Primary 6 – Term 2

Hi everyone. I hope you all had a lovely October break. Primary 6 have worked extremely hard last term with lots of excellent learning taking place. They have settled well into their new classroom and routines. I am very proud of how they have adapted to the changes and embraced the responsibilities that they have inherited this year. Here is an update of what is coming in the term ahead.

UNCRC

This is a new part to our updates and is the United Nations Convention for the Rights of the Child. We have looked at this convention as a class and chosen articles from it that we wanted to focus on as a class. We decided on the following: Article 19 – ‘We have the right to be safe’, Article 28 – ‘We have the right to learn’, Article 29 – ‘we have the right to work and play in a clean environment’ and Article 31 – ‘we have the right to play.’ The class understands that with these rights come responsibilities. For example, if they have the article ‘we have the right to be safe’, the children know that they have a responsibility to try their very best to keep themselves safe also and avoid unsafe situations. We will be learning about this through our assemblies and community times.

IDL

Our interdisciplinary topic of Tornadoes, Hurricanes and Wildfires will continue into term 2 as we only briefly started it last term. During this topic, children will learn about the responses that are available by the emergency services, charities and international agencies during natural disasters. The class will also develop an awareness of the processes that actually causes natural disasters. There will be opportunities for learning through social sciences, literacy, expressive arts, health and well-being and technologies during this topic. The children will also be encouraged to complete an independent research task on a famous natural disaster that interests them.

Literacy

The class are loving reading our class novel, ‘Wonder’ by R.J Palacio. They have been completing tasks relating to the text and I am really impressed with their understanding of the text as well as their ability to analyse it. We will continue to complete tasks relating to this novel right up until the end of this term. In terms of bug club reading, this will continue to be completed at home for homework and in class as personal reading time.

Our writing genre for the term ahead is report writing and this will link into our IDL topic of tornadoes, hurricanes and wildfires.  The class will be working on writing their piece, editing it and re-drafting it, focussing on layout in order to engage their reader. They will also look at headlines, sub titles and access all the success criteria that makes for an excellent report. This is when the children will access ICT in order to type their re draft piece of writing. The class will be encouraged to improve their writing through feedback received. In terms of the tools for writing, the children will continue to look at more sophisticated punctuation such as apostrophes, colons and semi-colons. I hope you will enjoy reading some of their spooky stories at our pupil progress meetings! They were absolutely wonderful!!

In terms of our listening and talking element of literacy, the children continue to contribute to discussions in relation to the class novel. They will also be encouraged to share their learning through a short independent research task which links into our topic.

As always, the class will complete handwriting every week within class and we would ask that this is promoted at home in terms of homework also.

Numeracy

The use of number talks to encourage different learners to use and understand different strategies will continue this year. The children show an excellent understanding of the strategies taught so far and are always eager to share their understanding with their peers. Alongside Mrs Terras, the children will also be looking at 2D and 3D shape as well as measure.

Our core learning through number processes will concentrate predominantly on addition and subtraction this term. We are still also going to be learning about money with a particular focus on budget and money management.

Health and Wellbeing

Our P.E. days are a Wednesday and a Friday. We are currently learning 8 different Scottish dance routines as we prepare to showcase this alongside other schools for East Ayrshire’s day of dance I November. I can honestly say, I am extremely impressed with the children’s attitudes and maturity when learning these dances. Our other topic within P.E will be football and the skills that are required for this. Alongside our football P.E. lessons, we will be taking a look at the ‘show racism the red card’ commitment made by the SPL.

Primary 6 already participate in mindfulness every day, this is something that the entire class benefit from and have been doing this since the beginning of Primary 4.

Our PATHS programme will help the children to develop positive relationships within the class and school.  Delving into the emotions that the children feel will help them to understand why they are feeling this way as well as giving them the tools to cope with these emotions. The children are also participating in the PATHS buddy scheme that helps support the infants in ‘how to play’ during lunchtimes.

Our core health and wellbeing teaching will focus on substance misuse and what affects these substances have on our bodies. Linked with our P.E. once again, we will look at how we accept people who are different from us individually, whether that is in colour, religion, culture, or even interests and link this to our R.E, and schools values.

R.E.

