Category Archives: Whole School News

Primary 2/3 Curricular Update Term 4

Welcome to our final curriculum update blog post of the session.  Primary 2/3 have been very busy during our third term with lots of new learning, concepts and strategies to develop and understand.

Literacy

In literacy our skills of sequencing and summarising have been covered on a weekly basis and children have worked hard to discuss and write about beginning, middle and end as well as talking about what happened first, next and then. We orally discussed our predictions and continued to give evidence to support whether a text was fiction or non-fiction.  We spent some time talking about the author and illustrator, as well as looking at how a contents page or index can help us find information. We looked at headings and sub- headings and why labels and captions are important when understanding diagrams or pictures too.  Our focus in term 4 will be to scan and select relevant facts or information, summarising and note taking to create a bank of facts that will support us in creating our own pieces of writing or scientific research.

As in previous terms, our reading and spelling activities are continuing at various times throughout the week. Children are using a mixture of practical, hands-on activities such as play dough, scrabble tiles, stencils and chalk boards to practise their spelling words but are also employing strategies such as ‘diacritical marking’ to reinforce their spelling knowledge and identify the phonemes and letters that make up our spelling words. We are using the Active Literacy phoneme stories and word building applications to help us recognise our spelling sound and words in texts we are accessing.

Our focus in writing has been narrative writing. Children developed their own character and setting, using their description skills to build their own stories whilst focusing on structure and sequencing of events to create a flow to tell a story using their own ideas.  By using the 5 senses children created vivid settings which then had an exciting event, before reaching a conclusion in their ending.  In term 4, we will continue to work on descriptive and narrative writing but will also include instructional writing as we write about experiments, we have carried out through our new topic.

Maths

Our focus in maths this term will be division and fact families to make sure children have a solid foundation of this concept, as well as regularly revisiting multiplication skills to retain this knowledge and develop further their understanding of how both concepts are interlinked.

In other areas of maths, measurement such as length, weight and area will be a focus as children use non-standard and standard units of measure to understand height, length, width, and weight.  We will also look at data handling and how we interpret information, as well as creating graphs and bar charts of our own based on information we have collected.

Health & Wellbeing

Our Paths Pupil of the Day is still being received well with pupils and our Pupil of the Day continues to receive lots of compliments and special jobs around the classroom.  We are continuing to explore emotions, comfortable and uncomfortable and how we recognise these emotions within ourselves and in others.  We are also looking at problem solving strategies through discussion, deciding what steps to take if we should experience uncomfortable emotions and prevent escalation when we are angry or frustrated.  Using our traffic light system, which is displayed in the classroom, we hope to give children the tools to self-regulate these emotions or seek help to co-regulate.

In P.E, our sessions will happen inside (Tuesday) once per week, and outside (Thursday) once per week and our focus will be athletics and fielding games. This will help us with the skills we need for sports day activities and how to operate as a team to build the skills to play rounders or other fielding games.

R.E

Our focus during R.E sessions will be the preparation required for our Sacrament of Reconciliation for our P3 pupils.  This will take place in early June and children will have discussions and lessons in class as well as follow up home activities that will be completed with their parents. We will also have Mary, Mother of Jesus as a focus during May as we look at how we honour her as the Mother of Jesus.  Throughout this term we will be accessing and completing discussions and tasks from God’s Loving Plan.

Topic

Our topic over the next term will be ‘Materials’.  This topic has already been well received by the children, who have already begun to look at the different man-made and natural materials in our environment.  Children already knew many materials we have in our everyday lives and could correctly identify which are natural and those that are man-made.  The children will experiment with different materials to gain a better understanding of their limitations and why different materials are used for different areas of our lives (concrete for building and fabric for clothing and warmth).  As part of this topic we will also look at Charles Rennie Macintosh and how he used different materials to bring his designs to life in jewellery and window designs.

As always, we hope this is the start of successful final term as we begin to prepare our children for transition to their next stage of learning.

