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.

We have had such bad weather this week that the children have hardly been out playing. We did manage one snow play though! Great fun for everybody and Room 12 won the best snowman competition.
P1-3 have been very patient boys and girls while we organise their new school dinner system. Today they managed to get out to play for a wee while before coming in for lunch and then back out for a short play before the afternoon session bell rang. Hopefully next week they will get a chance to get used to our new system. Dinner numbers have increased dramatically so it is taking us a bit longer to get everyone fed, however we now have lots of children taking a school lunch for the first time. Well done boys and girls.
P4 have been looking at food – they have planned lots of investigations, they have even volunteered to come into school without breakfast to take part in memory and concentration tests – their idea! They are also going to weigh the food waste next week so we are all interested to see what they come up with, we are going to compare waste per stage and then we are going to let each class know what their average waste is. This will highlight how much food is being thrown away each week.
The upper school parts have now all been cast for our production of Alice in Wonderland – rehearsals have begun and everyone is having a great time learning their parts. Some great singing evident already – we are really looking forward to bringing all of this show together. Details of times, tickets etc will be issued later in the term.
We also have our first Pupil Voice sessions of the year today (Friday). All children in the school are now part of a group who will meet every four weeks. The purpose of this is to hear what the children have to say about a range of topics within the school. They will then report back to our whole school assembly with their suggestions and agendas. This way everyone in our school community is involved in taking the school forward.
This week coming:
Please remember that our Sacramental Meeting for parents of children in P3 and P4 will take place on Wednesday at 7:00pm. If your child is at either of these stages please make sure you come along to discuss our preparations for the forthcoming sacraments.
Also this week Primary Four will visit Glasgow Science Centre to begin their Trout in the Classroom project. Thank you to our parents who have volunteered to join us as parent helpers. Please remember to give your child a packed lunch for this visit.

We are delighted to welcome everybody back after their Christmas Break. The children have all commented on how good their holiday was and now they are really buckling down to some serious hard work.
Primary 6 and 7 have been busy this week preparing their audition pieces for our forthcoming production of Alice in Wonderland. Primary 5 pupils will be involved in the chorus of this production and they will be joining rehearsals shortly. As we are doing this as a whole school production all pupils in the school will be using this as the basis of their social studies work this term.
Primary 4 are also beginning their food topic and will be tying this into their Clyde in the Classroom Project. They will be visiting Glasgow Science Centre later this month to learn how to care for their fish eggs. Hopefully we will be able to release lots of trout into the Clyde when they have all hatched.
If your child is in P1-3 you will be aware that they are now entitled to a free lunch in school. We are delighted with the uptake of this so early in the term, our infant dinner numbers have increased substantially, however we now need to look at the best way to manage this to ensure that all children also have time to play at lunchtime. We have been trying out a few different ways to manage the time this week and hopefully by Tuesday of next week we will have a systematic plan in place to ensure that all children have time for both lunch and play!
If you know of any child who is due to begin school in August please remember that our enrolments begin on Monday 12th through to Wednesday 14th – every afternoon from 1:30 until 3:00. Please pass this information on to any family/friends whose child is due to begin school.

Parties and Christmas shows all done and everybody had a great time.
As our year draws to a close I would like to thank all of you for your support this term. The children in the nursery and in the infant department have had a ball practising for their shows. All performances were very well received. Then it was onto party time – great fun and a huge thank you to Tony McCabe who provided our disco for P6 and 7. We are also delighted that ‘Santa’ was able to come to our nursery and P1-3 parties too. It was the highlight of the day! If you want to have a look at our party photographs please check out each class blog as Miss Lewis has posted photographs on individual class blogs.
P7 are preparing for our final event which is our joint Carol Service with Calderbridge Primary School – we hope that as many of you as possible will come along and join in the singing.
Primary 6 have now been enrolled for the Pope Francis Faith Award and already we have a number of pupils contributing to the first Mass of Christmas in St. Aidan’s Parish. Well done boys and girls.
P1 had their enterprise fayre this morning and have raised over £100 with their Christmas Craft – well done Primary 1 a great effort from the boys and girls with super support from Miss Ramage, Mrs Bell and Mrs Ivey. We are letting them spend their well earned cash on items for their own class.
We are now looking forward to our well earned rest and I would like to thank everyone within our school community for their hard work and dedication since August. We are hoping to have a very restful Christmas and hopefully the weather will allow us to get some winter sunshine too.
We will finish on Tuesday at 2:30 but before that we have to do our final carol service and our Christmas Singalong.
We will all return on Monday 5th January at 9:00