In learning about our faith, the month of November focuses predominantly on All Souls and All Saints days. There will be specific focusses on different saints as we move towards Advent and prepare for Christmas.

The class will also begin their Pope Francis Faith Award journey. This will span the remainder of their Mount Carmel journey with some of the award being completed this year and then some in Primary 7. The Pope Francis Faith Award is an award of the Bishops’ conference of Scotland, designed to help children show “signs of love” in their daily lives.

Expressive arts

This term, the class will be focussing on art through our IDL. We will look at blending colours and tones using different materials such as oil pastels and pencils. Mrs Terras will continue to teach music throughout this term. The children have enjoyed learning how to play musical instruments and this will be a focus moving forward into term 2.

ICT

The children have an excellent knowledge of how to use the computers and glow. They will continue to develop their understanding of how to research certain topics and how to transfer the information from what they have learned to a document that can be saved and retrieved at a later date. The children will also continue to practise emailing myself and their classmates (whilst using their emails responsibly and appropriately). This is the same as last term as we still need practise at completing these tasks. This will gradually become more difficult when we use attachments, hyperlinks and copy and pasting URL addresses for quick access to sites. The children will be using their knowledge of ICT to research natural disasters and will also use ICT to help present their findings to the class.

Modern Languages

This term will focus on learning how to describe objects using their colour and size in French. As the term develops, we will begin to learn about the French names for different animals.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you, as always, for your ongoing support. This term will be a busy one and I look forward to seeing everyone again at our Pupil Progress meetings. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate in contacting me.

Take care,

Mrs McCreadie

Primary 6 – Term 1

Hi everyone. I hope you all had a lovely summer break. The boys and girls are settling really well into Primary 6 and have already embraced the responsibilities that come with Primary 6. The first term is always a busy term; however the class have already started working hard and are very eager to learn.

UNCRC

This is a new part to our updates and is the United Nations Convention for the Rights of the Child. We have looked at this convention as a class and chosen articles from it that we wanted to focus on as a class. We decided on the following: Article 19 – ‘We have the right to be safe’, Article 28 – ‘We have the right to learn’, Article 29 – ‘we have the right to work and play in a clean environment’ and Article 31 – ‘we have the right to play.’ The class understands that with these right =s come responsibilities. For example, if they have the article ‘we have the right to be safe’, the children know that they have a responsibility to try their very best to keep themselves safe also and avoid unsafe situations. We will be learning about this through our assemblies and community times.

IDL

Our interdisciplinary topic this term is Tornadoes, Hurricanes and Wildfires. We will start this later on in the term where the children will learn about the responses that are available by the emergency services, charities and international agencies during natural disasters. The class will also develop an awareness of the processes that actually causes natural disasters.

Literacy

The class have already started reading our class novel, ‘Wonder’ by R.J Palacio. They have been completing tasks relating to the text and I am already impressed with their comprehension skills. This class novel will allow learning to take place across the curriculum and there will be lots of opportunity for discussion. Within reading this term, we will be looking at the main purpose of a text as well as the different genres of books as well as encouraging the children to explain and justify their preferences of reading in terms of authors and genres. We have an extensive class library that the children can access for personal choice and enjoyment, as well as our school library which we will also be visiting. The children will continue with bug club and this will have a learning focus of metalinguistics and visualisation. The children will develop their understanding of what they are reading and I am hopeful of your support at homework time to complete their reading online. All children will be encouraged to read their texts with expression and fluency.

Our writing genres for the term ahead are descriptive writing and narrative writing. The class will be working on writing their piece, editing it and re-drafting it, focussing on layout in order to engage their reader. This is when the children will access ICT in order to type their re draft piece of writing. The class will be encouraged to improve their writing through feedback received. In terms of the tools for writing, the children will be looking at more sophisticated punctuation such as apostrophes, colons and semi-colons.

In terms of our listening and talking element of literacy, the children will be focussing on group work and taking on differing roles and responsibilities. In this situation, the children must use their listening toolkits and show respect to each member of the group when they have something to contribute.

The class will complete handwriting every week within class and we would ask that this is promoted at home in terms of homework also.

Numeracy

The entire class will continue to work on their times tables throughout the year.  We have already began working on our understanding of place value and what value each digit holds within the columns. Depending on what group the children are in for their numeracy, they will be working on place value using units, tens, hundreds, thousands, ten thousands, hundred thousand and millions.

