A quick reminder for parents that this Saturday our Sacrament children will have a special mass and retreat day held at St Joseph’s Church & Hall. There will be a short meeting  for parents afterwards.

Details Below..

Children’ s Retreat day– Saturday 1st February

10am Mass – Finish at 2pm at St Joseph’s Church & Hall

*Children should also bring a packed lunch with them*

There is no charge involved.

Parent’s meeting – Saturday 1st February (At end of Retreat Day)

Parents of Children making their sacraments are invited to a short meeting afterwards from 2pm – 2:30pm also at St Joseph’s Church & Hall.

Other important dates to note :

*Rite of Enrolment – Sunday 16th February*

11:30am Mass at OLMC Church

**Rite of Confirmation – Sunday 23rd February** -11:30am Mass

Bishop Frank Dougan will preside.

Important March News

Before making their Sacrament of First Holy Communion at the end of June, the P4 sacrament children will need to attend the Rite of Reconciliation and make their confession again and alongside the P4s on Wed 19th March at OLMC  (7-8pm).

Any parent who requires a registration form these are available from Fr Jim or  contact the school office please.

There are new updates on Primary 6 Learner Journals. Log in to your child’s individual Learner Journal to see all the wonderful learning taking place this term.

Mrs Terras and Mrs McCreadie

The Met Office has now issued a red warning for wind from 10am until 5pm on Friday 24 January.

Storm Eowyn will cause very dangerous conditions and there will be significant disruption.  The Council has taken the decision to close all schools and Early Childhood Centres, plus SL33 and SL66 on Friday 24 January.

This is a difficult decision to take and the Council understands the impact on parents and carers, however the safety of children and young people is paramount.

This is just a quick reminder of some important dates  in the next few weeks for our pupils who will be making their Sacrament of Confirmation at the end of next month.

Session 3 – Sunday 26th January

11:30am Mass – Finish at 1:30pm at OLMC Church

(‘I Belong’ book – Chapters 5 & 6 after Mass)

Children’ s Retreat day– Saturday 1st February

10am Mass – Finish at 2pm at St Joseph’s Church & Hall

*Children should also bring a packed lunch with them*

There is no charge involved.

Parent’s meeting – Saturday 1st February (At end of Retreat Day)

Parents of Children making their sacraments are invited to a short meeting afterwards from 2pm – 2:30pm also at St Joseph’s Church & Hall.

*Rite of Enrolment – Sunday 16th February*

11:30am Mass at OLMC Church

**Rite of Confirmation – Sunday 23rd February** -11:30am Mass

Bishop Frank Dougan will preside

Any parent who requires a registration form these are available from Fr Jim or  contact the school office please.

Welcome back! I hope that you all had a peaceful festive period. It is lovely to be back with Primary 3, and we are all ready for another busy term. Here is an update on the upcoming term.

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 3 we will refer back to this ensuring our Class Charter is relevant and ‘felt’ within our classroom. As a school community, some of the UNCRC articles that we will have a focus on, are Articles 17 and 19 relating to internet safety and Articles 24, 27 for World Water Day.

Literacy

We will be looking at a range of texts this term. We will start the term with story ‘Lewis Clowns Around’ which will link into our mini Scotland topic. We will use this 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.

During writing, we will look at report writing before moving on to explanatory texts. We will look the structure of these genres and write our own texts. We will continue to have a focus on the use of accurate punctuation as well as beginning to develop the skill of proof reading our work.

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

Numeracy & Maths

We will move on to looking at multiplication and division; using a range of concrete materials, we will develop our understanding of groups of a number before investigating the concept of arrays. We will look at the patterns in various times tables and will use this knowledge to solve a range of problems. 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 continue to explore measure with Mrs Strachan, before moving on to time.

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. We will also continue with the Do Be Mindful programme which will allow us, through the use of a range of strategies, to look at ways we can take a mindful moment each day.

PE is on a Monday and Friday. This term we will be covering;

Fun Fitness

Ball Skills

Children will require PE kit 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 Jesus’ early life, investigating the Jewish Community that He was born into. Then, as we begin our preparation for celebrating First Confession, we will look at the parables of the Lost Sheep and Lost Coin. We will look at the significance of the sacrament and become familiar with how it is celebrated.

As we approach the Holy season of Lent, we will think about the importance of prayer, almsgiving and fasting and how we can prepare for the great feast of Easter.

French

Through a range of songs, activities and games we will continue to develop confidence in counting and greetings, we will also look at months of the year in French.

