Tuesday 18th April 2017
Dear Parent/Carer,
We are delighted that your child will be starting at St. Paul’s Primary in August 2017.
I would like to take this opportunity to welcome you to the school and to give you details of
our Transition Programme.
At St. Paul’s we appreciate the importance of ensuring your child’s transition is as smooth
as possible and I regularly visit the nursery class . This has allowed me to get to know the
children very well which will help all of us as your child starts in Primary 1.
We have already introduced a very successful Nursery /P1 Golden Time initiative which
provides opportunities for our nursery children to meet with the P1 pupils and staff to share
Golden Time. This has been very successful in helping the nursery children to become
familiar with the Early Years classrooms and Play Area and also to get to know the P1
teachers and support staff.
Buddy Programme
We will shortly be introducing our “Buddy Programme” involving our current P6 pupils and
our new Primary 1 pupils for next session. Each child in the nursery will be given a “Buddy”
who will support them during transition and when they start school in August2017.
Your child will meet his/her Buddy during week beginning Tuesday 23rd May 2017 .
Our Buddy programme will include the following:
As part of their writing programme P6 Buddies will write, illustrate and publish a story for
their buddy which they will present to the children at their first meeting.
The pre-school children will spend time with their buddies sharing the books and have their
photographs taken with their Buddies. These will be displayed in the nursery cloakroom so
that you will be able to see who your child’s buddy is and talk to your child about him/her.
The nursery children will then bring home a short questionnaire about themselves which we
will ask you to help them complete. This will then be presented to the buddies at the
second session during week beginning Monday 29th May 2016 so that they know if your
child has brothers or sisters, what games they enjoying playing ,what they are looking
forward to in school etc.
During week beginning 5th June the nursery children and their Buddies will have a Tea Party
and outdoor play session.
During week beginning 12th June the Pre-school children and their Buddies will be together
for two sessions during morning break (morning nursery) and for part of lunchtime break
(PM nursery children) These session will be supervised by myself and our support staff.
Our formal Transition Programme will take place on Wednesday 14th June and
Thursday 15th June.
On Wednesday 14th June all pre-school children will be invited to
come to school from 10am -12noon. They will meet their teacher and have time in the
classroom and then have an opportunity to stay for school lunch.
On Thursday 15th June the children are invited to come to school in the afternoon from
1.15pm -2.15pm. They will again have time in the classroom with their teacher and will
have an opportunity for a “playtime session”. During this session Parents /carers are invited
to stay as we intend to have a presentation for parents about the school, give out welcome
packs and take orders for school uniforms. A member of the Parent Council will also attend
this meeting to tell you about the work of the parent council and how you can get involved.
We look forward to welcoming you and your child.
Helen Torsney
Head Teacher