We have had a super week in school. Primary Six and Seven were outstanding at their Confirmation Mass. Monsignor Millar commended their attention and was very impressed with their singing. Well done boys and girls.

The sun shone brightly for our sports day and the children had a fantastic day. Thank you to Mrs Duffy for coordinating all aspects of this – a great job done! If your child was in the French team they are coming home as winners this evening.

Well done also to our Poetry readers who attended Cardinal Newman High School last night to read their poems. We also were in the final of the Eco Mascot challenge, although we didn’t win our team did us proud. ‘Neil on Wheels’ was a big success!

We are now coming into the final three weeks of term. Hopefully we will be able to enjoy lots of outdoor learning. We have planted lots of flowers and vegetables and already we have some vegetables coming through. Hopefully our market garden will have produce for sale in August/September.

If you have any plants going spare we would be grateful as we are looking for a great display of colour this summer.

Confirmation
Our primary six and seven pupils have been very busy preparing for their Confirmation on Monday evening, their singing and presentation is already sounding excellent and I know they will rise to the occasion on Monday evening.

Our new Primary One pupils for August have now had both of their induction sessions and they were a pleasure to have in school. We are looking forward to them joining us shortly!

We have had great competition success over the past two weeks, we have eighteen children whose poetry will be published in the Reigart Poetry Anthology. Our Primary Seven team won the St. Aidan’s High School Maths Challenge and our Eco team are through to the final of the North Lanarkshire Eco Challenge.

Also we must give our congratulations to our school choir who performed on Wednesday evening at the Summer Arts Festival in Motherwell Civic Centre, as ever they did us proud.

Divided City
We will soon be issuing tickets for this performance. Primary Six/Seven have been heavily involved in rehearsals with Calderbridge Primary School. Parents of children in this class will be issued with tickets.

Sports Day
We are very much looking forward to our Sports day next week – let’s hope for a dry day. You are, as usual, welcome to come along and see the children enjoy their team sports.

Congratulations to all pupils in Primary Four who received the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist for the first time on Sunday. Remember that the Parent Council are holding a party after 12:00 Mass for all First Communicants this Sunday. If your child is in Primary Four please try to attend this special thanksgiving Mass and party. A big thank you to the Parent Council for providing this treat.

Primary One (Room 3) presented their first every assembly last week and everyone commented on how fabulous it was – they took us around the world with ‘The Magic Key’ well done Room Three!

We are now busy focusing on all aspects of the Commonwealth.
Primary Three presented their assembly today which introduced us to Glasgow and its role in hosting the Commonwealth Games. We all participated in ‘the big dance’. Please have a look at our ‘big dance’ on the website. We think we were the best out of all the participants across the Commonwealth.

Our new Primary One for August visited school this week for the first time. They were great!
We were also privileged to have a number of visiting teachers from North Lanarkshire with us on Wednesday of this week. Everyone commented on our wonderful children – we were not surprised. Well done everybody!

We finished our health focus this week and all pupils have now enjoyed cooking, football, dance, aerobics in school. In addition Miss Jones had everybody in the upper school out in the woods cooking marshmallows and enjoying the outdoor environment.

Primary Six are continuing with their Divided City rehearsals and are getting every closer to their performance. Our choir are in the final stages of rehearsals for their performance in Motherwell Concert Hall on 28th May.

Please remember that this coming week is a three day week as the school is closed on Thursday for the European Elections and Friday is a holiday. We are also off on Monday 26th for the holiday weekend. We are open as normal on Tuesday 27th.

Welcome back to our last term of this academic year!
The children have all settled back into school routine quickly after their Easter break. We are all focusing on the forthcoming Commonwealth Games for our interdisciplinary learning this term. Already the children are having great fun learning about Glasgow and the history of the Commonwealth. To coincide with this we will be have our health focus when we come back after our holiday weekend. We will be involving everyone in a range of food activities and we have also invited in a range of specialists to give the children taster sessions of different sporting activities.
Mrs Donnelly has been taking the whole school in preparation for our Commonwealth Dance. It was great to see Primaries 4-7 out in the yard this week all keeping time to this exciting dance which has been choreographed by Scottish Ballet.
A big thank you goes to Miss Jones who has organised for Ross Henderson, a boxer who will be competing in the Commonwealth Games, to come along and speak with the children about his training and preparation. Today we have also had Hopscotch Theatre in presenting ‘Colin’s Commonwealth Games’ so we are indeed up and running!

