Category Archives: uncategorized

Primary 3 deliver First Communion Cards

As part of our IDL topic, Primary 3  have been thinking about the meaning of the word ” community.” We have been reflecting on our wider community, and our school community.

With this in mind, Primary 3  put their creative talents to good use and made beautiful cards for the First Communion children in Primary 4. We enjoyed delivering the cards to our Primary 4 friends –  who were delighted to receive them.

We will be thinking and praying for you all as you take this wonderful step in your faith journey.

Sharing the Learning – Primary 6

Thank you to everyone who joined us for our Sharing the Learning afternoon. It was nice to welcome families into our classroom and give you a taster of how P6 learn about fractions.

P6 enjoyed showing their families the different types of fractions they’ve been exploring. It was great to see the adults using the strategies and concrete resources to ‘relearn’ about fractions.

We hoped you enjoyed seeing the different ways we learn, through discussion, games, problem solving, and hands on activities.

Sharing the Learning – P6

I am delighted to invite you to our upcoming Sharing the Learning session on Thursday 19th June at 2:00pm.

This is a wonderful opportunity for the children to share their progress and for you to gain an insight into how we teach and learn  in the classroom.

Pupils have a sign up slip home with them today.

We hope you can join us for an afternoon of hands-on maths and pupil-led learning.

Mrs Terras

World Environment Day – 5th June

Last week,  we celebrated World Environment Day and took part in a nationwide call along with other Eco Schools to discuss action on tackling our plastic waste problem.

Image, World Environment Day

Thank you to our lovely Miss Dorby in P5 for organising  a link to this for P4-7. Each class had the opportunity to learn about the current issues our environment faces and discuss/ share ideas with each other on how to solve this collectively.  We got a couple of ‘shout outs’ online as a school which was fabulous. Well done to all involved. Our Mount Carmel Eco Committee have now got some great ideas for next year. Here are some photos of our contributions…

 

“Great comment Sean!”

 

#WorldEnvironmentDay2025

 

Sr. Juliet visits Primary 3

Primary 3 had a lovely afternoon on Thursday when Sr. Juliet came to visit us.

We have been learning about our local community and the groups within our community. We really enjoyed hearing Sr. Juliet tell us all about the many fantastic groups in Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish.  Primary 3 had very thoughtful questions and we enjoyed sharing some of our knowledge with Sr. Juliet.

The boys and girls even treated Sr. Juliet to a beautiful rendition of one of our favourite hymns, ‘As I Kneel Before you.’

Thank you for your visit, Sr. Juliet!

 

P4- Important Dates for Sacrament pupils and Information

Please note changes in bulletin…

A rehearsal practise will take place after 11:30am mass now on Sunday 15th June for the pupils making their First Communion the following weekend at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church (OLMC).

Sunday 22nd June –  Celebration of First Communion – (Please note children to arrive at the Sacristy by 11:15am.)  Mass begins at 11:30am. Please ensure to arrive in plenty of time, allowing for parking and seating.

P4 Sacrament Retreat

A reminder for any P4 making their Sacrament of First Holy Communion that there will be a retreat this Sunday, in case you  missed it this week in the bulletin. Details Below…

Retreat Day tomorrow at St Matthew’s (Sat 17th May 10am mass then retreat until 2pm, followed by a short parents meeting. Please bring a packed lunch.

First Communion Rehearsal on Sunday 15th June, after 11:30am mass. Please bring along your ‘I Belong’ book.

Danger Detectives

Last Wednesday P6 walked to Dean Park to take part in the Danger Detective event. Danger Detectives is an experiential learning event that aims to reduce accidents amongst young people whilst building community resilience. The pupils took part in a range of real life scenarios such as Anti social behaviour, Home Fire Safety, a Road Safety campaign, Countryside Safety and Drowning Prevention.

P6 were engaged in all the activities and enjoyed the event.

Walk to School Week 19th-23rd May

Our Eco Committee would like to share that next week is…..

Walk to School Week

19th – 23rd May 2025

Please join in with us next week and have some fun whilst choosing an active healthy option whilst helping our environment!

 

Monday

 

Wear a hat or sunglasses

 

Tuesday

 

Happy

Shoesday!

 

Wednesday

 

Wear bright clothes or

accessories

 

Thursday

 

Wear odd

socks

 

 

Friday

 

Crazy hair

Day!!!

 

Primary 1 – Term 4 Curricular Update

I 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.

Time and Measure will also be a focus for us and will be linked to our topic. 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.

 

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 ‘Sun, Moon and Stars’. We will compare day and night, exploring how these are created. We will also investigate our planet and its place in the solar system. During our topic we will also link with Literacy, Design Technology and Numeracy. There will be opportunities for reading and writing for information as well as practical activities involving measuring shadows and ordering planets by size.

UNCRC

We continue to make reference to our rights in class: being safe and having the opportunities to learn and play.

