Month: October 2023

We hope that you have all managed to book an appointment to meet with your child’s class teacher to discuss their progress in learning. There is so much we can’t wait to share with you. Pupils have been working hard and mums, dads and carers have a big part to play in deciding what the next steps in their learning will be. Come along to hear the good news and have a say in what happens next. Click HERE to book an appointment.

Cold & Wet Weather Dressing

Like most primary schools, we try to ensure pupils stay outside for breaks and lunch times in all but exceptionally stormy weather. Rain will not stop us! However, children do need to bring appropriate cold weather clothing with them such as a warm jacket with hood and robust footwear. If anyone requires financial support to obtain items such as winter jackets and school shoes please get in touch with Kerry, our CHAI Money Advice worker who can support with accessing grants.

Congratulations to Our Pupil Council

Congratulations to our wonderful Pupil Council some of whom will service for another year and some who will start as new reps for their class. Our pupil councillors acts as role models for others within the school and contribute towards decision making processes on behalf of their classmates, such as Pupil Parliament and celebrating others’ wider achievements.

A New Parent/Carer Engagement Opportunity

A coalition of NHS Boards have commissioned independent research to explore with parents and carers a number of themes: How they support their child’s learning at home in terms of relationships, sexual health and parenthood (RSHP) topics; what they know and think about the RSHP learning going on at school; how they want home and school to work together (so that children and young people get the best learning experiences); and finally, what would help parents and carers at home in their role as their child’s teacher on all these matters.

The project is called the Chat and there are a number of ways that parents/carers can get involved. The first opportunity is to be part of a group conversation about this area of learning. This can happen in different ways, described here www.thechat.scot

CHAI Newsletter

Haver a look at the most recent CHAI newsletter with information about free childcare.

Click to access 23_08_CHAI_Newsletter.pdf

Support with ASD for Parents Through Tailor Ed

Our next run of Parent Info Sessions start this week and kick off with a brand new session that gives an overview of the things we’ve found it important to think about when seeking to support the wellbeing of a neurodivergent young person.

Sessions run online on Wednesdays at 1pm and are then repeated at 8pm on Thursdays. Simply click the link below to join the call. Note that there is a different link for each meeting. This time round we’re asking for your name and email address when you join the meeting to help us keep track of who is attending. Participate how you feel comfortable, using the chat if you like. No obligation to keep your camera on – although it is nice to see a few faces!

If you’d like to attend any of these sessions you can simply look out for the email the week of the session with the link. If it’s the first time you’re joining a session, or you haven’t previously provided us with any of your details then please click the link below and complete the form.  We’d be grateful if each attending parent completes the form.

The first part is essential info so we know who plans to attend and can send you the link.  The second part is only necessary if you or your family have not received support from Tailor Ed before and we don’t hold any of your information. The third section is optional information that our funders ask us about who is accessing and benefitting from our services.

https://forms.office.com/e/NeNK44E0ZK

Topic	Daytime 1pm	Evening 8pm
An overview on neurodivergent wellbeing	27/9	28/9
Sharing with your child that they are neurodivergent	4/10	5/10
Sleep	11/10	12/10
Energy management	25/10	26/10
Emotion Regulation	1/11	2/11

ND Well

The NDwell service is for children and young people aged between 5 to 24 years old and/or their parents, who live in the City of Edinburgh and are neurodivergent. This includes children and young people with a diagnosis of autism, ADHD and intellectual disability and those awaiting diagnosis.

Please find attached information on the next NDwell Drop ins which are running at Craigmillar Library on Tuesday the 14th of November and 12th of December from 10.30am -12pm

The NDWell Drop in Service can provide-

• a listening ear from a skilled and experienced support worker, access to information, resources and guidance as needed, referrals to their own services where suitable, as well as their partners or signpost you to other services that will best fit your needs. To book a slot to attend please email NDwell@barnardos.org.uk

NDwell also run a series of young people and parents information and support sessions and courses. These are suitable for parents of primary and secondary age children.

