That’s rehearsals underway today with the main cast having their very first read through.
Get your dates in the diary … Tuesday 11th June evening performance and Wednesday 12th June afternoon performance. Tickets on sale soon. Keep your eyes peeled!!
Summer is nearly here and we’re into our last term. The last term for our P7’s. Where has the time gone?! Here is a brief overview of our learning this term.
Literacy
We are continuing to develop all reading skills through a variety of guided reading texts. As part of our show, we will also be looking at texts and songs from Matilda. We will be building on learning from the previous term where we looked at the main idea and aim to develop that into summarising texts and passages. For writing, we are looking at recount and report writing. For spelling, the Suns will continue to look at suffixes and how they change the meaning of words. The Moons and Stars will continue to focus on core phonemes with their different representations. Our grammar will be looking at using apostrophes and other punctuation.
Numeracy
The emphasis of our numeracy this term is on algebra and number patterns. We will continue to use Number Talk strategies to develop mental strategies using all four processes as part of our daily routine. The class are also working on skills beyond number with Mrs Smith and will be investigating measurement and time.
Health and Wellbeing
The PATHS focus this term is continuing to develop and use de-escalation techniques during conflicts as well as looking at transitions. Pupil of the Day will also continue as will our Do Be Mindful activities, exploring mindfulness and developing more mechanisms for dealing with stress and appreciating the things we have.
Our PE days continue to be on a Tuesday and Wednesday. We will be first playing cricket enhancing our throwing, catching and fielding skills. We will also be participating in athletics activities in preparation for Sports Day.
IDL/Summer Show
The topic this term is looking at enterprise with a focus on our summer show. Preparations are already underway for the upper school show. Pupils will be participating in lots of drama, art, technology and enterprising activities to make the show a success. Keep your eyes peeled for further updates of our show.
RE
This term we will be aiming to complete God’s Loving Plan activities. As this subject is sensitive, please discuss these issues with your child at home.
We will also look at Pentecost and the New Covenant.
French
Mrs SMith will continue teaching French with P7. Through a range of talking, listening, reading and writing tasks, this term the focus will be on the French culture and other French speaking countries.
I look forward to working with P7 in their final term at primary school.
Mr Bertoncini
Curricular Update Primary 6
Term 4 – 2024
Welcome back to Primary 6 curricular update, a busy and exciting final term. Primary 6 will prepare to transition into primary 7 and will have the opportunity to interview for captain and vice-captain house roles. Primary 6 will have the responsibility of becoming a buddy to new primary 1’s who will be starting Mount Carmel in August. The upper school summer show will be performed in June and we will be showcasing all of our hard work as we present to you …… ‘Matilda’!!
Please see below for an overview of what we will be learning this term:
Numeracy
This term we will focus on Area, Perimeter and Volume, Angles, Information Handling and Function Machines. Daily revision and rigour of decimals, percentages and fractions and the four operations will still continue throughout term 4. Children are as always encouraged to practise their multiplication tables.
Literacy
Reading – We will continue to read books appropriate to our levels and we will focus on fiction texts. We will complete daily reading to writing tasks and work on our active comprehension tasks. This term we will focus on understanding the difference between fact and opinion, the authors use of language, and inference.
Writing - This term we will be completing report writing where we will be linking it with our science topic. Further into term 4 we will complete recount writing.
Spelling - we will continue to follow the active literacy spelling programme in our appropriate groups, focusing on common words and phonemes relevant to their level and stage. Some weeks pupils will be given topic-specific vocabulary as part of their topic. New spelling words will be introduced each week, which will coincide with homework tasks. Pupils will revise the Active Spelling strategies throughout Term 4.
HWB
In term 4 primary 6 will continue to take part in Do Be-Mindful activities, some activities will be part of homework tasks. At the start of the term P6 will complete a mini topic on Substance Misuse looking at the dangers of smoking/vaping, alcohol and drugs usage.
