Despite the atrocious weather last Saturday we had a wonderful turnout for our Summer Fayre.  Thank you to everyone who attended, it is always great to see the support we have from the community for our school.  Even though we had to keep the BBQ under cover and bring the bouncy castles into the hall everything went really well and a big thank you to everyone on the Parent Council for working so hard to make sure all went smoothly.  At the moment they are finalising figures but we have raised about £1400.  Well done everybody.

As we draw to the end of our school year we have a busy week ahead.  As you know Her Majesty’s Inspectors will be with us in school throughout this coming week.  We are very much looking forward to sharing the great work of the pupils and staff.  Thank you to all of the parents who have volunteered to come along and speak with the team.  We also have a number of children who will also be talking about the life and work of the school.  The inspection findings will be published in our new school term and I look forward to sharing this with you in the Autumn.

Back to this week – Primary Seven had had their induction days at St. Aidan’s High School, they met their new classmates and had two full days of timetable to get them used to moving around between classes. You will not be surprised to know that they all got on great!  We are very proud of you Primary Seven.  Remember that their last event is this coming Friday – Leavers’ Mass is at 10:00 in St. Aidan’s Church followed by their leavers’ assembly.  We will serve tea/coffee to parents and family during the pupil interval.

Primary Four have also had an outing this week to North Lanarkshire’s Primary Games.  They spent today (Friday ) in Ravenscraig enjoying all of the fun activities along with Primary Four pupils from school across the authority.

As it has been such good weather this week a number of classes have been using our outdoor environment for their learning.  Out new outdoor gym is proving very popular and is a great way to keep our young people fit.

You will also have noticed our planting beds are thriving.  We are very hopeful that with the good weather and the rain it will be the perfect combination to give us a great harvest when we return in August. Already we can see lots of foliage – hoping that we have lots of root vegetables underneath.  We are also very hopeful of a good harvest from our fruit trees again this year – lots of plums, pears and apples to be eaten too.

Please remember for this coming week to check the weather – if it is remaining as hot please apply sunscreen before your child leaves the house in the morning.

Just one final reminder that we will rearrange our whole school outing for August and we will tie it into celebrating our patronal feast day. I will give you all of the information surrounding this in the last week.  Our winning house will also get their house treat in the last week too.

We have had a super Health Fortnight in school with lots of activities for everyone.  Thank you to our parents who attended our Nutrition Workshop it was a great success and everyone commented that they found it very useful.

The children have all had great fun participating in a range of activities including tennis, judo, and Tai Chi.  Thank you to all of our partner agencies who came along and offered their time to provide the children with such a range of activities.

Our School Sports day was a great success – well done to Iona house who have been declared champions for 2015!!! They are all delighted and earned extra points for their house total.  Great excitement is also building to see which house will get the end of term treat.

Primary Seven have also participated this week in the Wear Yellow Walk for St. Andrew’s Hospice, they enjoyed all of the activities on offer in Strathclyde Park and completed their walk round in a good time.  Thankfully it remained dry enough for them to have their lunch in the park.  Please remind your child to bring in their sponsor money, we will be handing over cheques at our Leavers’ Mass on Friday 19^th June and want to have a final total by then.

Primary 5/6 presented a wonderful assembly today on a ‘World of Books’.  If you were lucky enough to be present I am sure you will have been very impressed by their signing of ‘Frozen’.  It was very emotional, and they did so well to learn it in such a short time.  Well done Room 12

This week coming our Primary Seven will be involved in their full transition programme in St. Aidan’s High. They will be attending Ravenscraig Sports Centre on Monday for the cluster sports event and will then spend Tuesday and Wednesday in their new classes following their timetables.  I know they will do us proud.

Please remember that this Saturday is our Summer Fayre which has been organised by the Parent Council.  A great deal of work has gone into organising the Fayre, please support their work.  All money raised will benefit all children within the school.  There are many fun activities on offer – come along and have a great day.  We are hoping for dry weather!!!!

If you are about the school please look out for our new outdoor gym.  Miss Lewis successfully bid for Lottery Funding to buy equipment for an outdoor gym.  We now have several very sturdy keep fit pieces of equipment for the children to use during playtime and we will also be using these for outdoor learning.  A huge thanks to Miss Lewis for securing our grant.  I can see that we will be using this equipment for many years to come.

Primary One had a lovely Teddy Bear Walk this week for St. Andrew’s Hospice, thankfully it stayed dry and we were able to provide lots of fun activities.  The children loved their bear hunt – well done to Miss Ramage and Miss Bell for working so hard to prepare a lovely day for the children.  We have not issued sponsor sheets for this event but would ask you to consider sending in a donation for the hospice as they rely very heavily on fundraising throughout Lanarkshire.

