Inspired by the musical skills on show today at the talent show, we took the piano out into the playground for the first (of what is likely to become a tradition) 'Playground Concerts'.  It was lovely to see such large crowds gather to celebrate the awesome talents of the pianists as the entertained the masses.  

The ELC had a parental engagement event on Thursday morning. Parents or grandparents were invited to the setting to enjoy some breakfast with their child. They could also look through their child's Learning Journey and have time to chat about it with their child. This event also fell on PJ day  so there was a wide variety of outfits on show. Around 20 family members were able to come in and enjoy some toast and fruit. It was lovely to see the nursery so busy and full of lots of smiling faces. 

Our Super Squad have just completed a three week cycle of hosting and visiting the other schools in our newly formed child led trio. They enjoyed visiting both Broomhill and Skene Square schools to compare approaches to learning and did a  fantastic job of planning and hosting our visitors at Ashley Road, giving  them a flavour of what it's like to be a learner in our school. Not only have the children learned a great deal from this experience, but they have formed new friendships too. We are excited to reflect on this work next term and to plan the next steps in our collaboration!

🐣🌷🐇🌸🐥

SPRING WINDOW TRAIL

With the Easter holidays nearly here, the PTA are excited to invite the children to take part in their Spring Window Trail!

Select either an egg, a bunny or a spring flower picture to take home and then get your pens, pencils or paints out to get creative and complete your masterpiece!

🎨✏️🌈

Once finished, stick your picture up on your front window by the start of the holidays and then see how many you can spot whilst out enjoying a walk around the neighbourhood.

The colouring sheets will be available in the playground after school from 3-3:30pm on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday this week priced at £1 each and include a small chocolate.  There will be a dairy free option available on request (please just ask).

Please bring the correct change if you can.

We can’t wait to see all your lovely creations!

Each year at this time, we pull together information to help us review standards and progress against our school improvement plan for this session, to help us identify priority areas for the next school year.  

• Home Learning Library

• Pupil Equity Fund

• Expressive Arts - Project Woodwind

• PTA/Parent Council Experiences Fund 

• Playground Improvements - Long Term Planning  

• Health and Wellbeing Support Themes 

• Parent Council Working Groups 

A link to the form will be sent directly to families today (with a few follow up reminders next term) and the form will remain open throughout the school holidays and into the new term, closing on Wednesday the 23rd of April.  We rely on responses to surveys like this to enable us to listen to and act on the feedback from families.  Please take a few minutes to complete the form.

School lunches is often a theme of concern which comes up through informal conversations with families and Parent Council meetings.  Lunch provision is not managed by the school team, but is centrally overseen by Aberdeen City Council Catering team.  The catering team managers are most able to act promptly when they receive timely feedback to address issues with the lunches.   As part of ongoing discussions through the parent council regarding the quality of school lunches, we have decided to set up a 'Lunches Feedback Form' which will be permanently available via the school website under the 'Parents' tab.

Please use this form to provide feedback on the day if you are made aware of any issues regarding:

• The quality of the food provided

• The quantity of food provided

• Missing menu items

Any responses will be shared with the catering team on a weekly basis. 

We hope this approach is able to help support a sustained improvement in the school lunch provision at Ashely Road.

Coming up at the end of term is our annual talent show.  This is an informal opportunity for children to share a skill/talent with the school and has been a highlight in the school calendar since it was introduced a number of years ago.  If children are interested in performing, they should prepare their act ahead of the auditions in class.  One act from each class will then go ahead to perform at the end of term.  There are always unexpected elements in these performances and we can't wait to see the surprises the children have for us.

Some very happy faces on Wednesday this week as our Glee group fought their way to victory at the first of the Glee heats this year.  They performed two songs on stage at the music hall, showing a huge amount to courage and team work, to pull off what was perhaps their most polished performance yet!  The children were delighted to hear that they will go on to complete in the next round in May and 'teacher team' Glee are already excitedly working on the next song choice/routine.  

We made our own recording of their performances today in school so we could share them here for families to see!

A huge thanks to the team of teachers - Miss Jones, Miss King, Mrs McTaggart and Miss Morrice who give up their time to volunteer to run this club.  Without staff like this who choose to give up their time to go above and beyond we would not be able to support this type of opportunity.  

In P4 we are learning about how food plays an important role in cultures and beliefs. This week we were lucky to have some parents come in and share with us what foods are special to them and their culture. The foods were all different and made us very hungry! We enjoyed learning about them and we want to try them all 🙂 

( Fun facts: In Nigeria they make the best Jollof Rice! There are more than 100 spices in the world! In a New Orleans King Cake you can find a miniature toy baby!)