Primary Seven had a visit from the Alliance Francaise last week and worked with Veronique who commented that ‘ they are some of the best children I have ever worked with’. Tres bien fait!

Primary Four have their very special day next Saturday, they have been preparing so well we are all very proud of them. We are hoping for a dry day next Saturday – Mass is at 10:00 please remember them in your prayers.

As usual this term we have organised our summer outings – Primaries 1-6 will be visiting Blair Drummond Safari Park and Primary Seven get to go to M&Ds Theme Park in Strathclyde Park. All children will go on their outing on Friday 20th June. The cost to all children is £12 – we are happy to take money from now until then to spread the cost for everyone.

Pupils in P6/7 have been very busy working with children from Calderbridge Primary School to prepare for their performance of ‘Divided City’. We are delighted that the rehearsals are going so well and we are very proud of all of the children. Well done Room 13!

Our choir has been working with ‘Soundsational’, a music group based in Coatbridge. They have been preparing for their performance which will be in Motherwell Civic Centre on Wednesday 28th May – further ticket information regarding this will be issued when I have been given final details. We are delighted that two member of our choir, Emily Allan and Charlie McCulloch performed for the Secondary Headteachers yesterday. Well done girls!

This term we have a number of after school clubs running. Primary Four had their first cooking session yesterday and Primary Five were enjoying French. At lunchtimes we have choir and athletics for the infant department and Primary Seven have been very busy preparing their year book with Miss Jones. A big thank you to all staff who give up their time to provide additional experiences for all of our children.

Please remember that Tuesday 6th May is an inset day for staff and children should not attend.
Please remember that Primary One will be attending the Teddy Bears Picnic in Strathclyde Park on Wednesday morning.
We hope you all have a great holiday weekend.

Our Primary Sevens have had the most wonderful time in Kilbowie Outdoor Education Centre. They were commended by everyone who worked with them as one of the best groups ever to visit the centre! Well done Primary Seven we are very proud of you, Miss McGregor, Miss Lewis and Mrs Shearer. What a great week. Check out our Kilbowie Blog if you would like to have a look at their adventures.
Also this week we are delighted that our Bring and Buy sale was such a success. We raised £318 and would like to thank everyone for their generous donations.
Our final Lenten Fundraiser is our ‘All the Tea in China’ morning on Tuesday of this week. We always have a very good attendance at our annual Lenten tea/coffee morning and I know that you will support us again this year. At the end of this week we will be able to give an accurate figure of how much we have raised for our Lenten Charities, however I would like to thank everyone in advance for your continued support. We couldn’t do it without you.
This is our last week of term, we have had such a great term studying all about China, the children have loved it. I hope you have enjoyed sharing this with them their displays are stunning around the school. In our new term we will be focusing our interdisciplinary learning on ‘The Commonwealth Games’ and we will link this for a focus on health. Let’s hope we get lots of sunny weather to enjoy all of our outdoor activities.
Once again we had an excellent turnout at our Parent Interviews – thank you to all who attended.
I hope that everyone enjoys their Easter holidays and we look forward to keeping you updated in the last term of this year.

What a busy time we have had in the past two weeks.

Our Primary Three pupils celebrated the Sacrament of Reconciliation for the first time on Tuesday of this week. They were very well prepared and their singing and responses was fantastic. Boys and girls everyone in school and in your house is really proud of you. Well done!

In Room 13 pupils have been very busy being extremely responsible in caring for our chicks! We now have ten chicks hatched safely and they are thriving. We have given them names of Disney characters so check out the website and have a look at Aladdin, Dorey, Lightning McQueen etc. All of the children in the school have been visiting room thirteen to get a wee glimpse of their progress. Remember you can keep up to date with our webcam too.

I am delighted to tell you that our choir won first place in our class at the Glasgow Music Festival. They all sang beautifully and we were very proud of their achievement. Well done boys and girls! We will have a music assembly in the final term so that everyone can come along and hear their super singing.