Last week was our World of Work day – I must say a huge thank you to all of the professionals, parents, members of the parish to came along and shared their stories of their working life with our pupils.  The children have all commented on how much they enjoyed speaking to the various visitors. They have learned lots about the skills they need for different jobs and will now be reflecting on these in school.  If you were a parent volunteer many many thanks – it was a great morning!

Well done to our four Primary Seven pupils who participated in St. Aidan’s High School Maths Challenge, they had to spend the whole day working on maths, but they absolutely loved it and did us proud!!!  Well done to Diarmuid, Amy, Leah and Conal – a very good effort from you.

We received news on Thursday that Her Majesty’s Inspectorate will visit the school on week beginning the 15^th June.  We are delighted to welcome them to the school and are looking forward to working with them in taking the school forward.  I have advised the children that our summer outing will be cancelled to enable our visitors to see the children at work.  We will, however, rearrange an outing early in August to make up for the disappointment.

As you know we had to postpone our Sports Day in the hope that the weather improves, at the moment we are monitoring our grassy area very closely, it is still really wet and soggy.  As the weather forecast is not looking too good I will make sure that we text everyone early next week to let you know the final plans.

Please remember that next weekend our Parent Council will be holding their bi-annual summer fayre.  Please support this event – everyone has put a great deal of effort into ensuring its success.  The Parent Council would be very grateful for donations of raffle prizes, tombola prizes and any homebaking.

Also coming up this week Primary Seven will travel to Strathclyde Park for the annual Yellow Walk in Aid of St.  Andrew’s Hospice.  Please make sure your child has a waterproof jacket for this event.

I will be issuing a random sample of questionnaires to parents on behalf of HMIe.  If you receive one can I ask you please to return it in the prepaid envelope.  If you are able to come into school and speak with the inspectors please indicate this on the form too.

Well done to pupils in Primary Four who celebrated their First Holy Eucharist last Saturday.  Their singing was fantastic and they all looked wonderful.  A special thank you to Mrs Neilly and Miss Jones for preparing the children so well.  Also a big thank you to all teaching staff who came along to share in the Masses.  Primary Four will also have a celebration this Sunday as the Parent Council have invited them to their party after 12:00 Mass.

Primary Six had a taste of Spain this week. They attended a Spanish day in St. Aidan’s High School where they learned Spanish songs and researched the culture of this country. They day concluded with a Spanish Mass in St. Ignatius’ Church where they processed with their symbols of St. Aidan.  Well done Primary Six we heard great reports from the high school staff.

Everyone in our school participated in another ‘Big Dance’ today. Huge thanks to Mrs Donnelly who has given up so many of her lunchtimes to prepare the children for this event.  Great fun for everyone.

We had also had a wonderful morning with Primary One’s assembly.  They took us behind the scenes with Walt Disney, and they amazed us with all of their dancing and lines learned with no prompts!  Well done Primary One.

Primary Seven had another visit from St. Aidan’s High School this week as part of their ongoing transition.  Mrs Mullen from the English Department spent Monday morning with them and commented on how impressed she was with their language work.

Miss Jones and Miss Lewis have been very busy this week finalising our school sports day on 29^th May.  We have taken a very different approach this year and all classes have been out this week practising their events.  Great fun ahead for everyone.  Parents, of course, will be welcome to come along, watch and cheer us on!  Miss Lewis will be sending out a letter detailing the arrangement.  Please look out for this in your child’s bag.

Primary Six and Seven pupils will be attending a World of Work day on  Thursday 21^st May. I would like to thank all of our parents/family members who have agreed to come into the school and talk about their ‘day job’.  We will let you know how it goes!

We have had a lovely two weeks since returning after Easter.  The children are all glowing following their lovely sunny break.

We are delighted to welcome Miss Archer a student from Strathclyde University who will be with us in Primary 4/5 until the end of May.

This term we are looking at all things Scottish, the children will be studying tourism in Scotland and considering why this is a wonderful country to visit.

Primary Four pupils have been preparing for their First Holy Communion this week and in the midst of all of this even had time to prepare a fantastic assembly for everyone.  We were all in stitches!!! Well done Primary Four and congratulations to Miss Jones who is definitely getting the very best out of everyone.

Primary One this week have been very busy preparing to welcome the new entrants.  Our first induction day is this Tuesday coming and Primary One will be telling everyone what it is like to be in school in Primary One – they have a wonderful story to tell

Pupils in Primary Six and seven were working with Childline this week to raise awareness of the work that they do and to support emotional health and wellbeing outcomes.

Primary Seven have been involved in lots of transition activities with St. Aidan’s High School.  Mrs Fagan visited our school this week with some S1 pupils who were able to give the class the experiences of high school throughout this year.  They have a few more activities before they go for their induction days on 9^th and 10^th of June.

Primary Six pupils will also be visiting St. Aidan’s High School on Monday 11^th May for a ‘Spanish Themed Day’.  This will include music, Spanish lessons and conclude with Mass in St. Ignatius by the end of the day.  Please remember a packed lunch is required.

