November newsletter

December 19, 2018 by Mrs Marletta | 0 comments

Here is a copy of the information in our November newsletter.

As you are no doubt aware we place a high emphasis on children wearing school uniform and I appreciate your support in upholding this important aspect of our school identity. Our children look wonderful in their school uniforms. Well done to Primaries 2/1, P6a and 7c for having 100% school uniform. Classes received a ’bus’ towards their class of the month target for their efforts.

Uniform Policy

Girls Uniform

Green skirt/Pinafore

White Shirt and tie

Green jumper/cardigan

Boys Uniform

Grey trousers

White shirt and tie

Green jumper

Holy Cross P.E. Uniform

Gym kit

Yellow polo shirt

Shorts (no football shorts)

Indoor shoes

Please remember – no jewellery on gym days!

All school uniform items are available at Trutex – 35B Argyle Street Station

Telephone 0141 221 4472

Please ensure your child wears a tie to school. School ties are available to purchase in the school office.

CONGRATULATIONS to Mrs Baillie and family who welcomed the birth of a baby daughter, Alexandra. Mum, baby and family are all doing well and ask me to thank you for your good wishes.

School Management Team Update

I am ably supported in the school by a management team as follows:

Mrs Marletta is currently Acting Principal Teacher with pastoral care of Primary 1.

Miss Collins, Principal Teacher continues to have pastoral care of Primaries 2 and 3.

Mrs Docherty, Principal Teacher, continues to have pastoral care of Primaries 4 and 5.

Mrs McBride is currently Acting Principal Teacher with pastoral care of Primaries 6 and 7.

Ms MacCormick is now undertaking the post of Acting Depute Head Teacher. Ms MacCormick has leadership for Primaries 4—7. Ms MacCormick is also Child Protection Coordinator.

Ms Collum, Depute Head Teacher has leadership of P1—3. Ms Collum organises and co-ordinates the provision for additional support needs across the school.

School Improvement Plan

In session 2018—2019 we are aiming to improve our school by targeting the following priorities:

à Supporting Improvement: Equity and Pedagogy

A 2-year programme to support and enhance effective teaching and learning

à Glasgow Improvement Challenge

We continue to prioritise improving children’s literacy and language skills

à Health and Wellbeing

Developing pupil understanding of sustainability

à Digital Technologies

Improving skills and access to digital technologies

à Responsive Planning

Developing a renewed PE programme, learning through play and reviewing our approaches to engaging learners.

Please read our enclosed Standards and Quality Report to learn more about our whole school improvements.

Mobile Phones

I am aware that some parents allow children to carry mobile phones to and from school for safety and communication reasons. All mobile phones should be turned off during school hours and kept in the child’s schoolbag. Mobile phones can then be switched on at the end of the school day.

Parents’ Night

Many thanks to those parents who attended our Parent/Teacher/Pupil meetings in October. We had 84% attendance from parents. If you were unable to attend parents’ night, please contact the school office in order to make an appointment to speak with your child’s class teacher.

Primary 1 August 2019

If your child turns 5 years old between 1^st March 2019 and February 2020 he/she is eligible to register for primary school.

To register you should now complete an online application which is available on the Glasgow City Council website at www.glasgow.gov.uk by following the links for primary school and enrolments.

If required, paper applications can be requested by contacting Glasgow City Council on 0141 287 8000 or contact the school to make an appointment with a member of the management team.

Class of the Month

You might hear children talking about tokens/bus tickets or class buses. This is our promoting positive behaviour programme where classes and individuals aim to meet our school values and are rewarded by receiving ‘bus tickets’. Five bus tickets can be swapped for a ‘bus’ which is added to the class chart or ‘bus stop’. The classes in the infants, junior and upper departments who have most buses at the end of the month are the winners of our Class of the Month. Congratulations to P3a, P5c and P7c who won October’s class of the month and visited The People’s Palace as a reward.

Parent Council/School Joint Fundraising Event

The school Fundraising Committee and The Parent Council have joined together to host the first ever Holy Cross High Tea. Parents are invited to purchase a ticket for High Tea on Thursday 29th November. Sittings are available for 1.15pm or 2pm. Tickets will be available at the school office at £5 per person. Donations of food/biscuits/cakes are welcome to support this event.

Primary to Secondary Transition

Letters have already been issued to P7 pupils for families to identify which school they would like their child to attend. Our associated secondary school is Holyrood Secondary. If you live within the catchment area for Holyrood Secondary please complete the form and return to school. If you live outwith the catchment area you are required to submit a Placing Request form. This is also the case if you live u the catchment and wish your child to attend a secondary other than Holyrood.

