the coming weeks, you will see an increase in behavior issues with your kids. Whether it’s anxiety, or anger, or protest that they can’t do things normally – it will happen. You’ll see more meltdowns, tantrums, and oppositional behavior in the coming weeks. This is normal and expected under these circumstances.

What kids need right now is to feel comforted and loved. To feel like it’s all going to be ok. And that might mean that you tear up your perfect schedule and love on your kids a bit more. Play outside and go on walks. Bake cookies and paint pictures. Play board games and watch movies. Do a science experiment together or find virtual field trips of the zoo. Start a book and read together as a family. Snuggle under warm blankets and do nothing.

Don’t worry about them regressing in school. Every single kid is in this boat and they all will be ok. When we are back in the classroom, we will all course correct and meet them where they are. Teachers are experts at this! Don’t pick fights with your kids because they don’t want to do math. Don’t scream at your kids for not following the schedule. Don’t mandate 2 hours of learning time if they are resisting it.

If I can leave you with one thing, it’s this: at the end of all of this, your kids’ mental health will be more important than their academic skills. And how they felt during this time will stay with them long after the memory of what they did during those weeks is long gone. So keep that in mind, every single day.

Stay safe. x

From all of us in the Loanhead Primary Community

19.3.20 NEW update from Midlothian council regarding school closure

The following statement was sent to schools this evening. At the bottom of the statement are links to parental guidance and advice which will be very useful in this time. We will keep you updated as, and when, we know anything else.

All schools will be closed to Primary Pupils and S1-3 Pupils with the following exceptions:

· Saltersgate School will remain open to support our children with severe and complex needs. The Head Teacher will be in contact with individual families outlining the individual arrangements which will be in place.

· All Secondary Schools will be open to S4-6 Pupils only in order to complete any SQA mandatory coursework and assessments prior to the published deadlines. Please refer to individual High School Websites for further updates. We are planning a phased approach to distance learning however priority will be given to S4-S6 to begin with.

· We are now focussed on planning for the families of staff belonging to the following groups key worker groups: Emergency Services, NHS, Health and Social Care Partnership including Care at Home, Teachers and Council Staff who have requested assistance with Childcare in order to ensure that we deliver critical services. This requested provision will be delivered through 4 secondary and 4 primary schools acting as Hubs. Individual Schools will be in touch with the individual families to alert them to the arrangements which will be put in place.

· Free School Meals: We are currently working with catering services in order to finalise arrangements for the distribution of food for children entitled to free school meals and further information will be communicated as soon as plans have been finalised.

Public health advice and guidance should continue to be followed for staff and pupils with underlying health conditions and self-isolation.

As you will appreciate there is significant planning needed to move this forward and we will continue to update our website to keep you informed.

You can listen to the Deputy First Ministers announcement at this link:
https://news.gov.scot/speeches-and-briefings/statement-on-covid19-managing-the-impacts-on-scottish-education

Andrew Sheridan
Schools Group Manager (ASN & Inclusion)

Guidance for parents and carers in the event of school closure due to Coronavirus

A1 – Midlothian SLT Telephone Helpline info 2020

ONLINE AND COMPUTER SAFETY UPDATE

Safety Online!

Screen Addiction

e-Safety is an important part of keeping children safe at Loanhead Primary School . We have extensive security measures in place in school, which are monitored both internally and externally, to help safeguard pupils from potential dangers or unsuitable material. Any e-Safety incidents are recorded and managed.  e-Safety is taught to all pupils explaining and demonstrating how to stay safe and behave appropriately online.

We can only be successful in keeping children safe online if we work with parents to ensure the e-Safety message is consistent. It is important that parents speak to their children about how they can keep safe and behave appropriately online.

Recently, many of the children have been talking about the Momo challenge and have been increasingly worried about it.  Like many of these online phenomenon the publicity and hype has made this a lot bigger than it needs to be.  For a quick briefing on it see the link below.

https://parentzone.org.uk/article/three-minute-briefing-momo-challenge

MOMO INFO

It’s essential to be realistic – banning the internet or technology will not work and it often makes a child less likely to report a problem. Education around safe use is essential.

Search engines

Please note that no search engine is ever 100% safe but below provides some links to some “safer” search engines:

Research searching

nICE
CBBC
Kids Yahoo

Google offers a safer search option for children searching on the Internet. You can find out how to do this by downloading the instructions at the bottom of the page.

Image searching

Pics4Learning
picsearch

Gaming

When children are accessing games via Xbox LIVE, privacy settings can be set up.  To read more, click here

FORTNIGHT BATTLE ROYAL – WHAT PARENTS NEED TO KNOW

Social Media Platform Guides

Click here to access to modern and relevant information on the most popular online phenomenons and social media platforms

https://nationalonlinesafety.com/resources/platform-guides/

Insta advice

Snapchat Info

WhatsApp Info

YouTube Info