As we begin our religious journey through this Lenten period here at Our Lady of the Missions Primary School and looking forward to the great celebration of Easter this is a good opportunity to reflect on the term so far and to update the school community on activities and developments taking place here in our school.
During Lent any donation for SCIAF via the ‘wee boxes’ in each classroom will be most gratefully received. The children have been asked to carry out small deeds, works of charity and raise small donations during Lent.
Parents and pupils are welcome to attend the Rosary group on Tuesday mornings at 8.30am during Lent in the Junior Department.
Mandarin
Primary 5, 6 and 7 pupils have been enjoying learning about the Chinese culture and have had a basic introduction to speaking Mandarin. This is part of the Scottish Government’s initiative 2 + 1 Languages. Here in St Ninian’s Cluster, primary aged children have been taught French and Mandarin in addition to English.
Pupils learned new skills such as calligraphy and origami in anticipation of the Chinese New Year celebrated this year from Thursday 19th – Saturday 21st February.
Nil by Mouth and Show Racism the Red Card
Our Primary 7 classes have welcomed visiting speakers, taken part in workshops and competitions highlighting the need to counter racism and anti-sectarianism in our communities. The pupils were very receptive and engaged in very mature debate and discussions on these sensitive yet very important issues.
Matthew Pollock and Jeremiah Lawson (P7C) have been shortlisted to attend the final adjudication of prize winners in the Show Racism the Red Card competition at Hampden Park on the 19th March.
Scots Literacy Fortnight
We hope that your children have come home recently having learned aspects of the ‘auld’ Scots Language and that you have enjoyed the opportunity to discuss the meaning and pronunciation of some of these words. The children thoroughly enjoyed reading stories, learning poems and singing songs and also hearing tales from a visiting author reading in Scots. Primary 7 pupils also enjoyed a Burns Supper while P6 pupils delivered assemblies to the entire school.
Field to Fork
P1-P3 pupils have been visiting the Museum of Rural Life and Farm in East Kilbride as part of the Field to Fork initiative having received funding from ‘Food for Thought’. The children have been following the food chain from farm to plate. They will take part in ‘tasting’ sessions on March 3rd when a chef will prepare food here in the school to encourage the children from P1 – P3 to try new food items.
As part of the initiative we also propose to grow our own vegetables in a new greenhouse to be installed in the Chestnut Garden adjacent to the Junior Department playground. We will also be working alongside Young Enterprise Scotland and Eastwood Nursery Allotments in Rouken Glen Park to begin cultivating our allotment which is situated in Eastwood Park.
Sporting Successes
- One of our P6 football teams won through to the next round of the Schools’ Football Tournament after having been successful during the preliminary rounds on 8th January at Ferguslie in Paisley.
- Congratulations and thank you to Mr McCann and the school Badminton Team who were highly successful at the tournament in Notre Dame High School Greenock returning with the winning trophy and progressing to national level on Sunday 22nd February.
- Our Netball teams and cross country runners will soon be in action in local competitions and we wish them well and every success.
- Thank you to staff and parents who give of their time to support the wider achievements of our talented pupils.
K’nex Challenge
P6 pupils had a brilliant time taking part in the technology, design and build challenge judged by our K’nex ambassador Jack McGowan. The children had to work in pairs to construct an item for a ‘modern playground’. The winning pairs from Our Lady of the Missions are James de Groote and Ayaan Sarwar and Marc Capaldi and Michael Shiel from P6d. They will move on to the next round against teams from our local primaries of St Joseph’s and St Cadoc’s on Thursday 26th March in St Ninian’s High School.
Euro Quiz
Congratulations to the Euro Quiz team who prepared thoroughly with their teacher Miss Kane to take part in a challenging competition alongside 12 other schools from across East Renfrewshire.
Our team: Alex McBrearty 6a. Michael Moynihan 6a, Leo Bhatti 6b, Calum Smith 6c and Aoibheann Crumlish 6d came fourth with 42 points overall.
After School Activities – Choir, Netball, Homework, Hockey, Dance, Skiing, and Miss-Hits Tennis
We continue to offer a range of after school activities each day thanks to the work of staff, our Active School’s Coordinators and parent volunteers. Netball, hockey, dance, skiing and miss-hit tennis have all been a great success.