IDL

We will begin the term with a mini Scotland topic, looking at some Scottish music, art and poetry, as well as exploring some features of the Scottish landscape. This will lead into our main topic this term which is Farming in Scotland. We will consider different types of farms and the various produce from these farms. We will look at the food journey – how it changes from farm to fork and will plant some potatoes and carrots, which will allow us to get first-hand experience of growing our own crops.

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 and I’m looking forward to a really great term with P3.

Mrs. MacKinnon.

Happy New Year to you all! I hope you had a very enjoyable festive break with your families.

In Primary 1 we are ready for a new year of learning!! Please have a look at the information below to see what we will be focusing on in each subject.

Literacy

Phonics – We will learn the remaining letter sounds of the alphabet this term while improving our word building skills.

Spelling – Now that we can read and write our sounds, we will be writing as many words as we can! Some of our common words cannot be sounded out so we have to practise the spelling of these in lots of different ways to help us remember the letter order.

Writing – We are continuing to develop our skills in sentence building this term. We will be using our knowledge of the letter sounds to independently write words in a simple sentence for a variety of stimuli.

Letter formation and hand writing will continue to be a focus to allow us to showcase our spelling skills with ease.

Reading – Now that we are using worded texts, we will be developing our word attack skills, remembering to use our letter sounds to help us with unfamiliar words, while looking for our common words too.

We will also be developing our comprehension skills by answering questions about our texts. This term we will be looking at Traditional Tales, discussing character traits and sequencing the main events of the stories.

Numeracy

During our Mental Maths sessions, we will continue to practise counting forwards and backwards. We will also be seeing how quickly we can respond to more and less questions.

We will continue to focus on our addition skills, partitioning the quantities to 10 and learning the different ways to make each number. We will be learning about the doubling and halving of quantities.

Towards the end of term, we will be exploring Money, initially brainstorming our ideas about when and how we use it. We will be introduced to all coins up to £2, ensuring we can correctly identify these and as our addition skills develop, we will combine these coins to “pay” for goods in our class shop.

Through our topic work, we will also be exploring Data Handling; sorting a variety of objects into groups and recording and displaying the information that we have gathered.

Health & Well-Being (HWB)

During PATHS time, we will be learning to ‘Do Turtle’ when things become stressful. We are going to be problem solving for Twiggle and his friends by helping them overcome difficult friendship scenarios. We are confident we have the necessary knowledge and strategies to help them!

In other areas of HWB, we are considering the impact of physical activity on our bodies and identifying the physical changes we feel after a period of exercise.

We will also be discussing the importance of personal hygiene; reinforcing our tooth brushing and handwashing techniques.

Keeping ourselves safe will also be a focus this term as we think about our road safety techniques and how to react in an emergency situation.

During our PE sessions we will be completing a block of gymnastics, reinforcing the skills from last term while incorporating these into sequenced movements.

Fun fitness will be our final topic, developing each child’s personal level of speed, agility, stamina and strength through fun activities and exercises.

GYM DAYS ARE MONDAYS AND THURSDAYS – PLEASE RETURN ALL GYM BAGS AND ENSURE EARRINGS ARE NOT WORN ON THESE DAYS.

RE

The first half of the term will focus on the Holy Family and how life would have been for Jesus as He grew up in Nazareth with Mary and Joseph. We will talk about the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist and revisit our own.

As we move towards Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent, we will talk about the meaning of this special time. During Lent we will take part in special prayer and reflection times to prepare ourselves for the special celebration of Easter.

IDL (Topic)

Our first topic this term will be ‘Materials’. We will be exploring and sorting a range of different materials, thinking about which purpose they would best suit.

Our second topic will be ‘Shops and Shopping’. We will identify and explore the shops and businesses in our local area and learn more about how these function. We will also consider the wide variety of jobs around us and think about which ones we would like to do when we are older.

Expressive Arts

Art will see us focus on the ‘design’ aspect of the subject using our knowledge of materials to help us.

During music lessons, we will listen to and sing along with some Scottish favourites!

UNCRC

We will continue to develop our knowledge of our rights to learn, play and stay safe this term and in addition we will explore our rights around internet safety.

We cannot wait to get started!

Mrs Duff.

Hello and welcome back to term 3 in P4! We hope you have enjoyed the festive period. We are looking forward to a New Year and another busy term ahead and lots of amazing learning in our P4 class. 

