Welcome to our February newsletter. It is great to see the days extending as we approach the end of February. Please take some time to read through the newsletter to hear about some of the highlights from the term as well as information and supports available.
Sporting Endeavours
One Ren - Paisley Football Festival
A group of our Primary 6 and 7 children competed at the One Ren Paisley Football Festival this month. The team played exceptionally well and won all eight of the games they played. We are proud of how well they represented the school and how they played as a team. Well done to everyone and thank you to Mr Brown and Mrs Sloan for braving the cold to take them along.
Basketball
The 2025 Jnr NBA has now begun. We have been involved in the draft event, where Daniel and Thomas represented us and we have been drafted to represent the Miami Heat. We have also had our first round of matches, which for some of the children was their first competitive basketball event. The team played well, and after some first game nerves that led to a Golden Basket loss to the Todholm Pistons, they pulled together to beat the Newmains Nuggets. This puts us mid table, in 7th out of the 13 teams competing. We are looking forward to competing again on the 6th of March.
Primary 7 Scottish Celebration
The children from Primary 7 hosted our annual Scottish Celebration at the end of January. Families were invited in to hear stories, poems and musical performances all celebrating the Scots language, with a particular focus on the life and legacy of Robert Burns.
Children from all classes took part, singing songs such as 'The Jeelie Piece Song' and 'The Shooglie Wooglie.' There were also recitals of To a Louse, Address to the Haggis and Tam O'Shanter. It was wonderful to see all the talent from across the school and the effort that went into to making the event a great success.
A huge thank you to Mrs Campbell and Ms Hughes, our Primary 7 teachers, for all their hard work and for supporting the children to put on a great afternoon of showcasing learning, celebration and entertainment.
Author Visit
On Monday 24th of February, we welcomed children's author Lindsay Littleson to Lochfield. She shared her story of how she became an author and we got the opportunity to hear extracts from some of her work. It was a great to hear what inspired her as a writer and the importance that reading has in our lives.
School Achievements
Rights Respecting Schools Bronze Award
We are delighted to have been awarded our 'Rights Respecting Schools Bronze Award'. This celebrates all of the work that our Rights Respecting Steering group, along with Miss Magee have been doing, as well as the work and ethos from everyone within the school.
Well done everyone.
School Sport Silver Award
We have recently applied for and achieved both our 'School Sport Bronze' and 'Silver' awards. From our application, we were awarded both at the same time and we are well on our way to achieving our Gold award. This is a reflection on breadth of sporting opportunities that are provided here at Lochfield both in class as part of the curriculum, as well as the extra-curricular opportunities that we offer.
Well done everyone.
As part of our commitment to health and wellbeing, our new Principal teacher, Mrs Ewing, has reintroduced the Massage in Schools programme to Lochfield. This has been delivered across primary 1-4 with her yoga bear! It involves teaching the children a series of simple massage strokes, which they practice on each other, working in pairs. The children learn to always ask for permission before they work with their partners and learn about the importance of safe touch and kind hands. Some of the benefits of the programme have been shown to include increased concentration and self-esteem.
Massage afternoons have been very positively received, with pupils describing how calm they feel and showing a readiness to learn. A noticeable improvement in pupil confidence, anxiety and calmer learning environments has been observed too. We hope you have been hearing about this at home and even spending some quality time and having a go as a family!
Parents' Evening
As our Parents’ Evening approaches may I remind you that appointments are 10 minutes long. Teachers must be rigorous about time keeping otherwise they could potentially run over time by hours. Please help our teachers by being mindful of the 10 minute slot and also arriving on time. If you arrive late, you may not get an opportunity to meet the teacher as other parents have their time and we need to adhere to these times. Thank you
Safer Internet Day 2025
We celebrated Safer Internet Day on the 11th of February. The children took part in a range of learning experiences that got them thinking about how to keep safe online. The theme this year was 'Too good to be true' and so the children were exploring ways to spot scams and how to keep their personal information private and secure.
We are aware of the complexities of the online world and how challenging this can be to keep up to date with current issues. Please click on the link below for support and advice for parents and carers on many aspects of online safety.
Children's Mental Health Week
It was Children's Mental Health Week from 3rd - 9th February, which was supported by the children's charity, Place2Be. The theme of the week was 'Know Yourself, Grow Yourself'. We used characters from the movie 'Inside Out 2' to focus on our resilience, self-esteem and managing our emotions. We celebrated this across the school with every class enjoying their own activities, including circle times to build relationships with our peers, identifying our individual strengths and calming breathwork.
If you are interested in how you can continue to support your child's mental health at home, please see the following link,
Tempest Photography was in school last week taking class photographs. We are waiting on the proofs of these and we will then send out a link for you to purchase these should you wish.
Ren 10 Family Support in Renfrewshire
REN10 is a network of people who work or volunteer in the Renfrewshire area. We have a variety of early help services for your mental health and wellbeing.
We’re here to help!
If you feel any of these services would be beneficial to you or your family’s wellbeing and would like to discuss then please click the link below.
Free School Meals and Clothing Grants
If you feel you may qualify for free school meals, please apply EVEN if your child automatically gets a free school lunch (P1-5). This is because you may also then be entitled to other grants to help with finances. All information is available on the Renfrewshire Council Website. Please use the link below for information.
As a continuing reminder, please avoid parking in Quarry Road during drop off and pick up times. We have seen a huge change for the better when people don’t park there. It is much safer for our children and you just can’t argue with ensuring children’s safety.
Thursday 27th February 2025 - Parents Evening (all children have been issued with a slip noting the time). If you have not received this, please contact the school office.
Trips
P6 year group trip to Food and Farming Event - Friday 28th February
P5 class (Miss Bell) trip to Paisley Central Library - Wednesday 5th March
P4, P5/4 and P5 trip to Kelvingrove Museum - Tuesday 11th March
P2, P3/2 and P3 trip to Vikingar - Tuesday 18th March
P7 year group trip to Burns Cottage and Museum - Thursday 27th March
I hope you have enjoyed reading through the newsletter and have found the content informative and useful. Thank you for all your continued support.
Mrs Macgregor Duncan