Gilmerton Primary School

Within our caring community Gilmerton Primary School aims to promote a love of learning that will evolve and continue for life. The school mission statement ‘Learning for Life’ embodies this aim. Our school values encourage us to be respectful, resilient and responsible.

We work in partnership with parents/carers and the wider community to ensure the success of our children. We believe that children deserve the best possible chances in life and that they learn best when there are strong links between home and school.

We are a friendly, caring school with high expectations for all our pupils. Our children are encouraged to explore, discover and question through a range of exciting learning opportunities both within and outside the classroom.

At Gilmerton Primary School we are working towards achieving the UNICEF Rights Respecting Schools Recognition of Achievement. The UNICEF UK Rights Respecting Schools Award (RRSA) is based on principles of equality, dignity, respect, non- discrimination and participation. The RRSA seeks to put the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child at the heart of a school’s ethos and culture to improve well-being and develop every child’s talents and abilities to their full potential.

A Rights Respecting School is a community where children’s rights are learned, taught, practised, respected, protected and promoted. Young people and the school community learn about children’s rights by putting them into practice every day.

Our Learning Council are a fantastic team who represent their peers across the school. The council is made up of one child from year group in the school and facilitated by Ms Annand. Meetings are held regularly and we can help to make decisions in the school. The pupils talk about what is going on in school and address any items that their classmates have asked them to bring up at the meetings. They report back to classes about the meetings and this ensures that the children have a voice in the school.

Health and Wellbeing is very strong at Gilmerton Primary. Our pupils and staff help to develop Health and Wellbeing across the whole school. There is a pupil group with a representative from every class in the school, who meet with Mrs Scott on a regular basis. Health and Wellbeing is also led by a group of teachers, pupil support assistants and an early years practitioner from the nursery. Last session, Gilmerton Primary School was awarded Healthy Schools+ Stage 2 by a group of visiting pupils and staff from Prestonfield Primary. They identified the following strengths:

• Emphasis on healthy eating across the school – healthy snacks, salad bar in dining hall etc
• Pupil knowledge and the involvement of pupils, staff and parents with Health and Wellbeing
• Variety of community events to develop Health and Wellbeing, such as Loose Parts play, Forest School and rugby training with Lismore Rugby Club

This session, we will be following the new City of Edinburgh Council “Building Resilience” programme. Each term, there is a whole school focus on one of the skills involved in being resilient, launched with a school assembly. Pupils will be working on activities linked to one of the resilience skills in class and also at home. This will help us to overcome difficulties, persevere and achieve success in everything we do.