What a fabulous week we have had in our school with lots of very exciting events.  Our Primary 7 started their week with a ‘Welcome Mass’ in Our Lady’s High School, also attended by our Primary 7 teachers and our Management Team.  It was a wonderful way to begin their transition days on Tuesday and Wednesday.  The children had 2 busy days on their visits to secondary and as expected, excellent reports came back about their behaviour and positive attitude.  Well done P7.

On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, we enjoyed 3 fabulous, action packed sports days, organised by Mrs Loose in P6 and Mrs MM Murphy in the Nursery, and although the rain paid a visit, we didn’t let it spoil the fun. On Tuesday we had our Velcro olympic activities, along with a climbing wall, dance class and a visit from an Olympic Handball champion, who gave ‘taster sessions’ to some senior pupils.  Wednesday brought out the old favourites, ‘egg & spoon’, ‘3-legged race’ and sack races. We definitely have some olympic stars of the future in our school! Thanks to Mrs McLaughlan and P4b who made lemonade for all taking part. We even had enough to share with Firpark!  On Thursday, the sun finally shone and we hosted our team sports day, with all children competing in a range of ‘potted sports’.  Our Primary 7s acted as team captains and certainly cheered on their own teams.  The winning team will be announced at assembly on Monday! A huge thanks to Mrs Loose and Mrs Murphy, but also to the loyal band of parents and carers who always come along to help with our events in school.  The photos are coming soon!

Meanwhile, as the sports events took place, we prepared for a most important visit as we expected Archbishop Muller and Archbishop Tartaglia.  Archbishop Muller requested a visit to a school and we were delighted to be asked.  The Primary 6 & 7 pupils prepared a most spiritual prayer service, based on the Beatitudes, whilst Primary 4b and Mrs J Murphy prepared a lesson for the Archbishops to observe.  Archbishop Muller personally blessed each one of our senior pupils and was very impressed by his visit to P4b. The visit also included Bishop Emeritus Devine, Mr McGrath (SCES) and Mr Franchi (St Andrew’s Foundation).  Our wider community was represented by members of our Parent Council and Fundraising group.  It was a wonderful day in the life of our school.

Friday also saw the final end of year reports go out to all children in our school.  Please return the comment slip, your feedback is always appreciated.  Also encourage your child to complete their target for next session.

And now for the Nursery news….
This week has been an extremely eventful week with the 3 day event taking up the majority of the week. Tuesday was the first day where the children had the chance to take part in a dance class where they had to listen to the instructions so that they could follow the moves. There are some superb movers and shakers in our nursery and they loved showing off their breakdancing moves. The children also had a chance to have fun with the inflatables which consisted of a bouncy castle with a slide and a giant inflatable slide where they had to carefully climb up to to the top before sliding down to the bottom where they then rushed to do it all over again. Mrs Little skipped the queue a few times to slide down the big slide with some of the children.
Day 2 the obstacle course. This is always a popular activity with the children and this one was no different. The children had to jump over hurdles and use their skills to negotiate round the cones, carefully cross  a balance beam and  go through a hula hoop and a very long tunnel. This was great fun and the children didn’t even realise that they were learning to move their bodies in all different ways.
Day 3 saw traditional sports day activities. The children all got the chance to take part in group relay races such as the egg and spoon race, sack race, wheelbarrow race, welly wanging, three legged race and a bean bag relay. The weather was very kind to us and the whole day was a roaring success. The staff had fun demonstrating the wheelbarrow race, with Mrs little pushing Mrs Murphy in the wheelbarrow and winning even though MrsTominey and Mrs Imray had a false start! otherwise known as cheating. Miss Russell got a bit tied up in the 3 legged race and proved her coordination needs a bit of work! Mrs Tominey was the outright winner of the staff sack race and showed off her great skill of speed bounce. It was a funfilled day with both staff and children having a ball. Please check out the photographs in the cloakroom to see the happy faces of the children taking part. The children and staff all agreed that it was the best day ever in nursery.

Over in the Science area the children had to say a fond farewell to the tadpoles. After the discovery of legs on some of the tadpoles and the fact that they were now needing rocks to climb onto it was decided to return them to their natural habitat. Some of the children helped to put them into a very large bucket and Mrs Duffy and her boys returned them to the pond that they originally came from. The whole Life Cycle of a Frog has been a great learning experience for all of the children who have helped to look after them by feeding them and watching them grow over the last few weeks. Through this experience the children have learned the importance of the need to look after and care for living things.

The preparation for the graduation and pre school activities continued on Friday when normal service was resumed!

What’s on this week…..?

A busy week ahead sees our Principal Teacher interviews on Monday, our Nursery graduations on Wednesday and our Primary 7 Leaver’s Mass on Friday.  Please feel free to leave a comment on our blog.  We’d love to hear from you!