A fun and exciting summer term ahead with lots to look forward to!

Mrs Duff

 

 

 

 

P3 Curriculum update term 4

Welcome back! I hope that you all had a peaceful break over the Easter holidays. It is lovely to be back with the children as we start our final term of Primary 3. Here is an update on what we will be doing in term 4.

Literacy

We will be looking at a range of texts this term. We will start the term with story ‘The Trouble with Dragons’, which we will use as a whole class text to develop our prediction, summarising and ‘Find it, prove it’ comprehension strategies. We will also access Bug Club readers as we continue to work on decoding and fluency skills.

Spelling will take the form of active spelling activities and the children will experience phonemes and blends at their working level.

During writing, we will be focusing on persuasive and responsive writing. We will engage with a range of texts of each of these genres and will develop our note taking skills as well as the use of persuasive language. During all our writing activities, we will continue to have a focus on using our phonemes, and spelling strategies as well as the use of accurate punctuation.

Numeracy & Maths

We will build on our knowledge of division from last term as we explore fractions and develop our understanding of equal sharing. We will look at the notation and vocabulary associated with fractions and investigate where simple fractions lie on a number line.  The children will participate in a daily number talk activity as we develop our confidence in the use of mathematical language to explain our thinking.

In beyond number, we will look at a range of methods of collecting, sorting and presenting data with Mrs Strachan.

Health and Wellbeing

This term we will continue with the PATHS programme, reflecting and discussing a range of emotions and what these might look and feel like.

At the beginning of our first term, we explored the UNCRC Rights of the Child, and together created a meaningful Class Charter to ensure that our classroom is a place where we feel safe and where we can learn and grow together. As we continue into term 4 we will refer back to this ensuring our Class Charter is relevant and ‘felt’ within our classroom. As a school community, we will focus on the following articles;

May – Mental Health Awareness Week – Article 24

June – World Day against Child Labour Articles 32 & 35

June – World Refugee Day – Articles 10 & 22

 

PE is on a Monday and Friday. This term we will be covering athletics and striking and fielding games.

Children will require PE kit and shoes each PE day.  Please make sure your child is not wearing jewellery on these days as they will be unable to participate in the lesson for health and safety reasons. If your child cannot take part for any reason, please contact the school.

Religious Education

This term we will be continuing to learn a range of well-known prayers and will have opportunities each day for quiet prayer and reflection time.

We will reflect on the Easter Story, and in particular, we will focus on the story of ‘The Empty Tomb’ from the Gospel of Matthew, reflecting on the astonishment of the friends of Jesus when they heard that He has risen from the dead.  As we move into the month of May, we will have a focus on Mary, we will create a May altar in our classroom and will reflect on Mary’s “yes” to God.

French

Through a range of songs, activities and games we will continue to develop confidence in counting and greetings, we will also look the similarities and differences between school here and in France.

 IDL

We really enjoyed our farming topic last term, we will continue with some aspects of this topic; we have planted a range of fruit, vegetables and flowers which we will continue look after. We have been enjoying this first-hand experience of growing our own crops and we are hoping we will have some vegetables and fruit to harvest before the end of term!

This term, we will also take a closer look at our local community – in particular the groups and activities that take place around us.

 

Homework will be distributed on a Monday to be completed, and returned by Friday.

Keep an eye on the School App and your child’s Learning Journal profile for a snapshot of some of our wonderful learning!

Thank you as always for your support; I’m looking forward to another great term with our fantastic P3 children.

Mrs. MacKinnon.

Primary 4 – Term 4 Curricular Update

Welcome back to term 4! I hope you have had a restful time over the Easter break. I am looking forward to a wonderful new term involving lots of new learning, more fun, trips, school shows and many more new experiences for our fantastic P4 class.

Literacy

For our reading focus this term, we will focus on our Class novel ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ linking in to our recent Fairtrade Topic.  We will continue building expression and fluency when reading aloud to others, as well as,  developing our comprehension through enhancing our inferential skills. We will continue to work on different comprehension strategies we have learned, develop our questioning skills and how we can use the text to help us with this. Please ensure your child accesses their Bug Club weekly for homework to support their reading or accesses personal reading material to forge these skills.

In writing this last term, we will look at Persuasive writing, focusing on our use of persuasive language and how to style and structure this piece of writing to enable us to convince others. As well as this, we will briefly cover Procedural writing  which is Instructional e.g. a recipe, How to…). Lastly, we will continue to develop our descriptive language in our writing in relation to our class novel and topic, and start to incorporate the use of ICT for re-drafting some of our pieces of writing.

Spelling will take the form of active spelling activities and the children will experience phonemes and blends at their working level.

French This term along with developing our basic conversational vocabulary, we will look at ‘Sports’, ‘Our home’ and ‘Famous French People and Landmarks’.

