Have a great summer, adieu or so long…

It has been another great year of learning and teaching and productive activity and development for the children at Hyndland Primary School. They have experienced an engaging curriculum in line with the aims, principles and the four capacities of Curriculum for Excellence – to be successful learners, confident individuals, effective contributors and responsible citizens.

Our children have been doing exceptionally well in a whole range of extra-curricular activities in sport, dance, music and outdoor learning, etc. Our musicians and budding musicians have been singing, fiddling, banging the drum and blowing their own trumpets to the delight of audiences in and outside the school. All of our children throughout the school have been acting, singing, running, scoring, playing, helping, supporting and learning their way through another busy, enjoyable and fruitful year.

We began the year by welcoming the now not so new Depute Head Teacher, Mr Frame, and finish the year by saying congratulation, we’re gonna miss you and we hope that you enjoy the experience, but not so much that you don’t come back “home” soon, to our one and only Mr Byrne, who has been undertaking headteacher training and has a fantastic opportunity in his temporary position.

Fare thee well also to yet another successful crop of P7s heading out to the big bright world of secondary school. To the departing P7s: You will be gone, but not forgotten and your impact on the high schools that you progress to will no doubt be as important as the one that you’ve all left at Hyndland Primary!

The Parent Council and also some great helpers and supporters are also either moving on as their children do, or taking more of a back seat from a hands-on approach within the Parent Council, so special thanks to them.

We would like to thank all of the management and staff at Hyndland Primary for their continuing, dedicated hard work and patience in helping our children grow educationally and emotionally as they grow northwards. We wish those staff who have had long term absences well and a speedy recovery, and we welcome back some not so old faces.

This year the Parent Council has been – as always – finding ways to actively raise funds in order to support the school, by purchasing a range of resources to help enrich the children’s learning experiences. Over the 2017-18 school year you have all helped us raise a few thousand pounds through two ceilidhs, two parent quiz nights, bake sales/bake offs and a Halloween disco. This money has been spent on a whole range of important resources, such as plants and gardening equipment; P1 playground improvements; Christmas books for the children; scientific calculator gifts for P7 leavers, etc.

Additionally, parents throughout the school have contributed to raising funds through a variety of activities, such as taking part in Mums on the Run; baking; cooking; making; creating; donating money; donating to or buying from the school Christmas Fayre; Quiz Nights and Ceilidh Nights; sourcing resources at a discount; linking your online shopping activity to easyfundraising.org.uk; buying books through the school book fairs, etc. Thank you all for your kind and generous support.

Over the next few years, along with making applications for external funding, we will be looking to raise even more funds to both maintain our current spending commitments and also to raise sufficient funds for the school playground developments, so that our children (well, yours, as mine will have left by that point!) have what is already a large and unusual playground space made into an excellent one.

A final, important, note is that as a result of changes to Data Protection law (due to GDPR), we have renewed our parent/carer contact database. So, thank you to all those parents and carers who have contacted us to confirm that they wish to continue receiving communications from the Parent Council, but for those of you who have now, you won’t receive them unless you contact us to strictly confirm.

On behalf of all the parents, carers and members on the Parent Council, we hope that you have a great summer break and we look forward to seeing you in August. Except of course for those whose youngest child is leaving Hyndland Primary School – in which case, so long and best wishes to you and your children!

Happy Holidays!

John

John Lewis, Chair, Hyndland Primary School Parent Council