‘The safety of children and our staff is our main priority’ – City Council Chief Executive Andrew Kerr
The Chief Executive of the City of Edinburgh Council and senior education officials met with directors of the Edinburgh School Partnership (ESP) this afternoon (Sunday 10 April) to receive an update on the programme of detailed structural surveys which is underway on the PPP1 schools. Continue reading CLOSED SCHOOLS: DETAILED SURVEYS UNDERWAY
“Public confidence needs rebuilt as well as school walls: and fast” – Green Candidate Andy Wightman
The Scottish Government’s resiliency committee has met to discuss the emergency closure of seventeen PPP schools across Edinburgh – but The Scottish Greens say the ‘fiasco’ highlights the need to expose private finance failures. Continue reading Closed schools update: Scottish government offers ‘full support’
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has used social media to issue her Christmas message this year – and children from West Pilton’s Forthview primary school take centre stage! Continue reading A Merry Christmas from the First Minister … and Forthview too!
Tonight’s the night at Muirhouse Shopping Centre
Dull old Muirhouse Shopping Centre will be transformed into a local winter wonderland tonight when Community Action North (CAN) kicks the Christmas season off in style!
Why are we doing this? During the first phase of the Community Action North project we spoke to dozens of local groups and hundreds of local people – and one of their biggest complaints was about the state of the shopping centre. Everyone agrees it’s not the most welcoming environment, so we decided to do something about it – even if only temporarily. And when Urban Union kindly offered to donate a real Christmas tree we thought: if places like Corstorphine, Morningside and Stockbridge can have public Christmas trees, why not Muirhouse too?
It’s taken a while to organise and has presented a number of challenges – I’m sure Santa’s Christmas present run is easier to plan – but we’re almost there and tonight we hope local people will join us to celebrate our community at a very special time of year.
We’ve been working away to make the Centre look a little bit brighter – children from the local primary schools created some brilliant snowflake stencils and these are now being painted on the walls by a team from Tomorrow’s People, supported by Austeja from North Edinburgh Arts.
Our Christmas tree, a mighty twenty-two foot Norwegian Spruce, was delivered and erected yesterday and will be decorated today. We’ll also be adding some more lights around the Centre to give it that festive feel. There’s still a lot to be done, but we’ll get there!
So what could possibly go wrong? Well, quite a lot – as many local people have been quick to point out! However we’ve looked at all the possibilities, we’ve weighed up all the risks and we’re giving it a go. Christmas is a time of hope, of new beginnings and more than anything it’s about children – and we believe our local children deserve to have their own tree, here in their community.
Among tonight’s highlights:
The festive fun kicks off at 5pm. Santa Claus is coming to Pennywell tonight – we hope you will too!
Andy and Dave, Community Action North CAN
More than 250 children from six local primary schools descended on Ainslie Park yesterday for Spartans School Sports Day.
Pupils from Blackhall, Craigroyston, Flora Stevenson’s, Forthview, Pirniehall and St David’s took the opportunity to take part in a range of sports – from triathlon, boxing and mountain bike relays to judo, fencing and football.
The sun shone, the day was a great success and the happy kids all left Spartans with a medal!
Spartans Community Football Academy youth worker Jamie Tomkinson, who organised the sporting festival, said: “It was good to see so many children enjoying the different activities and having fun. Many of them were trying out some of these sports for the first time and it was great to see their energy and enthusiasm.”
Big events like this take a lot of organising, and among those involved in making the Sports Day such a success were Edinburgh Leisure, Spartans CFA volunteers, Edinburgh Judo, Nike volunteers, FetLor, Granton Youth Centre, MY Adventure, Fencing Fun’s Keith Cook and Kabo.
Some pictures:
More pictures of the Sports Day on our Facebook Page
Heartless thieves could cost local primary school £1000
Forthview Primary School’s shed was broken into over the weekend – and the school needs your help to trace stolen bikes.
Forthview’s Tracey Berry said: “Bikes that we had borrowed, so that Bill Stobie could teach bike ability to P6, have been stolen, along with footballs and gardening equipment. We are responsibile for the bikes: it will cost us about £1000 to replace the them! Our fundraising is meant to be for outings and activities for Forthview Children not replacing things that thoughtless people have stolen.”
Tracey added: “The bikes look like this (above). If you find one please hand it to the school – the more we find the less money we have to pay out from the school funds.”
Can you help?
Former Children’s Laureate Julia Donaldson, creator of the much-loved Gruffalo and other brilliant children’s books, was a welcome visitor at Forthview Primary School yesterday. Julia worked with P3 classes during her visit to promote Reading Culture, a new initiative to encourage families to enjoy reading together.
Forthview is holding a series of reading events this month in a bid to encourage both pupils and their parents to read. The school has been working on the development of a Reading Culture, involving school pupils, parents, the local public library and the wider community.
The project aims to encourage children to read for pleasure and to involve parents in the hope that they will also be encouraged to read to their children and read for their own enjoyment. This work is funded by The Scottish Government as part of The City of Edinburgh’s involvement in the South-East Scotland Inter-authority Literacy Hub.
Edinburgh author Lari Don has agreed to be the school’s Patron of Reading. There was a day of events to launch this last week followed by author visits and library visits for every stage, as well as the setting up of a parents’ book group.