We are delighted to announce that Caitlin Shear in Primary Six is the winner of the Sunday Mail Front Page competition. Caitlin’s referendum report has now been published and is available to view within the school. A great achievement for Caitlin also well done to the runners up. Brendan from the Sunday Mail was very impressed with all submissions and we are very grateful for their support.
As we come into Advent we will now be starting our Mondays with our usual Advent service. Primary 4/5 will lead us in the first week, as usual we are very much looking forward to the Christmas season.
We have also been asked to be in Phase Two of the Pope Francis Faith Award programme and our Primary Six pupils will be enrolled into this at 10:00 Mass on Monday 8th December all parents and family are invited to join us for this special Mass.
If your son or daughter is in Primary One – watch out they are going all out to have their very own Christmas Fayre – more news to follow on this shortly.
We are all off to the pantomime next Tuesday to see Cinderella at Motherwell Civic Theatre – infant pupils will attend the morning performance and the rest of the school will go to the afternoon. We have heard that it is great fun. Please remember that the afternoon children will not be back until 4:20 and need to be collected from school.
Our Primary Five children begin their swimming block this coming week. I know that, as ever, their behaviour will be exemplary and I am looking forward to hearing great reports of their progress from Wishaw Baths.
As we come into December we will be getting into the Christmas Spirit. Our infant show ‘Jesus’ Christmas Party’ is in full rehearsal mode and sounding great – tickets go on sale from the school on Monday priced at £2.50. The children will perform this on Tuesday 9th and Wednesday 10th December at 1:30 I do hope you can come along and enjoy the fun.
Our nursery singalong will be held on 12th December and they are sounding great too.
Our annual joint carol service with Calderbridge Primary School will be held in St. Mark’s Church this year on Monday 22nd December at 1:30. All members of the community are invited to attend this special joint service which will be led by Primary Sevens from both schools.

We all had great fun last week having our Sponsored Dance. Many thanks to everyone who has donated Sponsor Money, we are currently sitting at just over £800 with some more money to come in. We will be looking to use some of this money to subsidise bus costs for outings to sports and cultural events in the new year.
I am delighted to tell you that our Primary Six pupils have been accepted into Phase Two of the Pope Francis Faith Award. This is an eighteen month programme which runs in conjunction with St. Aidan’s Parish and culminates in an award in Primary Seven. The children will be enrolled into this programme once we have consulted with Canon Clements. If your child is in Primary Six they will be telling you of all that it involves.
Primary Five, Six and Seven enjoyed a wonderful Superhero Science Roadshow on Tuesday of this week. Ms Laura Richardson who is currently a PhD student at the University of Glasgow came along and enthralled the children with her tales of superheroes and links to development of DNA. The children were very enthusiastic listeners.
Our Primary Seven pupils attended their Partnership Evening in St. Aidan’s High School on Thursday. Having spoken with them they are all so enthusiastic about the activities they were involved in and very much enjoyed meeting up with S1 pupils who left us in August. A very successful evening indeed!
Primary One, Two and Three are now in the middle of their rehearsals for their nativity show which will be presented on the afternoons of 9th and 10th December. Great singing and I’m sure super acting once they have all learned their difficult lines!
You will have received the pro forma for your child’s photograph. Please ensure that these are returned to school as soon as possible as John Wilson Photography will be collecting them at the end of next week.
Please remember that we will soon be visiting Motherwell Civic Theatre for our annual Panto. Primary 1-3 will attend the morning performance and will return to school for lunch. Pupils in Primaries 4-7 will attend the afternoon show and will have a late return to school, normally around 4:20. Please make sure that you make arrangements for your child to be collected as there is no school bus at this later time.

