We are excited to announce that Health Week will take place from Monday 9th until Friday 13th of May.
We have an exciting week of Health and Mental Health actives for all of our children.
P5 Curriculum Update – Term 4
Welcome back! We hope you had a lovely Easter break with your families and are ready for a fun packed and hopefully sunny last term. Fingers crossed!!
Primary 5 have now established themselves in our upper school and continue to strive to be good role models for their peers and build on their increasing independence.
During term 4 our focus will be:
Literacy
This term P5 will be focussing on Narrative writing, we will be developing literary devices and linking this to our topic. In reading, we will continue our progress within Bug Club further developing our AL comprehension strategies as described in our latest ‘Sharing the Learning’ video. We will focus on listening and talking throughout our topic lessons, expressing our opinions and justifying these with good reasoning in debate/ lesson presentations. Some groups will continue to work on literal comprehension and prediction skills, whilst others will continue their work on inferential and evaluative questions. Spelling and phoneme work will be consolidated this term and pupils will use ‘Active Spelling’ resources and activities to support this.
Numeracy
This term, P5 will be focussing on Division, as well as Fractions and Decimals. The circles and rectangles groups will complete division with remainders. The squares and triangles will also focus on these areas at their level. In Beyond Number, pupils will look at 2D and 3D shape recognition and properties, making links to angles and symmetry. Later in the term, we will also be exploring ‘Measurement’. (volume, mass, length, area)
Health and Well-being / PE
We will be focussing on completing our PATHS lessons and moving onto explore further areas such as healthy food, hygiene, bodies (God’s Loving Plan) as well as keeping ourselves safe. We will also look at substances that can damage our physical and emotional health, appropriate to our age. Pupils will have the opportunity to visit many of these concepts during our whole school ‘Health week’.
PE days will now be on Wednesday and Friday mornings. We will participate in independent and teamwork for Athletics during April/May moving onto Orienteering in June. Pupils will complete these lessons outdoors as much as possible so please make sure your child is prepared for the weather that day. It is essential that your child comes to school prepared for outdoor learning in appropriate clothing as we hopefully plan to be outside more as the summer nears and weather improves. Make sure they have plenty of water with them for very hot periods and sun cream.
Science
This term in Science we will be investigating water. We will be developing our knowledge and understanding of the water cycle and also exploring and investigating the methods for purifying water. We will look at the many uses of water and why it is important to conserve water.
RE
As Eastertide passes, we will be mainly focusing on Mary, Our Lady. Celebrating her example and significance through the Gospel of Mark as well as revisiting the feast of the Ascension and Pentecost. In June, we will look at God’s Loving Plan resources as part our This Is Our Faith programme. This will look closely at friendships, relationships as well as the role of being a parent /carer.
IDL
Our enterprise topic this term is ‘A Night at the Movies’. Pupils will look at the evolution of the film industry from the silent movies, introduction of sound, colour, animation, from Drive-Thru to 3D/4D currently. This will include developing our Talking and Listening and also writing skills (scripts/movie reviews, Gogglebox), also ICT skills ( Green screen/ ipad) to make our own movie trailers which will incorporate set design, production and directing and expressive arts lessons to create our sets. These will be ‘premiered’ at our own Oscars ceremony/Party where we will dress up in our best and have the opportunity to culminate all our learning, have fun and raise some funds for school.
Thank you again for your continual support throughout this year for our P5 pupils , class and school.
Mrs McIntyre & Mrs Mackinnon
Staffing update
We are sad to say that the fantastic Mrs Gallacher in our clerical staff is moving on from Mount Carmel on Friday 29th April. Many of you will know Mrs Gallacher from Onthank ECC as well as our school. She has been an amazing part of our school team and will be greatly missed by pupils, parents and staff.
We wish you the very best in your next big adventure.
Primary 1 Term 4 Curriculum Update
Welcome back to the Primary 1 blog where you can find out what the children will be learning about as they continue to grow and develop throughout this final term.
