Category Archives: Whole School News

Whole School News

Primary 1 – Term 2 blog update

Primary 1 are back from the October break and ready to learn!! We have a busy and fun filled term ahead including some “spooky” activities for Hallowe’en before getting ready to celebrate our first Christmas as part of the Mount Carmel school community.

Literacy

This term we will be continuing 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 making predictions about the stories we read in class, using the title and illustrations to help us.

During writing activities, we are continuing to talk about our ideas for our stories, using pictures to help us.

Numeracy

Now that we have explored the numbers to 10 fully and have looked at “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 our number stories, where we learn the different ways to “make” our numbers to 10. These number stories (or facts) are the building blocks to which all the other number processes are built upon, so we will spend a lot of time on these, ensuring they are well embedded before moving on.

Alongside addition, the children will be introduced to the numbers to 20, looking at how these numbers are constructed and sequenced.

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

 

Health & Well being

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.

Through our topic, we will be exploring the people who can help us when we need someone to talk to or feel unsafe.

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

Topic

Our topic this term is “People who Help Us” and will be very relevant in terms of our health and hygiene awareness in school just now. We will begin by considering the people who help us within our school community and will move on to look at the roles of those who help us in our wider community, eg, police officers, nurses, fire fighters.

RE

During RE we will continue to give thanks for God’s love. We will explore how this love is shown through the “People who help us and care for us”. We will give thanks for these people and for the care they have shown us.

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.

PE

Our PE will continue to be outdoors (weather permitting) . Please continue to dress your child in joggers and trainers on our gym days which are now Monday and Thursday!

Thanks for your support

Mrs Duff

Whole School News

Halloween Reminder

 

Please remember that tomorrow is our –

Halloween Theme Day !

Children can come to school dressed up for the day and they will take part in fun activities in their classes.  All classes will also visit the Onthank Pumpkin Trail tomorrow, so please send your child to school with a waterproof jacket and suitable footwear as , even if the weather is dry , the Trail will still be very muddy!!

 

Whole School News

Primary 1/2 Curriculum Overview Term 2

Primary 1/2 Curriculum Overview Term 2 2020

Welcome back to the Primary 1/2 blog. Here you will find out what Primary 1/2 will be learning about this term as they continue to grow as learners and as individuals.

Literacy

Primary 1

Primary 1 worked very hard last term to develop their phonological awareness. They have used this new knowledge to support them as they began to learn some of the initial sounds. Primary 1 will continue to learn two new sounds every week until they have learned all initial sounds (26). As Primary 1 grow in confidence, recognising and identifying initial sounds they will use this knowledge to word build. In addition to this, Primary 1 will be learning new common words every week alongside the initial sounds. Primary 1 will have lots of opportunities to practice each new sound and common words in a range of active ways in line with the Active Literacy approach to learning. As Primary 1 become more confident when word building and recognising common words they will focus on using these words to build simple sentences as well as apply this knowledge to read worded texts.

Primary 1 will continue to develop their talking and listening skills; understanding when to listen and when to respond, taking turns and communicating with others. They will also continue to develop their fine motor skills and pincer grip which will enable them to write their names independently as well as form letters and numbers in the correct way.

Primary 2

Reading – This term, Primary 2 will be developing their reading skills through focusing on the skill cloze procedure. The children will focus on punctuation, unjumbling sentences and finding and locating missing words/information using their Bug Club guided reading books, this will allow the task to be differentiated appropriately. Primary 2 will also continue to develop their prediction skills this term, they will progress their previous learning of orally providing predictions through group discussion to written predictions in relation to their Bug Club reading books. In addition to this, Primary 2 will continue to develop their sequencing and visualisation skills. They will continue to read/listen to a range of traditional stories including Goldilocks and the Three Bears, they will have opportunities to role play the stories to ensure correct sequence before they independently sequence the story.

Writing – Primary 2 will develop their imaginative writing skills this term. They will use a range of familiar contexts including Halloween, Bonfire Night and Christmas to develop this skill. They will use a range of stimuli to engage their imaginations including detailed pictures, video clips and physical props. Primary 2 will focus on developing their use of vocabulary to set the scene as well as describe characters and build tension where appropriate. Primary 2 will also focus on developing their functional writing skills (instructions). The children will use their prior knowledge of sequencing to support their learning about instructions. Primary 2 will also learn all about imperative (bossy) verbs during this term. The children will write a range of instructions including; how to wash your hands, how to brush your teeth and how to cross the road safely. Primary 2 will role play each of the experiences before writing instructions to ensure understanding of the correct sequence.

