The teachers in Spruce class this year are Jill Richardson (Mon, Tue, Wed, Fri) and Aryadaya Thomson (Thu). Watch this space for updates from Spruce class throughout the year!

February 2026

Spruce Class quickly settled into this term, getting up to our usual activities, including baking our famous brownies and exploring a new topic, rainbows and sound. We have had music sessions in class and have managed to score sessions this term with Julia Main, of Youth Music Initiative, which are always great fun.

We have also experimented painting colours with rather unusual media – coloured bubbles and ice cubes. We all had a great time visiting Holyrood Park Ranger Lily Laing, leading a Holyrood Challenge Session at Holyrood Park. We all played the part of migrating swans and visited Spain, where we danced and took part in a ‘bullfight’. We also visited Egypt, where we were wrapped up as mummies and we also did some ice fishing at the North Pole!

We enjoy our Circus Skills sessions on Thursdays with Aryadaya, getting up to all sorts. We also took part in a Scots Book Week, when we explored the Scots Language via our own sensory story library, and celebrated The Bard with song, national dress, bagpipes and an address to the Haggis, before enjoying a feast of haggis, neeps and tatties in our classrooms.

December 2025

Spruce class have been out and about and up to lots of things over the past couple of months. As a part of our National Qualifications work , we have been exploring our local community. We have visited the supermarket to buy brownie ingredients, the library to relax and to check out books, and to Lauriston Castle for a walk. A couple of us have gone ice skating, too. We have had great fun learning various circus skills on Thursday, working towards our Duke of Edinburgh Awards. We have fooled quite a few people with our beautiful flowers that squirt! Our soap making sessions for the winter market have also become science lessons. We have enjoyed cutting the melt-and-pour soap and watching it change as we added lovely fragrances and beautiful colours. We have continued our enjoyable music sessions with Julia Main of Youth Music Initiative.

September2025

Spruce Class has started the new term with energy and enthusiasm.

We have all been jumping with hands and feet (literally) into our topic, ‘This is Me’. We have been making handprints and footprints with paint to put into frames we have decorated. We are also exploring things we like and don’t like, such as water play (liked by everyone), listening to and experiencing stories and music, taking part in Performing Arts sessions, moving about the school in our walkers, standing tall in our standers, and visiting the woods and nature areas.

Plans we have for this term include enjoying our daily Circle (some of us using benches), making our Oaklands Brownies for enterprise, making a ‘This is Me’ booklet, creating a ‘This is Me’ story, exploring technology in the Snoezelen and Magic Carpet areas, making investigations in science sessions and taking part in communication groups and intensive interaction sessions.