Primary 6 took part in the Day of Dance which saw schools from all over East Ayrshire showcasing their talents. It was a wonderful day and the children represented the school beautifully. A great big well done to each and every one of them! 
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All posts by Mrs McCreadie
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 .
Primary 6 Curricular update – term 2
Primary 6 â 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 â âWe have the right to be safeâ, Article 28 â âWe have the right to learnâ, Article 29 – âwe have the right to work and play in a clean environmentâ and Article 31 â âwe have the right to play.â The class understands that with these rights come responsibilities. For example, if they have the article âwe have the right to be safeâ, 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, âWonderâ 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 Ayrshireâs day of dance I November. I can honestly say, I am extremely impressed with the childrenâs 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 âshow racism the red cardâ 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 âhow to playâ 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 Bishopsâ conference of Scotland, designed to help children show âsigns of loveâ 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 curricular update
Primary 6 â 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 â âWe have the right to be safeâ, Article 28 â âWe have the right to learnâ, Article 29 – âwe have the right to work and play in a clean environmentâ and Article 31 â âwe have the right to play.â The class understands that with these right =s come responsibilities. For example, if they have the article âwe have the right to be safeâ, 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, âWonderâ 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 âhow to playâ 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
Mass and leavers assembly
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 đ
FUN DAY INFO
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.
Friday Fundraiser for Father Martin
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 â¤
Matilda celebrations
The upper school enjoyed an afternoon of celebrations as a reward for all of their hard work during the rehearsals and performances of Matilda â¤ď¸
A big thank you!!
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 â¤ď¸
Community performance
What an opening performance!! Amazing show by our amazing pupils.
If you haven’t got your tickets already then be quick, our evening performance is nearly sold out for tomorrow.
Here is a little clip of our wonderful children in their last song…
IMPORTANT MESSAGE INCOMING…
SPORTS DAY INFORMATION
We are planning to go ahead with our sports day plan tomorrow and are looking forward to inviting our parents and carers in to see their children race. A few gentle reminders…
Please ensure that all children come to school dressed for sports day – they should not come dressed in school uniform and should wear sports clothing (as always – no football colours)
Please ensure that the clothes the children are wearing are weather appropriate – sensible shoes and a jacket if needed.
Please also ensure that the children have enough water for the day, they will be busy all day and have a timetable full of events.
Parents of classes are invited in as follows…
Primary 1 – 9:10
Primary 2 – 9:40
Primary 3 – 10:10
Nursery children – 11:00
Primary 4 – 11:30
Primary 5 – 12:00
Primary 6 – 1:30
Primary 7 – 2:10
We ask that when the classes have finished their races that the parents please leave swiftly to allow the next class set of parents to come in.
As always, we thank you for your support. Here’s hoping we get some sunshine!
#teammc
P5 bowling
Primary 5 showing their competitive sides during their class bowling championships this morning 
House raffle donations
Parents and friends of Mount Carmel would like to thank you for all of your wonderful donations for our house hamper.
We still welcome any more donations this week and next and hope to raise a lot of money through our raffle tickets.
Raffle tickets can be bought through parentpay for ÂŁ1 each as well as on sports day. Raffle winners to be drawn during our fun day on the 26th June.
As always, we thank you for your support
Parents and Friends of Mount Carmel đ
IMPORTANT INFORMATION – MATILDA
We kindly ask that all children bring in their costumes ASAP as we are hoping to fit in a couple of dress rehearsals next week before our big performances. The chorus for our show are wearing white shirts, grey trousers or a skirt, white socks and black shoes.
We do really appreciate your support with this and without it we would be unable to put on such a spectacular show.
With thanks, always,
MC staff đ
MATILDA Sneak Peek…
With our rehearsals well under way we wanted to share a little sneak peek with you all. I think you would agree the children are all excellent. We cannot wait to welcome you in to see our performance. Remember, get your tickets on Parentpay as we have limited numbers available.
We would like to give a great big thank you to Beth from Take A Bow who is giving up her own time to choreograph our dancers.
MATILDA Stage update
We have a new stage!!!
Our amazing Parents and Friends of Mount Carmel used some of their funds to buy the school a new stage, just in time for our MATILDA musical next month. The stage is built and looks amazing. We have a few very big thank yous to make. First of all, our Parents and friends of Mount Carmel. Thank you for providing the funds to buy the stage. Next we would like to give a big shout out to Stuart and Graham who travelled quite a distance to collect the stage. And finally, a big thank you to our very own Mr Leslie who spent this afternoon building the stage. It is now ready for the children to rehearse on tomorrow.
We cannot wait for you all to see our show
!
