#iwill week

Sciennes #iwill week P4-7 Assembly from Sciennes Primary School

Celebrating #iwill Week, our three P6 Junior Road Safety Officers, Amelia, Declan and Josh, showed how they can step up to serve our school community by planning and leading a Road Safety session for Assembly. They invited all pupils in P4-7 to dress up brightly in luminous, reflective clothing and gave prizes in each class for the brightest clothing to get across their message of 'Be Bright, Be Seen." They performed a stunning trick using 'Magic Thumbs' that lit up as they 'threw' lights to one another. Fantastic! Many thanks to friend of Sciennes, City of Edinburgh Road Safety Officer Mark Symonds who kindly gave each of our JRSOs a high viz vest and shone torches on pupils' clothing to re-enforce the point about being bright, day and night. Everyone was invited to think about what they could pledge to do in Active Travel to fight Climate Change.








The new P7 House and Sports Captains confidently introduced themselves and we were delighted that almost half the year group showed interest in stepping up to take on additional responsibilities, as role models and ambassadors for Sciennes. All who applied were entirely capable of taking up the posts so it was a very difficult decision but there will be lots of opportunities for all Primary Sevens to take the lead.

Our wonderful Primary Sevens have also been working hard as young entrepreneurs, using Virgin Money's' Make £5 Grow' and funds loaned by the Parent Council to plan, design and create an array of exciting stalls for the Winter Fair on Saturday 26th November 12pm-3pm as part of their Silver Junior Award for Schools (JASS). A representative from each P7 group spoke at Assembly to explain and publicise their event. Loads happening tomorrow! Come and check out what they have on offer in the new Dining Hall.

P4 stars, Molly, Rosa, Joesph, Cara and Scarlet finally got to perform their fabulous dance routine with music! They wowed the audience with their moves and confidence. Great job!

P3 have been rehearsing and performing their Dance Show in the Hall recently, so there has not been an Assembly for a few weeks. Several huge achievements to celebrate within that time, including phenomenal success in Chess, P6 Amelia being chosen as overall winner in Ian Murray MP's Christmas Card competition (from 2000 entries!) and P7 David achieving an extraordinary two gold medals in the Edinburgh and Midlothian Swimming Championships! Well done to all our high achievers who know that hard work pays off!

We hope to see everyone at the amazing International Winter Fair on Saturday. Many months of effort from Jay and Aileen in leading the Parent Council Events and Fundraising Group and an army of volunteers saying "#iwill!" are tremendously valued by the school. Come and see a Magic Show, bid in the Silent Auction, browse CDs, books and toys, take a chance with a Tombola raffle ticket and enjoy lunch and a mince pie. Just some of the many activities and events on offer! Check out the Parent Council and school websites for details.

Please also support our bids to win thousands of pounds for technology (see emails for information). Thank you very much to P2 Dad, Colin Sim, for all his efforts in submitting funding bids on our behalf and to everyone who has supported by voting. We are now Finalists in the Aviva Community Fund bid, beating hundreds of other bids, and have a 1 in 4 chance of gaining £5000! We would be very grateful for your continued support in voting for us again in the Aviva bid and also in the One Family Foundation bid.

Looking forward to all the fun of the Fair!

'WE Free the Children' Returning to Sciennes!

We are tremendously excited about an upcoming return visit to Sciennes on Wednesday 7^th December from WE Free the Children, again arranged for us by Schools Co-ordinator Harriet Morgan.

Jacob, from WE Free the Children, visited in June to work with half of our (then P6) pupils and it was a superb and inspirational day, providing a wealth of opportunities for our children to embrace pupil leadership. Wednesday 7th December will mark a return visit from the charity, where a Speaker and Facilitator will work with the remaining half of our P7 pupils.

We are honoured to welcome Nicola Brentnall, the Director of The Queen’s Trust and Kate Likely, UK Director of Free the Children, who will join us on the day.

P6 and P7 pupils have been invited to a special assembly at 9am and then half the P7 year group will take part in Free the Children workshops throughout the day, while Ms Sellar will lead the remaining pupils in a repeat of her excellent Global Goals workshop, focusing on Gender Equality.

The format of the workshops fits ideally with our aims to develop pupil-led social action as part of the Junior Award Scheme for Schools:

Team Building/Issues Module – exploring prevalent issues in society, and globally to build confidence, identify leadership skills and also get pupils thinking about issues they care about.
Reflective Module - enabling pupils to think how they can use their skills for issues that are important to them.  
Action Planning - putting pen to paper to create a tangible action plan for children to develop and put into practice.

www.we.org/gb 

Free the Children

Free The Children is an international charity and educational partner that believes in a world where all young people are free to achieve their fullest potential as change-makers. Over the last 20 years, Free The Children has grown into an international movement supporting youth empowerment through educational service-learning initiatives in North America and the United Kingdom, and a holistic and sustainable international development model. It is supported by the Queen's Trust, the UN, Virgin Atlantic and has many international supporters -  Malala, Desmond Tutu, Prince Harry, Oprah will give a flavour. Their model is 'children helping children' and they promote pupil leadership and taking action, here and abroad. The scheme began in Canada, initiated  by one of the CEOs when he was 12, and is a social enterprise endeavour. 