Literacy
Primary 1 have become more and more confident when using initial sounds to word build. They will continue to work on word building this term, however, they will now focus on building CVCC as well as CCVC words (4 letters). Primary 1 will continue to use the Active Literacy strategy “say, make, break, read and write” to support them with this new learning. In addition to this, Primary 1 will continue to learn new common words every week as well as a new joined phoneme each week until they have learned all common words within stage 1. Primary 1 will continue to have lots of opportunities to practise word building and common words in a range of active ways in line with the Active Literacy approach to learning. A focus for Primary 1 during this last term will be using their knowledge of word building and common words to build sentences independently. The children in Primary 1 will have many opportunities to develop their independent writing skills this term through weekly news, free writing and sentence tasks linked to their spelling sounds. To support this new learning, Primary 1 will also apply their reading skills when writing. The children will have sentence building tasks linked to their reading books each week; this will ensure appropriate differentiation. In addition to this, Primary 1 will continue to focus on description writing this term, they will describe different objects in relation to their Spring topic as well as characters and objects from familiar stories. Primary 1 will continue to focus on describing number, colour, texture and size. The children will be encouraged, where appropriate to write independently.
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 letter formation through regular handwriting lessons/activities.
Numeracy and Mathematics
This term, Primary 1 will consolidate their understanding of the concept of addition within 10. They will focus on increasing their mental accuracy of number bonds to 10. The children will have many opportunities to develop their mental accuracy through mental math quizzes and number talks. In addition to this, Primary 1 will apply their knowledge of addition within 10 when working on missing number calculations as well as word problems. When Primary 1 are confident in their addition skills they will begin to focus on subtraction within 10. The children will transfer their skills to answer subtraction calculations and word problems. In addition to this, Primary 1 will consolidate their knowledge of numbers to 20 and beyond.
Primary 1’s beyond number focus this term will be time. The children will learn about both analogue and digital clocks. They will learn to tell the time using both types of clocks as well as match them. They will focus on tell the “o’clock” time on both clocks. Primary 1 will learn about what the hands (minute and hour) on the clock face mean (analogue) as well as the numbers on the digital clock (00). In addition to this, Primary 1 will revise the days of the week as well as the months of the year as part of this new learning. Primary 1 will learn about measurement this term with Miss Mulhern. They will work on developing their knowledge of length, capacity and volume. Primary 1 will develop this new learning through a hands-on approach.
Health and Wellbeing
Primary 1 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 love giving and receiving compliments each day as part of “Pupil of the Day”. Primary 1 will continue to learn about their emotions through a range of activities and stories based around the PATHS puppets. The children in Primary 1 continue to engage enthusiastically with this programme.
In addition to this, Primary 1 will learn about how to keep themselves safe including what is meant by medicines and harmful substances. Primary 1 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 will focus on athletics and orienteering. The children will practice running, jumping, and throwing both independently as well as part of a team. Once Primary 1 have developed their running, jumping, and throwing skills they will compete against each other in friendly relay races. In addition to this, Primary 1 will apply their ability to follow instructions within the classroom to giving and following instructions within the outdoor environment.
P.E. days will continue to be Monday and Thursday.
Religious Education
This term Primary 1 will learn about the beauty of God’s creation and how it is seen in them and all living things through God’s Loving Plan. The children in Primary 1 will reflect on the love that God instills upon them, giving thanks for talents and life itself. Primary 1 will think about Our Lady this term. The children will reflect on Mary as the mother of Jesus and the Mother of all of us. They will revise the nativity story as well as the Easter story to support their thinking. Primary 1 will also learn to pray the “Hail Mary”.
IDL
This term, Primary 1 will continue to learn about different materials through the science-based topic materials. They will explore a range of materials to enhance their understanding of the world. They will carry out different experiments which enable them to investigate and compare materials. In addition to this, Primary will explore the topic “Plants” this term. They will complete investigations about different plants through a range of field-based activities. Primary 1 will engage with this topic through a hands-on approach.