This week has also seen the kick off of block 1 of our PLG's (Pupil Leadership Groups) this session.  During these blocks, all P4-7 classes mix to form new Pupil Leadership groups in which they plan to make a change/improvement within our school community.  Group themes were identified by children and children were given the chance to 'rank' their preferences before they were matched with a group.  These group times are a real opportunity to have voices heard and to make an impact!  We cannot wait to see the creative ideas that come from this next group of young leaders.   The groups will be keeping slides to share their ideas and progress over the six weeks.  These are on the school website under: Our School - Pupil Leadership Groups

Have a look at the slides to see this month's 'Right of the month'.  We continue to support children to develop their depth of understanding on the UNCRC rights through this process each month.  

The next Skills Challenge task was announced this week at assembly as it links to World Book Day. The children have been asked to think about their favourite story or book and who their favourite character is from the book. They then need to think about a stand out skill that character has and think of this as a superpower! They all need to draw their favourite character showing their superpower.  Is their superpower being courageous, creative, strong, being able to motivate others or be a team player?

P4-7 Will also have a chance to create a short comic strip with their character using their superpower. 

This will be a hard competition to judge. Two entries from each class will be sent to the SLT to judge. The winners will be announced during the last week of term. 

P5 were delighted to welcome, Dr Ana Ciocarlan (lecturer at Aberdeen University on Persuasive Technology) and  Nik (A 4th year student in computer science) along today to share their knowledge about how computers are all around us and how they use persuasion for both good and bad.  This has come as part of a wider 'Coding' topic, where P5 get to grips with real life applications of computer science, which is becoming an increasingly important employability skill!  The children worked together to design their own persuasive apps and enjoyed finding out more from real life experts!

A big thanks to the visitors for giving up their time to come along!

On Thursday P4 visited Pizza Express! The trip linked to our Health & Wellbeing topic where we were learning about hygiene and germs.

We got to taste different foods such as olives, mushrooms, red onions, tomatoes and basil. Some of us tasted these for the first time... not everyone enjoyed them!

We then learned how to do the ‘Pizza Express clap’ to make the dough bigger and round. We added passata and mozzarella which we learned comes from a buffalo.  Our pizza was called a Margherita Pizza (Queen of pizzas!)

We all gave the trip 10 out of 10!! 

( Fun fact: there are 156 tomatoes in a big can of passata!)

 A big thanks to all the families who came along and got involved with our very Scottish P2 parental engagement event.  The children loved being able to share their songs, dances and show their work in class.  By far the 'favourite' of the day, was getting the grown up's on their feet to dance along with their children.  Many thanks to the P2 teachers for pulling such an enjoyable event together. 

Book your child(ren) in for a fun-filled holiday camp this Easter at Aberdeen Tennis Centre. Suitable for children aged 5-12 years old (P1 – P7), the camps deliver a combination of on-court tennis coaching, padel tennis and sports games in the park!

The cost is £40 per day or £200 for the full week.

Find out more information and book your spaces here: https://clubspark.lta.org.uk/AberdeenTennisCentre/Coaching/Camps”

📢 Stay Connected with Us! 📢

The Parent Council is excited to invite you to follow the Ashley Road School Parent Council on Instagram! 🎉 This is a great way to stay updated on school events, important announcements, and ways to get involved in our amazing school community.

📲 Follow us at: @pcashleyroadschool 

Let’s work together to make our school even better for our kids! 💙 Give us a follow, spread the word, and stay in the loop!

#StayConnected #ParentCouncil #JoinUs #SchoolCommunity #FollowUs

Our Ashley Road Journalist Team continue to provided articles which go on the screen at the enternace to the school. They continue to look at developing their journliast skills through interviews and articles on what you have been doing. Some to look at highlight someone who appeared in the Nutcracker Ballet in January and February, some children who will be in the upcoming AYMT show of The Addams Family, An update on a recent Netball Tournament playing against Mile End school and finally what one of our journalists thought of the recent Spectra festival.  

Primary 6 were lucky to work this week with award winning percussionist, Callum Huggan, who took time out from his busy performance schedule to deliver a fun and interactive percussion workshop, showcasing a range of unusual instruments, including a vibraphone, cajon and kalimba. Some of the children even got a chance to try out the instruments and  did a great job leading their peers in rhythmic activities. This was also an opportunity for any of our budding musicians  to learn about continuing music as a potential career. P6 thoroughly enjoyed this workshop and described Callum as 'inspiring'.

The twelve members of our Super Squad have been extremely busy for the past few weeks, working  on school improvement and, in particular, on an exciting Leaders of Learning project.

Effective school improvement involves looking not only inwards at what is happening in our own setting, but also outwards to see what we can learn from and share with others. To allow our learners to experience the value of this, we have recently formed a link with Broomhill and Skene Square Schools, to form a child led ‘learning trio’.  Our Super Squad will soon be going out on visits to our linked schools and will be hosting a visit in return.  This is a valuable opportunity to share and discuss the learning and ethos in each of the schools and to learn from each other.