Literacy 

For our reading focus this term, we will continue to focus on building fluency and accuracy when reading aloud. We will also continue using our comprehension strategies to support our understanding of different texts through our mini Scottish topic as well as weekly with our Bug Club readers. This term we are focussing on inference. 

In writing, we will focus on poetry and report writing, with relevance to our Scottish topic about Loch Ness which we will cover during the month of January, exploring Scots language, and some well-known Scots poems. Pupils create their own poetry and tales from Scots inspired myths and folklore. 

Children will continue accessing active spelling activities where they will work individually and in groups using their skills and strategies to tackle new and unfamiliar spelling phonemes. There will be opportunities for presentations at assembly and mass to incorporate our listening and talking targets. 

Numeracy & Maths. 

This term we will look at strategies for solving multiplication and division problems. We will continue with our number talk and mental maths activities daily to further develop our use of mathematical language and confidence in solving a range of problems. Focus on revision of times tables regularly at home would be encouraged to support your child’s learning in class as they build strategies in their numeracy work. In Beyond Number, we will be looking in January/February at ‘Money’ and identifying the value of notes/coins up to £20 and using them in addition and subtraction to calculate overall cost or exact change up to £10. In March until Easter we will finish with a ‘Data Handling’ topic where we will collate information, organise it, present it and finally analyse the data we have. 

Health and Wellbeing 

We will continue with our PATHs programme, with our Pupil of the Day, where your child will have the chance to have compliments within the class and have the opportunity to take home their compliment sheet! There will also be a focus on relationships; how we develop and grow our friendships and the importance of a good manners and having a sense of responsibility. 

We will also link our Health and Well-being with our topic work, looking at the functions of our human body and how we can keep ourselves healthy by making better choices to our lifestyle.  

PE 

PE is on a Tuesday and Friday.  This term we will be covering team games, basketball and Fitness. 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.   

Expressive Arts 

P4 will continue to develop their artistic skills focusing on our class novel, where we will link this to Loch Ness focusing on colour, tone, line drawings and using varied materials. There will also be opportunities to look at inspirational famous ‘Local artists’. 

In Music, P4 will have the opportunity this term to take part in a local music project called ‘I’ve got Rhythm’ with a visiting specialist, Mrs Leibold, who will support this programme within our class/school on Tuesdays. We look forward to fabulous results from our budding musicians, especially after hearing our wonderful P4 choir. 

French 

In French we will look at using everyday language in different conversational situations e.g., buying food, ordering in a café, school life (subjects/classroom objects) and finally sports and hobbies. We will also learn topic specific vocabulary nearing Easter and French prayers during Lent. 

IDL 

Our topics this term will include a mini-Scottish focus in January. In February and March, we will then look at ‘Fairtrade and Food Production’ as our topic focus with links to Science (food chains / food webs).  

 Religious Education 

This term we will looking at some of the political, historical, social and religious elements of first century Palestine to help us gain an understanding of Jesus’ life on earth. As we journey towards Lent, we will reflect on the signs and symbols of the season and relate these to our own personal journey. In preparation for the celebration of the Sacrament of Confirmation in February, we will be looking at the meaning of the sacrament and learn more about the role and gifts of the Holy Spirit within our lives. 

For the children who will be celebrating the Sacraments of Confirmation and Holy Communion, the workbooks will be completed in class. Home sessions can be completed and discussed with your child alongside their ‘I Belong’ book completed at Church Sacrament sessions. Please have a look at this regularly with your child at home and discuss this with them as they prepare for an important step in their faith journey.  

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 we look forward to another fabulous term inP4! 

Mrs McIntyre and Miss Grimley. 

Happy Book Week Scotland from all of us at Primary 4! 📚✨

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

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 .

We hope you enjoyed seeing the photos of us out in the community and look forward to sharing more of our activities in the next few weeks.

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.

Welcome back to everyone and I hope you all had a wonderful October break.

Primary 1 are back on the learning train! We have a busy and fun filled term ahead. We have started the term with some spooky Halloween activities and look forward to celebrating our first Christmas as part of the Mount Carmel school community.

Literacy

This term we will continue to practise our letter formation and pencil control skills to ensure we can write the letters we have been learning.

Now that we know some of the sounds the letters of the alphabet make, we will be “blending” these together to make words. These words will help us with our reading and writing tasks.

We are very excited that we are becoming “readers” in Primary 1 and will soon be bringing home our first texts with words in them. We will be answering questions about the stories we read in class, to check our comprehension skills.