#teammc
MATILDA COSTUMES
Primary 4 – 7 children have been busy rehearsing and getting every thing ready for the big show. The children have been given a letter home today with information regarding costumes. We are asking for your help with providing your son/daughter with what they need; however, if for any reason this is causing issues or you require support for this then please do not hesitate to get in contact with the school office and we will do everything we can to ensure that the children have everything they need to perform.
As always, the staff at Mount carmel would like to thank our parents for their ongoing support. Without it, we would be unable to put on these awesome shows.
Thank you!
#teammc
MATILDA
With less than 3 weeks to go until our opening night, rehearsals are well underway. We hope you have the popcorn ready… You are in for a treat!! 
Advertising group visit Crossgates
Our advertising group for Matilda paid a visit to our friends and neighbours at Crossgates yesterday to invite them along to our community performance of Matilda. The group got to meet some of the wonderful residents and staff. We can’t wait to see you at the show everyone đ
Primary 5 Natural Scotland week
Primary 5 have had a brilliant morning making snores and den building. We also took our reading outside to enjoy in the sunshine as well as creating some transient art with natural materials.
Primary 4 and 5 – Wednesday
On Wednesday, our Primary 4 and Primary 5 classes will be taking part in outdoor activities to celebrate Natural Scotland week. We were hoping to go to the Dean Park; however, due to the Mayfest the park will be closed. The classes are very excited to be den building, making smores and roasted marshmallows in the morning and then we can continue with our rehearsals for MATILDA in the afternoon.
Please ensure that the children have suitable outdoor clothing on (jogging bottoms or leggings) with school uniform on top. They should also have suitable outdoor shoes on as we will be on the grass.
Thank you for your continuing support,
Mrs McCreadie and Mrs MacKinnon
Primary 5 to North West Bowling Club
A gentle reminder that our Primary 5 class are heading to the North West Bowling Club on Monday morning. The class will be leaving at around 9:15am. Please ensure that the children have suitable clothing on (including flat shoes for the bowling green) as we will be walking there and back. The children are very excited to be taking part in this experience for the next few weeks.
HOUSE HAMPER RAFFLE
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!!
And we are off…
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!!
Primary 5 Curricular update
Primary 5 Curricular update â 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 â 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 lifeâs difficulties.
During the month of May, we celebrate the mother of God Mary. We will look at Maryâs importance in our everyday lives and how important she was in Jesusâ 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 childrenâs 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 termâs 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
MATILDA
A busy meeting after school today (in the sunshine)…
All cast members and roles to be announced tomorrow….
Keep your eyes peeled for updates âşď¸
Primary 4 and 5 parents
To all parents and carers of p4&5 children,
Myself and Mrs MacKinnon have been keeping an eye on the forecast for our trip to the Dean Park tomorrow and in true Scottish fashion, it has to be rainy and windy. We have made the decision to postpone this trip until the last term. We have made this decision based on a few reasons. First and foremost, this trip was a treat for the children and we don’t want them being cold, wet and miserable. Secondly, if it is raining heavily, we will be unable to access the park (the slide in particular) as it will not be safe for the children to access. And lastly, we had already heard from the rangers at the Dean Park to say that they were unable to accommodate our inputs of mammals and den building tomorrow due to unforseen circumstances (although they are more than willing to change the date for these). We were happy to go ahead with our trip regardless of this, however we feel that with the added restrictions due to bad weather, we would be better to go at a later date. We are very sorry to have had to make this decision, but as always, the children’s safety is paramount. I hope everyone understands and we will definitely get looking at another date for the trip in the next term.
As always, we thank you for your support,
Mrs McCreadie
SCIAF fun day
What a day we had to raise money for SCIAF on Tuesday. Thank you to all of our parents and carers. We raised an amazing amount of money for SCIAF and the children (and staff) had a day full of fun activities too. 
SCIAF fun day!
On Tuesday 19th March, Primary 5 are organising a SCIAF fun day for the entire school. We are asking all our children to bring in a donation to take part in this day full of activities. The money raised will go straight into the charity boxes in each class. On this day, we have our active schools co-ordinator Mark Devlin providing a golf input for every class, we have gardening with Mr Leslie, litter picking, egg decorating and much more. We are also going to have some outdoor play and with this ask that your child brings in an outdoor toy such as a bike or a scooter for this time. They must bring a helmet due to health and safety reasons.
We are also asking that children wear old clothes on their bottom half due to the nature of these activities as we may get mucky during them. School jumpers should be worn on top.
Please give a small donation to this wonderful charity.
We can’t wait!
Thank you, Primary 5
