FAREWELL MRS MOLONEY & MRS FRASER!
After 33 and 39 years of service respectively to the City of Edinburgh Council, Mrs Moloney, our Principal Teacher and Mrs Fraser, long-standing class teacher, will be retiring at the end of this session.
Both teachers have made a huge contribution to Leith Primary School over their combined seventy-two years of service. Mrs Moloney most notably has excelled in her work to develop our equalities and anti-racist education at the school. From supporting award winning dramas to sharing the excellent practice of our current Equalities Group to raising the profile of our Young Carers within the school, Mrs Moloney has demonstrated an enormous commitment to social justice throughout her career.
Mrs Fraser was herself a pupil at Leith Primary School many years ago. Her love for the school and the community meant that she chose to return some years later as a qualified teacher, becoming one of the school’s longest ever serving class teachers. Mrs Fraser was at the school for the creation of our Time Capsule and huge map of Leith in mosaic form on the ground floor, made to celebrate the Millennium. She was also at the school when there were big celebrations for the school’s centenary in 1998.
Both teachers were job-share partners when their own children were very little. It seems fitting that they end their career at Leith together as job-share partners. Between them, they will have taught over two thousand pupils throughout the course of their career at Leith Primary. They now are teaching the children of their former pupils. What huge generation impact they have made!
Mrs Fraser’s last day will be on Wednesday 26th June and Mrs Moloney’s will be Friday 28th June. I know you will all join us in wishing both fantastic teachers all the very best in their future, far less stressful, lives! Thank you for your service to the pupils and families of Leith Primary School, ladies.
Next Session Arrangements
On Friday, details were shared with parents and carers about arrangements for next year’s classes. Please check your inboxes or junk mail box to see this email.
You may remember that our colleagues, Mrs Anna Hind , Mr John Mackenzie and Mrs Ailie Scott-Dickins, all left during the course of this session due to promotion, relocation and career change. Now that Mrs Fraser and Mrs Moloney are retiring, we have a total of four full time permanent class teacher posts to fill.
For the last few years, the City of Edinburgh council has conducted a yearly centralised recruitment process. Candidates who are successful in that process and teachers who have been declared as surplus at other schools are then matched up to schools who have vacancies. The matching process takes place centrally and headteachers are told towards the end of June which teachers have been matched to their school.
I can confirm that we have been told about two of these matches so far. We are delighted to welcome Mrs Saira Afzal and Ms Catherine Barclay to Leith Primary from August this year. In addition, we will have a probationary teacher joining us, Mr Alberto Egea (Ee-hay-ah). All three will attend our meet-the-teacher session on Tuesday afternoon.
Ms Lauren Kirkwood will continue with us for another year whilst, Ms Campbell and Ms Richardson will also continue into the new session.
Currently, Ms McDonald will return from maternity leave in December this year, as will Ms Wilson and Mrs Young who are due to return in January 2025. Mrs Buchan is due to return to the school in February 2025 from maternity leave.
We still await the news of a few final names of teachers for next session. Parents and carers of pupils affected by this will be informed as soon as we are told.
Two of the full time permanent class teacher positions have been released to us to recruit for at school level. Our parent council chairs and pupil council will play a part in this important recruitment process.
Finally, we will say farewell to Mrs Slattery at the end of this session as she leaves education to embark upon a new career as a child minder. I would like to thank Mrs Slattery for her hard work and commitment to Leith Primary over the last eleven years. We all wish her the best of luck in her new career.
School Uniform for the New Year #3 #5 #18 #26
Parents and carers may be looking to purchase new sweatshirts, polo shirts and hoodies for the new session in August. Image Scotland are the official stockists of our officially branded school uniform items. You can arrange to have these delivered to the school for free or to your home address for a small fee. Any items ordered over the school holidays can be picked up on Monday 12th or Tuesday 13th August when staff will return for the in-service days. https://leithps.imagescotland.com/
Wearing school uniform promotes a strong sense of belonging and safety for all pupils, something we are very committed to. Leith Primary School school welcomes pupils from a diverse range of socio-economic and cultural backgrounds, something we are fiercely proud of. The wearing of school uniform and school colours promotes equality and inclusivity by removing the differences in dress that may exist between pupils of different backgrounds. Research shows that classrooms where pupils wear the same outfit are calmer and more focussed on learning and less distracted by pressure to wear trendy, branded or brightly coloured clothes. The school is safer as pupils can be easily identified as belonging to Leith Primary. It streamlines the morning routine as there is no need to chose what to wear. Overall, it is far most cost effective and for some, completely free to obtain.