Alongside Mrs Terras, the children will also be looking at rounding to the nearest ten, hundred and thousand. This will enable the children to develop their skill of estimating so they can then find approximate answers to calculations and problems.

Our whole school will concentrate on number talks throughout the year. These lessons encourage children to solve calculations using different strategies. This allows children to have ownership of their own learning by using the strategies that suit their learning style best.

In terms of beyond number, the class will be learning about money this term. Within this, we will look at retailers and how they use advertising to increase their best buys. APR and credit cards will also be covered alongside budgeting and how we can budget responsibly.

Health and Wellbeing

Our P.E. days are a Wednesday and a Friday. We are currently learning about badminton and are developing our ability to serve the shuttlecock properly and engage in a continuous game. After this topic, we will hopefully be moving onto to hockey and the skills involved with this.

Primary 6 already participate in mindfulness every day, this is something that the entire class benefit from and have been doing this since the beginning of Primary 4.

Our PATHS programme will help the children to develop positive relationships within the class and school.  Delving into the emotions that the children feel will help them to understand why they are feeling this way as well as giving them the tools to cope with these emotions. The children are also participating in the PATHS buddy scheme that helps support the infants in ‘how to play’ during lunchtimes.

Our core health and wellbeing teaching will focus on recognising healthy relationships and the roles of our parents and care givers. As we all know, every family is unique in how it is made up and we will explore what this means.

R.E.

Our class were given the responsibility of leading the first mass of the new school year and they were brilliant. Each and every one of them represented themselves and their school marvellously. We will learn about Jesus and the teachings of the bible as they year progresses looking at our own relationships with God as well as our relationships with our faith in general.

Expressive arts

This term, the class will be focussing on art through drawing. We will look at proportional faces using lines, tones and shades. We will also have a focus on painting creating effects and texture such as sand, salt and wax. The use of colour will be taught through still life painting and the colours used will help to express mood. Our music this term will be focussing on singing. This will be completed through our hymn practises and drama will be explored later in the year.

ICT

The children have an excellent knowledge of how to use the computers and glow. They will continue to develop their understanding of how to research certain topics and how to transfer the information from what they have learned to a document that can be saved and retrieved at a later date. The children will also continue to practise emailing myself and their classmates (whilst using their emails responsibly and appropriately).

French

This term will focus on learning the names of colours in French. We will also be learning about a French artist Claude Monet and his works.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your support so far this term as well as last year, and look forward to everything that is to come. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate in contacting me.

Take care,

Mrs McCreadie

A gentle reminder that all children will be attending our final mass of the school year this morning at 11.30am. Then in the afternoon, we celebrate our Primary 7 leavers assembly as they prepare to move onto their new high schools. We wish them the very best of luck 💙

As the end of term is fast approaching, the school would like to say a great big thank you to our parents and friends of Mount Carmel for organising this years fun day.

The children will take part in  day full of great activities including bouncy castles, obstacles courses and a visit to the ice cream van.

They will also be taking part in outdoor play session. The children are invited to bring in bikes and scooters for this activity (they also must bring a helmet for health and safety reasons)

And finally, the children are encouraged to wear their own clothes tomorrow. We ask that no child comes into school wearing football colours of any description. The children should wear comfortable clothes and shoes for all of the fun and active activities they will be taking part in.

As always, we thank you for your ongoing support.

All sponsor money should be brought into school tomorrow morning.

The children will enjoy a day of celebrating everything Father Martin loved from coming together as a school to singing and dancing.

The chidren are encouraged to wear clothes that represent the colours of Ecuador (yellow, blue and red), a place very loved by Father Martin. If your child down not own clothes with these colours, please do not worry. It is simply a non uniform day then.

We look forward to seeing everyone tomorrow and let’s raise some money for our dear friend ❤

The upper school enjoyed an afternoon of celebrations as a reward for all of their hard work during the rehearsals and performances of Matilda ❤️

The staff and children would like to say a great big thank you to Beth for all of her hard work during rehearsals. She gave up her own free time to come along and help us choreograph the dances for our show. Take a Bow are very lucky to have such a talented girl on their staff ❤️

As we near the end of our school year, we want to go out with a bang! Our Friends and Parent Council have organised a fundraising event to help raise some funds for our children in Mount Carmel. This will be in the form of a House hamper raffle.