PE days will be Wednesday and Thursday please remember to bring full PE kit on these days. This term we will be participating in Volleyball, Athletics and Orienteering. Pupils are asked to bring FULL PE kit on these days, this includes indoor shoes.
Expressive Arts
This term we have our summer show which P6 are very excited about as there are lots of jobs available to apply for. This gives them opportunities to enjoy being creative and imaginative, express emotions, performing for different audiences and being part of audiences for others. They will be able to showcase their talents from performing, props, sound production and stage settings. Working together as un upper school team we will be learning key skills in music, art and design, dance and drama.
Religious Education
Throughout this term P6 will continue to work on their Pope Francis Faith Award, reflecting on how they use the different gifts in their wider world which will continue with them into P7. We will listen and engage with stories from the Gospel of Matthew.
Modern Languages
This term pupils will focus on hobbies, food and drink and descriptions in French.
We will continue French with the aim to increase their confidence in reading, writing and talking in French.
IDL
This term a big part of our topic will be on enterprise and the summer show. We will all have very important roles to play in the production to make sure the show is successful. Part of our mini science topic this term, primary 6 voted to learn more around volcanoes and chemical reactions.
Thank you for your support,
Miss Maitland.
Primary 5 Curricular update – Term 4
Welcome back and I hope you all had an excellent Easter. The children have settled well back into school and are ready for the term ahead. Please find a brief overview of the learning that will take place in the term ahead as we approach summer.
IDL
The children are thoroughly enjoying their continents topic. This will continue for a short time after the holidays before we complete our final topic of P5 – A night at the movies. This is an enterprise topic in which the children must budget and plan an event in order to make a profit. My current thoughts on this are to hold a movie night for P1-4 in late May/early June. The P5 children will plan a night with popcorn, juice and show a movie at a small cost to the P1-4s. I have not discussed these plans with the children yet; therefore they might change as the term progresses.
Literacy
Throughout our grammar this term, we will be learning about pronouns, proper nouns, adverbs and metaphors. We will also be looking at onomatopoeia. These skills will be transferred across our learning in writing as well as reading.
We will continue to learn about our comprehension skills such as prior knowledge, metalinguistics, visualisation etc. We have already began to take notes when watching or listening to a piece of media. We will explore this skill so that the children can decide what style of note taking they prefer.
Primary 5 will continue to proof read and edit all writing tasks. The children find this task difficult and can often skip over their mistakes. This skill takes a lot of concentration and patience. We will be practising this for the rest of the school year.
Our writing focus for the term ahead will be on report writing and recounts. The children will continue to work on their spelling rules through active spelling activities such as diacritical marking and definition spelling.
Our listening and talking skills to be worked on this term are our ability to present to the class. The children will create a SWAY (an online power point) and then present this to the class. They will work towards achieving specific success criteria throughout this process such as good eye contact, pace of speech etc.
Numeracy
After an extremely busy term between January and March, the children are ready to begin division after Easter. Division links well with the teaching of fractions and decimals which is the reason behind them being taught together. Our beyond number topics will include data handling and measurement. The children worked very well on learning their 24 hour time. Although there is good understanding of this, we will continue to practise this skill as the majority of the class did find this topic difficult.
Our learning through number talks will continue as the children develop their ability to solve calculation mentally.
Health and Wellbeing
Our P.E. days will be on a Monday and a Wednesday. Our topics that will be covered this term are dancing (this will be completed through our summer show), tennis, athletics (in preparation for sports day) and outdoor games as we approach summer.
Primary 5 have also been lucky enough to have Bob from the North West bowling club into school to teach us how to play lawn bowls. When the new season of bowls starts up in April, Primary 5 will also be visiting the North West bowling club to play bowls on the actual green. We are very excited.
We will also continue our Do be mindful programme of work which encourages us all to be more mindful of our surroundings and provides us all with strategies to stay calm. As we progress through the term, we will be learning about substance misuse and the consequences on our health and well-being that substance misuse can cause.