If you are around the school you will notice that we have now planted our vegetable beds.  To date we have planted a range of green vegetables and root vegetables, our final bed will be for berries and we hope to have this planted asap! We also have a small herb garden, so with all of this coming to fruition later in the year we are keeping our fingers crossed for a very big harvest!

Lots of soup recipes wanted for August!!!

A huge thank you to Mr Todd and Mr McCauley for their very hard work in helping us to get this up and running.

Alice in Wonderland was a great success!! Everyone who came along commented on how brilliant the children were and how much they enjoyed the show.  Thank you to everyone for attending and a big thank you to the children for preparing so well.  Also I must thank the staff for their commitment in getting all of the show pulled together – a real team effort.

We have just had our Mad Hatter’s Tea Party for Lenten Charity and that also went very well.  Great singing from the children and some super moves in the dancing from the teachers!

Thank you so much to everyone for your contributions to Lenten Charity, it has been a busy couple of weeks and we don’t yet have the final total, however I believe we are well on the way to raising a significant sum to hand over in the new term.  This week we have had our Bunny Hop in the infant department and our sponsored dance in Rooms 9 and 10.  Great work from everyone.

We say goodbye to our chicks today – a big thank you to Mrs Quinn and the boys and girls of Room Six for doing such a great job in looking after them.

Well done also to Kerr Loughrin and Matthew Connelly who represented our school in the  North Lanarkshire Cross Country finals. We are very proud of their achievement.  Also well done to Zoe Loughlan and Kyle Logan who represented our school in the Primary Five badminton tournament in St. Brigid’s Primary.  They did very well.

Room 9 had the pleasure of two teachers from South Lanarkshire who came along to see the great work they were doing in literacy.  Well done Room and Miss Jones.

Our final Lenten Charity fundraiser is our Daffodil Tea which is being held in school on Wednesday morning.  All money raised from this will go to Marie Curie Cancer Care.  Please come along if you can we are open from 10:00

Please remember that this coming week we finish for our Easter holiday.  School will close on Thursday at 2:30 – bus children will leave at 2:00 so please make sure someone is at the pick up point to collect them.

I am delighted to tell you that all of the children have returned safely from Kilbowie having had a great week.  We are very proud of all of them.  Miss Lewis, Mr McKenna and Miss Ramage have all commented on how well behaved they were and how hard they all tried to challenge themselves during activities.  You have much to be proud of boys and girls!!  Our school was very quiet without you.

A huge thank you to the staff who attended and gave up their own week to provide the children with such superb support.  A great commitment from our staff and shows how far we go in this school to provide everyone with additional opportunities to succeed.

In the meantime back in school primary four have been very busy tending to the trout.  They are now ready to release these into the River Clyde this week.  Many thanks to our parents who are coming along to help with this important task.  We hope it stays dry.   They have also been really busy cooking this week, pate and smoked salmon was delicious! Well done boys and girls.

This week coming is a very important week for Primary Three pupils. They will celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation for the first time on Tuesday night.  All children should be seated in the church by 6:45 in full school uniform.

Please also note that tickets for our production of Alice in Wonderland will go on sale on Monday from the office.  Remember that we are allocating two tickets per night per family for next week.  Any remaining tickets will then be sold first come first served on week beginning 16^th March.  Please remember to reserve your tickets before this date.  All children in P1-4 will be performing.

Thank you to all parents who attended on Thursday evening for our Parent/Teacher interview.  We were, as usual, absolutely delighted with the tremendous turnout from our parent body.

We were also delighted this week to welcome some visitors to our school.  Mr Tim Sharpe our Quality Improvement Officer visited the school with Mrs Hunter and Mrs Peters, two local headteachers, who came to observe the work being done in St. Aidan’s Primary.  They commented on the excellent manners of our children and how well they all worked in their classes.  They have also recognised the very committed staff within the school and the warm and welcoming ethos which exists.

Lenten Masses will continue next week with Primary Six leading us in the liturgy.  Mass is on at 8:20 every morning.  Please encourage your child to attend wherever possible.

We have also had great excitement this week in Room Six where our Living Eggs arrived on Tuesday.  As we have sourced our chicks from a different company this year it will be a much longer process.  Normally they hatch within two weeks, however our eggs are going to take about a month this year and the children are keeping a very close eye on the temperature to ensure that the eggs are coming along nicely.   Look out for the usual webcam link which will be set up as soon as we start to see the eggs cracking so that you can keep up to date with the progress of our chicks.

Primary Four are continuing to nurture their trout, already we can see great progress.  They will soon be releasing them into the River Clyde and we will keep you updated about this too.