Numeracy & Maths

The Class will continue our interactive mental maths input each day and  number talks. This term, we will continue to build on our work with the four operations, in particular, how Fractions are related to Division. We will look at the meaning of the numerator and denominator and will be able to order, compare and look at equivalent fractions within our working groups and developing our division strategies.

In Beyond Number, Miss Campbell will complete our Money focus with P4 in April. In May, we will focus on Measure looking at length, mass and area. Pupils will learn to recognise estimates of length, height, mass and capacity, as well as record measurements accurately and convert between appropriate units e.g. m, cm, mm or litres. In June, pupils will then move on to look at Information Handling where children will explore collecting, analysing and recording information. They will present their finding in a graph.

Health and Wellbeing

We will continue with our PATHs programme, looking at problem solving and the idea of fair/unfair and accident and on purpose. We will continue with our Pupil of the Day, so keep a look out for your children coming home with their compliment sheet!

The class are also engaging in a mindful activity each day. Through our Do Be Mindful programme and other class activities, we are learning about building and developing life enhancing skills, tools and habits that will foster emotional and mental wellbeing.

PE

PE is on a Wednesday and Friday. This term we will be covering:

Tennis /Badminton racquet skills       Athletics

Football Input (Kilmarnock FC)        Outdoor Team Games

PE kit must be brought in and left at the start of each term. Before the holiday, the kit was sent home for washing to be freshened up and should now be returned for the current term. Lessons will be outdoors if weather permits, so remember to pack extra water and sunscreen if Sunny this term.  No jewellery please on PE days.

IDL – Social Studies & Science (Apr/May)

P4 will be complete our Fairtrade topic this term looking at Food production. We will complete a comparison study between food production in Scotland and in another country.

We are very excited to visit the Scottish Maritime Museum in Irvine this term as a class, to build our STEM skills and take part in some workshops linking to previous learning and topics such as boat building (Vikings) as we explore our Scottish history and engineering past. We are really excited for this visit and it will be a lovely ending to our recent P4 topic.

IDL / Expressive Arts (Apr –June)

Our exciting main focus and topic for term 4 will be our forthcoming summer school show – ‘Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat’. We will link themes and our learning across all subjects in the curriculum to our show.

Religious Education

This term we will mainly be focusing on the importance of the Eucharist, linking to the Last Supper. We are all very excited to support our P4 children who will prepare for and celebrate their First Holy Communion later in our term, on Sunday 22nd June.

During May, we will focus on ‘Our Lady’ and learn about the Rosary to become familiar with this beautiful prayer.  In addition, as we approach the end of May, we will also look at the Feast of the Ascension and Pentecost in June. As a school, we will continue to attend Mass this term.

As part of our God’s Loving Plan focus, Primary 4 will reflect on the story of creation and friendships. As the children develop their understanding of hygiene and the human body, they will learn that their bodies are a gift from God which must be respected and cared for. We will also be exploring the negative results of substances such as tobacco, drugs and alcohol. Pupils will discuss how to stay safe and be cyberaware.

RRS/UNCRC

This term as we continue our RRS journey, we will focus on the following Articles as a Rights Respecting School through…

  • May – Mental Health Awareness Week – Article 24
  • June – World Day Against Child Labour (12th June) Articles 32 and 35
  • June – World Refugee Day (20th June) – Articles 10 and 22

Homework will be distributed on a Monday to be completed, signed and returned by Friday. Keep an eye on the class blog for regular updates to what is happening in class, recent learning and relevant upcoming events.

Thank you for your continued support and I look forward to an exciting and wonderful last term together with P4!

Mrs McIntyre.

Sunshine and Stories: Primary 6 Take Their Reading Outdoors

There’s something magical about a good book and a sunny day—and Primary 6 certainly discovered that today. They read the first chapters of their new reading books outside.

We’re looking forward to making outdoor reading a regular part of our week (weather permitting!). There’s no better way to combine a love of books with the joy of being outside.


 

 

 

Cast Announcement – Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat

Today we announced the cast for our upcoming Summer Show ‘Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat’. The children have worked incredibly hard throughout the audition process and we are so proud of their enthusiasm, bravery and talent.

We understand that some children may feel disappointed if they didn’t receive the part they were hoping for. However, every role – whether a lead, ensemble or behind the scenes helper – is crucial to making our show a success.

We reminded the children that theatre is about more than just individual roles; it’s about storytelling, teamwork, and having fun! Every member of the cast and crew is valued, and we cannot wait to see them shine on stage.

As always, thank you for your continued support. We look forward to an amazing production!

Mrs Terras, Mrs McIntyre, Miss Dorby, Mr Bertoncini

 

First Confession

Congratulations to our fabulous Primary 3 children, who celebrated the lovely sacrament of confession for the first time last night.

Thank you to Fr Jim for making it such a memorable and prayerful celebration, and also thank you to the P4 children who came along and celebrated the sacrament with their P3 friends.

Please keep the children in  your prayers as they continue on their faith journeys.