We will also be looking at what it takes to be a parent/carer. The children will discuss what it means to care for someone the way their adults care for them.
Religious Education
This term will focus on how God reveals himself to us through Jesus and how we can nurture our relationship with God. We will also learn how our relationship with God can be deepened through prayer and placing our trust in him. The class will also look at the Holy Spirit and how the Holy Spirit can help guide us through life’s difficulties.
During the month of May, we celebrate the mother of God Mary. We will look at Mary’s importance in our everyday lives and how important she was in Jesus’ life.
The class will also learn about the rosary. We will look at the joyful, sorrowful, glorious and luminous mysteries of the rosary.
Technology
The children’s I.T. skills are growing every day. They can now confidently send emails with attachments in them. We have been working on creating sways of our choice. Next term, we will be using our research skills to create a SWAY about our continents topic. The children will then present this to the class.
Expressive Arts
This term’s expressive arts will be completely covered during our summer show. We will complete art, music, drama and dance through this. Staff are already busy getting ready and re looking forward to inviting you all in for the final show. Keep your eyes peeled for all the important information on the blog.
I, as always, thank you for your ongoing support. If there is anything you are concerned about please do not hesitate to get in contact.
Many thanks,
Mrs McCreadie
We hope you all had a lovely Easter break. As we head into our final term, Primary 1 are “in training” for moving up to Primary 2. As well as pushing on with new learning, we will be working hard to consolidate the learning that has taken place throughout the year.
Literacy
Phonics – Now that we have learnt all the sounds in the alphabet and are using these to make and break words, we are going to start learning the sounds made by two or more letters such as “sh” “ch” “th” (joint phonemes).
Spelling – We will continue to practise the spelling of our tricky common words to ensure we can use these when writing sentences. We will learn some new words to add to our ever growing bank of vocabulary.
Writing – We are continuing to develop our skills in describing this term and using these skills to write reports about what we are learning in our topic.
Letter formation and hand writing will continue to be a focus to allow us to present our wonderful work as neatly as we can. Knowing how to form our letters automatically will help us to spell words with ease too.
Reading – Reading for information will be a focus this term. We will look at non-fiction texts and record the facts we learn. We will also continue to practise our decoding skills by reading all types of text whenever we can.
Numeracy – Primary 1
The focus for Numeracy this term will be number processes, measure and time.
P1 – We will keep strengthening our addition and subtraction skills this term by exploring how the two processes link together. We will be transferring these skills into our money activities and using them to solve word problems.
Measure will also be a focus for us and will be linked to our “Plants” topic as we use the correct language to describe the size of various plants. We will measure using non-standard units such as our hand spans, feet and cubes. We will also be exploring data handling to interpret information from graphs and sort our plants into specific groups.
Health & Well-Being (HWB)
During our last term of PATHS lessons we will be introduced to some new emotions. We will explore each emotion in detail, thinking about how each emotion looks and feels and will consider whether it would be a “comfortable” or “uncomfortable” feeling.
We will also continue to reinforce our strategy of “Doing Turtle” and will use our PATHS sessions to talk through our feelings about moving into our new class at the end of the year.
We will be learning about our amazing bodies and the correct names for each body part.
During PE we will be focusing on Athletics, Striking and Fielding Games and Dance.
THANK YOU ONCE AGAIN FOR TAKING ALL EARRINGS OUT FOR GYM DAYS ON MONDAYS AND THURDAYS.
RE
During the month of May, we honour “Mary”. We will recite our special prayer of the “Hail Mary” and revisit the stories of the Nativity, Annunciation and Visitation; giving special consideration to the role of Mary in each one. We will prepare our class altar in honour of Mary.
During this term, we will link our RE with our HWB through the teaching of “God’s Loving Plan.” We will be thanking God for our amazing bodies! We will learn the names of the body parts and consider the choices we can make to help look after our bodies.
We will also talk about the needs of a new born baby; learning about the tasks and equipment required to look after a baby.