We will continue to do our best to accommodate children who wish to take part in after school clubs and activities.
The school choir led by Mr Docherty and Miss Kane are preparing to take part in the Glasgow Music Festival with a large number of boys and girls attending every Wednesday after school.
Roll Back the Stone – Easter Cantata
P6 are busy preparing for their Easter performance of ‘Roll back the Stone’ by Nick Perrin. The story explores Jesus’ journey from Palm Sunday to Easter through song and drama. They will be performing the Cantata on the afternoon of Wednesday 1st April and look forward to inviting you to Eastwood Theatre to share the story with you.
Tickets will be on sale soon.
Fairy Tale Ball
Parents and grandparents of our P1 pupils were highly entertained and enjoyed tea and fairy cakes during their visits to the school to take part in the Fairy Tale Balls.
Fair Trade
Our Fairtrade Committee have been very busy organising some key events to promote Fairtrade Fortnight. The theme this year is “hear their stories, share their stories, change more lives”. In order to ensure that everyone had the opportunity to enjoy some delicious Fairtrade sweets we moved our Fairtrade celebrations forward so that they did not fall during Lent. The Fairtrade committee started our awareness raising event by performing very interesting and thought provoking assemblies for the whole school. They followed this up by running a very successful stall which sold a staggering £1603 worth of Fairtrade products. Our suppliers Rainbow Turtle were delighted with the amount we were able to sell. We welcomed a guest speaker from Rainbow Turtle to speak to the middle and upper school pupils about the benefits of buying Fairtrade and the difference that we as a school could make to people’s lives in other parts of the world. Pupils will continue to take part in Fairtrade lessons in class throughout the rest of Fairtrade Fortnight.
Digital Commonwealth Project
Primary 7c are delighted to announce that they have been highly commended for the Community Engagement work they undertook as part of the ‘Digital Commonwealth Schools Project’ back in September. The class worked hard to retell Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games stories in the form of blogs, audio and video recordings. You can see some great examples of their work on the following link. http://www.olmprimary.digitalcommonwealth.co.uk/
World Book Day – Thursday 5th March
We intend to celebrate World Book Day here in our school on Thursday 5th March. Children and staff are invited to dress up as their favourite book character for the day and to make a donation of £1 which will go towards Lenten Charities.
Children will receive a free book on World Book Day. There will be many events organised throughout the day linked to these books. Children should also bring in their favourite book to participate in a readathon during the day.
Story tellers have also been invited to come into the school and work with the pupils on the day.
P6 pupils will travel to the Mitchell Library in Glasgow on Friday 6th March to listen to the author Jonathan Stroud read from his works.
P7 Cluster Working Visits
The final year of primary education for our present P7 pupils has been very busy so far. Secondary staff and pupils, including Mr Docherty Head Teacher of St Ninian’s High School have visited the P7 classes and given an introduction to secondary school life. The Cluster primaries enjoyed a lively Ceilidh recently in St Ninian’s and the children will now take part in Cluster Working visits, attending high school on three visits, designing and making a pull-a-long toy and visiting a number of departments. In addition there will be a full day visit on Wednesday 20th May – further details will follow.
Parent Staff Association
After a very busy Christmas period the PSA are moving on from the success of the Christmas Fete and are now organising a Family Ceilidh which will take place on Friday 24th April in Carmichael Hall. Tickets and information to follow.
The PSA continue to urge more parents to join their monthly prize draw – 200 Club. First Prize £50, Second Prize £25. If you would like to join please contact the school.
Parent Council
Our Parent Council has also been very active this session holding regular meetings and examining ways in which the home/school partnership may be strengthened with possible new avenues being pursued and further opportunities sought in sharing information. More recently the Parent Council was involved in a presentation and discussion focusing on how as a school we aim to Get It Right For Every Child (GIRFEC).
The link corridor continues to feature on the agenda of Parent Council meetings. The most recent information suggests that the work will be completed just prior to the Spring Break at the end of March when we will be able to access both buildings internally via the new link corridor.