October 31st
We are delighted that Miss Quinn has joined us as class teacher in Primary 5/6 this will allow Miss Lewis to be out of class to cover the DHT remit vacated by Mrs Shearer. This change of staff will now run until June 2015.
Great Halloween fun in school today! All classes came up to the hall to perform their songs and poems. We also had lots of fun admiring all of the fabulous costumes the children were wearing. Staff joined in too – this year the theme was ‘Where’s Wally’ which gave the children a great chance to find Wally in St. Aidan’s today!
Since returning after the October week the children have all been getting their teeth into their new interdisciplinary topics. The upper school are studying World War One and this ties in with the Centenary this year. They are already planning a memorial garden and are looking to make ceramic poppies to be displayed outside.
The Titanic has come to life again in the middle school. Already we have an array of super display in Rooms 9 and 10 and the children are really enthused by the events surrounding this famous ship. You can see them reading about it even during their lunchtime.
Our infant classes are looking at times gone by with the project ‘When Gran was a Girl’ so be prepared to answer questions from them about things that happened in the past!
Our choir has been very busy preparing for a competition in Our Lady of Good Aid Cathedral Primary on November 15th. They are going all out to win!
Our Out of School Hours Learning continues with Miss Lewis providing football on a Friday, Mrs Donnelly takes a Liturgy Club every Monday and we also currently have basketball for Primary Five on a Tuesday – this is taken by Senior Pupils from St. Aidan’s High School. We are hoping to offer Rugby for Primary Six in the very near future. Throughout the year a range of Out of School Hours Learning opportunities will be available for all pupils.
Photographer
Please remember that John Wilson Photography will be in school on Friday of this coming week. He will take class pictures for display, if you wish an individual or family photograph please remember to return the slip indicating your preferences. Only children who have returned their slips will be photographed individually.
Also coming up soon will be our Sponsored Dance event – any money raised from this will go towards school funds as we are currently trying to upgrade our ICT capacity for all pupils. We will also use any remaining money to fund transport for pupils attending festivals, sports outings etc. I hope you can all help us.

I would like to begin this week by reminding you that our Curriculum Evening will be held on Wednesday 24th September at 7:00pm. We will begin the evening with an introduction to the new RE resource God’s Loving Plan. All parents will have an opportunity to see the DVD which will now be shown to all pupils in Primary Six and Seven. This covers all aspects of Sex Education with the context of our faith. Following on from this parents will be able to visit classes and see the resources that will be used throughout the year. This is an excellent chance for you to see what activities your son/daughter will be involved in throughout this year.
Rooms three, four and five have had great fun this week continuing with their Fairyland topic. Their artwork is looking really good and already lots of writing has emerged. Well done boys and girls.
Rooms six, nine and ten have been hugely involved in looking at the rights of the child and the need for rules within society. We are hoping that they will soon be able to present their finding at our school assembly soon.
Finally our senior pupils discussion and debate has in increased focus this week as we await the outcome of the referendum. They have shown a real maturity in discussion and they have seriously considered both sides of the argument.
If you have been in the school grounds recently you will have seen the great work done by a group of our parents. We are really grateful to them for transforming the front garden. We will now be working hard to ensure that our plans for our vegetable beds, berry and herb beds come to fruition. We are very fortunate to have secured a grant from Education Scotland to develop food technology within the school. I am delighted to tell you that we are having our kitchen refurbished and brought up to date, furthermore we will be able to purchase a range of induction hobbs to support the children’s cooking skills. Look out for budding chefs in the months ahead.

Please remember that the children do not attend school this Thursday as it is an Inset day for all pupils. We will reopen on Friday when the children will enjoy our first whole school Golden Time of this school year. Lots of new activities are on offer from all staff. We hope they enjoy their new choices.

Can I remind you that if you have not returned your data information sheet we need this back as soon as possible to keep our records up to date.