Find information on this terms’ dates for Zones of Regulation a 4 part course and sessions on -wellbeing, sharing with your child that they are neurodivergent, sleep, energy management, emotional regulation at https://tailoredfoundation.co.uk/online-parent-information-sessions-autumn-23/

For information on the children and young people’s Understanding Autism or Wellbeing groups and/or to request a place contact NDwell@tailoredfoundation.co.uk 

Autism Parent Info Sessions- High School

ASL Service and Psychological Services together with NHS partners are coordinating a series of 6 Autism Parent Information Sessions for parents and carers of autistic children in attending City of Edinburgh, mainstream High schools. The sessions are appropriate for parents, grandparents or carers. Young people themselves should not attend. Parents of children without a formal diagnosis are welcome to attend. The sessions will take place at lunchtime each week on Microsoft Teams. Interested parents should book a place follow the details on the attached flier, book via Eventbrite or contact 0131 4692850.

Mindroom Parent and Carer Peer Support Group –For parents and carers of neurodivergent children and young people in Edinburgh. Future dates attached.

These groups are to help parents and carers to share their knowledge and lived experience of supporting neurodivergent children. Peer support is when people use their own experiences to help each other.

Each monthly online group will have a topic where parents and carers can share information, resources, and strategies. To sign up to the Parent and Carer Support groups or to find out more information about any of Mindroom services. Tel: 0131 370 6730 Email directhelp@mindroom.org Website: www.mindroom.org

Information on other Autism supports are on our Support for Families webpages.

Pilmeny Juniors Group

ELOSCN Work Opportunity

LEITH BREAKFAST CLUB

We are looking for energetic, dedicated staff for our

Leith Breakfast Club setting.

The Club runs from Leith Primary School Monday to Friday 7.15 -9am, we offer an attractive salary and free childcare.

If you are interested in applying for this position, please e-mail reception@eloscn.com or click on the QR code below.

Well Done to Our Leithers of the Week!

Emily	P1/2	Emily has been trying exceptionally hard in phonics and writing. This week she was working super hard on her sentence writing and was able to independently write a sentence during group time. Keep up the hard work Emily!
Grace	P1a	Grace was a fantastic role model on our Autumn walk on Wednesday. She was sensible and showed good listening. Grace also worked really hard on her Autumn task with her partner and identified signs of Autumn from our walk.
Haneen	P1b	Being kind to classmates and sharing whilst playing.
Max	P2	Max took on the responsibility of sorting our class ipads, when we couldn’t login into them! He used his great digital literacy and problem-solving skills to save the day! Well done Max, you’re putting those skills to good practical use!
Macy	P3	Macy was a brilliant partner during our Buddy Class lesson this week. She showed kindness and responsibility and was a helpful partner, making a new friend in the process. Well done Macy!
Ivy	P3/4	Ivy wrote a fantastic description about a haunted house. She used varied openers and correct punctuation. I was very impressed with her beautiful picture too! Well done Ivy.
Evan	P4	Evan has been working so hard in Maths both in school and at home, and has made lots of progress. Well done!
Stefan	P5a	Stefan has trying his best and working on the school vision of achieving his best. Keep it up Stefan!
Charlie	P5b	Well done for producing .good writing using a variety of openers and demonstrating responsibility
Struan	P6	For showing skill and dexterity in constructing a tricky 3D shape from a net. Well done Struan.
Ben	P6/7	Ben has come back from the holidays with a positive attitude and worked really hard this week to stay on task and make good choices. Well done Ben!
Erin	P7	Erin has been really applying herself to her technologies learning, using creativity to make an exciting film.

We enjoyed our first whole school Celebration Assembly this morning. Many thanks to all the parents and carers who sent in photos of their young people achieving great things out side of school and being ready to take on new challenges. We also enjoyed seeing examples of home learning from across the year groups, particularly the P5s who had created amazing dioramas of the solar system as part of their study of space this term. Congratulations to our JRSOs, Lara, Dina, Alex and Ewan who ran a very successful road sign and reflective jacked design competition. The winners were Pippa, Heaven’ly, Evan, Cordy and Erin with Skand the overall winner for the P1-P3 category and Annabelle the overall winner for the P4-P7 category. There were special Over-and-Above mentions for Jaydon SB and Esmee for their brilliant leadership skills. It was a real delight for us to learn about all the amazing achievements of our young Leithers both in and out of school. They should all feel very proud of themselves.

Parent/Carer-Teacher Consultations

This event will take place on Thursday 2nd November 4pm-6.30pm and Friday 3rd November 1pm-3.30pm. Primary 1/2 will take place on Wednesday 1st November 3.30pm-6pm and Friday as above. We are awaiting a small technical issue to be resolved with our booking system Parents Booking. When this has been fixed the booking details will be sent out swiftly, hopefully early next week. We look forward to seeing you soon to discuss your child’s progress with their learning.

