All posts by Mrs Neil

How to apply for a primary 1 school catchment place beginning August 2024.

The online application process for primary one catchment places at East Renfrewshire schools is now open.

If you have a child who will be five-years old between March 2024 and February 2025  you should apply to register using the link below.

Apply for primary 1 application form – East Renfrewshire Council

The deadline for applications is midnight on 19 January 2024.

Further information is available is available at the link below

Apply for primary 1 – East Renfrewshire Council

National Galleries Scotland – Your Art World

Welcome to Your Art World

We are really excited to announce the launch of National Galleries Scotland’s Your Art World!

Three of our talented and very articulate pupils were selected to form part of a special artistic steering group at Scotland’s most prestigious National Galleries.

Art Club is a new network for 5-18 year olds across Scotland, to develop and celebrate their creativity through visual arts.  Every term they will post a new set of art challenges designed by children, for children. The aim is to inspire you to think, wonder, make and share your art in National Galleries Scotland’s online gallery. It could be 2D, 3D, film, animation, performance, writing or anything else you can think of.

Our pupils have taken part in workshops with the Galleries’ Artists and have now set the nation an Art challenge! No mean feat! This term, they focussed on “Words. What can they make us feel, see, create?”

The launch is now live! Click on the links below to see our confident, articulate pupils challenge the country to create. You can also watch some professional artists respond.

Can these talented pupils challenge you and your family? We’d love to see what you create in response!

https://www.nationalgalleries.org/learn/your-art-world/question-challenge-spring-2021

https://www.nationalgalleries.org/learn/your-art-world/word-challenge-summer-2021

P1 and P2 Nativities

Primary 1 and 2 Nativity performances are now available to access at the links below. Well done to the children on some fabulous acting and narrating. We hope that next year we can reintroduce singing too! Also, a big thank you to the teachers and pupil support assistants for single-handedly writing, rehearsing, filming and editing the productions. We hope you enjoy them.

P1a Nativity 2020

P1b Nativity 2020

P2a Nativity 2020

P2b Nativity 2020

 

Winners alert!

We are very proud to announce that we have two Winners who took part in The National Galleries of Scotland Art Competition for Schools 2020.

All winning Art works will be exhibited at The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. Both our winners Patrick (P6) and Riley (now S1 at St. Luke’s) can be found in the Primary 4-7 Section. This is indeed an incredible achievement for our pupils to have their work recognised by one of Scotland’s most prestigious Art Awards.

You can book a slot to see their work displayed in the gallery at the link below.

https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/features/national-galleries-scotland-art-competition-schools-and-families

School Feast Day

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Mark. This year, we cannot be together in school and in church to celebrate, but we can reflect on the many inspiring qualities of our patron saint. We have taken some time to think about how St. Mark’s example helps us to stay close to God and try to live  a good life. Next week we would love to hear from you and your families about how you are “making your mark”. You can upload to Google Classroom, email or tweet us with pictures of you with a letter you have designed and a phrase that explains how you try to follow Mark’s example. Encourage your whole family to join in, be creative and have fun. Once we receive all your pictures, we’ll put them together with ours to make a film that represents as many of our school community as possible.

God bless and happy feast day to all of you.

Click on the link below to watch our short film.

FEAST DAY VIDEO

Home Learning Guide for Parents

Dear Parent/Carer,

You will be aware that the Scottish Government published a document yesterday to support pupils, parents and teachers during the ongoing school closures.  This document is available at the link below.

‘Supporting Pupils, Parents and Teachers – Learning During Term 4’

To provide further support in this area, the following documents have been produced to help as you undertake learning activities at home with your child(ren).

Learning at Home – Guidance for Parents and Carers

Useful weblinks for online learning

We hope that you find this information helpful. If you require any further support or advice during this time, please email schoolmail@st-marks.e-renfrew.sch.uk and a member of staff will get back to you as soon as possible.

 

Home Learning – advice for parents

Dear Parent / Carer,

Many of you are perhaps feeling overwhelmed by the current situation and are worried about the level of support that you are able to give your child with their home learning. We would like to reassure all families that the main priority during this unprecedented situation is ensuring that everyone stays healthy (mentally and physically).

Whilst we hope that all parents will support their children with the learning tasks assigned to them by their teachers, we would like to stress that we do not expect you to become a teacher yourself. All we ask is that you encourage your children to access Google Classroom every day and provide them with a quiet, comfortable space to complete their assignments. In the same way as homework should not become a battleground, neither should the current home learning experience. All teachers are available on Google Classroom to answer pupils’ questions and parents can contact the school by email if they need additional support.

You are, and always have been, your child’s primary educator. If you cannot facilitate the online learning at some points then that is okay. There are many alternative activities that you can do with your children that will have a positive impact on their academic achievement. For example:

  • Reading every day
  • Writing to loved ones that they cannot visit at the moment, recounting a special memory or keeping a diary
  • Practical maths: cooking, sorting items, scavenger hunts (e.g. find 5 red objects or 3 objects beginning with ‘s’)
  • Fine motor work: lego, cutting, playdough, tidying up small toys
  • Research a topic of interest (country/famous person/invention, etc)
  • Board games and card games
  • Lots of imaginative free play

There is now a ‘Home Learning’ page on our website that has a range of helpful documents and videos to support you and your child with Glow, Google Classroom and other online tools. We will update this when necessary. Click here to access the page.