World Children’s Day

On World Children’s Day we celebrate children’s rights as it is the birthday of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. This year, this human rights law for children became a part of the law in Scotland.

This morning P4, P5 and P7 took part in a special online assembly led by Nicola Killean, the Children and Young People’s Commissioner. During the assembly we learned about the link between climate change and children’s rights, heard from other children who have created climate campaigns in their local area and shared our views with children across Scotland.

We are feeling inspired!

#rightsrespectingschools #climatechange #cleangreenayrshire

Catholic Education Week

As part of Catholic Education Week P5 explored the letter which Pope Francis has written to people all over the world telling them about the Jubilee Year of 2025.

The theme is ‘Pilgrims of Hope’, and it will be a year of hope for a world suffering the impacts of war, the ongoing effects of COVID-19 pandemic, and a climate crisis.

After discussing the main messages of the letter P5 designed their own ‘Pilgrims of Hope’ logos!

 

 

 

Book Fair

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The Book Fair will be on display and available to purchase books from during both our Pupil Progress Meetings; tomorrow  and Thursday.

We do not accept cash for any purchases made from the Book Fair. Instead, there will be order forms available on both nights where you can order a book(s) and make payment online at the same time.

All order forms will then be delivered to the school office and orders made up and distributed to pupils in due course.

Safe Children Clip Art

‘Be safe Be seen day’ on the 22nd November. 

It’s that time of year when children will be making journeys to school and back in the dark. When the evenings are darker, visibility is greatly reduced for everyone which makes pedestrians and cyclists even more vulnerable than usual so help us promote:

‘Be safe Be seen day’ on the 22nd November.

 We want to encourage all pupils to wear something bright on their journeys to school. Remember we are looking for as bright as they want, fluorescent and especially reflective clothing is so important when the days become darker.

We hope you have fun helping us promote this important road safety message and please let us know what great ideas you come up with and if sharing on your socials be sure to tag us #ayrshireroads.

Book Week Scotland Celebration

On Tuesday 19th November children in Primary 1 will receive their Bookbug Family Bag and children in Primary 2 and Primary 3 will receive their Read Write Count bags.

We will have a special afternoon of activities on the day.  Children in P1-3 can come to school dressed in their pyjamas, bring a cuddly toy  The teachers have planned a lovely afternoon for the boys and girls, where they will also enjoy a special treat of milk & cookies.

Children In Need

Tomorrow is Children In Need Day, donations can be made through Parentpay aswell as through the link on our blog.

Children can dress down or wear any spotty/Pudsey clothes they may have, children can also bring along a donation for our Christmas Fayre.

There will also be a special lunch menu tomorrow to celebrate Children In Need, please see below for details 

Thanks 

 

 

Wider Achievements Assembly Friday 22nd November 2024

Wider Achievements 

At Mount Carmel Primary School we want to showcase and recognise all of our achievements.  This includes items that children take part outside of school such as dancing, football, gymnastics, swimming – the list is endless.  Please take some time to detail some of the activities your child takes part in out of school and any special awards they might have received recently as part of this.  In order for us to share these achievements and recognise them at our special Wider Achievements Assembly on Friday 22nd November. If you have any photographs that you would like to share please email these to eamountcarmel.ps@eastayrshire.org.uk before Wednesday 20th November.

Thankyou

IMPORTANT INFO Infant book gifting

Dear Parents and Carers,

It has come to our attention that there are two dates on the newsletter for our book gifting event, one of which being tomorrow. Please be advised that the book gifting event will take place on the 19th November. The children are invited to wear their pyjamas to school and bring in a soft toy on this date for this event. We apologise for any confusion and thank you for your understanding .

 

Nativity Information Update

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Afternoon

We are excited to announce that our Nativity performance will take place on Wednesday 11th December with both an afternoon and evening performance that day. For the afternoon performance doors will open at 1:30pm with tea and coffee being served in the small hall. Ticket holders will then be able to take their seats at 1:45pm, ready for the performance to start about 2:00pm.

Evening

On Wednesday 11th December we will also have our evening performance. We expect that all pupils in Primary 1-3 will attend this. If your child is unable to attend this performance please return the tear off slip in the Nativity letter which will be sent out 7th of November. This should be returned by Tuesday 12th November. All Primary 1-3 children should arrive at school at 5:00pm via the front entrance. Our doors will open at 5:30pm with tea and coffee being served in the small hall. Ticket holders will then be able to take their seats at 5:45pm, ready for the performance to start about 6:00pm.

Details about how to purchase tickets will be sent home in the coming weeks.

Dress Down/Christmas Fayre Donations

Card Donations Stock Illustrations – 227 Card Donations Stock ...

Christmas Fayre Donations

We will be holding Dress Down Days on every Friday throughout the month of November.  We are kindly asking if, on those days, the children could bring in a donation for the bottle stall / tombola for the Christmas Fayre.

We are only asking for 1 donation per family and not 1 donation for every child in the family.  Please note that all children are welcome to dress down even if they are not bringing a donation.