We will be holding another Dress Down Day on Friday 31st May and are asking that each child (if they can) bring in an item of their house colour for the raffle. For example if your child was in the red house (fire), they could bring in a tin of ready salted Pringles.  If you could support us with this we would very much appreciate it. The tickets for the raffle will then be sold for £1 and we will have 4 winners, a winner for each of our houses.

Good Luck everyone!!

Primary 5 Curricular update – Term 3

Welcome back and I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year! 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 Easter.

IDL

Our topic we will be learning about this term is continents. The children will learn all about the 7 continents across the globe and we will look at many curricular areas throughout this topic. They have already demonstrated an interest in continents, with a special focus on animals that live in each one.

Literacy

Our grammar focus for the term ahead is going to be a revision of adjectives before using them comparatively and some new learning in the form of similes and alliteration.

Our comprehension skills that will be looked at this term will be a revision on metalinguistics, visualisation, prior knowledge and different types of questioning. The main focus will be on summarising however; using visual organisers to record own thoughts and ideas. This will lend itself nicely to the skill of note taking where we will practise using bullet points and mind maps to organise our ideas.

The genre of writing that will be taught this term is persuasive writing where we will look at the language required to persuade someone of your opinion or point of view. We will continue to investigate what a reliable source of information could be and as always, punctuation and its correct use will continue to be promoted within all language tasks completed.

We have been working hard on our ability to listen and talk at appropriate times, as well as listening for instructions. This term’s focus will be centred on presentation skills, for example, good eye contact, positive body language as well as tone and volume of voice. The children will have opportunities to experience using their presentation skills throughout the term ahead.

Numeracy

For the first couple of weeks of the new term, we will be looking at money and what it is used for in the real world. Within this topic, the children will be learning about budgeting, exchanging money as well as things like wages, banks, accounts etc.

Once this mini topic is completed, we will resume learning on our number processing skills with a particular focus on multiplication and division. This is where the previous learning regarding times tables will be crucial in our new learning. We will be encountering new mathematical language such as factors, multiples and products. The beyond number topic that will be taught is time, learning 24 hour format as well as durations of time and its importance in our everyday lives.

Our learning through number talks will continue as the children develop their ability to solve calculations mentally.

Health and Wellbeing

Our P.E. days will be on a Monday and a Friday moving forward with us having 3 more sessions left in our swimming inputs (25^th January, 1^st February, 8^th February).We will be learning the skills required for basketball (different styles of throws, how to dribble etc) as well as the skills required for fitness (agility, accuracy, balance, co-ordination, endurance and flexibility).

We will also begin 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. Following on from our focus on relationships at the beginning of term, our focus will be on children’s mental health and how we can nurture this and stay healthy. 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.

In correlation with our I.C.T. sessions, we will also be learning about online safety and cyber awareness as well as how to recognise dangers when playing online. We will also discuss online bullying and what we should do if we ever found ourselves in a situation that made us feel uncomfortable.

Religious Education

During our R.E. time, we will explore who the outcasts were during Jesus’ time and how Jesus perceived and treated these people. Examples of outcasts during this time are shepherds, tax collectors and people who were suffering from leprosy. We will then discuss which people are regarded as outcasts in today’s society and how we can show kindness to people who are less fortunate than us.

The children will also examine miracle stories from the bible as we move towards our preparation for Lent.

Technology

I am so impressed with the level of skill Primary 5 have shown me regarding their computing skills. During term 3, we will be learning how to save and retrieve files, attach documents to emails and cyber security.

French

Our French learning this term will be focussed around what the children like/dislike as well as what their hobbies are.

Science

Our science topic is animals and their habitats. This will be examined through our IDL topic when we learn about what animals live in what continents.

World of Work

We have been learning about the world of work and the different jobs that people in our life and community have. Term 3 will look at the children and their ambitions for the future. Wat do they want to be when they are older? How will they achieve this goal? In line with our Health and Wellbeing topic on substance misuse, the children will learn about the amazing jobs our NHS do when faced with emergencies etc.

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