For more information about Free the Children, visit their website.

The 'Free the Children' programme fits extremely well with our well established Junior Awards Scheme Scotland (JASS) programme in P6 and P7 where pupils are asked to take their own action to achieve a 'Me and My World' element. JASS is a children's version of The Duke of Edinburgh Award, and the idea for it actually came from Sciennes! It is now adopted throughout Edinburgh and beyond so has been retitled Junior Award Scheme for Schools.

The Junior Award Scheme Schools (JASS) is an accredited learning programme, celebrating wider achievement, for young people (P6-S2). Sciennes and Tollcross Primary Schools have been implementing this scheme since we piloted it in 2009.
The concept emerged from a discussion during a Sciennes P7 visit to Lagganlia between Alice Brown, Gael Logan and Barry Hewitt who came up with the idea to set up a 'Duke of Edinburgh' style award scheme for upper primary pupils. The scheme has since been developed into a city wide programme.

There are three levels (bronze, silver and gold), each requiring a higher degree of commitment. Each level also includes four sections to be completed:

• My interest - a hobby or interest
• Get Active, Stay Active - involvement in a sport or physical activity
• Me and My World - a community or environmental project
• Adventure - a teamwork challenge through involvement in an outdoor activity (e.g Benmore and Lagganlia)

http://jassawardsciennes.blogspot.co.uk/

Sciennes helped develop an online version - eJASS.


Free the Children also fits well with our Unicef Rights Respecting Schools programme. We have recently achieved Level One and our next steps are to continue to extend knowledge of UNCRC and to expand global citizenship. The Free the Children programme will assist us with that. We have highlighted the relevance of the Global Goals for Sustainable Development since their launch in September 2015 and the programme also supports this extremely well.

21st - 25th November #iwill Week

Making social action part of life for 10-20 year-olds

The #iwill campaign promotes social action among 10-20 year-olds. This includes activities such as campaigning, fundraising and volunteering which fits very well with our P6 and P7 annual participation in the 'Me and My World' section of the Junior Award Scheme for Schools (an accredited learning programme for 10-14 year olds which promotes and celebrates wider achievement).

http://www.iwill.org.uk/get-involved/iwillweek-2016/

We are delighted to feature amongst a host of partner agencies from around the UK that are supporting this initiative to promote pupil-led social action.

http://www.iwill.org.uk/iwill-pledges/

Sciennes Receives a Special Certificate from Junior Award Scheme for Schools (JASS)

Joan Alexander with Cameron, Anna and Sarah

Thank you very much to Joan Alexander and all at the Junior Award Scheme for Schools (JASS) team as well as Friends of the Award (FOTA) for inviting Sciennes to the FOTA Annual General Meeting on Thursday 10th November.

P7 pupils Anna and Cameron received a special certificate on behalf of the school, in kind recognition of Sciennes' ongoing contribution and commitment to JASS and eJASS.

Anna's sister, Sarah, also attended with their mum, Mrs Aileen Nimmo. Thank you also to Mrs Claire Marshall for accompanying her son Cameron to the event, held in the prestigious European Room of the City Chambers. Councillor Elaine Aitken, deputising for the Lord Provost, presented our pupils with the certificate and they were also congratulated by MSP Miles Briggs.

What a wonderful celebration of volunteering, pupil-led social action and wider achievement! Many adult volunteers were recognised and celebrated for their contribution, as well as the young people they have supported in achieving both Duke of Edinburgh Awards and the Junior Award for Schools. A lovely evening and we were very proud of all three of our pupil ambassadors.

Superb P7 Sciennes' ambassadors, proudly sporting their Bronze JASS medals and already aiming for the Silver JASS award

Councillor Elaine Aitken, deputising for the Lord Provost, presents Anna and Cameron with a special certificate for Sciennes

Thanks, mums!

Kid President

Kid President gives advice on "How to disagree (without making people feel terrible)."

'Changing Faces' Anti-Bullying Workshops in P6

Thank you very much to Lorna Telford from UK Charity 'Changing Faces' for providing thought provoking workshops to our three P6 classes on Wednesday 9th November, linked to their Class Novel study of "Wonder" by R. J. Palacio

https://www.changingfaces.org.uk/resources/education