During writing activities, we will be trying to use descriptive language to describe a range of items. Some of us will try to write using the sounds we have been learning.

Numeracy

Now that we have explored the numbers to 10 fully, identifying quantities which are “more” and “less”, we will be focusing on the concept of addition. We will begin by combining two quantities and understanding that when you do this, the quantity gets bigger. This will lead us on to learning the addition facts, where we learn the different ways to “make” our numbers. These number stories (or facts) are the building blocks to which all of our calculations are built upon, so we will spend a lot of time on these, ensuring they are well embedded before moving on.

Numbers are tricky to write, so number formation will continue to be reinforced in class and through homework tasks.

Through our topic we will be exploring Position and Movement by using directions and positional language.

Health & Wellbeing

We will continue to welcome our PATHS puppets to help us talk about our emotions and friendships. We have been talking about the kinds of things friends do together and have discussed what makes a good friend.

We have been exploring our emotions and sharing our experiences and we will be looking at ways to help us manage our feelings.

We will also be talking about ways to keep ourselves safe when indoors and outdoors.

During PE sessions we will be continuing with ball skills before moving onto our first block of gymnastics. In preparation for our Christmas parties, we will also be taking part in social dancing.

Topic

Our topic this term is “Maps and Mapping”. We will initially be exploring our community and identifying buildings, roads, grassy areas with a view to creating our own maps. Through play we will create a range of maps for our cars and small world toys.

We will also be using our knowledge of direction and positional language to direct our friends to specific destinations.

RE

During RE we will continue to give thanks for God’s love.

We will also explore the Bible story of ‘Creation’, developing our awareness of the natural wonders of the world around us, in particular the seasons of Autumn and Winter.

As the term progresses, we will celebrate advent together, preparing for the birth of Jesus by showing love and kindness to those around us as much as we possibly can. We will be exploring the story of the nativity through songs, role play and craft activities.

Expressive Arts

The seasonal themes of Autumn, Winter and Christmas will be the focus of our drama, music and art activities this term.

A very exciting and busy time ahead. Now that we are getting into the colder weather, could zipping/fastening up please be practised at home so we can be cosy in the playground.

Thank you,

Mrs Duff

Take a look on your child’s Learning Journal profile for details and photographs of some of the fantastic learning that has been going on in classes across the school this term.

Remember to check out your child’s Learning Journal Profile for updates on some of the wonderful learning activities happening this term.

Here is a reminder on how to access Learning Journals.

Learning journals info

Thank you.

Welcome back everyone and welcome to the P7 blog! I trust you all had an enjoyable holiday/staycation and I am delighted to welcome back the pupils of P7 who have settled well into the routine of school.

Here’s an overview of our learning that will take place in our first term (Aug-Oct).

Literacy

This term we will be focussing on a novel study, The Wilderness War by Julia Green. We will continue to develop our Active Literacy comprehension skills using the book as a context for learning.  As well as reading the book together, the class will participate in activities that relate to other areas of the curriculum including Art, HWB and plenty of outdoor learning.  As a result, children should bring in appropriate clothes such as wellies or old boots, waterproof jacket and warmer clothes (hat, scarf, gloves) as we move into the colder months.

For writing, we are concentrating on descriptive pieces using a variety of figurative language such as similes, alliteration, and metaphors to interest the reader.

Spelling groups will continue to use Active Spelling strategies and follow on from previous work.

Numeracy

All groups this term have begun by working on place value before moving onto addition and subtraction.  The class will continue to develop their mental Number Talk strategies on a daily basis.

The class are also working on estimating and rounding skills with Mrs Terras and will be developing their knowledge of numeracy in the wider world as well as aspects of money.

Health and Wellbeing

This year we will continue to use the PATHS programme to shape our HWB learning.  P7 have already started ‘pupil of the day’ and participated in discussions around feelings and how we manage our emotions.  We are also investigating the relationship of diet, rest and sleep upon our mental health and looking at ways we can relax and improve brain function.

Our PE days are Wednesday and Thursday and appropriate clothes must be brought in on those days to participate.  I have spoken to the class about personal hygiene and some pupils may wish to bring in deodorant or a roll-on on these days.

IDL

As our novel study is The Wilderness War, we will be looking at environmental issues for our topic.  We will be looking at the damage of single use plastics and what can be done about it.  We will also investigate the Leave No Trace campaign to conserve natural areas.

RE

P7 will continue to complete their journal for the Pope Francis Faith Award as well as reading from the New Testament.  We will be looking at the life of Jesus and how he associated with those who were marginalised in society.