Our attention thereafter will focus on developing the land and space between the two buildings over time in order to make it an additional outdoor resource and play area for the whole school.
Headlice
From time to time, the school received reports from vigilant parents that their child has headlice. I would therefore encourage all parents to make frequent checks and treat when necessary. Parents are discouraged from applying medicated treatments unless nits and headlice are obvious in order to limit their ability to build immunity to products over time.
School Meals
P1 – P3 free school meals are proving very successful with an uptake on many days of 280 and more. The menus have been expanded and also amended to take account of initial consumer feedback. I would invite all parents of pupils in P1 – P3 to look at the menus on line and encourage the children to try the school meals service.
Parents of pupils in P4 – P7 should make regular top ups to their child’s account in order to stay in credit. If you receive a text alert then you have gone into deficit and should lodge money within 24 hours and so help the school office staff by reducing their workload and also allowing the school to keep the school meals account balanced.
Retiral of Jean Connor
Our long serving day and evening cleaner, Mrs Connor, is retiring after 22 years service, 15 of which have been dedicated to our school. She has been a very loyal and hardworking member of staff to whom the children have built up a great deal of affection. We will mark her retirement with school assemblies on Friday 27nd March at which we will make a presentation to her from the children. Later that day the staff will present Mrs Connor with a gift from the staff. We wish Mrs Connor a long and happy retirement and wish her well for the future.
Easter Break
School will close at 2.30pm on Thursday 2nd April for Easter and will re-open at 9.00am on Monday 20th April. May I take this opportunity to thank everyone associated with our school for your continued support and wish you a very happy Easter and Spring Break on behalf of everyone here at Our Lady of the Missions Primary School.
The following Diary of Events should help everyone to keep abreast of what is taking place here in our school from now until Easter.
| Thursday 26th February | P5 Stage Mass – Fr Duggan – 1.45pm Junior Department |
| P7a & P7b first Cluster Working visit to St Ninian’s | |
| P6 Euro Quiz Team – Albertslund Hall | |
| Tuesday 3rd March | Chefs at School – food tasting sessions for P1-P3 pupils |
| Swimming P5c & P5d | |
| Parent Staff Association meeting 7pm | |
| Thursday 5th March | World Book Day |
| P7a & P7b Cluster Working visit to St Ninian’s | |
| Friday 6th March | P7 First Friday Mass – St Vincent’s Church |
| Monday 9th March | Assemblies – Towards a Litter Free East Renfrewshire |
| Tuesday 10th March | Swimming P5c & P5d |
| Wednesday 11th March | P7 Cross Country Event (8 runners) |
| Thursday 12th March | P7a & P7b Cluster Working visit to St Ninian’s |
| St Joseph’s Parish Reconciliation P4 – 7pm | |
| Monday 16th March | St Vincent’s Parish Reconciliation P4 – 7pm |
| Tuesday 17th March | Swimming P5c & P5d |
| Wednesday 18th March | Parents’ Evening 4pm – 7pm |
| St Vincent’s Parish Reconciliation P4 – 7pm | |
| Thursday 19th March | P7c & P7d first transition visit to St Ninian’s |
| Parents’ Evening 4pm – 7pm | |
| Holy Name Reconciliation P4 – 7pm | |
| Tuesday 24th March | Swimming P5c & P5d |
| Egyptian Exhibition P3b & P3c | |
| Wednesday 25th March | Egyptian Exhibition P3a & P3d |
| Thursday 26th March | P7c & P7d transition visit to St Ninian’s |
| K’nex Cluster Challenge at St Ninian’s | |
| Parent Council Meeting 7pm | |
| Tuesday 31st March | Swimming P5c & P5d |
| Tempest Photographer Individual/Family Photos | |
| Lockerbie Manor P6 information evening 7pm | |
| Wednesday 1st April | Tempest Photographer Individual/Family Photos |
| Roll Back The Stone – Eastwood Theatre | |
| Thursday 2nd April | P7c & P7d transition visit to St Ninian’s |
| School closes at 2.30pm for Easter – re-opens Monday 20th April |