Below are  suggestions for items on each Friday, however we will gratefully accept any donations on any of the 4 Fridays:

  • Friday 8th November- Bottle for bottle stall
  • Friday 15th November- Chocolate/Sweets
  • Friday 22nd November- Gift sets/Toiletries
  • Friday 29th November-Home Baking

 

Pantomime Cost Reduction

Grants For Schools – Field Studies Council

We are pleased to let you know that we have received a grant from “The Great British School Trip” which we will put towards the cost of our pantomime visit in December. This will therefore reduce the cost of the pantomime for every child from £15 to £12.

If you have already paid the pantomime in full, you will receive a £3 refund back to your Parentpay account. If you still have instalments to make,  these will be amended and reduced by £3. 

P4 visit Crossgates (Pt1)

Primary 4 have enjoyed their weekly visit to our neighbours at Crossgates Care Home. Together, we have enjoyed making lots of new friendships with the residents and staff, sharing stories, playing games and making crafts with plenty of fun and laughter with our new friends.

Here are some pictures of some of our recent visits from designing and carving Halloween pumpkins, colouring together, solving crossword puzzles, wordsearches and games such as ‘Play your cards Right’…a favourite with residents as to whether it was ‘higher’ or ‘lower’ !

Here are some pictures of our time together…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leisure and Culture Review

Dear Parent/ Carer,

Following yesterday’s Council meeting,  I wished to send you the following link to provide further information around the Leisure and Culture review:

Leisure and Culture Review obtains Council approval | East Ayrshire Council News

I would like to reassure all parents, carers and young people, that there are no plans to reduce or remove Instrumental Music Services as a result of the move of services to the East Ayrshire Leisure Trust.

Kind regards,

Linda McAulay-Griffiths

Chief Education Officer and Head of Education

P4 Curricular Update -Term 2

Welcome back! What a great first term Primary 4 have had; the children have settled well into their new class and routine and are making good progress. We are looking forward to another fun filled term with lots of fabulous learning taking place.

Here is an update on the upcoming term.

Literacy

For our reading focus, we will continue to build on the use of our reading comprehension skills, such as prediction, visualisation, metalinguistic and summarising. The children will engage with a variety of fiction and non-fiction texts which include their Bug Club readers and our class novel, ‘There’s a Viking in My Bed’ which is linked to our Viking Voyagers topic.

During writing, we will continue to build on the skills developed during our descriptive block and we will now focus on narrative writing. The children will explore the features of narrative writing and will create their own narrative pieces.

Spelling will take the form of active spelling activities, and the children will experience phonemes and blends at their working level and will continue to practise their spelling strategies.

We will continue to build on our knowledge of various elements of grammar, linking this to our reading and writing tasks.

Numeracy & Maths

The children will continue with a daily number talk, to develop a range of mental maths strategies. We have been looking at various strategies for solving addition problems and will move on to subtraction problems. With Mrs McIntyre, the children will be working on telling the time at different intervals, as well as looking at 24hr time and durations. We will also be focusing on word problems and times tables weekly

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 as well as our various daily mindful tasks. This term, P4 are delighted to be taking part in a range of intergenerational activities with the residents at Crossgate’s Care Home. As a class we have discussed various ideas that we think they would like such as arts and crafts, reading, singing, board games and bingo.

PE

PE is on a Wednesday and Friday. This term we will be covering social dancing, hockey and gymnastics. Please make sure your child has a full PE kit with them (includes suitable indoor shoes), this can remain on their peg within school.

Thank you for making sure that no jewellery is worn on PE days.

French 

We will be continuing with our French conversational skills and greetings. We will be looking at numbers t0 100. The children will engage in a range of listening, talking and writing tasks. We are also learning our ‘Hail Mary’ in French. As the term progresses, we will also look at Christmas traditions in France.

 

IDL

The children have really enjoyed getting started on our new Novel ‘There’s a Viking in My Bed’ which is related to our Viking Voyagers topic this term. We will explore the life of Vikings, including their culture, voyages and influence on Scotland. We will develop our skills in reading and writing through our topic.

Expressive Arts 

We will link our artwork this term to our topic, exploring and creating Viking artefacts using various materials and techniques. Last term we have been learning about rhythm and beat with our glockenspiels, we will continue to develop our skills this term and we will start to learn Christmas songs as the term progresses. We will also share some of our musical skills during our visits to Crossgate’s Care home.

Religious Education

This term we will be reflecting on the lives of various saints including St. Margaret, St. Andrew, St Ignatius, St. Francis and St. Columba. The children will be preparing for Advent and their forthcoming Sacrament of Reconciliation by taking part in class prayers and School Masses, and we will continue to build on our knowledge of common prayers and Mass responses. Approaching Advent, we will also look at the meaning of the Liturgical Calendar and become familiar with the meaning and importance of the various feasts and associated liturgical colours.

Homework will continue in the same format as last term, it will be distributed on a Monday to be completed and returned by Friday.

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 McIntyre & Mrs MacDonald.