IDL (Topic)
Our topic this term will be “Plants”. We will investigate the parts of a plant and consider the things we need to do to help them grow.
During our topic we will also link with Literacy, Health and Well-being and Numeracy. There will be opportunities for reading and writing for information as well as practical activities involving measuring and comparing.
A fun and exciting summer term ahead with lots to look forward to!
Mrs Duff
Welcome back! I hope you have all had a restful time over the Easter break. It is lovely to see all the children back in class and ready for our last term of Primary 4! Here is an overview of term 4.
Literacy
For our reading focus, the children will explore a range of text. We will start the term looking at ‘How to Trap A Dragon’ as a basis for our reading and comprehension tasks, this will link with our writing tasks. As the term progresses, we will move on to looking at non-fiction extract that will link to our science topic which is the human body. We will also link literacy to the upcoming summer show, looking at the features of play-scripts and lyrics.
During writing, we will look at instructional and response writing. We will look at the features of these writing genres and use of reading and notetaking skills to link our reading and writing tasks.
Spelling will take the form of active spelling activities and the children will experience phonemes and blends at their working level.
We will continue to build on our knowledge of various elements of grammar, linking this to our reading and writing tasks. We will also continue to develop our notetaking skills and look the idea of giving our own opinion and being able to give reasons for this.
Numeracy & Maths
The children will continue with a daily number talk, to develop a range of mental maths strategies. We will be looking at the concept of fractions and will develop understanding of the notation and vocabulary associated with fractions. Through a range of practical activities children will become familiar with ordering fractions, finding equivalent fractions and finding the fraction of an amount.
In beyond number, the children will continue with their money topic, this will link to our IDL topic later in the term. Measure will also be covered during this term.
Health and Wellbeing
We will be continuing with our PATHs programme focussing on making good choices and working effectively with others.
We have been following the Do Be Mindful programme, focussing on mindful attention; we will continue with this programme with a focus on mindfulness outdoors. During science, we will be looking at the human body and will investigate some of the main body organs. We will also look at how we keep ourselves fit and healthy.
PE
PE is on a Thursday and Friday. This term we will be covering;
Children require PE kit for all PE days. Please ensure that all items of uniform and PE kit have your child’s name clearly marked on them. Please make sure your child is not wearing jewellery on these days. If your child cannot take part for any reason, please contact the school.
French
We will be continuing with our French conversational skills, as well as a range of listening and writing activities, we will learn how to talk about the seasons of the year and will be investigating what school is like in France.
IDL
This term our IDL topic will be related to an enterprise topic, for which we will plan a Spring Tea. We will link this to our social studies and RE learning, looking how we can help others as we are inspired by the life and work of St. Vincent de Paul. We will investigate what roles are needed within an enterprise.
Expressive Arts
This term, primary 4 are very excited to a part of the Summer School show. In preparation for this, we will participate in a range of art, music and drama related activities.
Religious Education
This term we will be working towards First Holy Communion. We will be looking closely at the meaning of the Last Supper, and becoming more familiar with liturgy of the Eucharist during Mass.
During the month of May we will be thinking about Our Lady in a special way, and will have our own Mary altar in the classroom. The children will take part of class prayers and School Masses, and we will continue to build on our knowledge of common prayers and Mass responses.
Homework will continue in the same format as last term, it will be distributed on a Monday to be completed and returned by Friday.
As we start preparation for First Communion, there will also be some home tasks sent home in the First Communion Work book for those children preparing to receive their First Communion in May or June.
Keep an eye on the School blog and Learning Journals for updates on some of our wonderful activities and learning.
Thank you as always, for your continued support.
Mrs MacKinnon.
Hello and welcome to our term 4 blog post. Primary 2 have been very busy over term 3 and have been busy consolidating previous learning and building their skills in preparation for our summer term.
Literacy
Our focus in reading will be to continue to use word attack strategies and knowledge of phonemes covered to date, to decode unfamiliar words. We will also focus on inferential questioning and building our understanding of the deeper messages evident in our books whilst completing read to write tasks linked to these texts. We will continue to look at the effect punctuation has within texts, with a particular focus on speech. Pupils will then be able to identify this in our books as well as using some evidence of speech within our own writing.