Leith Links Activity Hub

The council’s Parks and Greenspaces team are keen to get your feedback on their Activity Hub proposals. The link to the consultation is here: Leith Links Activity Hub – City of Edinburgh Council – Citizen Space.  The proposals can be seen here:

ND Well Support

Salvesen Mindroom Centre: Parent & Carer Peer Support Events

Our Fabulous Hard Working Leithers of the Week

Ibra	Primary 4	For always trying his best and taking pride in everything he does.  Well done!
Cormac	Primary 3	Cormac has been trying particularly hard in his maths groups recently. Really impressed with your times tables facts, well done Cormac!
Kaleb	Primary 5b	Kaleb showed impressive leadership skills during our co-operative learning group work last week. He completed the tasks to a high standard, ensuring that everyone took part, as well as encouraging his team mates too. Well done, Kaleb!
Liam	Primary 1/2	Liam always tries his best in class. He is ready to listen and learn and is an exceptional role model to his peers. Well done Liam!
Noor	Primary 5a	Noor has an excellent persevering attitude, she tries her best at all tasks and has very good listening skills. Well done Noor.
Christopher	Primary 6/7	Christopher has made many positive choices this week and shown great progress with his numeracy and reading skills. Well done Christopher!
Jack	Primary 5b	Jack is always ready to learn. He is a great listener, follows instructions promptly and is a fantastic role model. Thank you Jack!
Dino	Primary 6	For his mature attitude and insightful answers in the I heart sessions as well as Health and wellbeing. Well done Dino!
Mayar	Primary 1b	Mayar has shown excellent engagement and progress in phonics through excellent listening skills. Well done Mayar!
Nathan	Primary 3/4	For setting a good example to others in class. Great job Nathan!
Jayden	Primary 2	For showing super listening skills in class. Really well done Jayden!
River	Primary 7	River was really focused in his writing this week and created lots of exciting similes to use in his character description. Well done, River!

October Break

Have a lovely October break. We look forward to seeing the children on Tuesday 24th October at 8.50am

We were all very glad to be back to our normal routine this week after the support staff strike days the week before. The darker mornings seem to be with us already and we discussed in assembly ways to make sure we get to school on time every day. We have also been looking at the importance of celebrating the accomplishments of Black British Women during this year’s Black History Month as women, especially Black British and moreso Black Scottish women have been missing from our history books. We know that some of our brilliantly talented girls at Leith Primary will be the successful Black and minority ethnic Scottish women of the future!

Goodbye Mr Mackenzie!

Staff and pupils bid a fond farewell to Mr Mackenzie last week as he set off for his new life in the beautiful Perthshire hills. Whilst the recruitment process for his replacement takes a little longer than hoped, we welcome back Mrs Cook as the interim teacher of Primary 7.

School Photos This Wednesday

Individual school photos will be taken this Wednesday. Sibling groups can also be taken if brothers and sisters attend Leith Primary School or Nursery. Support with ensuring your primary-aged children is wearing school colours would also be greatly appreciated.

Dogs in School

We love hearing about our pupils’ furry friends at home. Many of the school staff are dog owners too. However, we regret that dogs cannot be brought into the school grounds: playground, nursery garden and the school or nursery buildings, unless they are a trained, certified support dog visiting us with an appointment. For the comfort of some of our littler Leithers, we also ask that if you are waiting for your child with your dog, that you do so away from the narrower walkway beside the blue fence. Thank you so much in advance for your support with this.

School Attendance

The local learning community primary schools that feed into Leith Academy are working together this year to tackle poor and late attendance at school as part of a whole city drive to improve the school attendance across Edinburgh, post COVID.

Poor school attendance has a very close link with poorer progress in learning and problematic behaviour, wellbeing and friendships. Any attendance that falls below 95% can begin to impact negatively on these aspects of a child’s development.

We understand that many children get unwell from time-to-time and need to stay at home. Occasionally there are valid reasons such as a close family bereavement or important hospital appointments where absence is fully understandable. These types of infrequent absence are not what is being targeted.

A parent’s legal responsibility to ensure their child attends school every day unless there is an exceptional reason not to. If a child must stay off school for an exceptional reason, the reason must be communicated to the school either via the absence line, by email, by text or in person. A letter can also be sent in when the child returns to school explaining the exceptional reason for the child’s absence from school. This is the standard expectation in all Scottish schools.