Celebrating Uniqueness

Research tells us that on average 40% of children would hide an aspect of what makes them unique because they are worried about bullying. Nobody should have to hide who they are, their talents or uniqueness. Therefore on 30th November we will be celebrating uniqueness and combatting bullying by having an ODD SOCK NON-UNIFORM DAY. Children are invited to donate £1 to school funds on this day. All proceeds will go towards supporting our Positive Behaviour Initiatives such as Class of the Month and CURAMUS Golden ticket.

School Term Dates 2018—2019

Christmas and New Year Holidays

Schools close at 2.30pm on Thursday 20 December 2018. School will re-open on Monday 7 January 2019 at 8.50am

Dates for your diary

November

16th—30th—Catholic Education Fortnight please come and see our display of work in Holy Cross Church

21st/28th—Dental Inspections for P1 and P7 children

29th—Parent Council and School joint fundraising High Tea

30th—St Andrew’s Day/Odd Sock Non uniform Day

December

2^nd—First Sunday of Advent

4^th—Choir to local day care centre

10^th—Nativity Dress rehearsal

11/12^th – Nativity Show time!!!

12^th – Disco

13^th – Christmas Lunch/Christmas Class Parties/Christmas Jumper Day (£1)

14^th – Hopscotch Theatre Company

19th—Advent Service

20th—2.30pm school closes

December 18, 2018
by Miss O'Neill
0 comments

🎄 Class Christmas Party 🎄

Last week we had our class Christmas party. We played party games, had delicious snacks and there was lots of dancing, of course! We all love cheesing for a photograph in this class 😆📸

December 14, 2018
by Mrs Marletta
2 Comments

Family Learning Club session 4

A big thank you to all who attended the last family learning session for this term. Another big thank you to all the staff who helped with the organisation behind the scenes and who joined in with the club on the day. Lastly, a massive thank you to our Primary 7 tech team, photographers, digi and play leaders who helped everything run smoothly and are the reason we have so many pictures to add to these posts!

This week’s session focused mostly on maths and numeracy skills and from your vey kind feedback has given you lots to think about and try out at home.

Role play shop

This activity was a big hit and is very easy to do at home and with children of different ages/stages. Using either toy food, empty real food packets or the actual tins/jars from the cupboard, set up a shop. If you don’t have a till then any dish to contain the money will do. Children have great imaginations! Use toy money or real money if you’ve change collections in a money bank. Change the price of items according to how difficult you think your child needs it to be. Use real purses and shopping bags and then let the role play begin. Take turns to be the customer, manager, cashier etc. The initial benefit of this activity is developing imagination through role play however whenever money is involved there’s lots of numeracy learning to be done. Initially children will understand that good are exchanged for money in a retail transaction but as their numeracy skills develop they should be able to estimate as well as add together prices to work out what the final bill will be. They will also eventually be able to work out what the correct change should be when they over pay. They should be able to recognise and name the different types of coins and paper notes in our currency. There are also opportunities for counting during a pretend stock take or filling out an order form.

Classroom activities

There were a whole host of classroom activities out to demonstrate how the children learn to calculate in the classroom. Some of the counting materials like pasta or milk bottle lids would be easy to have at home to help with trickier homework. There was also a variety of maths games and jigsaws. One of the simplest activities had a deck of cards spread out face down, the children were to pick up 2 or 3 or 4 at a time and add together the values of the cards in their hands. If they got it correct they could keep the cards and the winner was the person with the most cards at the end. However if they pulled the joker all their cards had to be put back face down. That’s one game you can do to help develop numeracy skills in a fun and playful way but cards are so versatile that I am sure you could think of even more activities to try.

Junk modelling

2D and 3D shapes were our top priority at the junk modelling station. It was great to hear children explaining the properties of cubes, cuboids, spheres and cylinders while reminding the younger ones about the difference between a square and rectangle. They managed to make some incredible models.

Construction

The children were using our loose parts construction materials to build bridges. Design briefs had been set by well known children’s characters like the Gingerbread man and the children had to work together to plan and build bridges that matched the brief. After they had done this, the children took the construction in a different direction and the end result was a very enjoyable ‘obstacle maze’.