Languages

P7 will be looking at vocabulary associated with saying where you live and describing different places.

Technologies

This term P7 will access and use more features of Glow, attach files to emails, save work to cloud locations and retrieve files using search functions.

UNCRC

Together the class have created their class charter and looked at the rights they are entitled to.  As rights holders, the pupils have discussed the responsibilities they have to maintain in order to protect these rights.  As class rules, the class have chosen 4 Articles to focus on:  The right to be safe; the right to rest, relax and play; the right to be healthy; and the right to be heard.

I look forward to working with P7 in the coming year and hope to have lots of enjoyable experiences that will make learning fun and memorable.

Mr Bertoncini

A very warm welcome to the Primary 1 Blog. The children are settling into their new school surroundings beautifully and have already established routines and friendships within their new class.

We have had a lovely start to the term getting to know one another but we are most definitely poised and ready to LEARN! Below you will find an overview of what we will be covering this term.

Literacy

During literacy times, P1 have already been developing their phonological awareness (the ability to hear sounds in words). We are doing this by focusing on the rhythm and rhyme of language through clapping syllables and working on our nursery rhymes.

We are also working on our fine motor control to develop our mark making skills. Name writing is a focus to ensure we can always sign off on our masterpieces!

Developing our listening and talking skills forms a huge part of our day. We are learning to follow our ‘carpet time rules’ to ensure we do our best listening while the teacher is talking. We are also learning to take turns at communicating our thoughts and feelings.

Numeracy

We know numbers are all around us and have had a chance to talk about those which are special to us, for example, our age, door number etc.

Number times will consist of lots and lots of counting! We will be developing our ‘number sense’ by counting out and comparing quantities and becoming familiar with the language of mathematics.

We will be reciting our number sequences forwards and backwards, understanding that each number we say represents a quantity.

As our pencil control improves we will be learning how to form our digits correctly. Pattern and Shape will also be a focus this term.  We will link this to outdoor learning by looking for natural patterns and shape in our environment.

With Mrs Terras, P1 will explore 2D and 3D shapes, learning to sort and describe shapes based on certain criteria. Pupils will have the opportunity to explore and investigate shapes through practical games and activities.

Health & Well-being (HWB)

Our PATHS programme will feature heavily during our HWB time. The children will be meeting Twiggle and friends, our PATHS puppets, who will help us explore our feelings and friendships. We will also be introduced to our ‘Pupil of the Day’ initiative, which allows each and every member of the class to be the focus of our kind words and actions for a whole day.

In PE we will initially develop our spatial awareness through games before moving onto large ball skills.

RE

The children have been introduced to our RE times during which we have been discussing God’s love for us all. We will continue to explore this unconditional love by considering the gifts God has given us, including our families and the qualities which make each and every one of us so special and unique.

IDL

Our theme of Nursery Rhymes will be used to explore other areas of the curriculum such as art, music and technology.

We will also be looking at our own ‘history’ by thinking about the people and events involved in our journey from new born baby to Primary 1 pupil!

Expressive Arts

During art sessions we will be creating our favourite characters from the Nursery rhymes we have been learning. We will be exploring the visual elements of line, pattern and colour.

In Music, Mrs Terras will lead P1 through a singing and listening unit of work called ‘My Musical Heartbeat’, learning how to find the ‘pulse’ or the ‘beat’ of the music.

Rights Respecting Schools

We follow the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in our school. We have introduced the right to be safe, to learn and to play in Primary 1 through our ‘Rainbow Rules’ class charter.

PE DAYS WILL BE MONDAY AND THURSDAY – please think carefully about uniform and ensure NO JEWELLERY is worn on these days.

Mrs Duff

Primary 2 Blog Post (Term 1 Update)

Hello and welcome to our very first blog post of the new session.  Primary 2 have been very busy settling into our new classroom and our new routines.  Children have been working hard to consolidate previous learning and are enhancing these skills through our novel study and outdoor learning.

UNCRC – Class Charter

Primary 2 have worked on creating a class charter, with agreed upon rights that we will focus on as a class. Our class rules and procedures centre around these rights, as we agree that we should all have a right to be healthy, a right to learn and a right to play. We have used our novel study and the main character Plop as a theme for our charter.

Literacy

Our class novel is ‘The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark’ and through this text, pupils will explore our outdoor area and write about why dark is fun!  Pupils will create some descriptive writing pieces, describing our main character, Plop, and using adjectives to describe the people he meets and the things he sees.