Some of our pupils who have recurring absences from school have no reason recorded for their absence, even when prompt text messages are sent out to parents/carers requesting this information. In some circumstances, we are able to identify patterns of absence such as Fridays and/or Mondays for some children and their siblings. Sometimes recurring absence without reason is on sporadic days with no clear pattern.

These types of absences without a reason being given to the school can, over time, have a catastrophic impact on a child’s overall progress, mental wellbeing, confidence and friendships.

As much as possible, we want to see a complete reduction in this type of absence for our pupils.

We know the reasons behind poor school attendance can often be complex. Our intention is not to judge or blame parents and carers but to do whatever we can to get pupils into school as close to every single day as we can. If we know what the main issues are behind these absences we can try our best to match up the right types of support.

Please always let us know the reason why your child is off so we can provide you with the best kind of support if it is needed.

Any child who has an absence rate of under 95% with a large number of unexplained absences will receive a letter from school and may be invited in for a meeting with the Head or Depute Head Teachers. Any child whose absence falls below 85% may be referred to the Educational Welfare Service or to Social Care Direct if no acceptable reasons for the absences are given.

Did you know that if you take a two-week holiday during school term time, the highest attendance you can achieve is 94.7%?

Did you know that if you are 15 minutes late for school every day, it’s equal to two full weeks absence by the end of the school year?

Did you know that there are 190 days in a school year?
That means 175 days are left for watching TV, sleeping late, going shopping, attending appointments, playing games, etc.

Every day counts

Anxiety Group for Children Aged 7-11

Some of Our Recent Leithers of the Week

Aris	Primary 1/2	Aris is an extremely respectful member of our class. He is always ready to listen and learn. Well done Aris! Keep up the good work!
Excellence	Primary 1/2	Excellence always tries her best. She is ready to listen and learn and has shown a great attitude towards her learning.
Caelan	Primary 1a	Caelan has gone above and beyond this week. He has been working super hard during our phonics sessions and has been extremely kind by helping others tidy things away he he hasn’t even been playing with! Amazing work, Caelan!
Pippa	Primary 1a	Pippa is an extremely kind and respectful friend. She shows kindness to all and is always happy to show new pupils around and look after them. She has also been working really hard with her maths this week. Thank you for being so kind, Pippa!
Anaya Khan	Primary 1b	Anaya has been exceptionally responsible and helpful in class. She has also been very ambitious with her writing this week. Well done Anaya!
Mayar	Primary 1b	Mayar has shown excellent engagement and progress in phonics through excellent listening skills. Well done Mayar!
Abdallah	Primary 1b	Abdallah has been a lovely friend to his classmates.
Linda	Primary 3	Linda has been persevering with reading and writing this week and always tries her best. Well done Linda!
Ariana	Primary 3	Ariana has a smile and a kind word for everyone she meets. She is a very good role model for kindness at Leith Primary. Well done, Ariana!
Ivy	Primary 3/4	Ivy has been doing exceptionally well in Maths learning about positions and directions.  She programmed the Beebot to go to the right location every single time!  Well done Ivy.
Alex	Primary 3/4	Alex always makes the right choice and is willing to help his peers whenever they need help. He works hard and is always ready to learn. Well done Alex.
Tamer	Primary 4	Tamer has really been showing he is Ready, Respectful and Safe this week. Well done!
Lucia	Primary 5a	Lucia has been achieving her best. She has done a number of home learning activities showing her dedication to her learning. Well done.
Diego	Primary 5b	Diego has been a responsible and helpful digital leader, helping take care of our iPads and supporting his peers. Thank you Diego!
Alexa	Primary 6	For taking the initiative in her own learning.  Alexa was able to use the letters the class were practising and type them into her ipad and practice them there.  Well done Alexa!
Bikari	Primary 6/7	Bikari continues to work hard everyday and always gives 100% effort to his work.
Leland	Primary 6/7	Leland has been trying hard to focus more in class and this week has produced great work in our Numeracy and handwriting lessons.
Georg	Primary 7	Georg is always ready, respectful & safe in class and sets an excellent example to others – well done Georg!
Jack	Support for Learning	Jack is always ready to learn. He is a great listener, follows instructions promptly and is a fantastic role model. Thank you Jack!