Category Archives: Whole School News

Primary 3 Term 2 Curriculum Overview

Welcome back! Primary 3 have worked very hard during the first term, consolidating previous knowledge as well as lots of new learning. They continue to work well together, displaying the school values in all that they do. We look forward to this next exciting term together and all that it brings. Below is a curriculum overview for this term.

Literacy

Reading – This term, Primary 3 will develop their questioning skills with particular focus on who, when, where, why and how questions to enable the pupils to retell main events. Find it, Prove it, Talk about it strategies will also be developed to support understanding of texts. In addition to this, pupils will be able to recognise key features to non-fiction texts.  Bug Club readers will continue to be used. Daily opportunities for reading will continue to be provided through personal reading time and where possible visits to the library will take place.

Writing – In writing, Primary 3 will continue to work on sentence structure ensuring the use of capital letters, full stops and finger spaces as well as use connectives such as “and”, “but” and “because” to add more detail to sentences.  This terms writing genre will be narrative. Pupils will begin to use a variety of openers and powerful verbs to make their writing more interesting. In addition to this, weekly handwriting lessons will continue.

Spelling – New phonemes and common words will be introduced weekly. Active spelling activities will be used to support this learning.

Listening and Talking – When developing talking and listening skills, P3 will focus on asking and responding to questions as well as retelling stories and events in their own words.

Grammar – Primary 3 will begin to learn about verbs linking this to prior knowledge about nouns and recognising speech marks within texts.

Numeracy and Mathematics

This term, addition and subtraction skills and strategies will be reviewed and revisited before building on this. Primary 3 will look at adding and subtracting 2 and 3 digit numbers using number lines, partitioning and the column method. Word problems and equations will continue to be explored as their knowledge of addition and subtraction expands. In addition, P3 will extend their understanding of money including recognition of notes and coins as well as adding to find totals and subtracting to find change. Daily number talks will continue to be completed, to develop mental maths strategies.

UNCRC

Primary 3 continue to be mindful of the UNCRC Rights of the Child. Pupils will be looking at Article 38 for Remembrance Day and the right to protect children from war as well as articles 4 and 41 and 45 in celebration of World Children’s Day and Human Rights Day throughout this term.

Health and Wellbeing

Primary 3 will continue to access our whole school PATHS programme this term to develop their understanding of emotions. Alongside this, Pupils will learn about ‘Zones of Regulations’ with a particular focus on energy levels. Each child will continue to have the opportunity to be “Pupil of the Day”, receiving compliments from their peers. P3 continue to enjoy this experience. We will also continue with the Do Be Mindful programme which will allow us, through a range of different strategies, to think of the ways we can be mindful each day. Furthermore, through our Germs topic, pupils will learn about the importance of health and hygiene.

Physical Education

This term, Primary 3 will develop their football and gymnastic skills. In addition to this, Pupils will have the opportunity to develop their social dance skills as we approach Christmas.

PE days are Monday afternoon and Thursday afternoon. All children will require a PE kit on these days. Please ensure any jewellery is taken off and left at home on PE days. If your child cannot take part for any reason, please contact the school.

Religious Education

In R.E. this term, Primary 3 will learn about the Creation story, discovering the great diversity of plant and animal life created by God and how we can help care for it. We will learn about the lives of several Saints such as St Francis of Assisi and the season of Advent, where we will learn more about the Christmas story, particularly the role of King Herod and Joseph.

IDL

This term, P3 will learn about Germs and Micro-organisms as well as participate in a Christmas Enterprise project. As Primary 3 learn about germs they will gain an Understanding what germs are, how they spread and how we can stay healthy. Cross curricular links during this topic include science, health and wellbeing and literacy. Through the Christmas Enterprise project, pupils will develop their enterprise, creativity and teamwork skills. They will make a number of cross curricular links during this topic including social studies, expressive arts, literacy, technologies and numeracy.

French

This term Primary 3 will continue to develop their confidence when having conversations in French including asking and answering questions about themselves. Pupils will also focus on numbers to 30 as well as vocabulary related to the classroom.

Homework will be distributed on a Monday and should be completed and returned on a Friday each week.

Primary 3 look forward to sharing their wonderful learning with you throughout the term! Look out on the school app as well as Learning Journals where some of your child’s learning moments will be shared. If you have not yet handed in the permission slip for this please do so as soon as possible so we can share some of your child’s lovely work.

Thank you for your continued support and understanding, we are really looking forward to another fabulous and festive term in Primary 3,

Mrs Dunsmore and Mrs Hope.

Book Week Celebration 2025

Evaluating the Bookbug programme in Scotland - Centre for Research on ...

On Tuesday 18th November children in Primary 1 will receive their Bookbug Family Bag and children in Primary 2 and Primary 3 will receive their Read Write Count bags.

We will have a special afternoon of activities on the day.  Children in P1-3 can bring pajama’s to change into after lunch, they are also welcome to bring a cuddly toy, small blanket or pillow.  The teachers have planned a lovely afternoon for the boys and girls we hope they have a lovley time.

Poppy Scotland

Remembrance Day Poppy Scotland - Free Transparent PNG Clipart Images ...

It’s Poppy donation time again. Our P7 pupils will be going round the classes as of tomorrow with poppies. If your child would like a poppy please send a small donation in with them to pop in our collection tin.

Thank you for your support.  