Spelling – Primary 2 will continue to learn new phonemes in accordance with the Active Literacy programme. They will learn a new joined phoneme as well as new common words each week Primary 2 will continue to develop their knowledge of phonemes and spelling strategies through an active approach. They will continue to apply this knowledge alongside the development of their sentence structure skills. Primary 2 will continue to use the Phonic Bug resource to support and enhance their knowledge of new phonemes.

Grammar – Primary 2 will continue to work on using punctuation such as full stops and capital letters as they continue to develop their sentence building skills. Primary 2 will now focus on extending their sentences through use of connectives including “and”, “but” and “because”.

Primary 1/2

Primary 1/2 will have some new opportunities to develop their talking and listening skills this term. They will participate in a solo poster presentation as part of their Grandparents topic.

Numeracy and Mathematics

Primary 1

This term, Primary 1 will have lots of opportunities to practice and consolidate their knowledge of numbers to 10 as well as quantities to 10 in a range of different ways. As Primary 1 become more confident when comparing quantities, they will now think about “more” and “less”. In addition to this, Primary 1 will begin to learn about the concept of addition within 10. They will have the opportunity to use a range of concrete resources to develop their understanding of this new concept before moving towards applying their knowledge mentally.

Primary 2

Numeracy – This term primary 2 will continue to develop their number processes. Primary 2 will focus on developing their understanding of addition and subtraction within 20. As well as learning and consolidating their number bonds within 20. They will work on deepen their knowledge of addition strategies and applying these within different contexts such as number talks and word problems.

Primary 1/2

Mathematics – Primary 1/2 learn about position and movement in term 2 as part of their beyond number concepts. The children will build on their knowledge of instructional writing and sequencing when undertaking this new learning. The children will also access coding software and use Spheros to apply their knowledge of position and movement. In addition to this, Primary 1/2 will learn about measurement this term. They will work on developing their knowledge of length, capacity and volume. Primary 1/2 will develop this new learning through a hands-on approach.

 

Health and Wellbeing

Primary 1/2 will continue to develop their social and emotional skills through our whole school PATHS programme. The children continue to enjoy engaging with the puppets and love it when they visit our classroom. Primary 1/2 love giving and receiving compliments each day as part of “Pupil of the Day”. Primary 1/2 will continue to learn about their emotions through a range of activities and stories based around the PATHS puppets. The children in Primary 1/2 continue to engage enthusiastically with this programme.

In addition to this, Primary 1/2 will learn about how to keep themselves safe including what is meant by medicines and harmful substances. Primary 1/2 will learn to identify which substances may be helpful and which may be harmful in given situations as well as suggest ways to get help in unsafe and emergency situations, such as seeking out an adult and calling the emergency services.

 

Physical Education

This term Primary 1/2 will focus on developing their large and small ball skills including skills related to playing football. In addition to this, Primary 1/2 will have the opportunity to develop their social dancing skills in preparation for their class Christmas party. They will learn dances such as The Grand Old Duke Of York. Primary 1/2 will, as always, complete all physical activities with safety at the forefront. At the moment, all PE lessons will continue to take place outdoors.

P.E. days will continue to be Tuesday and Friday. Please ensure your child comes to school dressed appropriately with either joggers or leggings and trainers. Your child must continue to wear their school jumper as part of their uniform on PE days.

Religious Education

As November is the month of Remembrance, Primary 1/2 will learn about different saints including St. Andrew. The children will listen to stories from the Bible that will teach them about love and the importance of praying for loved ones as well as people who have died. Throughout December, Primary 1/2 will learn about the birth of Jesus. The children will learn how Advent helps us to prepare for the celebration of Christmas. Primary 1/2 will participate in daily prayers around the crib as well as light the Advent candles at the appropriate time. During Advent, Primary 1/2 will be reminded of the importance of showing kindness and love during this time.

IDL

This term, Primary 1/2 will be completing the topic Grandparents. During this topic, Primary 1/2 will learn about the 1950s and 1960s as this is the key period relating to the children’s Grandparents. The children will compare their own lives to the lives of their Grandparents when they were a similar age. The children will also compare their school lives with their Grandparents school lives. In addition to this, as we approach the Christmas period, Primary 1/2 will think about how Christmas is celebrated in their local community as well as learn about Christmas traditions around the world.

Reminder

If your child has not already done so, please ensure that your child brings in appropriate outdoor learning clothes. This will allow your child to fully engage with any outdoor learning experiences.

Please ensure that you write your child’s name on any items of clothing they may take off throughout the school day, eg. jumpers. This will help to ensure your child doesn’t lose any items of clothing.

Thank you for visiting the Primary 1/2 blog, keep a look out for any further updates as term 2 progresses!

