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Royal Mile pupil tackles giant virus!!!
See In the news for more.
Welcome to the
Children and Families Newsletter
This newsletter
is published every two
weeks for staff in the Children and Families Department. It is available online at the Edinburgh Grid for
Learning at http://egfl.net
One more day to enter...
This is your last chance to tell me what's hot and what's not in the Children
and Families Newsletter and enter to win a Marks & Spencer
Christmas hamper. The deadline is tomorrow at noon!
Fill in the survey and you could win a Marks & Spencer Christmas
Hamper. Click
here for all the details
Editor's
note
Thank you to all those who have
filled out a survey. They are coming in thick and fast and we are
gathering all your feedback. And of course, we will tell you who wins
the hamper tomorrow.
I
will be able to give you more information on the results of the survey
in the coming weeks, but I wanted to highlight one concern that has come
up again and again - the lack of stories about our new colleagues within
the Children and Families Department.
The content of the newsletter relies on what is submitted to me and I
wanted to take this opportunity to encourage all groups across the
service to send us your news, views, and all the good things that your
colleagues are up to. If you don't send us your good news stories,
who will?
Like
the Fostering
Recruitment team and Youth
Justice Services, you can send us an article to go in the section 'What do they do?'
If
you have anything else you would like to share - stories, pictures, info on new staff, celebrations, special
events, etc. You
can email me, gayle.st.croix@educ.edin.gov.uk or
call 0131 469 3429 with your news.
If you don’t have access to email, you can fax 0131 469 3398 or mail
your story to me, Gayle St. Croix at Level 5, Wellington Court, 10
Waterloo Place, Edinburgh EH1 3EG.
In
the news
Generation Science takes three new shows on the road
With the help of pupils from
Royal Mile Primary School, Generation Science launched three brand new science shows
which it will take to primary schools all over
Scotland to mark it’s 16th year of touring.
The largest
provider of touring science events in the UK, Generation Science has
completely reinvented three of its most popular shows thanks to sponsors
Diageo Scotland and a partnership with three primary school specialists.
These new shows are part of a tour of nineteen shows and workshops which
runs from February – June 2006. More.
Postcards from Tynecastle
An Edinburgh secondary school
has introduced a new effective way of communicating with parents.
Tynecastle HS has started to send postcards home instead of the
traditional letter when communicating with parents about positive
aspects of their children’s education at the school. Full
story.
Edinburgh Schools Celebrate
First Duke of Edinburgh’s Awards
Two secondary schools in
Edinburgh hosted an evening awards presentation at the City
Chambers to celebrate their joint Duke of Edinburgh’s Awards venture.
Forrester High School and Wester Hailes Education Centre worked together
on the initiative and ten students from the schools became the first to
gain their bronze awards. More.
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What
do they do?
Asset Planning
This multidisciplinary group is
part of the 'Infrastructure and Development' group and can be found in 10
Waterloo Place.
Historically, the team has been responsible for trying to make sure that there
were the right number of schools in the right locations at the right
time. Since the beginning of the new Children and Families Department,
their remit has extended beyond school places to look at the locations
of all of the department's services in the city.
As the city is constantly changing, this means there may be a need for
more school places in some areas (such as the massive new developments
along the waterfront) and less school places elsewhere (where
populations are declining).
Their remit is to ensure that the department's buildings are running as
efficiently as possible while also meeting design needs for the 21st
century.
The nuts and bolts of their work involves analysing demographic trends
and pupil forecasts against capacity and accommodation information and
catchment areas, as well as assessing planning applications.
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You're
a Winner!
Projects, schools and groups gathered recently to celebrate good
practice and hard work at the Standard Life Edinburgh Achievement
Awards. One of the categories was called Innovation in Care.
Applicants in this
category needed to demonstrate a progressive approach to providing care,
creating settings where creativity and growth are encouraged.
The winner in this category was:
Through and Aftercare Project –
Pentland View Close Support Unit
This project is based on the belief
that the young people who have spent their teenage years ‘looked after’
have a right to continued support and relationships with the care
givers.