We highlighted the work of the Fairtrade movement in our whole school assembly last Monday with a talk from a member of the Fairtrade movement. Further to this some of our Senior pupils attended a meeting of the parish Justice and Peace group where they highlighted the work being done in school across all classes. The girls were very confident in their delivery and everyone who attended the meeting commended them on their work. Well done girls and a big thank you to Mrs McGeough for attending this meeting too.

Well done to all of the boys and girls who have been attending morning Mass. We have had a great turnout this week. Please encourage your child to attend this Mass if possible.

Pupils in Room 10 took their trout down to the River Calder last week and released them. They have been looking after them with Clyde in the Classroom project. We are delighted that they were so responsible.

Yesterday was ‘Onesie Day’ and we raised £500 for our Lenten Charities. Well done to everybody (including some staff!) who came to school in their ‘onesies’.

Next Wednesday we have our ‘Marathon Day’ coming up. We are asking for friends and family to sponsor the children to run a marathon in the yard. All money raised will go towards our Lenten Charity Appeal – please help your child if you can.
We also have four children attending the Library Quiz and Four children who have reached the final of ‘The Dragon’s Lair’. They will be presenting on their cereal bar ‘Oatally Scottish.’ We wish both teams very good luck!

Thank you to everyone who came along to our open morning to see the children at work. We were delighted with the attendance and everyone who came along enjoyed seeing the children’s work and it was great to see so many children speaking about their class displays. Well done everybody!

Room 10 are in the final stages of their trout programme. They have done a fantastic job taking care of the trout eggs and on Friday 7th they will be heading to the River Calder to release the trout back into the river. A great job Primary Five well done on nurturing so many fish!

Pupils in Room 13 have started their Divided City project with Calderbridge Primary School. This will be a thirteen week project involving drama and music and will culminate in a performance of Theresa Breslin’s book in Calderbridge Primary School at the end of June. Many thanks to the parents who came along on Thursday night for the launch of this work. The children enjoyed their first workshop – these are led by actors from The Citizens Theatre and the children had great fun with much more to come.

Well done to our choir who performed so well in the Disney Concert at South Wishaw Parish Church last week and a huge thank you to all of the parents who came along in support. Our next choir outing is the Glasgow Music Festival on March 11th in the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow. Parents and family are most welcome to come along and support this event.

Our Cross Country runners did a great job yesterday in very muddy conditions! We are hoping that everybody has a very good stain remover to get rid of the dirt in the tracksuits! Our children did brilliantly and we have a number of children through to the final. Well done everybody – great running.

This week coming sees the start of our Lenten Season. We were delighted to welcome Fr. Peter Walters from the charity Let the Children Live. He came into school last week to speak with the children about the work he does in the streets of Medellin, Columbia. His moving presentation really brought to life the plight of these street children and certainly gave our children something to think about during our Lenten fundraising.
We will all attend 10:00 Mass on Ash Wednesday in St. Aidan’s Church where the children will all receive their ashes.
Please remember that Canon Clements will say Mass at 8:20 during Lent especially for the children in our school. Please encourage your child to attend this Mass if possible.

We can’t believe we’re at the February break already. This week we have continued with our China theme. Primaries 4-7 were involved in workshops to make Lanterns and Kites and these can be seen during our open morning on 27th February. I do hope as many of you as possible will be able to come along and see for yourselves the fabulous work the children have produced.

Primary 1-3 had a visit from Zoolab who brought with them animals related to the Chinese New Year. The children were able to hear about the animals and even touch some of them. They thought the snake would have been more slimy!

Our Chinese lunch event on Thursday of this week was a huge success, we had more children attending cafeteria than ever before and everyone loved their chow mein and spring rolls. All children in the school received Fortune Cookies and loved reading their messages.

We have had a great time so far studying about China and our materials for silk painting are now nearly all in so we will be able to get started on this and on ‘the Great Wall’ when we return from our February break. A huge thanks to Room Five for giving such wonderful information from this topic at their assembly today. Well done Primary Five.

Meanwhile in Primary Five our trout eggs are thriving and Room 10 are doing a wonderful job keeping these little eggs healthy and well in order for them to be released shortly into the River Calder. Well done Primary Five.

Our Choir has been very busy this week preparing for their Disney Evening on Tuesday 18th February. If your child is in the choir you may wish to come along and hear them sing with the other local schools.