Whilst each group will be supported by a member of staff, the planning and hosting of each visit will be largely led by the children, allowing them to truly step into their role as leaders of learning.

This week, the Super Squad caried out the first step in the process: an online Teams Meet with the other schools, to set the scene for our upcoming visits.

They are very excited to get put their planning into action!

Next Tuesday and Wednesday we have the annual Dental Checks for the P1 and P7 children at the school. 

This is part of the NHS Scotland Programme which helps to identify planning and delivery of NHS dental services across Scotland. 

We will have the Scholastic Travelling Book Fair visiting us again this year during the Parent Evening appointments. The Fair will be open from 3.30-6.30pm on Tuesday 18th and Thursday 20th February. 

This year we will have some of the P7 pupils running the fair with help from some parents. 

Come and have a look at all the books available. The school also has the opportunity to earn free books for the library depending on sales. 

You will be able to purchase books using cash but there will also be a QR code available to pay through as well on the night. 

World Book Day tokens can also be spent during the Book Fair. These will come out to the children on Tuesday. These can be spent in book shops until the 23rd March. 

A reminder that when a child is absent from school for any reason, it is important that families inform the school office each morning.  We will not presume that remains absent following a day of illness as this could risk the child being unaccounted for.  If you know your child will be absent for a number of days, please email the office including all the dates of expected absence and this can be added to the register ahead of time. 

Absences can be reported by:

Emailing the school: ashleyroad@aberdeencity.gov.uk

By Phone: 01224 588732

Groupcall:  Sending a message to school via the Xpressions App

The Ashley Road netball team have had an awesome start to the year. The team's winning streak started with a friendly match against Cults at Kincorth in January, with excellent sportsmanship and teamwork on display.

The wins continued in February when they went on to play Mile End Primary School. With only six players on the team, Ashley Road had to use adapting skills and made sure to stay resilient throughout the matches.

The most recent Active Schools Festival was played against Hazlehead, Kingswells and Culter. The team won every match played and displayed fabulous teamwork and listening skills, despite two team members being unfortunately injured.

Fingers crossed the positive start to 2025 will continue throughout the rest of the year!

By Alex and Eva P7

Staff are looking forward to seeing families at the upcoming parent meetings.  You will be aware that across January for P2-7 we have had a whole school focus on assessment, with a particular focus on numeracy and maths.  Staff have gone through painstaking collation of the results to be able to share specific information with families on their children's progress and any 'gaps' which exist in their mathematical knowledge.  

In an effort to support families Mrs Nicholson has been working tirelessly over the last few months to create a 'Home Learning Library' populated with a range of resources for each topic within maths, at all CFE levels, that will be accessible to all families.  We hope with specific information on which areas to target, families will be able to use this resource to structure some home learning time which will have a targeted and meaningful impact. 

SLT will be available in the library area across the evenings to demonstrate the site and help families figure out how they might use this new resource.  

Don't forget, our first day back after the long weekend (Thursday the 13th) is 'Heritage Day' as organised by our House Team Leaders.  On this day children are encouraged to come into school wearing clothes which reflect their culture, be that a kilt, sari, dashiki or kimono we would love to see everyone show some pride in their heritage.   If children would prefer, they can dress in the colour of a flag, in casual clothes or full uniform if they prefer.  

Our Primary 5 classes enjoyed a trip to Aberdeen Music Hall this week to watch the Royal Scottish National Orchestra perform "Sounds of the Deep: a Musical Adventure", which forms part of their school concert series.  This was a feast for the senses, involving music, film and audience participation and was a great opportunity for our learners to experience a live orchestra in action.

This year in the ELC we have started a newsletter to keep families up to date with what is going on in the ELC. Every two weeks some of the children choose to be ELC journalists and help to create the newsletter. They are in charge of highlighting what has been happening in the nursery and what they want to share with families. There is always room for some reminders and information about upcoming events and parental engagement opportunities along with sharing our Right of the Month as we work to develop our ELC Rights Charter this year.  Have a look at what was shared with our last Newsletter. 

The second parents evening meetings of this session will take place on  Tuesday the 18th and  Thursday the 20th of February and will continue to be in person, in school.  

Booking will be online via the same system used previously.  You can book an appointment by going to the address below and logging in using pupil and parent details.   The information you use to login must match exactly what we hold on our school system, so if you are struggling to login, please call the school office who will support.  

https://parents-booking.co.uk/login.jsphttps://parents-booking.co.uk/ashleyroad

The booking window will open on Monday the 3rd of February and will close on Friday the 14th of February at 12noon .

Please help us to make best use of teachers time which is set aside to meet with parents.  If for any reason you are unable to attend an appointment, please cancel with as much notice as possible by calling the school office or cancelling via the online system. 