*Pupils must never wear football related clothing to school (even Hibs tops!)*
Pupils may be asked to remove or change any clothing with inappropriate slogans or football logos. Please avoid this potentially embarrassing situation for your child by supporting them to wear school colours or a school hoodie or sweatshirt.
All pupils should wear ideally school sweatshirts or hoodies every day to school, unless instructed otherwise eg; for dress up days. We also support pupils wearing non-branded ‘school colours’ eg; navy, black or grey school clothes with a white polo shirt, which can be bought inexpensively from any supermarket.
We are happy to accept donations of clean school clothing items for our pre-loved rail which will be available to parents to take from during the in-service days and throughout the session. We can also support parents to apply for school uniform grant or to the school clothing bank. Please arrange an appointment with Kristy, our family support worker or Kerry, our family finance support worker, at the school office.
CHAI Support in Schools #26 #27
Please remember that the wonderful Kerry Anderson can help families with any financial issues. She works at Leith Primary every Thursday morning. Please use her services or we will lose this valuable support:
Tel: 07837 214 689 or Email: kerry.anderson@chaiedinburgh.org.uk
Here is CHAI’s latest newsletter.
Support Research Into ASD Diagnosis Process #23
I’m a Psychology postgraduate at the University of Northumbria conducting a study looking into whether families of children with autism are getting the right support through the diagnosis and post-diagnostic process. I want to give people a voice in areas of Edinburgh that are often overlooked to see whether parents of children with autism are receiving the support they are entitled to and understand the options available to them.
If you are a parent of a child with autism and would be interested in being involved, please do get in contact at: allys.binge@northumbria.ac.uk
Support with Tricky Parenting Issues #5
Triple P course for parents and carers of 6 – 10 years.
This interactive course supports parents and carers to explore strategies to manage common behaviours such as aggressiveness, tantrums, shouting, answering back and refusing to follow rules. Delivered in group sessions with the support of trained facilitators.
Castleview Primary School, 2D Greendykes Rd, EH16 4DP
Wednesdays starts 18 September until 13 November (8 sessions)
9.15am – 11.15am
We welcome applications directly from parents and carers or you can apply on their behalf, thank you. Apply to attend a Primary Triple P course
To find out more about the group parenting programmes visit Parenting Programmes in Edinburgh
Trinity House Tour Guide Success #29
Very well done to our P6 pupils who graduated as this year’s Trinity House Junior Tour Guides. This fantastic project has been running at Leith Primary School for twelve years in partnership with Historic Environment Scotland and Illuminate. The pupils delivered their tour with a very polished performance and received certificates from Captain Wibberly, one of the house’s Master Mariners. Well done P6!!
Pupil Leadership Sharing Session #12 #13 #14 #15
Many thanks to all the parents who were able to come along last Friday to our Pupil Leadership sharing session. Pupils from our Eco Committee, Rights Respecting Schools Group, Pupil Council, Health & Wellbeing Group and Equalities Group shared what they had led on with their group this session. We are very proud of all our pupils who contribute to the positive development of the school in this way. We also have pupils who are Digital Leaders, Junior Librarians and our newly formed Playground Squad. In addition, Ms Craig meets with randomised pupils through her weekly Bingo Ball Blethers, where pupils are encouraged to share their views and ideas on different aspects of the school. At Leith Primary, we feel very strongly that our school’s ongoing development should be led as much by our pupils as it is by staff and parents. Pupil leadership is continuously developed in the classroom through activities such as Cooperative Learning Groups, Talking Tubs, Floorbook planning, independent pupil learning projects and through child-led play. This year, older pupils have developed their leadership skills by being Playground Buddies, Paired Reading mentors and by leading learning with their buddy classes.
