Look at these cool kids in P1/2 who walked to school yesterday wearing their sunglasses!
Remember, tomorrow you can walk to school with crazy hair for the last day of Walk to School Week.

Beginning next week (23/05/22) we will be making a change to our PE days in P2/3.  Indoors on a Tuesday will remain the same, however our Thursday outside session will be changing to a Wednesday afternoon. This is to accommodate a multi-sports input with Mark Devlin.

I intend to keep the PE days to a Tuesday and Wednesday throughout the remainder of this summer term.

Many thanks for your cooperation,

Mrs Travers

We are very proud of our fantastic Primary 7 pupils who competed very well  in the Rotary Quiz last night. They were a credit to their families and to the school.

On 13th June St Joseph’s parish community will celebrate the 175th anniversary of the solemn opening of our church in 1847. Our community will gather to worship at 7 pm on Monday 13th June to celebrate a Mass of Thanksgiving for the mission of the last 175 years.

We extend a warm invitation to you, your staff and parents and pupils to join St Joseph’s parish community on this occasion.

Thank you.

Kind regards,

Fr Stephen

Rev Stephen G McGrattan

Parish Priest of St Joseph’s

Please keep our Primary 4 children in your prayers as they prepare to celebrate their First Communion on Sunday 22nd May.

Wishing our Primary 7 Rotary Quiz  team good luck for tonight!

We have a small selection of beautiful Communion dresses (some of which are brand new!). If you would like to have a look at our selection please contact the school.

When purchasing school uniform for your child/children our preferences are:

Grey school skirt/pinafore/trousers (black is also acceptable), blue school shirts/polo shirts/blue school sweatshirts.

We would like to remind parents/carers of our Uniform Exchange, where we have a selection of nearly new items of school uniform in a range of sizes, (including some shoes). This is located in the foyer of the school and free to anyone who wishes to make use of it. 

The Uniform Exchange items will be outside the main entrance of the school on Thursday 26th May which coincides with one of our new Primary 1 transition visits. Please feel free to take any items of uniform you may require . There is no cost for this service. All we ask is that when your child grows out of their uniform, please consider recycling it back to our Exchange.

Thanks

As you may already know the council is planning to bid for funding from the Scottish Government Learning Estate Investment Programme to potentially create a new “learning campus” in the Onthank area. The Head of Education has been working closely with Headteachers and Heads of Centre to ensure full involvement in the preparatory and council processes leading towards a full public consultation.

To ensure that we have a full range of views and ideas across schools, a virtual meeting has been planned to which you are warmly invited. This virtual meeting will take place on Wednesday 25th May 2022 at 5.30-7pm.

This virtual meeting will cover the statutory aspect of the consultation namely introducing ECC facilities to Mount Carmel.

If you would like to receive a link to attend this meeting please follow the link below to complete the relevant form.

Kind regards,

Mrs Fergusson

Head Teacher

The campaign website for the “Young Persons’ Free Bus Travel Scheme” freebus.scot is now LIVE!

The website contains lots of helpful information for families and young people about free bus travel, how it works, how to apply, the benefits and some tips for travelling safely too. It also features the decision tool feature, to help make it easier for parents/carers to understand the different ways they can apply. Information on Young Scot Cards can be found using the link below:

http://young.scot/card

NB: A parent, guardian or carer will need to apply if the young person is under the age of 16.

Scotland has changed its definition of Dyscalculia please click the link for full information:

Click to access nih325-scottish-working-definition-of-dyscalculia-april-2022.pdf

Hi everyone. We are lucky enough to have our Active schools Coordinator joining us in Primary 4 for a few weeks. This means that we have to change out Tuesday P.E. slot to a Wednesday. Our Friday slot will remain the same. Please ensure that your child has indoor shoes on both Wednesdays and Fridays. Many Thanks, Mrs McCreadie

As part of our health week at Mount Carmel, we wanted to look at loneliness and how our mental health is just as important as our physical health.  We used our money from our fundraising to gift an afternoon tea package to the local care home, Crossgates. We wanted to show the residents that we care about them and that we are their friends at Mount Carmel. Our lovely Primary 6 children delivered the treat to our friends.

We were super excited when we were told that a special visitor was coming to see us at Mount Carmel. Our friend and author Shirley came to read us a story all about Captain Conkers. The story was amazing!! She talked to us about what it was like being an author . She then told us that the illustrator was a man names Maurice who went to Mount Carmel when he was a little boy. This was exciting enough…and then Captain Conkers appeared to give us a lovely surprise.  Mrs Fergusson was so excited, even she stole a picture.