Our new block of pupil led lunchtime clubs are now underway and are proving a big hit!   Our P4-7 leaders are doing a fantastic job of entertaining and educating their club members with everything  from Warhammer,  bookmaking and digital technology, to garden fun and sports. This is a great opportunity for our leaders to demonstrate their autonomy  in action and to inspire the younger children in school to take on leadership roles.

The Press & Journal and Evening Express newspapers will be running their 'Last Class' supplement again this year, with class photos of P7s from across the city and shire  appearing in The Press & Journal during w/c Monday 12th May 2025  and Evening Express in w/c Monday 19th May 2025. 

Ashley Road's P7 class photos will be taken on Friday 14th February. 

A form will soon be sent to P7 parents via Groupcall, to indicate whether they give permission for their child to appear in this feature.

The Learning for Sustainability Group is organising a Winter Clothing Swap Shop. 

We want to encourage our school community to reduce waste and recycle good quality clothing and footwear that can be used over the winter months. 

Any unused winter clothing or footwear can be donated to the school office from Monday 20th January. We are looking for the below items that are in good condition:

Winter jackets

Thick jumpers 

Wellington boots

Winter boots

Hats, scarves and gloves

Thick socks

From Monday 27th the Winter Swap Shop will be accessed in the same way as the School Swap Shop. We will also open the Winter Swap Shop after school every 2nd Friday to any parents that wish to swap an item or take what is needed. Thank you, from the LfS Group.

Assessment takes part year round as an integral part of the learning and teaching processes within school to ensure staff know what children understand, can recall and to inform planning for next steps.  In January we are having a focused block of assessment across the the school.  All assessments carried out are 'low stakes' - simply used to help us identify any gaps in children's learning and ensure an appropriate level of challenge /support is provided.  Feedback from these assessments will be shared with families at parents meetings in February. 

In an effort to build on the enthusiasm shown by the children when we explored physics concepts at our assembly last week, we will now be having a series of science assemblies!  This week - Chemistry!  We had lots of chat about the risks involved and the safety measures in place for the experiments we carried out.  It was made very clear that some experiments fall in the category of 'do not try at home', while others could be  trialled with adult supervision.  

There are house points on offer to anyone who shows the curiosity to find out more and can use any of these words correctly in a sentence.

Vapours

PH indicator

Density

Buoyancy

Carbon Dioxide

Oxygen 

Chemical Reaction

Dissolve

Conductor

Stable/Volatile

P4 joined with P1 today to support their playful learning. P1 were recapping changing state of water from last term, P4 have just started this for their science topic. They worked together to mix food colouring in water (liquid) and ice (solid) to create some ' cool' snow art. 

We had a bit of fun in assembly this week looking at practical applications of the laws of physics.  We spoke about lots of complex concepts like 'inertia' (the tendency of an object to keep moving in the same direction or remain at rest unless an outside force acts upon it.).  We had a go at lots of experiments which demonstrated complex scientific ideas and introduced some really challenging vocabulary.  There are house points on offer to anyone who shows the curiosity to find out more and can use any of these words correctly in a sentence.

High/low air pressure

Inertia 

Radius of rotation

Angular Momentum

Centrifugal Force

Atmospheric pressure

Angular velocity

We found that our 'common sense' understanding of  what  'should' happen was sometimes at odds with what the experiments showed.  From the excitement in the room I'd guess we have a number of budding scientists in the making!  Have a look at the video to see what we got up to.  

The next block of this year’s pupil led lunchtime clubs will start in week 3 of term (WB 20th January). Our club leaders have a host of exciting activities planned and can't wait to get started. 
​

Sign-up for clubs will go live this Friday (10th) at 4.30pm and will remain open till 4.30pm next Tuesday (14th).  Sign up is on a first come, first served basis. The link can be found here:

https://sites.google.com/ab-ed.org/ashleyroadschool/our-school/extra-curricular-activities 

The P7 yearbook team met today to have their first planning meeting.  Last session  pupils  came up with the idea of introducing a yearbook to leave a bit of a legacy so they could be remembered by future years and as a memento for them to take with them as they left.  Our current P7s are keen to maintain this new tradition so our yearbook team had their first official meeting today to start to share ideas.   We look forward to seeing what they can come up with!

WIN WITH ABERDEEN MAGICAL SOCIETY!

The Aberdeen Magical Society wants to inspire the next generation of magicians in Aberdeen & the north east of Scotland - they have 8 copies of Everybody's Magic by Richard Wiseman, The College of Magic & Vanishing Inc. Magic to give away!

If pupils wish to enter they simply have to draw a picture, write a poem or story, or create something amazing on the theme of magic. 

Entries from young people in Aberdeen and the north-east should be sent to aberdeenmagiccomp@gmail.com with the entrant’s name and age by January 26, 2025.

Does Ashley Road have any budding magicians?