Tempest Photographs

Tempest Photographs have been handed out today and will be in your child’s bag.  To take advantage of free delivery back to the school please order online by scanning the QR code on your chosen photo or by using the unique reference number at www.tempest-orders.co.uk before Friday 7th November.  Any orders placed after this time will include postage charges.

Thanks 

Eco Crew Update!!

Well done to our Climate Conference champions, Eddie and Gabo in P7,  who represented our school on October 2nd at the EAC Climate Conference 2025 in Loudon Academy.

Our MC Eco reps met local council representatives from different departmental sectors of EAC and discussed, how as a council collective, we can get our carbon footprint to net zero and work together to be more sustainable as a school.   Lots of ideas were shared by all parties and both Eco Leaders gave quality feedback to our Eco Committee back in school to help inform our school ‘Action Plan’ moving forward.

They even had time to pick up our Clean Green Bronze Highly Commended Award and meet our  EAC Power down mascot ‘Windy! Thank you also to former P7 pupils Teodor and Vivienne for their input towards this last year.

Well done boys we are very proud! Great job!

Thanks again to our fabulous parents who have been joining in  by supporting our Voyage to Venus. You have been logging S-Miles using the link below or QR Code to log your journey to school/work too if you walk or use public transport to get there.

Parent S-Mile Link

Message from EAC V2V Command…

We have earned a bonus 60 miles for our school!

 

 

November Dress Down Days

Free Christmas Tree Clip Art, Download Free Christmas Tree Clip Art png ...

We will be having a series of Dress Down days throughout November, we are kindly asking pupils to donate various items on these days to help towards our school Christmas fayre on Friday 28th November items and days are listed below:

Friday 7th November – Bottle Stall Donation 

Friday 14th November – Tombola/Raffle Stall Donation – Wear something spotty for Children in Need

Friday 21st November – Sweets/chocolate  Donation

Friday 28th November – Homebaking/ Cake Stall Donation

Thank you 

October | 2015 | St Mark's Primary School, Hamilton

 

FOMC Halloween Raffle

 

If you want to be in with a chance of winning this fabulous Halloween hamper from FOMC, please head to Parentpay, where you can pay £1 for a  ticket towards the FOMC Halloween Raffle.

This is a separate raffle to the school’s October raffle!

P7 Barnardo’s Youth Group

youth group clipart free 10 free Cliparts | Download images on ...

Barnardo’s East Ayrshire Families Youth Service would like to inform young people and their parents/carers of a Youth Group that is available to young people in Primary 7 from the local area. This group is completely FREE to attend and runs term-time every Monday from 4pm-6pm in Onthank Community Centre.

If your P7 child/children would like to attend please ask the office for an application form. 

Thanks

 

School Car Park

School Parking Lot Clipart

Our school car park is as always out of bounds for parents/carers vehicles . We also have an increase in commercial traffic e.g vans lorries etc  going in and out of the car park daily due to our kitchen renovations having started this week making it particularly hazardous.

MCPS – Nurture Policy

At Mount Carmel we have been reviewing and updating our Nurture Policy.  Please take some time to read over this and complete the short form for any feedback you may wish to give.  This survey closes on Friday 7th November.

Mount Carmel Nurture Policy

Nurture Policy Feedback Form

Head lice

We have had reports of  unwanted “visitors”  to some children within the school,  we kindly ask that parents/carers routinely check their child/children’s hair for any of these  unwanted “visitors” and take appropriate action if required Thank you for your co-operation.  

Meet The Teacher Sessions-September

During September we were delighted to see so many of our parents and carers come along to our ‘Meet the teacher’ session, thank you for taking the time to come to school and get some information about the year ahead. Please let us know what you thought of these sessions and anything else we could add in the future.

Welcome to our School – Meet the Teacher

FOMC Halloween Hamper

If you want to be in with a chance of winning this fabulous Halloween hamper from FOMC, please head to Parentpay, where you can pay £1 for a  ticket towards the FOMC Halloween Raffle.

This is a separate raffle to the school’s October raffle!

Winning House Prize

A blue splash of water that says quot splash quot | Premium AI ...

We are delighted to announce that the winning House for this term is Water.

The children who are in the winning house will enjoy a trip to Jungle Madness on Wednesday 8th October whilst there they will be given  crisps, cookies & juice if you do not wish your child to have these for allergy purposes please contact the school office.

Well done Water House we hope you have a great time at Jungle Madness 

Dress Down Day

Class Dress Down Day | The Great Art Heist Silent Auction | St. Cecilia ...

There will be a Dress Down Day on Friday 10th October. We are asking kindly for a £1 donation via ParentPay . Pupils who pay give a donation will automatically get a free entry into our October Raffle. This item is now live on Parentpay and will be open for payments until Wednesday 22nd October.

October Newsletter

Please see link for October Newsletter

Go to this Sway

Celebrating 70 years of St Joseph’s Academy

Celebrating 70 years of St Joseph’s Academy, Grassyards Road 
We invite you to join us for a celebration Mass in St Joseph’s Academy Assembly Hall on Saturday 22nd November at 11am. We are honoured to have Bishop Dougan presiding over Mass to mark this special occasion. Please use the link or QR code below to register your attendance. We look forward to seeing you then. It would be appreciated if you could share this with your staff and parents.

Halloween Disco

Please see the poster below for details of our Halloween Disco on 30th October. Tickets for this have gone into schoolbags today.

Do not send the money into school please, the £2.50 is payable on the night on entry. Please complete the attached portion of the ticket and make sure your child brings this with them on the night.

Thanks.