Thank you,

Mrs Dunsmore.

 

Whole School News

P6 Learning Overview – Term 2

Welcome Back to Term 2  

I hope everyone had a relaxing holiday.  

Below is an overview of the Term 2 learning and teaching.  

Literacy  

Reading 

We will be using the Bug Club core readers to aid and build on our active comprehension skills. Pupils will focus on a chapter each week and work on tasks around the chapters they have read. Pupils will also work on specific skills such as inference this term. Some pupils will start to use direct quotes from the text to justify their answers to comprehension questions.  

Writing 

This term Primary 6 will continue to focus on Narrative writing and Figurative Language (Similes, Alliteration, Personification, and Metaphors). Pupils will focus on purpose and audience: they will have the opportunity to write stories for some of our younger pupils to listen to and enjoy. We will focus on a different aspect of grammar/punctuation each week. Our writing day will be on Thursday. The class will be told the focus of their writing in the homework grid sent out on a Monday.  

Spelling 

The spelling groups will continue to experience the Active Literacy spelling program, this will introduce common words and focus phonemes pertinent to their stage. The pupils will revise the Active Spelling strategies throughout Term 2.  

Numeracy 

This term we will be focusing on the four operations within the context of decimals and long multiplication. We will also cover 2D and 3D shapes and a money and finance topic. Mrs. McIntyre will also focus on Beyond Number topics on a Friday. The pupils will experience activities at their stage and level. The revision of multiplication tables will be encouraged across all groups. Sumdog and Topmarks games can help with the rigor of x-tables at home.  

Health and Wellbeing 

Our focus this term is Internet Safety. This topic ties in with our class topic of digital skills. Our weekly PATHS lessons will focus on social and emotional lessons. The pupils enjoy ‘Pupil of the Day’ and are great at giving each other lovely compliments. 

Our PE days are Tuesday and Wednesday and is it very important the pupils bring in a jacket these days. I have also suggested to the pupils that they bring in a change of bottoms just in case our PE days are ‘rainy’ – that will become a certainty coming into the winter months. The pupils understand that I will try my utmost to deliver PE lessons outdoors, however, this might become tricker as we come into the winter months.  

IDL 

Our class topic this term is Digital Skills. Stong digital skills are vital in today’s world. Pupils will learn about different aspects of Office 365 such as Teams, Forms, and PowerPoint. We will also be learning how to email correctly. Pupils will learn how to use different features of our school iPads and will create and edit videos to highlight learning in the class. Our topic ties in nicely with Literacy – using word processing to publish writing and creating reports. Office 365 can be downloaded FREE from the pupils’ Glow account.  

RME 

Throughout Primary 6 the pupils will listen to and engage with stories from the Gospel of Matthew. We have already started looking at The Bible as our sacred text. In the months of October and November, we’ll be looking at the story of Creation. During the month of December, we will look at the Nativity through the Gospel of Matthew.  

The pupils are also working hard to gain individual reward cards for Amazing Attitude, Wonderful Work, and being a Superstar. When the pupils gain five reward cards, they can trade them in for an individual prize or keep them until everyone gets 5 cards each for a whole class reward 😊  

Thank you for all your support.  

Miss Mudge 😊  

Whole School News

Poppy Scotland 2020

This year , because of the current situation with Coronavirus, our fundraising for The Earl Haig Fund Scotland will be slightly different.

Instead of having the usual collection tins in school which are passed round the classes for donations, we have set up a Parent Pay item where we are suggesting donations of £1 where possible.  We will thereafter distribute poppies to the children on Wednesday 4th November.

All donations made will be passed directly to

The Earl Haig Fund Scotland.

Whole School News

Primary 3 – Term 2

Primary 3 Blog Update – Term 2

 

I hope you all had a lovely October week.  Pupils have been working hard in term 1 and these are our learning intentions for term 2.

Literacy

Reading

In term 1 we completed our book study ‘The Owl Who was Afraid of the Dark’ by Jill Tomlinson.  We enjoyed learning about Plop and how he overcame his fear of the Dark.  We are now working in our reading groups and reading a mixture of fiction and non-fiction texts (also some plays). We have been looking at the key features of fiction and non-fiction texts such as contents and index pages.    Pupils will continue working on Bug Club books with a focus on making predictions of what we think will happen in the text or what we think the story will be about from looking at the front cover.  We are also working on developing our tone and reading with expression.

Writing

In term 1 we have focussed on writing from personal experience. We have been linking our sentences to make sure our stories make sense.  In term 2 we will continue to develop this further and now expand our writing by writing imaginative stories.  We will make sure our stories include the 5ws (who, where, when, what and why).  We will continue to work on the formation of our letters making sure our handwriting is well formed and attractive.  Thinking about our ascenders and descenders.   We will continue to reinforce capital letters, fingers spaces and full stops and starting to build on our knowledge of punctuation such as: commas, question marks and exclamation marks.