Please remember that school reopens for pupils on Thursday 13th February.
We hope you all have a great long weekend.

We have had great fun this week focusing on the Chinese New Year – Primary One tasted some Chinese food and opened their fortune cookies. Today we all came to the hall to celebrate with a traditional Chinese Dragon Dance. Primary 2/3 led us in the first Dragon Dance with children from other classes taking a turn to make the most interesting dance.
Primary Seven told the rest of the school the story of the Chinese Zodiac and two traditional Chinese tales. They also brought with them their dragons which has been their homework activity over the last two weeks. What an impressive set of dragons we now have on display!
This coming week we have our cultural day when we will be making kites and lanterns and on Thursday we have our Chinese themed lunch in the cafeteria.

We have also had a very busy week in other areas of the curriculum. Following our Enrolment Mass on Tuesday evening pupils in Primary Four attended Newmains Pastoral Centre on Thursday for their retreat in preparation for the Sacrament of Holy Eucharist. Primary Three have also started their preparation for the Sacrament of Reconciliation in March.

Six pupils in Primary Six attended the Euroquiz in Cumbernauld on Thursday. They had done lots of research into European facts and did a great job representing our school. Well done boys and girls!

We also had our meeting in preparation for our Primary Seven visit to Kilbowie. It was great to see so many boys and girls attending the meeting and even though they have to carry their own luggage up the stairs when the reach the centre they still want to go!!

Please remember that your child’s interim report has been issued today. If you wish to make any comment, or if you have any concerns please contact us at the school.

The choir have been very busy since returning in January. We have two events coming up. Firstly we have been invited to attend an evening in South Wishaw Parish Church along with three other local schools. This will be a Disney themed event and all schools will sing together and also perform their own pieces. Tickets for this are available from the school. In March we will be participating in the Glasgow Music Festival and I would like to thank Mrs McGregor for preparing the children for this performance. She has now left to have her baby, Mrs Drysdale will be taking over from her in the coming months.

We will arrange a school performance so that everyone can come in an hear how good our choir are this year.  We have also been fortunate to be selected to work with a music group called Sounsational!  They will be in school on Mondays for the next few weeks working with the choir – who knows maybe a recording contract will come our way!!

If you have been in and around the school you will see that our China topic is already taking shape. Our infant department have ‘built’ the Great Wall of China in their purposeful play area and they are scaling its heights regularly!
On Thursday of this week everyone in the school enjoyed a ‘Tai Chi’ session which introduced them to this ancient Chinese tradition. Around the classes we have Chinese writing and much evidence of research into traditions and customs of this fascinating country.
Mrs Donnelly has been very busy with children from a range of classes in creating a Dragon for us to celebrate Chinese New Year. Children in Primaries 4-7 will be involved in Lantern Making and Kite Making with Chinese Specialists.
Thank you to all of our parents who have provided us with Chinese artefacts, costumes, information etc. We are very grateful.
On February 6th we are having a Chinese Themed Menu in our dinner hall – we will issue the menu in advance so that the children are aware of what food is being offered.
I am sure if you ask the children which animal they represent they will be able to tell you. We will be inviting all parents into school for an open session at the end of February – this will give everyone an opportunity to look at all of the fantastic work which has been done over the term.

To other things and this week Primary Six had a very successful visit to St. Aidan’s High School as part of their transition programme.
They were working with ‘Seafood in Schools’ group and they cooked some seafood dishes in Home Economics and then worked with the Geography Department to look at fishing around Scotland.
In addition Primary Seven had a visit from Mrs Mullen in the English Department and they were looking at poetry. She was very impressed with the quality of their work.

Our pupils in Primaries 3,4, 6 and 7 are also busy preparing for their Sacramental Enrolment Mass which will be held in St. Aidan’s Church this coming Tuesday at 7:00pm.

Our choir are also busy two lunch times per week preparing for a Wishaw Schools festival event. They will be performing in South Wishaw Parish Church along with three other schools and the music for the whole evening will have a ‘Disney’ theme. I do hope as many parents as possible can come along and enjoy this event.

Coming up also this week – if your child is in Primary Seven please remember that the meeting for Kilbowie is on Wednesday at 6:30. If your child is going on this trip please come along and hear lots of important information.