Sighthill Primary School and Nursery

At Sighthill Primary School we take pride in fostering a long and happy partnership with pupils, parents and the community. We work hard to ensure that everyone is valued as a member of our school community and promoting mutual respect is key to this. Pupils are encouraged and expected to do their best at all times. We celebrate children’s achievements and successes daily to support children in developing their love of learning. We are very keen to develop strong home/school links with parents as we believe that this is key to supporting children’s learning and development.

We at Sighthill Primary School are committed to encouraging the development of the whole child within the context of a successful school community where everyone has high expectations of their own and others’ behaviour.  Our aim is to ensure everyone is:

• Safe
• Healthy
• Active
• Nurtured
• Achieving
• Responsible
• Included

We adopt a zero tolerance approach to behaviours such as aggressions, racism/xenophobia, sexism, intolerance of others and bullying.  We use a restorative approach with the children to deal with any of these concerns.

At Sighthill, we encourage good behaviour, manners and work habits at all times.  We recognise that positive relationships foster best learning.

Merit Awards are given to recognise good behaviour and performance.

Pupils are awarded:

• a BRONZE CERTIFICATE on achieving 25 Merit Awards
• a SILVER CERTIFICATE on achieving 50 Merit Awards
• a GOLD CERTIFICATE and Gold Medal on achieving 100 Merit Awards.

Curriculum for Excellence balances the importance of knowledge and skills.

Every child is entitled to a broad and deep general education, whatever their level and ability.  Every single teacher and practitioner will be responsible for literacy and numeracy – the language and numbers skills that unlock other subjects and are vital to everyday life.

It develops skills for learning, life and work to help young people go on to further study, secure work and navigate life.  It brings real life into the classroom, making learning relevant and helps young people apply lessons to their life beyond the classroom.  It links knowledge in one subject area to another helping children understand the world and make connections.  It develops skills so that children can think for themselves, make sound judgements, challenge, enquire and find solutions.

There are new ways of assessing progress and ensuring children achieve their potential.  There are now new qualifications for literacy and numeracy, and new National 4 and 5 qualifications. Our well regarded Access, Highers and Advanced Highers have been updated to take account of and support the new approaches to learning and teaching.

There is personal support to help young people fulfil their potential and make the most of their opportunities with additional support wherever that is needed.  There is now a greater emphasis on looking after our children’s health and wellbeing – to ensure that the school is a place where children feel safe and secure.

We have an Active School Co-ordinator who is working with us to provide clubs which the children have shown an interest in. Our P1 and P2 clubs tend to run at lunchtime and we also have many activities taking place after school. The new programme this session looks really exciting so please encourage your children to sign up for these as if these are not well attended they will have to be cancelled!

For all our children to succeed, we must all work together. All those involved with the children’s development are called ‘stakeholders !’ Apart from parents and carers, we are also supported by stakeholders such as charities and various other agencies: Speech and Language Services; Additional Support Services; Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services; Social Services and many more.