Dear Parent/ Carer
Welcome back! We hope that you all enjoyed the holiday break! We are looking forward to an exciting summer term. Our Primary Sevens are starting to think of the transition to High School and our Nursery children are looking forward to finding out more about Primary One.

Exciting Art Competition News
Art.co.uk, today announced three finalist schools in the UK for Art Sparks LearningTM, an international programme that supports art education to help inspire the artists of tomorrow. Flora Stevenson’s Primary School are delighted to have made it into the final as the only Scottish school in the international campaign. Art.co.uk have awarded us with 18 pieces of our favourite framed artworks to display around our school in recognition of our achievement to date.
The pupils’ engagement in the selection of these artworks has stimulated a great enthusiasm in Art and Design. This interest has resulted in us planning and delivering additional art workshops across all stages and ages, which are led by local artists. Plus as a direct result of this development we have now created the “Rainbow Room” a dedicated art space for the whole school to share.
From Monday the 28th April until May 23rd, 2014, family, friends, community members and visitors to Art.co.uk are invited to vote for their favourite school on www.art.co.uk/artevent. The school with the most votes will receive a grand prize – of £750 in art supplies. This resource would make a massive positive impact on our ability to provide exceptionally high quality art and design lessons.  To be able to continue to embrace the talents of local artists and have the materials to give pupils greater freedom of expression would be amazing.
Help support our artists of tomorrow by visiting www.art.co.uk/artevent and voting for Flora Stevenson Primary School. Winners will be announced on Tuesday, May 27, 2014.

Please support us in this competition.

Financial Education Week
We are in the process of planning a ‘Financial Education’ Week and are looking for parents/carers with expertise in running a business or in finance. If you are able to offer your skills and expertise please get in touch with Ms McGhee. Thank you.

Dance
Twenty pupils from P5 to P7 are being given the opportunity to take part in a fabulous Dance Workshop run by Dance Ihayami. The children will then perform the ‘Blue Lotus Dance’ in the Botanic Gardens on Saturday 3 May from 2 until 2.45pm. All very welcome to watch the performance.

Achievements
Josh in P7 competed at the Scottish Tai Kwon Do Championships held in Motherwell during the holidays and won 3 Silver Medals! His first for patterns, second for individual sparring and his third for Tag Team. A tremendous achievement Josh, very well done indeed!

Maths Challenge
A group of P6 and P7 children took part in the Scottish Maths Challenge and all pupils did incredibly well. Congratulations to Abhijai, Beth and Oliver in P6 and Aidan, Christopher, Sophie, Rhona and Emily in P7. They scooped a Gold, four Silvers and a Bronze Award. A super achievement, well done to you all!

Golf
Well done to P5 for their fantastic performance in the second round of Club Golf. Their excellent performance sees them through to the Final! Good Luck!

A message from Ellie, Alice and Rhona in Primary 7.
We are organising a fundraiser to send 148th Girl Guides to Holland for a camp. We will organise the following activities: A Bake Sale, A Loom Band Stall, Guess the Bear’s Name, Guess Mr Baxter’s Birthday and guess how many sweets are in the jar. It will be in Room 3 at breaktime on Friday 2 May. Thank you!

Nursery News
The nursery children are having a science fortnight! They will be participating in activities that help them learn about their senses, how to care for the environment, how simple forces work and how they can use new technology to record what they have learnt.
The children would like to invite their parents into the nursery to help them learn more and share with them what they have been doing. Sign-up sheets are in the nursery. Thanks! The nursery team.
A date for your diary: The Nursery Spring Fair will be held on Wednesday 28 May.

A Parent Council Event date for your Diary.
The Parent Council Summer Fair will be held on Saturday 14 June from 2 to 4pm.

Concert for Jamie Bingham
Some of the senior Music School pupils are putting on a concert to raise funds for Jamie Bingham on 15th May at Broughton at 7.30pm. Jamie had a brain tumour and meningitis last year and is now recovering - the concert will raise funds for physiotherapy, home tutoring and other things to speed up his rehabilitation. Jamie and his brother Charlie were both pupils at Flora’s. Most of the performers are well known at Flora’s too - including Anna McLuckie who came to play her harp at one of our assemblies recently. Tickets are available from our school office - £7 each.

Parking
May I once again bring up the issue of parking around the school gates and in the Post Office and Royal Bank premises. Thank you very much to those parents and carers who have parked a little further away from the school and kept our entrances safer for all our children. It is also important to be a good neighbour and not adversely affect the local businesses. The Post Office Depot has contacted us again this week about the volume of parents and carers using their premises to park. PLEASE do not park there or in the Bank Carpark. Thank you for your support.

Punctuality
Did you know that if your child is late by just 10 minutes each day, over the course of the year that equals 6 and a half days of learning missed?  15 minutes late equals 10 days of learning lost.   At Flora’s we encourage every child to be on time for school every day to maximise their opportunities for learning.  If you bring your child to school please make every effort to ensure that they are in the line when the bell rings.  Many thanks for your cooperation.

Community Fair
On Thursday 12th of June we have planned a Community Open Morning for parents/carers and friends of Flora’s.  The event is a fantastic opportunity to meet representatives of local businesses/charities and organisations and to find out more information about the services available in your local area.   We would like to invite as many parents as possible to attend on a drop in basis from 9-11.30am.   Refreshments will be available throughout the morning.

Careers Afternoon
As part of our Health and Wellbeing programme, P7 will take part in a ‘Careers Event’ on Thursday 5th June.   We are now looking for volunteers who would be willing to give up their time from 1.30 onwards on the afternoon to be interviewed by our P7 pupils about their jobs.  In recent years we have had a wide variety of jobs ranging from DJ to Scientist!   We would really value your support to provide our P7 pupils with a fantastic experience of the world of work.

Primary 7 Book Group Blog.
A group of Primary 7 pupils have starting publishing a blog that will contain book reviews, author interviews and updates on new books in the library.
The blog can be found at http://florasbookgroup.blogspot.co.uk/