Thank you to Miss McGregor and the Cross Country team who braved the elements to run against our local schools in such cold weather. Everybody tried really hard and we had some really great times. They did us proud as usual. A special well done to Matthew Connelly and Kerr Loughrin who have made it through to the final at the end of March.  Also a big thank you to Mr McKenna and Miss McGregor for giving up their time after school to prepare the children for this event.

Primary Seven are off to Kilbowie Outdoor Education Centre on Monday – remember to be in the hall, with a manageable suitcase (!!!!!), by 8:45 on Monday all packed and raring to go. I would like to thank Miss Lewis, Miss Ramage and Mr McKenna for giving up their week to provide the children with this great experience.  Miss Lewis will upload the pictures daily on our school website so that you can keep up to date with their activities.  We will text everyone to assure them of their safe arrival on Monday.

Well done Room Five for a super assembly today!  Do unto Otters is a message that was delivered for the whole school in a beautiful way.  It told all of the children about the importance of being a good friend and we couldn’t have asked for this message to have been delivered in a better way!  Brilliant Room Five.

There has been great excitement this week in Room Six as they eagerly await the arrival of their living eggs.  They are the class responsible this year for ensuring these little chicks hatch safely and we are hopeful that we can get all of them hatched very quickly.  We will, of course, keep you up to date with progress via our webcam – keep watching.  Primary Three get to name all the chicks and they are responsible for feeding and looking after them.

Meanwhile in Primary Four the trout eggs are making great progress in the hatchery!  Primary Four are extremely knowledgeable about the life cycle of these fish. Check out their blog for further information.  This week they also  had a lovely day at Newmains Pastoral Centre.  They were commended for their behaviour and they enjoyed spending the whole day focusing on their First Holy Communion.

All classes have been involved in Financial Education over the past two weeks – they have been learning about money in a real life context. Lots of buying and selling has enabled them to understand profit and loss and Primary Seven pupils have been bankers for the whole school – their interest rate is very poor at 0.1 per cent!!! They will be reporting their overall figures to us shortly.

Well done to Primary Six pupils who spoke at St. Aidan’s Parish on Catholic Education Sunday.  All parishioners commented on how eloquent the children were.  Thank you to the children who also came along to give out the leaflets outlining the work we do in school for the Pope Francis Faith Award.

Now that we are in the season of Lent it is heartening to see the children attending 8:20 Mass in the morning.  Please encourage your child to come along to this Mass if possible.

During the Lenten season the children will be fundraising for our annual charitable donation.  We will let you know soon what the activities are going to be.

Primary Seven are off to Kilbowie a week on Monday – please remember to send in their £6 pocket money and if you are still to pay your final balance this should be paid by Wednesday of this week.  We are hoping for sunshine all the way for them!!! I know that they will have a great time.  Miss Lewis, Miss Ramage and Mr McKenna will be joining them and I would like to thank them too for giving up their week to enable the children to participate in their outdoor week.

On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week we are welcoming special visitors into our school.  Mr Sharpe our Quality Improvement Officer will be visiting along with Mrs Hunter from St. Ignatius PS and Mrs Peters from Cambusnethan PS.  They will be visiting classes to see the work of the pupils.  We know that they will be very impressed with all of the work that is being done.

Well done to pupils in Primary Three and Four who are now enrolled for their sacraments in March and May. They were very well prepared for their Mass and their singing was absolutely beautiful. A big thank you to all of their teachers who gave up their own time to come along to the Mass too. It went beautifully – as ever!
Thank you to everyone who came along to our open morning. It was great to see so many parents having a wee look to see what the children were doing. The children, of course were delighted to show off their hard work!
Following a very snowy week we decided that we could give the children lots of outdoor learning using the snow! We made snowmen and measured them, we looked at how the snow melts and why salt makes such a difference. We looked at the shapes of the snowmen and compared their heights and Primary Seven even attempted to build an igloo!!! Much more work required on their initial design process.
Meanwhile indoors all children have been looking at electricity with Mrs McGeough. They have been making all sorts of circuits, Primary Seven investigated how they could make electrical energy using a lemon.
Primary Four have had their visit to the Science Centre and on Monday of next week their trout eggs will arrive. They are all prepared and looking forward to looking after these precious eggs. We are very hopeful that they will be able to release lots of trout into the River Clyde later on this term.
Alice in Wonderland preparations are well underway, Miss Lewis is choreographing all the dance moves so lots of work going on in preparation for the show.
This week coming is Financial Education Week – all of the activities the children will be doing especially in maths will be centred around money and how we use it. Part of the focus will be on credit/interest as we want to be able to give children an awareness of managing debt etc. The children have been asked to bring in coins from around the world. If you have any currency please allow your child to bring it in to share with us.
We are currently finalising our Interim Reports for issue next week. Please remember that Parent Interviews are a bit earlier this year because of our Kilbowie week and our school show. The date for your diary is 25th February. Letters will be issued on Monday re organising your appointment.