Other authors confirmed so far to take part in the Scottish Book Trust Live Literature funded sessions are Simon Puttock, John Fardell (who will also work with the school’s fathers’ group), Joan Lennon, Barry Hutchison and Roy Gill.
Mind you, Forthview parents have a proud record of writing stories themselves – remember the Pathway to Pilton project in 2012 (pictured below)?
Children from Forthview Primary School nursery were the first to be enthralled by tales of pirates and flying carpets when Reading Rainbows, a new scheme to get pre-school children reading, was launched at Muirhouse Library yesterday.
Around 1200 four-year-olds across the capital will each receive two brand new books, specially chosen to inspire youngsters to read and share stories. Reading Rainbows, launched in Edinburgh last year, aims to spark a love of reading among under-fives, giving them the best start when they begin school. The project is also designed to support parents and carers to share books and stories with their children, encouraging them to think about the tales together and to visit libraries more often.
The Forthview Nursery pupils visited Muirhouse Library yesterday to celebrate the launch of the new Reading Rainbows programme, which will feature literacy events, book sharing and craft activities in libraries and early years settings. The four-year-olds were the first to receive this year’s books, The Pirate House by Rebecca Patterson and My Granny Went to Market by Stella Blackstone and Christopher Corr.
Culture Convener Councillor Richard Lewis said: “This initiative is clearly incredibly beneficial to Edinburgh’s youngest learners and it’s fantastic to see such enthusiasm from those involved. Literacy is a key priority for the city and by inspiring a shared love of stories amongst children and their carers we hope to encourage a new generation ready to read, write and learn.”
Reading Rainbows was introduced last year by City of Edinburgh Council’s Library and Information Service and Children and Families Service and focuses on areas of disadvantage across the city.
The initiative addresses the fact that, in Scotland, children receive free book packs between birth and the age of three and once they turn five from the Scottish Book Trust, but nothing when they are four. By supplying free literacy gift packs, including two books, a white board and marker and a literacy advice pack for parents and carers, as well as story and craft events, project leaders hope to impact children’s literacy development.
The scheme received an overwhelmingly positive response last year with feedback showing participating parents were encouraged to read more to their children and to take part in library activities.
Almost four hundred local people took part in Friday’s Muirhouse Million Steps event. Local schools were well represented on the walk, which was also supported by Edinburgh Western MSP Colin Keir.
And did those marching feet make the magical million milestone? We’ll have to wait until next week to find out! Event organiser Lisa Arnott, Pilton Community Health Project’s Healthy Lifestyles coordinator, has promised to be in touch soon.
Some photographs of the event:
Forthview Primary School celebrated the culmination of the year-long ‘Forth Views, Pilton People’ project with a film launch and photo exhibition at the school on 12 March.
The Friends of Forthview parents group received Lottery funding last year to ‘create new opportunities for local children and their families to acquire new skills and develop confidence and self-esteem through participation in exciting and innovative creative activities’. Since then, groups have been working hard on three different elements – and last week’s event was the perfect opportunity to showcase all that they’ve achieved.
Forthview Family Support Worker Tracey Berry (pictured below), who has worked with the group throughout the project, explained: “We carried out three projects which were geared towards the development of a caring tolerant and creative school and community. Adults and children worked together in an intergenerational and multicultural context to explore cultural similarities and differences with a focus on equality. The three projects were:-
Family Storytelling – We had two groups – one group for dads and their children, the other mums and their children. Each group worked to create a story book which can be used as a resource in our school. The adults and children were extremely enthusiastic and have produced three fabulous story books, with amazing themes – children shrinking the dads, children being rescued by mums from Volcano Island and Fairyland! An award from Radio Forth’s “Cash for Kids” allowed us to print many copies of each book.
Family Photography – Carers & children worked together to produce fun and unusual family portraits.
Film Making – This part of the project introduced carers to using digital media as a means of expression. The result was the production of the “Pathways to Pilton” film, which follows the diverse roads our children & their carers have travelled to reach Forthview School.”
It’s been a lot of hard work, but it was worth it and Forthview’s 12 March event proved to be a huge success, with participants joined by friends and family and the wider community too. Forthview’s new school choir got proceedings off to an upbeat start and this was followed by presentations by participants, who talked about what they had learned during the project and what it had meant to them. The premiere screening of the excellent ‘Pathways to Pilton’ film followed and the event was rounded off with an opportunity to visit an exhibition of work carried out during the year-long project and to meet and chat to participants.
There have been many paths to Forthview – no less than 28 different nationalities make up the school community, and others have made their way there following the closures of Inchview, Craigmuir and, more recently, Royston schools. It’s a fascinating story, and one man who has travelled further – and longer – than most is 102 year old Sam Martinez (pictured below), one of the stars of the film. Sam came to the UK from what was formerly British Honduras seventy years ago to help with the war effort – and he’s been here ever since!
The retired forestry worker was joined at the event by granddaughter Stacey and her son Sam, who is a P5 pupil at Forthview (youngest son Jack attends the school’s nursery). Sam’s never had any regrets about leaving home to come to Edinburgh. “The road has been open and smooth – no obstructions. This is a wonderful place”, he said.
North and Leith MP Mark Lazarowicz attended the celebration event. “This has really been a tremendous occasion. The film was very impressive and the exhibition is fascinating. Congratulations to everyone at Forthview – you should be very proud indeed”.