Making play dough

After weeks of creating wonderful characters with play dough, I couldn’t let you all leave without being sure you’d know how to make it at home. So some of you practised your measuring, weighing and mixing skills to create your own. The results were a lot of fun. If you do try any of these activities at home, please take a photo and let us see what inspired you!

Physical play

Connecting physical movement to learning, particularly skills like counting can really help embed the knowledge. It’s also a great way to get more movement into your day. Children had the option to use a timer to see how many exercises they could fit into that space of time, or they could roll the dice, add up the totals and decide how many to do that way. Dice are a great resource for playing numeracy games!

It has truly been an amazing month getting to know our families better and watching you all enjoy quality family time (with more than a hint of learning time thrown in). Thank you so much for your very positive feedback. We are planning more family learning opportunities for next term so please keep checking school bags, twitter (@holycrosspri) and here on the blog for more information. It would be really great to see you all back!

December 14, 2018
by Miss Greene
0 comments

Holy Cross Primary’s Choir performing at Central Station

Our wonderful choir performed at Glasgow Central Station this afternoon to spread some Christmas cheer in the city centre. Well Done!

Our Learning

December 14, 2018 by Mrs Marletta | 0 comments

Welcome to Primary 2/1’s review of learning! Here we will tell you some of the interesting things we have learned this term.

Primary 2 have been working hard to learn to multiply. They have been learning their times tables off by heart. They are also working on adding numbers up to 100 and are very good at using a number square.

Primary 2 have been learning about division. We use our knowledge of the multiplication tables to work out division calculations. We can also work out the answer by sharing objects equally between people.

Primary 1 have been working hard to learn to read, hear and write their sounds. For example we know ‘g’ is for Gallacher like Miss Gallacher. We also know ‘o’ is for odd, orange and on. ‘E’ is for egg, elephant and Enlgand. We could be here all day telling you about our sounds but why not ask us at home and we’ll show off more of what we know.

Primary 1 have been learning how to add 2 or more numbers together. They have lots of fun practising their skills playing ‘hit the button’. Check out the links page on the blog to see more games that you can do at home.

Primary 1 and 2 have also been learning the names and properties of 2D and 3D shapes. Ask them to teach you what they know at home!

Primary 1 and 2 have been working hard to learn their common words to make reading easier. They have also been discussing their reading books as well as inventing their own stories.

Primary 1 and 2 also worked hard to deliver an outstanding Christmas show. In preparation for this they learned songs, action and lines from a script. They had to develop their confidence enough to perform on stage and work together as a team.

Primary 2/1 love maths, maths and more maths but when they’re not doing maths & numeracy they love writing, drawing , art, playing with our friends and doing P.E.

December 12, 2018
by Mr McCrea
0 comments

P5b’s Learning on the Scottish Wars of Independence

Primary 5b have just finished their topic on the Scottish Wars of Independence.

We have been learning about the tactics used in the battles of Stirling Bridge, Falkirk and Bannockburn.

We have investigated the typical armour and weapons of the English and Scottish soldiers.

We have also learnt about the roles played by key historical figures, such as Alexander III, Margaret Maid of Norway, John Balliol, William Wallace, Andrew de Moray, Robert the Bruce, John Comyn and Kings Edward I, II and III of England.

Why not ask your child to tell you about some of these figures and events? They could explain what the Declaration of Arbroath is, or even tell you what Robert the Bruce learnt from a spider!…

December 11, 2018
by Miss O'Neill
0 comments

Problem Solving 💭

Today, we learned a new problem solving strategy- ‘Make an organised list or table’. We had to find lots of different possibilities or combinations to find the answer to the problem.

We had two winning teams this week! Well done to ‘Problem Warriors’ and ‘Team Ace’ 👏🏼

December 10, 2018
by Miss Smith
0 comments

Primary 7A Soil Experiment

Last week Primary 7A conducted an experiment to examine the permeability of different soils and rocks. We used 2 different types of compost, top soil and sand to see how they reacted to water being poured in. We added green paint so it was easier to see the water travelling down. Here were the results, it was fascinating!

December 7, 2018
by Miss O'Neill
0 comments

What have we learned this week?

