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Schools & Education

Hillhead Primary School - Newsletter

At Hillhead we aim to make our children successful learners. Our pupils will value themselves as individuals and strive to achieve their full potential. We will provide them with a variety of stimulating learning experiences in a caring environment.

Dear Parent,

Once again the February � March period has brought some very wintry weather after such a mild winter to date. We hope that the disruption of the last few school days is now over and we can think about spring as opposed to wintry school closures.

INDIAN DAY
Big Heart Highland Day at the beginning of the month, saw the school raise a total of �280. Highland Council had identified that this years fundraising would be directed to help the Tamil Nadu region of India. A number of Indian related activities were held in conjunction with this fundraising.

Around 100 pupils attended the Indian lunch on Tuesday 7th February and enjoyed curry, rice and Naan bread. The dining hall had been decorated with Indian flags and their national colours.

Many of the pupils drew around their hands and coloured them in using
Mendhi type designs. Winners were chosen from each class: Winning pictures were drawn by:

Nursery: Danny Nicolson and Caitlin Gunn,:
Primary 1 Matt Mackay
Primary 2 Greg Morgan
Primary 3 Nicholas Wardle
Primary 4 Sarah Graham
Primary 5 Matthew Sinclair
Primary 6 Heather Mackay
Primary 7 Rachael Steven

Pupils could also place their handprint on a large Indian flag � a number of you will have seen the picture in the local press which showed Jamie Stone adding his handprint to the flag. This picture also appeared in the Inverness Courier newspaper I did subsequently hear that Jamie Stone was left with bright orange paint marks on the steering wheel of his car.

Mrs Data very kindly loaned a number of saris to the school through our management teacher Mrs Duffy. The pupils were very surprised at the length of these pieces of clothing. Mr Gulzar Miah, the owner of the K� Indian restaurant and his wife Alia Begum also visited the school to show the pupils how a traditional Bangladesh sari is worn. Mrs Begum dressed up Primary 7 pupil Lynsey Sutherland in a sari. Mr Miah very generously gave a donation of �100 towards the collection for the people of Tamil Nadu.

In addition the Primary 7 pupils had exchanged posters with pupils from a school in the city of Ahmedabad. These are currently on display in the dining room.

HER MAJESTY�S INSPECTORATE
The final report compiled by Her Majesty�s Inspectorate on Hillhead Primary School nursery was published on February 15th. It was an extremely positive report. A great deal of credit is due to the hard work of the staff and the manner in which they work together to provide a very good nursery education for their pupils. Mrs Banks is a link with some of the very good practice which was already in place. Miss Mackenzie was only appointed in August but has already introduced some new developments to the nursery class. A special word of gratitude should also go to the nursery teacher Miss Oag. This was her second HMI report within three months of taking up a post in nursery education. She has emerged from both inspections very positively. . The school is fortunate to have such a strong team within the nursery. Any interested parent can view the full report on the HMIE link on the Hillhead web page at www.caithness.org.  Alternatively the school can supply you with a copy. Nursery parents will have already received a copy of the report.

CORRIDOR COMPETITION
The corridor competition was held in the first few weeks of this term. The theme for the pictures was the new school mission statement, which appears at the top of this newsletter. A variety of pictures were drawn and eventually winners were chosen. They are:
Primary 1 Declan Gunn, Danielle Ross and Lucy Ronaldson Primary 2 Keiran Bain
Primary 3 Shauna Malcolm
Primary 4 Zoe Wilson
Primary 5 Emma Sinclair
Primary 6 Shannen Anderson
Primary 7 Whole class production.
Each of the individual winners received either a coconut or a melon at a whole school assembly.

Primary 1 Steven Budge
Primary 2 Graeme Sutherland
Primary 3 Shauna Malcolm
Primary 4 Calum Cormack
Primary 5 Kaitlin Bogle
Primary 6 Olivia Turner
Primary 7 Michael Sinclair

RAG RUGS
The rag �rug artist Sally Orr will be working with pupils in Primary 4 to 7 this week and next week. . Any donations of tee shirts, cotton materials or sweat shirts will still be very welcome at the school.

Many many thanks to all of the pupils who came up with the name of the fishing boat which was WK 197. The correct answer was Jeannie Mackay although this boat was later named the Stack Rock. The following pupils all had the correct answer: Scott Gunn, Murray Grant, Alex More, Ryan Cormack, Naomi Sutherland, Gemma Sutherland, Ashleigh Dunnet, Chloe Sinclair, Craig Muir, Chloe, Becky and Jade Ploiwman, Aaron Stephen, Kayleigh Scollay, Bryony Munro and Coran Sutherland, There is not a coconut for everyone but they will receive a leather Hillhead winners book mark each, with Ryan Cormack lifting the piece of exotic fruit!

PARENT TIP SHEETS
The Parent Tip sheet for March will accompany this newsletter. I hope you find some of the activities useful. Initially it was decided to produce these sheets for three months before asking parents for their views about the usefulness of them. A questionnaire about communications with parents will accompany the tip sheet.

BIRTHS � BIRTHS � BIRTHS

BEGG Primary 6 teacher Mrs Begg had a little boy on February 13th. Little Ewan weighed in at 8lbs 8oz (Miss Oag in the nursery won the staff raffle on the baby�s weight!) and mother and child are both doing well.

MORGAN Drew Morgan was born In Inverness on February 25th and weighed in at 7lbs 1oz. He is a new baby brother for Primary 2 pupil Greg and Primary 1 pupil Sophie. Brother Greg says that Drew is �very funny but he does cry a lot when he is hungry� Sister Sophie says. �He has some brown hair and he doesn�t eat anything yet because he doesn�t have teeth.�

SUTHERLAND  Brodie Sutherland, a brother for Primary 1 pupil Coran, was born on February 9th. He weighed in at 8lbs 9oz. Big brother Coran says � He has his own bed. He�s got dark hair and he cries when he needs his milk.�

RUDDICK � Cameron George Ruddick - a grandson for the school janitor Hymie. Cameron was born in Cumbria on March 2nd. And weighed in at 7lbs 4oz. Hymie is bearing up remarkably well to his new found image as �grandpa�.

Yours faithfully

A Budge
Headteacher