Letter from Mrs Hope, Headteacher

Dear Parent/Carer,

June 2023 – End of Term Update

End of Year Report

I am very pleased to send you the end of year report card.

In this report card there is information about which level your child has attained and where your child is on the progression pathway for the next level.

We usually hope that most children will attain Early level by the end of Primary 1, First level by the end of Primary 4 and Second level by the end of Primary 7.

Also included is information about effort, behaviour and returning homework. The homework comment is graded 1-4, 1 being that children always hand in homework and 4 being that children have not handed in any homework.

This is the final year of paper report cards and from next session onwards schools will send out end of year reports via the Parent Portal.

Classes for August 2023

Classes for August 2023 will be given out to children on Friday 16 June. Children will have a chance to meet their classmates and new teacher on Monday 19 June in the afternoon where they will all move to their new classroom from 1.30-2.30pm.

Our school role is steadily increasing which means that most of our classes will be at the maximum legal number. This means that there is very little flexibility to move children. Classes have been configured by considering literacy groupings and writing results.

Staffing…/

Staffing for August 2023

We have some changes in staffing for next session.

Mrs Jamieson and Mrs King are leaving and will finish their permanent teaching careers at the end of this term. We wish both ladies a very happy and busy time for the future and thank both for their long service and dedication to St John’s.

Mrs Shona Reilly has been appointed as our new Principal Teacher and will take over Mrs Jamieson’s role in August.

We are very pleased to welcome Mrs Samantha Watson who will joining our teaching team.

Miss Rachael Young, Mrs Elaine Gallagher and Mrs Caron Roberts are reducing their hours to 3 days per week, and we are looking forward to welcoming new staff to fill these vacancies.

Mrs Sharples will be teaching for 0.5 of the week and will be providing support to identified groups for the remainder of the week.

Prize Giving Service

Our Primary 7s have been working very hard to prepare for our Leavers Service and Prize Giving on Friday 23 June at 9.30am. We invite 2 adults for each of our Primary 7 pupils to join us in celebrating their successes and to wish them well as they move onto the next stage of their education. If we have children who do not take up both invites we will advise parents/carers of the availability of extra seats on the Thursday 22 June. We need to limit the numbers due to fire regulations for our school hall.

End of Term/ Start of New Term

School finishes on Tuesday 27 June at 1pm.  On this day there is no lunch break and only children who order a school lunch will eat in the dining hall.

School starts again on Wednesday 16 August at 9am for P2-P7 and 9.15am for our new Primary 1 children.

I hope you all have a restful and lovely summer break and thank you all for your support over this session.

Yours faithfully

Alison Hope

Head Teacher

School Transport – Message from South Lanarkshire Council

We would be grateful if you could bring to parents’ attention that they can apply for school transport for August 2023 if required, particularly for children due to start in P1 and due to move to S1.  Please note that parents need to apply for privilege transport every year, however, only once for entitled transport to primary and secondary school unless their circumstances change e.g. a change of address.

The link to apply is below:-

https://www.southlanarkshire.gov.uk/info/200186/primary_school_information/545/school_transport

Outcomes letters are currently being emailed out to parents who have already applied.  We would encourage parents to apply as soon as possible to reduce any potential transport outcome delays when the school starts.

Letter form Headteacher

Dear Parent/Carer,

There have been lots of changes happening in St John’s School over the last few weeks. We are having some adaptations to the building started over the Easter holidays as well as carpets and paintwork being refreshed.

Our new carpets are lovely and welcoming for our children to work on. In order to maintain the carpets, we are asking for all children to change their shoes on entering the school into indoor shoes. The indoor shoes can be left in the school cloakrooms. Please write your child’s name on the indoor shoes and send with them on Monday 17 April.

Some of the building work will not be fully completed over the holidays and we will still be working around the workmen until May 23.

We would also like to thank everyone for their kind donations to the school, our Sponsor Walk raised £2435.80. We are so grateful to have a such a supportive school community.

I would like to wish you all a restful and hopefully a sunshine filled holiday and thank you for your support over the last term.

Yours faithfully

Alison Hope

Head Teacher