In our Home Circles this morning we were answering two BIG questions based on Article 14 of the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) which states that ‘every child has the right of freedom of thought, belief and religion’.

Our BIG questions were

• Why is it important that we learn about other world religions and beliefs in school?
• Most religions have special people, special places, special dates and special items.  How many can you name? 

We were very impressed with their detailed answers.  We also focused on our CATRINE Value of Respect.

Catrine ECC’s Depute Manager, Alana Speirs, delivered a wonderful presentation today to an audience of over 90 EAC colleagues, including Headteachers and Heads of ECC from across the authority, the Senior Education Managers and the Head of Education at the Council Chambers in London Road in Kilmarnock.

She was highlighting the educational journey of the ECC which led to them earning national recognition – Scotland’s first Digital Learning ECC accreditation.

Alana detailed the structured programme led by Sherrie Devlin, ELCP, and talked about the drive, professionalism and commitment of all ECC staff members in working towards this whole ECC accreditation.

Alana and Sherrie are now working alongside Education Scotland colleagues to review the Digital Literacy programme of learning to ensure that the Early Years curriculum is well-structured, challenging and innovative.              #TeamCatrine leading the way 🙂

(apologies for the poor photo quality – I was too busy beaming with pride to take better ones!)

In our Home Circles today we focused on Article 31 of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child.

Article 31 states that ‘every child has the right to leisure, play and culture’.

We discussed how important it is to work together to make sure all areas of our school are safe, healthy and inclusive.

Our BIG focus was – 

• In our playground you will see …
• In our Dinnerhall you will see …
• In Assembly you will see … 

Our answers will be used to create our new School Charters which you will see displayed around the school.

We also focused on our CATRINE Value of Teamwork.

In our Home Circles this week we focused on World Mental Health Day. We discussed how important it is to look after our mental health, as well as our physical and emotional health.

Our BIG questions were

• why is it important that we look after our Mental Health?
• what can we do to improve both our own Mental Health, and that of our friends and family?

Check out our brilliant answer below …

Thank you to all parents/carers who took the time to leave a response to our BIG Question at last week’s Parent Night.

Click on the link below to see the collated answers to our BIG Question – how does your child feed back to you about their learning and progress in school?

BIG Question – feedback 02.10.24

Catrine PS were delighted to have a team participate in the first Girls Football  tournament on Tuesday 1st October at Cumnock Juniors pitches.    The team played in six games – and won five of them!

We are so proud of how they represented Catrine PS, showing great teamwork, resilience and sportsmanship.

Team: Brooke, Emelia, Lucie (Captain), Sophie, Kayla, Harper, Gracie-Leigh, Paige and Kacey

The whole school worked together in their new Home Circles for the first time this year, and what a wonderful job our P7 pupils did with their younger house members.

We completed a ‘getting to know you’ activity where everyone talked about their favourite things, ranging from Star Wars to Sea Cadets to football to pizza!

Then each Home Circle answered our Big Question based on our school Values –

C is for Community.   What is a community?  Which communities are we a part of?

Check out their answers below …

Catrine PS is delighted to have been awarded an Eco-Schools Green Flag award by ‘Keep Scotland Beautiful’.

After an intensive audit, we were awarded our flag because

• we have pupils from every class represented in our Eco Committee
• we have regular whole school and community litter picks
• our Clean Up Crews are doing a great job of improving our school playground and environment
• we support biodiversity in our school grounds by making bird feeders and bird houses
• we have regular clothes Swap Shops for school uniform, Hallowe’en costumes and Christmas jumpers/party clothes
• we have Junior Road Safety Officers who regularly highlight the importance of safe parking on our School Streets areas

Our Green Flags are proudly displayed in our main playground and our main entrance, as highlighted here by Ellie, Dalton and Olly.

We have also been asked to present at the EAC Climate Conference next week at the Grange Academy – look out for an update next week.

Before the summer holidays our senior pupils entered an art competition to design a calendar entry for the new EAC ‘Clean Green’ calendar, which is displayed throughout East Ayrshire.

Congratulations to Eilidh, now in P7, as her design was chosen as one of the runners-up and is published within the calendar.

Your child will have PE in school on the following days.

Primary 1 – Tuesday and Thursday  (Tuesday will be a walk in the community)

Primary 2 – Tuesday and Thursday (Thursday will be a walk in the community)

Primary 3 – Tuesday and Thursday

Primary 4 – Monday and Wednesday

Primary 5 – Monday and Wednesday

Primary 6 – Wednesday and Friday

Primary 7 – Tuesday and Thursday 

For PE sessions, pupils should change into shorts and trainers/gym shoes.  It’s better if PE kits can be kept in school in a PE bag so that they’re always available.  All jewellery must be removed for PE sessions (including earrings). Please ensure all PE items are labelled with your child’s name and let us know if we can help with supplying any PE equipment.

As another successful school year draws to a close, it’s time to say Thank You to everyone at #TeamCatrine who helps to make our school run so smoothly.

Thank you to our Cleaning Supervisor, Helen, our Cleaner, Michelle, and our Janny, Mr McCreath, for making sure that our school and classrooms are clean and tidy, warm and safe for us to come into every day.

Thank you to our Catering Supervisor, Shelagh, and her kitchen staff for their lovely school lunches and for the sneaky chocolate cake that our P7 Leavers enjoyed today.