‘I have learned about simple past and simple present tenses. I liked the times tables test.’ – Sorin

‘Today I loved decorating the Christmas tree for our class, P5a because it was really fun and I got to organise how the tree went on the altar. It was really fun.’ – Amna

‘I like a spelling test because it helps to spell words correctly.’ – Japhet

‘I enjoyed making the movies. It was a Christmas advert and it was a really fun thing to do.’ – Tahreem

‘I liked the maths assessment. It was a bit tricky but I did well in it.’ – Irfa

‘I liked practising our hymn this week.’ – Ibrahim

”I liked how we learned about Advent and made an Advent wreath.’- Zainab

‘I enjoyed doing the maths assessment test. It was a bit hard and I like challenge.’ – Inam

‘I liked when we went outside and used tally chart to count the vehicles that went past.’- Danish

‘Today Miss O’Neill showed us how to do a magic trick. I love the secrets behind it!’- Fabia

‘I enjoyed doing the maths assessment because I think I got most of them right. It was really challenging but I love challenges!’- Maleeha

December 6, 2018
by Mrs Marletta
0 comments

Family Learning Club session 3

Another Thursday, another wonderful morning with our lovely Holy Cross Families. A massive thank you to everyone who came to spend the morning with us and joined in so enthusiastically with today’s activities.

This week we tried to keep in the favourites as well as adding some new activities. We wanted to put a bigger emphasis on writing this week, and fully utilise the materials in the bookbug bags and read, write, count bags.

Primary 1

Primary 1 had the option to join Mrs McNaught in our cosy reading corner. It’s important to have a safe, quiet (quieter than the school hall) and comfortable space for story time. This makes the idea of story time inviting and appealing to the children. Together they read ‘Eric makes a splash’. Eric is a very worried Panda but with some help and support from a friend he is able to work through his worries. This book was a great stimulus for talking about worries and what we can do when we do feel worried. There were lots of other books on offer that were also good stimuli for getting children to recognise feelings, talk about their own feelings and think about ways they can get help and support when they need it. As a writing opportunity we suggested offering children a diary or journal as a safe place to write about their feelings and help them organise their thoughts.

Sticking with ‘Eric makes a splash’, we had a floating or sinking STEM challenge for the Primary 1 children. They had to explore a variety of objects and were given the task of sorting which items could float and which did not. From there, they experimented with different materials to make boats and other vessels that could float. Many were successful in making paper boats but sadly their floatation was short lived but others were able to solve this problem using plastic bottles or wood as an alternative option. A follow up writing opportunity could be to write lists, classifying the objects as floating or not floating. They could also write instructions about the most effective way to build a model boat.

(I can’t find the picture of the AMAZING raft that was built by a Primary 2 but I will keep searching!)

Primary 1 also had the option of assembling and decorating empire biscuits today. They had to follow instructions and make a plan for their design before getting started. The results looked delicious! At home, let children join in with writing shopping lists, messages or designing menus for a special occasion. They love opportunities to write for a purpose!

Primary 2

Primary 2 were able to show off the types of activities they might try in class to work on spelling or reading skills. Lots of children enjoyed showing the bingo and jigsaw activities to their parents and others were able to use their magnetic letters to build words. I hope that some of you are looking out newspapers, leaflets or junk mail at home and using them to practise finding common words. Another tip is to cut the letters out from the headlines and use them to build your homework words.

The children also read ‘Open very carefully- a book with bite’. They worked with their parents to ask and answer questions about the story. They then completed some follow up activities about the character in the story. They thought about what a crocodile might dream about when they’re sleeping, what an alternative front cover for the book might be and what a day in the life of a crocodile would look like.

Primary 2 also read ‘A Tale of Two Beasts’ and discussed the story with their parents. They then had the option of using play dough and loose parts to model a beast. They were asked to write a short description of this new character.

Primary 3

Primary 3 had lots of fun exploring non fiction texts today and coming up with their own quiz questions to try out on their parents. This gave them the opportunity to practise the format of writing questions and to use lots of different openers to make sure their quiz had variety.

Sticking with the games theme, they then had the chance to design and play their very own board game. They had to think about writing rules, instructions and coming up with a company logo. It was also great to see so many showing off their maths skills and ambition in the finished products.

Primary 3 also had the opportunity to use their story dice from the read, write, count bags today. These are such a versatile resource that can be used in many ways to build vocabulary, imagination and talking & listening skills. It was great to hear some of the wonderful stories that were created after using these dice and very encouraging to see everyone’s effort in using them to create story maps as well as pieces of writing.

Next week we will shift the focus to be more maths & numeracy based! So please feel free to drop us a comment or DM on twitter (@holycrosspri) if there is anything specific you would like to know about. In the mean time please keep enjoying the packs at home and do let us know if you try out anything you learned at Family Learning Club.

See you all next week!