Leith’s Got Talent! #31
Well done to all the pupils who took part in this week’s lunchtime talent show sharing on our playground stage. We were treated to singing, dancing, jokes, puppetry, football tricks, magic and…spelling! What a super-talented bunch we have a Leith. Thanks to our Rights Respecting Schools group for organising the event as part of our Proud Week.
Well Done to Our Leithers of the Week! #29
| Praise | Primary 1/2 | Praise is an incredibly helpful girl in class and always follows our school rules. Well done Praise! |
| Jakub | Primary 1/2 | Jakub has worked hard on positional language and correctly used direction vocabulary in a variety of tasks. He was also very skilled at programming beebots this week. Well done Jakub! |
| Klara | Primary 1a | We have been looking for a super role model this week and Klara has been just that! She is respectful towards others and is silent, sensible and safe in the line. Well done, Klara! |
| Aurla | Primary 1a | Aurla demonstrates our school values of kindness, perserverance and responsibility often. This week I was particularly proud of how responsible she was during our school trip to the zoo. Well done, Aurla! |
| Mayar | Primary 1b | Mayar has been continuously following our school values showing she is ready, respectful and safe. |
| Zite | Primary 1b | Being a kind friend to all at Leith Primary. |
| Darcie | Primary 2 | Darcie has worked really hard to learn her tricky words and did a great job of recognising and reading them in her reading book this week! Well done Darcie, keep up the great work! |
| Musa | Primary 2 | Musa used his numeracy skills and used his fingers to count on from a number, to find out how much he would spend, during our money game. You’re doing a great job of reading, saying and writing numbers too. Well done Musa, I can see that you are using what you have learned every day! |
| Momen | Primary 3 | You have been working really hard in class and I have seen you challenge yourself more and take on more responsibility. I am very proud of you, keep it up! |
| Nancy | Primary 3 | This week you have been much more focussed on your tasks in class and have been working really hard on being more independent. I have enjoyed seeing you feel proud when you complete your tasks. |
| Riyaa | Primary 3 | Amazing work in her numeracy group! She’s now really confident in SEAL after two terms of hard work with a super attitude. |
| Sam | Primary 3 | I have been really enjoying your contributions to our class discussions about the Rights of the Child and current affairs. You make such good points and I hope your interest in the wider world continues on. |
| Anton | Primary 3/4 | Great work with fractions and can work out some fractions of numbers. He even figured out three fifths of 100 today! |
| Runa | Primary 4 | Runa has worked very hard in Reading and has made lots of progress. Well done! |
| Tamer | Primary 4 | For showing responsibility and commitment to his role in Equalities group |
| Gloria | Primary 5a | Gloria always demonstrates excellent team working skills. She works well with partners or as part of a group. Good job! |
| Stefan | Primary 5a | Stefan has been working hard, showing an excellent attitude to his work. He is making good progress and trying his best. Well done ! |
| Mati | Primary 5b | Thank you Mati for being a responsible and helpful member of our class, especially supporting others with digital technology this week! |
| Sophie | Primary 5b | As a member of the Equalities group, Sophie went above and beyond during Proud Day- cleaning paints, putting up or taking down displays and being as helpful and kind as she possibly could! Thank you so much Sophie, you are a superstar! |
| Dash | Primary 6 | Dash is a fantastic role model for P6, He is always ready to learn and looking to do his best work. He’s a responsible and respectful team mate. Keep it up Dash. |
| Dorothy | Primary 6/7 | Dorothy has been making great progress with her reading and writing. Dorothy is resilient and determined to improve and learn, well done Dorothy! |
| Jude and Joseph | Primary 7 | For showing fantastic sportsmanship during PE and in the recent Leith Academy Football Festival. Both Jude and Joseph were encouraging others and shining by demonstrating great football skills and positive attitudes. Well done! |
Last Day Arrangements
School will finish at the usual times on the last Friday of term however, pupils will ‘clap out’ the Primary 7s onto the Links at 12 Noon, with a piper marking the event. If parents wish to collect their child from the Links or playground around this time, please ensure that the class teacher is aware.
Believe. Persevere. Achieve. 