Primary 5, 6 and 7 were invited to join Kieran at Northwest Boxing club for a session in what it means to be a boxer. All of the children took part and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Kieran was excellent and took time to show the children how to be safe whilst having fun.

We were so excited when Kilmarnock Football Club came to visit us at Mount Carmel. Not only did they talk to us about nutrition and the importance of keeping ourselves healthy, but they brought the Hexagol to teach us some football skills. The children had the best time (and so did some of the teachers too!)

Kilmarnock Rugby club came to visit and showed some of our children how to run, pass and throw a rugby ball…it is a lot more difficult than it looks!

As part of our health week, we also had a look at food health and what makes food healthy and unhealthy. The children helped to prepare food, discussed what a balanced diet is and even had some fun exploring different kinds of food using some of their senses whilst blindfolded…

We were delighted to see some dry weather on Thursday as we had a special visit from Andrew. He is a scouts leader in our area. He showed the children different skills when outside and they were able to explore and use these skills in a safe environment.

On Thursday, we had two very special visitors from ACDA dance academy. Eilidh and Ruth showed all the classes some dances and the children were able to come up with their own routines. If any of the children are interested in joining the dance academy, please contact the school office for more information.

On Wednesday, the children of Mount Carmel were lucky enough to have a visit from our active schools coordinator Mark. He taught us some basketball skills as well as hockey. It was excellent!

As you may already know the council is planning to bid for funding from the Scottish Government Learning Estate Investment Programme to potentially create a new “learning campus” in the Onthank area. The Head of Education has been working closely with Headteachers and Heads of Centre to ensure full involvement in the preparatory and council processes leading towards a full public consultation.

To ensure that we have a full range of views and ideas across schools, a virtual meeting has been planned to which you are warmly invited. This virtual meeting will take place on Wednesday 25th May 2022 at 5.30-7pm.

This virtual meeting will cover the statutory aspect of the consultation namely introducing ECC facilities to Mount Carmel.

If you would like to receive a link to attend this meeting please follow the link below to complete the relevant form.

Kind regards,

Mrs Fergusson

Head Teacher

Today has been a busy day for Health Week.  Primary 6 took part in a range of playground games which they shared with other classes in the school.  Mark Devlin from Active Schools worked with children across the school.

Primary 1-4 also had a very special visitor.  The author Shirley Husband came to the school to share her new book ‘Captain Conker and the Dastardly Plan’.  The children thoroughly enjoyed hearing the story and were delighted when Captain Conker came to see them too.

We have lots of photographs of all our activities from this week to share soon.

Walk to School Week begins on Monday 16th of May and for this week we are encouraging everyone at Mount Carmel to walk to school if they can. We have also decided on a theme for each day.

Monday – walk to school singing your favourite songs.
Tuesday – walk to school wearing your favourite shoes.
Wednesday – walk to school wearing sunglasses.
Thursday – walk to school wearing something red, orange or green.
Friday – walk to school with crazy hair/special hair accessory.

We hope you enjoy walking to school!

Dear Parent/carer,

We are pleased to again be able to start offering pupils from our current Primary 6 & 7 classes the opportunity of brass tuition with Mr. McKreel. Although initially this will only be  a taster session until the end of term, full tuition will begin after the summer break.

If your child is interested in learning a brass instrument please complete the form below:

Brass Tuition Form 2021/2022

God’s Loving Plan

This term all classes will be participating in God’s Loving Plan lessons. This resource is part of the R.E and Health and Wellbeing curriculum. The learning is organised under four themes:

‘God gives me life.’

‘God calls me to love.’

‘God delights in me.’

‘God’s loving plan guides my choices.’

This programme celebrates all individuals and the love God has for them; it also forms our sexual health learning for each year group. As part of the lessons children will learn anatomical language appropriate to their age and stage. We appreciate your support in this and encourage you to answer any questions that the children may have a result of the teaching. If you would like further information regarding what this involves for your child’s class please contact the school office.

As part of our health week activities, the children had asked if we could do a scooter/bike reward play session, like we had done previously for SCIAF.  The children can bring a scooter or bike to school on Friday and during reward play on Friday afternoon, each class will have a timetabled session for using their bikes or scooters in the playground.

Can all children please make sure they have a helmet with them for this outdoor activity as any child without a helmet, will not be able to take part in the scooter/bike activities.

We will have a variety of fun activities arranged over Friday afternoon, smoothie making, food tasting, Zumba, people who help us fancy dress and some art activities. It  should be a fun way to end our health week activities.

Pupils in P5-7 have received a letter today to participate in a Multi- sports club with our sports coordinator Mark Devlin. All details are on the letter, if your child wishes to participate please return form as soon as possible as there are limited places which will be allocated on a first come first serve basis.