Staff at the unit recognise that many young people who leave care are
developmentally younger than their chronological age and severing
positive attachments with care givers could exacerbate the difficulties.
All young people who leave the unit are offered ongoing support from the
staff they have attachments to. It is an open-ended service, available
24 hours a day and currently works with 18 young people who have
left the unit since 1995.
In the same category, two Highly Commended awards were presented
to:
North West Children and Families
Outreach Service: Granton, West Pilton and Parkway Children and Family
Centres and Viewforth Child
and Family Centre
To see a complete list of
who won what in the Standard Life Edinburgh Achievement Awards, please
visit the News
page.
Success
stories
Gaelic debate winners
Pictured from left to right.
Ms. Craig and Ms. McArthur (JGHS Gaelic Teachers), Seamus MacLeod and
Anna Roberts (representing JGHS) Cairistiona MacRitchie and Allison
Buchanan (representing Millburn Academy, Inverness, runners up).
Mealaibh ur naidheachd...(Congratulations) to Seamus MacLeod and
Anna Roberts, the team from James Gillespie's who won the BT Gaelic Youth Debating
competition in the Scottish Parliament.
Sixteen
teams took part in this annual event. Anna and Seamus spoke in favour of the
motion that, "Online dating is the way forward". It was a
lively topic and Anna and Seamus performed very well indeed. The event
was broadcast live on "Radio nan Gaidheal and highlights were
also shown on "Dè a-nis?" on BBC2. All those involved
thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
Nursery nosh gets the nod
Leith Primary's nursery class launched a healthy recipe book recently as a joint venture
between family learning, the nursery class and parents.
Each child received a book containing a recipe from most
families. The book includes the likes and dislikes of each nursery child, plus a
photograph of each child on their own book.
Each family was also given a healthy living pack
containing recipes, food safety tips and useful information about food
shopping and physical education.
Democracy in action
As part of their class project on the Scottish Parliament, pupils
at Trinity Primary School decided to
write petitions.
In pairs the pupils chose a devolved matter that they
were interested in and wrote a petition highlighting what action they
wanted. The pupils were very passionate about their different issues
ranging from saving parkland to increasing funding of Scottish cricket.
Ellie Foster-MacDonald and Faith Waddell wrote theirs about excessive
supermarket packaging. As a result they have been asked to make a
statement to the Public Petitions Committee at the end of December.
Everyone is excited about the visit and looking forward to seeing
democracy in action.
Mollie's off to Norway
Congratulations to Mollie Wilson from P7S at Trinity Primary
School who recently took part in a competition organised by the Norwegian
Consulate. Her story about a Christmas tree has won Mollie and her
family a trip to Norway. Well done!
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For
your information
Do you want to become more active but
feel you don’t have time?
Taking the stairs is a fast, easy way to improve
not only your physical but also your mental health- and it’s free!
New signs and posters will be going
up around Wellington Court in January encouraging HQ staff to use the
stairs more often.
Promoting the health of the workforce is one of the
key priorities in the Children & Families Health Strategy Improving
Health. To take advantage of the many different
opportunities to get fitter and healthier offered to Council
employees, check the Staff Benefits Booklet for venues that give you
reduced rates on their fitness and leisure facilities or visit http://channel1.internal.egfl.net/.
Even better, challenge
your colleagues to join you and take on a team from another section or
floor!
Look out for further information on work–based health promoting
activities over the coming months. If you would like to know more or
offer your suggestions, contact Michelle Rogers, Health Improvement
Officer michelle.rogers@educ.edin.gov.uk
or Barbara Schilling, Health
Strategy Implementation Officer barbara.schilling@educ.edin.gov.uk
Jobs
To search for jobs within the
City of Edinburgh Council, please click here www.edinburgh.gov.uk/CEC/Jobs/Jobs_List.jsp
For details of teaching vacancies in
Edinburgh please visit the following link: http://channel1.internal.egfl.net
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Recent
press releases
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