Our reading and spelling activities are getting underway, and children will be working within groups to revisit previous sounds and texts, ready to use their skills and strategies to tackle new and unfamiliar spelling sounds and reading books.  We will be using our predictive skills to think about what may happen in our book, based on information on the cover and we will begin to look at fiction and non-fiction texts and their differences.

Our focus in writing will be descriptive writing and these written pieces will come from our class novel and topic of Houses and Homes, comparing houses in the city with those of the countryside as well as looking at homes of the past. Children will compare how houses/homes have changed over the last century.

Numeracy

Our focus in numeracy will be place value, with children working on 2-digit numbers, initially to 20 and then to 99. Children will be able to partition these numbers and discuss this in terms of tens (T) and units (u), whilst building on their understanding of number and number patterns. Addition to 10 or 20 will also be a focus as well as word problems to consolidate our strategies within this operation of number.  Children will begin use their ‘Busy Bee’ jotters as the term progresses to develop problem solving skills, applying knowledge of number to new contexts and develop strategies for number problems.

Health & Wellbeing

Our Paths Pupil of the Day has now begun, and our Pupil of the Day has been receiving lots of compliments.  All children will have the opportunity to be Pupil of the Day.  We will begin exploring emotions, comfortable and uncomfortable and how we recognise these emotions within ourselves and in others.

In P.E, our sessions will happen on a Tuesday and a Thursday and our focus in term 1 will be on football and netball.  Children will have the opportunity to partake in some fun activities which support teamwork whilst focusing on developing their listening skills and awareness of space.

R.E

Our focus during R.E sessions will be on prayer, their meaning, the routines of the church and the celebration of Mass.  We will also spend some time reading and discussing bible stories relating to friendship and love, whilst considering how each of us are unique and have our own God given talents.

IDL

As the class novel is The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark, we will be doing a mini topic which focuses on exciting things that happen in the dark, developing children’s imaginations and ideas in fictional texts.  We will also look at woodland animals as these are a feature in the class novel and will tie in nicely with our term 1 social studies topic about houses and homes, comparing houses in the countryside to those we find in the towns and cities.

Modern Languages (French)

In French lessons, children will begin to understand basic greetings, ask and answer simple questions about themselves and begin to look at numbers to 10. We will learn songs and rhymes to help us retain this information.

Homework

Homework was sent out this week. Please check your child’s homework bag weekly for the homework to be completed.  Reading books will be attached to pupils’ accounts through our online Bug Club reading programme. I have issued Bug Club login details with these homework tasks. Homework will consist of spelling, reading and maths, both mental and worksheet/jotter jobs too. These will be issued on a Monday and should be returned to school on a Friday.

We hope this is the start of a very successful term and that the pupils are enjoying their return to school and seeing their friends and teachers.

Take care,

Mrs Travers

Please find below links to apply for either a Kids Cards or a NEC card for your child dependent on their age. This card will enable your child to access FREE bus travel throughout Scotland.

If your child has previously had an NEC and has lost their card please do not use the links below, please contact the school office and we will send home the relevant form for you to complete.

Application Form 1

This form is for pupils aged 5 to 10 years old. Parents should use the link below to apply for this card on behalf of their child, the person completing the form on behalf of their child MUST be the main contact registred for the pupil.

NEC Card 1 5-10 Application Form – Mount Carmel

Application Form 2

This for is for pupils aged 11 to 15 years old This application is for a National Entitlement Card for pupils under the age of 16. Parents must apply for the card on behalf of their child, the person completing the application MUST be the main contact registered for the pupil. Parents will then have the option of having the Young Scot branding and/orthe PASS Hologram as well as free bus travel added too this card.

NEC Card 2 11-15 Application Form – Mount Carmel

Please note we are only able to process application forms from current pupils of Mount Carmel Primary 

Check out your child’s Learning Journals page for some photos from our recent trip to Blair Drummond.

P4 have been having a great time during their music technology inputs with Stuart from Sonappa.

We have been learning about melody and rhythm and have been using the functions of Garage Band to create our own digital compositions.

There are definitely some budding musicians in P4!

P4 had a fantastic afternoon celebrating their First Communion.
We had a delicious cake made by the very talented Ann from the kitchen, and enjoyed some party games and dancing.
We were delighted to be joined by Fr.Jim.

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

Primary 5 showing their competitive sides during their class bowling championships this morning

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 £1 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 💙

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 😊

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.