 

Spelling

Each week we work in our spelling groups and have a

different joined phoneme focus.  We use say, make/break, blend, read and write to aid our understanding of how words are made.  We are also continuing to build on our knowledge of common words and using our personal dictionary/word book to add words that we need in our writing.

We are all looking forward to receiving our two new storybooks as part of the Scottish Read, Write and Count! The book Wow! Animals: A Book of Extraordinary Animal Facts  will be fantastic in helping us with our new Science  topic.

Numeracy

In Numeracy, we have been practising our numbers to 100. We have been practising skip counting in 2, 5 and 10s and starting to link this to our timestables.  We have also been looking at odd and even numbers.   We have been partitioning numbers into ten and units.  We will now start to look at addition and subtraction strategies.  We will be learning different Number Talk strategies.   In beyond number we will continue to work on 2D and 3D shapes with Mrs McIntyre.

Health and Wellbeing

As part of our PATHS lessons, we have been selecting a Pupil of the Day and writing a compliments list to explain why they are a special member of our class.  We have also been discussing diff

erent emotions and recognising that every emotion is ok.   We talk about if we feel comfortable (yellow) or uncomfortable (blue).  When discussing an emotion for example Scared or Safe we discuss times we have felt this emotion and what they look/feel like. We also try to recognise what signs our face show to indicate these emotions and how we could identify how others are feeling.  We are now moving onto learning about Self Control.

P.E.

In P.E. we will continue to go outside every Tuesday and Thursday and play games and we will work on our Ball Skills.  Please make sure  your child has appropriate clothes for going outdoors.  Especially in the cold/wet weather.

R.E.

In R.E. we have been practising our prayers and are currently practising our Hail Mary and moving onto the Act of Sorrow.  We have spoken about different Bible Stories such as the Story of Creation and Noah’s Ark.  We will move onto learn about different Saints such as Saint Andrew and then move onto learn about Advent in preparation for Christmas.

Topic

Our topic this term will be Science based Living Things – Classifying Vertebrates.  We will be learning about Living and Non Living things.  We will be looking at animals that have vertebrates (backbones)  and animals that are invertebrates (no back bone).  In doing this we will also look at food chains and how animals depend on one another.

We are looking forward to working hard and another busy term 2 ahead. We are very excited for our next fun Fridays for Halloween and Children in Need.

Thank you for your continued support,

Mrs Strachan

 

 

 

Whole School News

Rainbow Reward Request

Rainbow Reward Request

We have asked the children from Primary 1 and 1/2 what toys they would like to play with during our new Reward Play time,and they have given us quite a wish list ! FOMC have kindly offered to help us out. However, in the meantime, if anyone has any of the following toys that are looking for a new home, please could you hand them into the main office. All items handed in will be sanitised and qaurantined before use:

Sand/Sandpit, Toy Story Dolls, Lego, Unicorn toys,  Cars (big), Toy Superheroes, Farm, Avenger toys, Action figures, Ninja Turtles, Barbies/Barbie House, Power Rangers, Robots

 

 

 

 

Whole School News

Brand new Surplus Uniform

We have a selection of surplus brand new school uniform which we have decided to offer to parents/carers at a minimal price. This will be on a first come first served basis.

All proceeds will go directly to MCPS school funds. Please contact the school with your order and instructions on how to pay. Any orders made will be sent home with your child. 

Please click the link to view the price list.

New Uniform price list

 

 

Whole School News

Face Coverings

As of tomorrow, following reviewed national guidance, all staff are now required to wear face coverings more often during the school day.

We know that this might be upsetting for some children. Staff will ensure that pupils are supported in adapting to this change and will reassure them that it not something to worry about. We would appreciate if you could also discuss this at home.

Thank you, as always, for your support.

 

Whole School News

Parent Council Meeting

The next meeting of the Parent Council , which will also be their AGM, will be on Tuesday 20th October.  Please note this will be an online meeting. Anyone interested in attending please email the Parent Council on: mcparentcouncil@gmail.com to obtain a link to the meeting.

The Parent Council are looking for more people to join. If you are interested please complete the following questionnaire:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeUaDCWX1NIT5_6k5ofDhxoRhIoK2gbdozHdbWc1nCktuTsyQ/viewform?fbclid=IwAR1PAU1TucBCU2Z2u5sI-B0JbRaAaIOdPJvBk8nNpKV54yEDHPp9xtzsm_8

Thank You.