All of our pupils have been given their annual Report Card today and I hope you are as proud reading about your child and their progress as we were writing about them! EVERY child in our school has made progress with their own personal learning targets this year and it has been a pleasure to watch them flourish and grow.

The report cards summarise what our pupils have been working on throughout year and also highlights their future learning targets.

We are looking forward to discussing your child’s progress further at our Parents Night next Tuesday, 1st April.

Have a lovely weekend.  Mrs Govans

Catrine PS  Vision, Values and Aims – the three parts summarise our goals, priorities and standards for everything we do in Catrine PS.

In consultation with pupils, parents/carers, staff and the wider school community, we have reviewed and updated our Vision, Values and Aims over the past couple of years.

We are proud to highlight our new posters which are displayed all around our school building. In our weekly assemblies and monthly Home Circles, we regularly discuss our Vision, Values and Aims to ensure our pupils have a sound understanding of our high standards and expectations.

Our School Captains – Eli, Lucy, Lenore and Hannah – will be happy to have a blether with you about our updates at Parents Night next Tuesday, 1st April.

Click on the link below to see our new poster

Vision, Values and Aims poster

The whole school participated in our Home Circles and we focused on our last CATRINE Value of Excellence.

We also focused on Article 28 of the UNCRC which states that ‘children and young people have the right to education on matter who they are: regardless of race, gender or disability’. 

Our BIG questions were….

• Why is it important that we have Values, Class Charters and Respectful Relationships guidelines in our school?
• What would happen if the Values, Charters and guidelines aren’t followed?

Read our very detailed and responsible answers below.

We are delighted to introduce the newest member of #Team Catrine…

Welcome to the world, Blaine Craig Campbell, born on 18.03.25 weighing in at a healthy 7lb 10oz.  Both mum and baby are doing well.  Our love and congratulations to Mr and Mrs Campbell x

Our school football team recently took part in the Bill Shankly Football Festival at Townhead Park in Cumnock.

Although we didn’t win the tournament, Miss Burleigh said the team represented their school and community very well, showing great sportsmanship and teamwork.

We are very proud of them all!

From L to R: Harry, Harris, Darryl (C), Jamie, Brody, Alfie, Steven, Oscar and Finlay.

In our Home Circles on Tuesday we focused on Article 29 of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child.

Article 29 states that ‘a child or young person’s education should help their mind, body and talents be the best they can. It should also build their respect for other people and the world around them. ‘

The BIG questions our pupils answered were …

• Why is it important that we come to school?
• What would an excellent school look, feel and sound like?       

As always, our wonderful Home Circles came up with some insightful and thoughtful answers.  Read them below …

We also focused on our CATRINE Value of Nurture.

We enjoyed a wonderful FUN 31 in the lovely sunny but chilly afternoon today, playing with our new outdoor play equipment.  The new tyres, steering wheels, planks and rollers were well tested out by our pupils.  A great way to kickstart the weekend!

East Ayrshire Recycling – visit to Catrine Primary School

On Wednesday we had 2 people from East Ayrshire Recycling come in to the school to talk about recycling and how we can improve on helping to recycle more.

Brian and Jordan were our 2 community waste officers who came in to the school. Jordan talked to primary 5, 6 and 7 about everything that we can do to help improve recycling:

• what goes in which box of the recycling trolley
• what vehicle collects the waste and much more

We have the Romaquip Recycling Vehicle that collects our recycling and food waste:

• the 1^st compartment is for plastic and cans
• the 2^nd is for mixed paper and card
• the 3^rd is for food waste
• the 4^th is for glass 1
• the 5^th is for coffee pods, electrical items, clothes and textiles
• the 6^th is for glass 2
• the 7^th is for paper and cardboard

We learned about food waste and what you can and can’t put in your caddy…

You can put in dry food, out of date stuff, eggshells, bones, tea bags and coffee grounds.

You can’t put in liquids, bags or pet waste.

We also learned about the bio capital in Cumbernauld, which is where all the food waste gets processed.  Did you know that 60 to 200,000 kgs of food waste gets processed every week?

There is also a food waste sniff test. We learned what goes in which parts of the recycling trolleys that we use at home:

• paper and cardboard – blue box
• plastic and cans – red box
• mixed glass – grey box

We can also sit out small electrical items (WEEE) which stands for Waste Electrical Electronic Equipment.

Fun facts… did you know that 1 x full food caddy can make 8 slices of toast and 2 x full food caddies can power a cinema for a whole movie! Also, 1 x recycled aluminium can can power your TV for 3 hours!

We learned a lot during this visit and we would like to thank Jordan and Brian for coming to our school.

Report written, and visit arranged, by Alfie in P6

Thank you to all family and friends who came along to celebrate our Scots Verse winners today.  We’re sure they enjoyed both the poems and our singing of some weel-kent Scottish songs.

We are all very proud of our pupils and the efforts they have made to learn their Scots poems, and of how confidently they recited their poem, both today and yesterday at the the 12 O’Clock Gang Lunch Club.

Our winners and runners-up are 

• P1Winner – Miller                   R/up – Elliott
• P2 Winner – Emily                  R/up – Leah
• P3 Winner – Lyle                      R/up – Carson
• P4 Winner – Braxton            R/up – Charlotte
• P5 Winner – Harris                R/up – Jack
• P6 Winner – Brody                R/up – Poppy
• P7 Winner – Hannah            R/up – Eilidh 

Our Whole School Overall Winner is Hannah in P7, delivering an excellent recitation of  ‘Willie Wastle‘ by Robert Burns.

Thanks to our judges – Alana Speirs, Depute Manager at Catrine ECC and Mr Clipston, Minister at Catrine Parish Church.

In our Home Circles today we focused on Article 30 of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child.

Article 30 states that ‘every child should have the freedom to enjoy their culture, practise their religion and speak their language with other members of their minority.’

The BIG questions our pupils answered were …

• Why is it important that we learn about the languages, cultures and traditions of other countries in school?
• In our school, when do we learn about – different countries?              – different cultures and traditions?       – different languages?          

As always, our excellent Home Circles came up with some insightful and thoughtful answers.  Read them below …

We also focused on our CATRINE Value of Inclusion. 

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 …