In writing, our focus will continue to build on written formation, the use of capital letters and full stops and building confidence to write a few sentences independently, using our knowledge of common words, spelling strategies and increased use of punctuation. Using our skills from descriptive writing, we will expand our sentences and add more detail when writing larger pieces of work, with narrative being our focus over this final term of primary 2.
Our spelling activities will continue to help children retain knowledge of previously taught phonemes and to build confidence in tackling trickier joined phonemes as we progress through term 4.
Numeracy
Our focus will move from addition and subtraction to early skills in multiplication and division, using our previous knowledge of fractions to help us with multiplication and division strategies. We will frequently revisit place value to help us as we continue to work with numbers to 99. Children will also consolidate learning in measure and begin to look at data handling and time as we progress through term 4.
Health & Wellbeing
Our Paths Pupil of the Day will continue in term 4, with our Pupil of the Day receiving lots of compliments. Children will also tackle more comfortable and uncomfortable emotions and develop strategies for managing situations in the playground or classroom when we experience these emotions. This links to our whole school Paths strategies which help children to recognise when they need help to manage emotions or social situations.
In P.E, our sessions will take place on a Tuesday and a Wednesday and our focus in term 4 will be on athletics and striking and fielding games. Children will have the opportunity to partake in some fun activities which support teamwork whilst focusing on developing general fitness, whilst developing skills in activities such as hurdles, running and team races.
R.E
Our focus during R.E sessions will be on Mary, Mother of God. We will also continue with themes of prayer and worship and routines of the church. As always, we will also spend some time reading and discussing bible stories relating to friendship and family.
Topic (IDL)
Our class topic this term will be mapping with a particular focus on my school and my town. We will link this to our place in Scotland, the UK and the rest of the world to develop our understanding of geography and the globe. Our narrative writing will be developed through this topic and with the return of ‘Plop’ to our classroom, he will help us navigate our local environment.
French
In French, we will continue to build our knowledge of greetings and numbers to 20. We will also discuss colours, days of the week and family members.
Homework
Homework will be sent out weekly on a Monday as normal. Please check your child’s homework bag for the homework to be completed that week. Reading books will be attached to pupils’ accounts through our online Bug Club reading programme. These will be issued on a Monday and should be returned to school on a Friday.
We hope this is the start of another successful term and that the pupils are enjoying their return to school following the Easter break.
Take care,
Mrs Travers
Hello and welcome to our Term 4 curriculum update. With another busy term ahead of us again as begin to prepare our children for their transition to primary 4 within the upper school.
Literacy
Our focus in term 3 was developing our understanding of literal and inferential comprehension using the ‘Find It, Prove It, Talk about It’ strategies. This will continue to be a focus in Term 4 so the children can discuss and write responses to questions linking to their reading/topic book. Alongside this, spelling activities where children will continue to work individually and in groups to revisit previous sounds and texts, using their skills and strategies to tackle new and unfamiliar spelling sounds and reading books.
We will continue to focus more on the Romans in term 4 and the children will be finding specific information and working on recognising different parts of texts ‘pictures, diagrams, charts and headings) and how to scan and locate related key words or facts in texts. Pupils will be continuing to focus on punctuation and why commas and exclamation marks have an impact on how a text is read.
In writing, we will be finishing our narrative story book and start our report writing through the Romans. We will also continue to revisit listening and talking games and activities to help children develop key skills needed in whole class group discussions and sharing information in a topic presentation. Also, Show and Tell will start again in Term 4 to give the children the opportunity to share an item from home.