Thank you for visiting the Primary 1 blog, keep a look out for any further updates as term 4 progresses!
Thank you,
Mrs Dunsmore.
Learning Journals Primary 1
Primary 1 parents please log in to your childs Learning Journal account to see what your child has been up to!
If you have not yet logged in for the first time, you have been emailed a link to support you as you do this. If you have any issues when logging in, please contact the school office.
Enjoy!!
Mrs Dunsmore
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…
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Music instruction Primary 6 & 7
Please see below the link that should be accessed should you want your child to receive brass instruction. We kindly ask that if your child is interested in this provision that the form be filled in ASAP.
Many Thanks
Consultation Letter
Please read the attached letter from Head of Education, Linda McAulay-Griffiths:
EAC Wellbeing Course for Parents
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 :
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.
Welcome!
We also welcome Mrs Clark, classroom assistant, who will be with us until the end of June.
Primary 6 and 7 sports clubs
Please see the links below for information regarding P6 & P7 sports clubs. A great opportunity to meet children of the same age group.
All activities are free for children.
Primary 4 – 7 sports clubs
Please see the links below for information on clubs that are taking place for P4-7 children.
All activities are free.
Please note that the football club is for girls only.
P1 & P2 Sports and Activities
Please follow the link for some exciting Sport activities taking place for Primary 1 and 2 between the 26th April and the 17th May at McIlvanney Campus. All activities are free.
Welcome Back To School
We hope everyone had an enjoyable Easter break!
Return to school
We hope all of our children and their families have had an enjoyable time celebrating Easter this weekend and their spring holiday.
We are looking forward to seeing all children return to school tomorrow at 9am. A reminder that full school uniform should be worn, or suitable trousers/shorts if a PE day.
SCIAF
During Lent we have managed to raise an amazing £612.33.
Thank you to all of our staff, parents, carers and pupils for supporting this. An extra special thank you to Primary 4 and Mrs McCreadie for organising all of our fundraising events.
Staffing
This week we welcomed Mrs Clark as a new temporary classroom assistant. Welcome to Mount Carmel.
After the Spring holidays both Mrs McCreadie and Mrs Crawford will temporarily assume the Acting Depute Head role within Mount Carmel Primary School.
Easter Raffle and Sweet Treat
A huge congratulations to our class Easter Egg raffle winners who each walked away with an Easter Egg. Some extra lucky children won the Easter hampers!
Children also enjoyed a visit from the ice cream van. We would like to say a huge thank you to Mrs McConville who provided this special treat.
Primary School counselling Services
Please have a look at East Ayrshire’s Counselling service newsletter for March.
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Easter School Closure
The school will close today at 2.30pm. Children who receive transport by taxi will be collected at 2pm. Pupils and staff return to school on Tuesday 19th April.
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
Non Uniform Day
Today is a non uniform day . Children can come to school in their own clothes. In return, we are asking for a £1 donation via Parentpay , which will go towards school funds.
Mrs McConville
Today we celebrated with Mrs McConville as she retired. This afternoon we had a special assembly and Primary 7 shared beautiful messages from the whole school. We also sang ‘You are my sunshine’ and a fantastic reworked rendition on ‘Working 9-3’.
If was a lovely day, enjoyed by us all.
Non uniform Day
A reminder that tomorrow is a non uniform day . Children can come to school in their own clothes. In return, we are asking for a £1 donation via Parentpay, which will go towards school funds.
No Dogs In the Playground
We would again like to remind parents/carers that dogs are not permitted in the playground either before 9am or after 3pm.
Thank You.
Easter Raffle and Hamper Prize
Remember…there is still time for you to enter and
win one of these fabulous Easter prizes…
Thursday is the last day to buy your raffle tickets!!!
House Prize!
Fire House had an amazing House Prize today!
The children enjoyed their movie morning with snacks and created some delicious smoothies with Stephanie in the afternoon.
Everyone had a great day! Thank you to our wonderful kitchen staff for their help with the fabulous smoothies.
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.
