St Cuthbert's RC Primary School

Dear Parents/Carers,

I don’t think any of us would have imagined even a few weeks ago, that this is how we would have ended our Spring Term! The last few weeks have been incredibly challenging for children, families and staff.  No one in our lifetimes has experienced anything like this. You will have heard on the news, talk of the ‘Blitz spirit’ and difficult times bringing out the best in people.

The St Cuthbert’s primary school community has definitely exemplified the truth of this: The positivity, commitment and resilience our children, staff and parents have shown has been admirable.

We know that trying to keep children learning at home is hard.  Parents and carers are doing a great job.  Be kind to yourself and don’t expect your children to do a full school day at home. The message from myself and our team is clear: do what you can, try your hardest but keeping  well and healthy is the biggest priority for everyone.

During this challenging time, our staff have been truly incredible.  Over the last few weeks what we have achieved together has been a huge tribute to the talent, commitment and passion of our team.  The quality of the online learning, the sheer volume of communications with families, deliveries of food parcels and the support of a hub for emergency workers’ children within a very short time frame has been phenomenal.  I am so proud of every one of our team.

Our children have been fantastic also.  I asked the teachers to share with me a positive learning experience from the last 2 weeks. Without exception all commented on their pupils positive attitude, engagement with them as teachers and support for each other online, which they report has been heart-warming to see.  The quality of work produced has been really strong and it is encouraging to see our pupils continue to make progress in their learning despite the challenging circumstances.

As you know, the Easter holidays begin today.  Learning will re-commence on Tuesday 21^st April.  Staff won’t be accessing email or Teams over this time and there will be no online work set until we return.  The admin@st-cuthberts.edin.sch.uk inbox will be checked before we return on the 21^st.  There are currently no plans for schools to re-open after Easter.

Please take this time to rest, relax and have fun within the constraints of our current way of life.

A massive thank you to the key emergency/essential workers who are doing such a great job across our country.   I am sure, that many of you were, like me, out clapping for them at your windows and doors last night!

Remember that Fr Duffy will be posting up his Mass on Palm Sunday. Please check St Cuthbert’s Parish website for further details.

Wishing you and your family health and happiness at this hard time and a peaceful Easter for those who celebrate it.

Pat Brack, Acting HT and all at St Cuthberts Primary School

Dear Parents/Carers,

As we near the end of term, thank you once again for your ongoing support. Please see update below from St Cuthbert’s Primary:

P7 Transition Forum – 21^st April 2020

This initiative is intended to support those current P7 pupils who will be attending St Augustine’s High School in academic year 2020-21. The dedicated Microsoft Team will allow staff from St Augustine’s to share information about the school with pupils and allow pupils to put their questions to staff within a safe, moderated environment. Miss Munro will send invitations to relevant pupils asking them to join the Team tomorrow. The Team will not go live until 21^st April however.

Learning Journals for Term 1 and Term 2

You should now be able to view your children’s Term 1 and Term 2 observations on Learning Journals. We hope you enjoy viewing these and discussing them with your children. Thank you to all of you have registered for this platform over the last week or two, if you haven’t already done so, please contact our admin mailbox (see below for address) to register.

For the attention of Applicants and Potential Applicants for places at St Cuthbert’s Nursery, August 2020

We posted a letter yesterday from City of Edinburgh Council on all of our platforms. The letter relates to nursery provision for 2020-21. Please read it and let us know if you have any questions about its contents. If you cannot find the letter on our platforms, please let us know and we can e-mail it to you via the admin mailbox.

Message from Fr Duffy and St Cuthbert’s Parish

Fr Duffy will be posting his Palm Sunday Mass on St Cuthbert’s Parish website. He also asked me to pass on his best wishes and prayers to all of you.

Please continue to contact us with any feedback, comments or questions you have via our admin mailbox:

admin@st-cuthberts.edin.sch.uk  

Best wishes to you all

Pat Brack, Acting HT and all at St Cuthberts Primary School

Dear Parents/Carers,

Please see below the latest update from St Cuthbert’s Primary:

Learning Journals for Term 1 and Term 2

As of today, you should now be able to view your children’s Term 1 and Term 2 observations on Learning Journals. We hope you enjoy viewing these and discussing them with your children. Thank you to all of you have registered for this platform over the last week or two, if you haven’t already done so, please contact our admin mailbox (see below for address).

Resources from Active Schools

We are continuing to update our 4 e-platforms (app, website, learning journals and twitter) to ensure that we are reaching as many of you as possible. Today we have updated these with some new ideas for games and activities produced by our colleagues in the Active Schools Team.

Playground Cards – Old AS Logo

Movement & Games

For the attention of Applicants and Potential Applicants for places at St Cuthbert’s Nursery, August 2020

We will post a letter from City of Edinburgh Council today on all of our platforms. It relates to nursery provision for 2020-21. Please read it and let us know if you have any questions about the contents of the letter.