 

Take care,

Mrs Travers

School Counselling April Newsletter

Please click the link below to see East Ayrshire School Counselling and Psychological Wellbeing Supports Newsletter…

Go to this Sway

EAC Wellbeing Course for Parents

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East Ayrshire Health and Wellbeing are running the following course via Vscene on the dates listed below:

“Wellbeing: A practical approach to supporting your child’s wellbeing”:

Session 1- 11th May 6.30pm-7.30-pm

Session 2- 18th May 6.30pm-8pm

This course looks at how parents can support their own and their child’s mental wellbeing. The sessions are free, however, parents need to commit to attending both sessions to take part in the course.

Parents wishing to take take part on the course should email their contact details directly to :

eahwbteam@eastayrshire.org.uk

by Thursday 5th May 2022

Non-Uniform Day

” Be Yourself Day”

We are going to be celebrating our individuality by having a non- uniform day on Friday 6th May and are asking kindly for a £1 cash donation  which will go towards  school funds for our health week which begins w/c 9th May,  and allow us to provide some lovely activities for the children during  that week .

To link in with mental health week, we are encouraging the children to come dressed in something that makes them happy. It is not fancy dress; however the children should come dressed in colours that make them smile. Appropriate clothing for school please and , as always ,no football strips etc.

Head Teacher Message

Dear staff, parents/carers and pupils,

It is with a great sense of pride that I assume the role of Head Teacher of Mount Carmel Primary School.  I am dedicated to making this school the very best it can be for the whole school community.

I am aware that I follow in the footsteps of so many inspiring Head Teachers and I will endeavour to continue the positive changes that have taken place. I look forward to working in partnership with all of you.

I am honoured to be part of the Mount Carmel Family.

#TeamMC

Mrs Andrea Fergusson

Head Teacher

Mount Carmel Primary School

 

 

Farewell Message from our Head Teacher

Dear Parents/Carers,

In my final days before I retire on Thursday I want to say how much I have enjoyed my short time in Mount Carmel Primary. The three years I have been here have been challenging for our whole school community, but we are emerging from the restrictions of Covid 19 as a stronger, happier team.

I cannot commend all the staff enough for their hard work, dedication and love of the school and the children. They strive to make the experiences for your children the best they can be. Your children are a delight and a credit to you and I look forward to hearing about their successes in the future.

My one regret through this time is I haven’t had a chance to meet many of you personally due to restrictions but I thank you for your continuing support for the staff and the school community.

As I look forward to spending more time with my family I know I am leaving my Mount Carmel family in the safe hands of Mrs Fergusson and all the school staff.

It has been a pleasure and a privilege to be your head teacher.

 

Learning Journals

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Primary 1-3

You will shortly receive a link via email to access your unique log in details for “Learning Journals”. This will allow you to access your child’s learner profile.

You will find instructions to guide you through the log in process and information on how to navigate the platform by accessing the link below:

https://learningjournals.co.uk/thevideos/login-parent-using-lj-website/

 

School Uniform

On the return of pupils on Tuesday 19th April, following the Easter break, we would like to see everyone wearing full school uniform. This should be grey/black trousers, skirt/pinafore, school shirt and tie/polo shirt and blue school sweatshirt. No leggings/tracksuit bottoms unless on PE days where children can wear these with their school sweatshirt on top.

If pupils come to school without a school uniform  for any reason they will be provided with items of uniform for that day.

Thank you for your co-operation on this matter.

Mrs.McConville’s Last Day

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Thursday 31st of March will be our Head Teacher, Mrs. McConville’s last day at Mount Carmel Primary as she is retiring.

There will be an assembly in school on Thursday for Mrs McConville where the children can celebrate her retiral.

We are sure you will all  join with us in wishing her a wonderful retirement and thank her for everything she has done for the school and pupils alike during her time as Head Teacher.

Image result for Free Clip Art We Will Miss You