Numeracy
In term 3, our focus has been looking at multiplication. The children have been mentally counting in 2, 5 and 10, then using this repeated addition strategy to apply to the other times tables. Within multiplication there has been a variety of hands on activities for the children to use and visually see the pattern of these tables form through using a variety of different materials such as, Numicon pegs and boards, Numicon number lines etc. In term 4 we will be revisiting the 2, 3, 4, 5 and 10 times table to retain our knowledge and use this knowledge to understand the inverse calculation for division which will tie in with fractions.
Beyond Number
In beyond number the focus was, how to tell the time using hours and minutes and will use concrete materials which will promote a deeper understanding so the children know how to use analogue and digital time. In term 4 the focus will be mini topics, which will cover, data handling, angles and area. Children will continue using their ‘Thinking it through’ jotters to develop problem solving skills, applying knowledge of number to new contexts and develop strategies for number problems.
Health & Wellbeing
All children will have the opportunity to be Pupil of the Day again in term 4 and will continue to explore emotions, and how we recognise these emotions within ourselves and in others and learning how to control them. As well as looking at different strategies that we can do to help manage our feelings and control our breathing through ‘Do be Mindful’ activities.
In P.E, our sessions will continue to take place on a Tuesday and a Thursday and our focus this term will be athletics, striking and fielding games. Children will continue to use their transferrable skills in some fun activities which support teamwork whilst continuing to develop their knowledge of how we keep in our body healthy with fitness and nutrition.
R.E
Our focus during R.E sessions will be ‘Our Lady’ our mother and the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives and lives of others.
Topic
The children will be participating in activities in different areas of the curriculum including social studies for The Romans and their impact in Scotland. The children will have the opportunity to look at different aspects of Roman Society, Roman Gods and the Roman invasion in Britain. We will look at Roman inventions considered ahead of their time, such as bath houses, under floor pipes for water supplies, heating and sanitation. In our science topic we will look at materials with a focus on dissolving. Pupils will research dissolving and make predictions about substances that dissolve in water, looking at hot water can impact on substances through changing their state or what they look like.
We hope this will be a successful term 4 and the children have enjoyed their Easter break.
Thank you,
Miss Grimley
A busy meeting after school today (in the sunshine)…
All cast members and roles to be announced tomorrow….
Keep your eyes peeled for updates ☺️
The virtual Parent Council Meeting will now take place on Tuesday 30th April at 6.30pm. If you require a joining link for the meeting please contact the parent council on:
We are pleased to be able to offer our Primary 6 pupils Level 1 Bikeability Training. For children to participate they must have their own bike and helmet and these items cannot be shared.
A bike check will take place on Monday 13th May. Children should bring their bike and helmet to school on this day. Mr Bertoncini will provide details of any items that require to be repaired for the bike and helmet.
The children will then take part in 2 days of Bikeability Training which will include theory and practical work.
Children should again bring their bikes to school on Tuesday 21st May and Wednesday 29th May. Appropriate clothing should be worn for taking part in outdoor activities.
Primary 4 are absolutely delighted to have helped Mount Carmel Primary become a Five Star Missio School, making us the very first school in East Ayrshire to acheive this; what a wonderful achievement!
To become a Five Star Missio Scotland school takes lots of work and commitment. Primary 4 took on the role of Missio Champions within the school and have been very busy highlighting the work of Missio and reminding the whole school community that we all have a mission to love and serve others.
We were delighted to welcome Gerard from Missio Scotland to our assembly on Monday, during which we received our 5 stars and our very own Missio mascot – ‘Martin Moo’ (very aptly named in memory of our much loved Fr Martin).
Well done Primary 4, we are so proud of your wonderful achievement and we are looking forward to continuing our work with Missio Scotland.
Please find attached the minutes from our most recent Parent Council Meeting which took place on 5/3/24:
It is with great sadness that I share the news of the passing of our much loved Fr Martin.
He was and will forever be a special part of our family.
Mrs Fergusson
A letter was given out to P3-5 pupils regarding the above club. The club will run from 3-4pm from Wednesday 8th May until Wednesday 5th June(dates inclusive).
If your child wishes to attend then please return your permission slip asap as there are now only 7 place remaining.