CEC Letter re Nursery Provision 2020-21

Message from Fr Duffy and St Cuthbert’s Parish

Fr Duffy will be posting his Palm Sunday Mass on St Cuthbert’s Parish website. He also asked me to pass on his best wishes and prayers to all of you.

Please continue to contact us with any feedback, comments or questions you have via our admin mailbox:

admin@st-cuthberts.edin.sch.uk  

Kind Regards

Pat Brack, Acting Head Teacher and all at St Cuthberts.

 

Dear Parents/Carers,

The staff at St Cuthbert’s send their continued good wishes to you and your families at this challenging time.

Please continue to contact us with any feedback, comments or questions you have via our admin mailbox:

admin@st-cuthberts.edin.sch.uk  

Our teachers report that ever greater numbers of pupils are engaging with our digital learning programme and our staff have been able to resolve various technical challenges in partnership with parents and carers. Please continue to contact us with any questions about accessing learning via the admin mailbox.

We will continue to update our school app, website and Learning Journals platforms daily and are increasing our use of twitter (@St CuthbertsRCP). If you wish to sign up for Learning Journals and have not already done so, please contact our admin mailbox.

Kind Regards

Pat Brack, Acting Head Teacher and all at St Cuthberts.

 

Dear Parents/Carers,

We hope you and all of our families are staying well.

Please be advised that we will be updating our class Teams daily this week with:

• 1 piece of Literacy Work, 1 Piece of Numeracy/Maths Work and 1 piece of work from another curricular area.
• Two 15 minutes spells of reading (from school reading books or pupils own book) per day.
• We will also post 2 P.E. activities and 2 R.E activities a week

Some parents or carers have asked how pupils can submit work for teacher feedback. The work can be handed in through assignments in teams and feedback can be also be given in this way. Pictures can also be taken of the work completed and uploaded so the teacher can see work that is not able to be completed on the computer. e.g. maths problems, pictures etc.

Please note that as well as updating the app, website and learning journals we are now also tweeting daily using the handle @stcuthbertsrcp. The ideas and resources being tweeted are well worth looking at.

Finally, our teachers have been working hard to update Learning Journals with snapshots of pupil learning for this term and last. All class entries should be up to date by Wednesday morning. I will confirm when this has been done.

Remember that we are here to support you and that we welcome any queries or questions you have, please continue to get in touch using our admin mailbox: admin@st-cuthberts.edin.sch.uk  to make us aware of these. We will respond as quickly as we can.

 

We will post further updates tomorrow, until then, thanks once again for your support and stay safe!

Kind Regards

Pat Brack, Acting Head Teacher and all at St Cuthberts.

Dear Parents/Carers,

We have now reached the end of week 1 of school closures and we thank you for your support in helping us establish our digital learning. Our staff would particularly like to thank those parents and carers who have shared their appreciation with us of the hard work carried out by staff to ensure that learning continued this week.

Uptake of our daily digital learning offer has been high and the teachers have reported back how impressed they have been by the pupils application to their learning. Today, for example I heard reports from staff about P7 pupils working together to solve algebra and reading comprehension questions and pupils in LCC2 sharing the results of artwork created by following instructions from their teacher as well as posting examples of their baking skills!

Remember that we are here to support you and that we welcome any queries or questions you have, please contact our admin mailbox: admin@st-cuthberts.edin.sch.uk  to make us aware of these. We will respond as quickly as we can.

We will continue to update our app, website and Learning Journals with new information and resources. If you are in contact with any parents/carers who are not currently engaging with our electronic platforms please continue to encourage them to do so and to contact us if they are experiencing any difficulties with accessing the information we are posting. Thank you!

We will post further updates on Monday, until then, thanks once again for your support and stay safe!

Kind Regards

Pat Brack, Acting Head Teacher and all at St Cuthberts.

Please find the posts and updates for 26th March here:

Free School Meal FAQ: FSM FAQs

Dear Parents/Carers.

Thanks for your continued support as we reach the end of this first week of school closures.

Remember that we are here to support you and that we welcome any queries or questions you have, please contact our admin mailbox: admin@st-cuthberts.edin.sch.uk  to make us aware of these. We will respond as quickly as we can.

We will continue to update our website, app and Learning Journals with any relevant information we can. For example, today we published a document answering frequently asked questions relating to Free School Meals during this time of school closure.

Our teachers are continuing to provide creative and innovative learning on a daily basis as well as answering questions posed by pupils using Microsoft Teams. They report back very positively about the pupils engagement. Please continue to encourage your children to engage with this learning.

We will post further updates tomorrow, until then, thanks once again for your support!

Kind Regards

Pat Brack, Acting Head Teacher and all at St Cuthberts.