Thank you to every member of school staff – teachers and Classroom Assistants – for their professionalism, commitment and true sense of teamwork in providing excellent learning and teaching opportunities for our children.

Thank you to Mrs Robertson, Senior Clerical Assistant, for keeping the whole school organised and running like clockwork!

Thank you to Mrs Schendel, Depute Headteacher, for her tireless work ensuring all of our pupils are supported in their learning and wellbeing.

Thank you to our parents/carers, family and friends and wider Catrine community for your constant and unwavering support of all we do – it is appreciated more than you will ever know!

Last, but by no means, least – THANK YOU to our Catrine PS pupils for making us proud every single day.  Working in a primary school has its challenges, but the funny, sweet, inspirational moments that we share every day with your children make it the best job in the world.  Good luck to our P7 pupils as they move onto the Robert Burns Academy – stick in!!

Wishing you all a lovely summer. Take care, Mrs Govans x

I am delighted to inform our new Primary 3 pupils and parents that their teacher, starting in August 2024, is Mrs Withers.

Mrs Withers is currently teaching at Bellsbank PS and we look forward to welcoming her to Catrine PS in August.

She was in school today for a wee visit and spent some time with her new class, and can’t wait to get started! 🙂

On Friday 14th June, our P6 pupils had their Big Sleepover.  They camped in the school grounds (well, on this occasion, due to the horrible wet weather, they slept in the school hall!), roasted marshmallows over a campfire in the playground and played an awesome game of staff/parents v pupils Rounders (which the adults won, of course).

Mrs Ferguson and Mrs Govans were the lucky staff who stayed all night, with Miss Burleigh, Mrs Campbell, Miss Brown and Mrs Schendel joining us for the team games and campfire.

Thanks to all the parents who joined in, thanks to Carolyn McFarlane at EAC LOST for organising it and special thanks to our P6 pupils for being awesome!  It was a brilliant night of giggles, midnight snacks, PJs in the school hall and very little sleep … 🙂

On Wednesday 19th June we held our annual Prizegiving Ceremony in the school, where we celebrated the wonderful achievements of our pupils throughout the last school session.

Please see our Prize-winners below.   We are so very proud of each and every one of them.

Catrine Values Winners

P1-P3 – Allan in P3  and P4-P7 – Ryan in P7

Sports Winners

Junior Sports – Coral in P5 and Leighton in P5

Senior Sports – Georgia in P7 and Ashton in P7

Winning House at Sports Day

Ayrbank with Captain Georgia

Winning House Trophy

Whiteflat with Captain Ashton

Marneil with Captain Marley

Excellence in Learning

P2 – Ellie, P3 – Braxton, P4 – Gracie-Leigh, P5 – Brooke, P6 – Ellie and P7 – Carter

Four Capacities of A Curriculum for Excellence – Class Winners

P2 – Poppy, Carson, Alfie and Nadia

P3 – Miley, Calli, Quinn and Carter

P4 – Esther, Evie, Jenna and Oscar

P5 – Noah, Jalyn, Leighton and Harry

P6 – Lenore, Lennox, Eli and Caleb

P7 – Millie, Marley, Ryan and Lexi

Individual Awards

P4 Literacy – Ashton and P7 Numeracy – Layla

Chess Champion – Josh in P7

Scots Verse Excellence – Brody in P5

Citizenship – Georgia in P7

Delighted to announce that Catrine PS Football Team has made it through to the  FINAL of the Dimension DMI Cup!

Having won ALL of their games in the league stage, they reached the final by beating Ochiltree PS 6-3 in the semi-final last week.

We’re facing Crosshouse PS in the final, which takes place on Wednesday 12th June at Bonnyton Thistle Football Ground, Kilmarnock, with kick-off at 4.45pm.  Entry is £5 adults and £2 children/OAPS. All welcome – would be great to have a big support for the team.

We’re all very proud of our team and their success so far, and we wish them all the luck in the world in the Final.  Come on Catrine!!

Ryan D P7 (C), Connor P7, Charlie P7, Ashton P7, Daryl H P6, Caleb C P6, Curtis P6, Brody P5 and Alfie P5

The whole school is looking forward to taking part in a wide variety of activities next week during our Health Week.  Every class will be out and about each day so pupils should come to school wearing sporty clothes – trackies, leggings, shorts, hoodies and trainers – so that they can take part in all of the great sessions on offer.  No football colours or crop tops please.

(Our P7s are heading to the Robert Burns Academy on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week so they should wear their uniform on these days).

It’s our Sports Day next Friday, 14th June, at 10.30am at Riverside Park.  Pupils should wear a t-shirt of their house colour, if possible, on Friday. We’re busy practising our races and remember to wear your trainers if you’re coming along so that you can join in with the Parents Races 🙂

Fingers crossed that the June sunshine makes an appearance next week!

In our Home Circles on Wednesday we all focused on another article from the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child.

Article 16 states that ‘every child has the right to privacy. The law must protect children’s privacy, family, home, communications and reputation (or good name) from any attack’.

In our Home Circles we had big questions to answer … 

What rules and procedures are in place in Catrine PS to keep pupils and staff safe?

What rules and procedures are in place at home to keep your family safe? 

Take a look at our answers below.

At our Parents Night in March, we asked our parents/carers the BIG question …

• what kind of school/class events would you like to be involved in?
• what kind of events should we be organising?

All of the responses have been collated – please click on the link below to have a wee read through them.  Thanks to everyone who took the time to answer our question 🙂

Parents Night March 2024