I hope all of our mums are enjoying a relaxing Mother’s Day.

As always our week has been filled with exciting events and unique learning opportunities both in school and in nursery. We began with our weekly assembly, which this week was billed as a Good News Assembly. Firstly we were all truly amazed and so impressed at the wide range of science experiments which our childrne had enjoyed throughout science week. We had volcanoes erupting, transport of the future, tasting sessions (whilst blindfolded) and so much more. The good work wall has spread all over the front hall. Every week I am very impressed by the wide range of work our children present, however, the work during science week was outstanding. What a wonderful way to engage our children and stimulate their creativity, excellent work everybody.

This week saw our jotter monitoring come to an end, this was more good news. I have been overwhelmed by the consistent hig standard of work throughout our school. I am also very pleased at the volume of work in jotters and workbooks. Again, excellent work everybody.

As a reward, our children all enjoyed some ‘seasonal viewing’. This coupled with the opportunity to eat their snack whils viewing caused great excitement. Everyone deserves a treat now and then.

Tuesday morning our Cross Country Team represented our school at the Finals, and what a representation they gave! This from Coaches Murphy, Leach, Harrison and Close:

The after school cross country club trained hard over the Winter months and came out on top to secure 2 gold medals and two team places at the cross country finals at Coatbridge on Tuesday. Liam McQuaid P5 romped home to take the first ever gold medal for the school. The P5 boys team then followed by being placed 3rd overall. Joey Leach then secured the 2nd gold medal of the day in the P6 girls race by overtaking the race leader on the home straight. The P7 girls team then finished the day by coming 2nd. A fantastic effort by all children. Teamworking is a vital, character building education lesson and all coaches agreed that the children worked extremely well together on the day.

Motherwell Times will feature our team this coming week.

A HUGE thanks to our coaching team:

Mrs Margaret Mary Murphy

Mr Richard Leach

Mrs Kirsty Harrison

Mrs Anne Close

They have worked incredibly hard with our children after school each week , coaching through rain, hail, wind and maybe even a wee bit of sunshine. Indescriminate of the weather they soldiered on, fantastic committment.

Tuesday evening saw our school represented in Burns Regional Finals, again magnificent representation. Diana Feenan won second place in junior solo singing whilst Ellie Hutchison secured first place in Junior Recitation and also best overall recitation. Well done to both girls, and thanks again to Mrs Brenda McCoy and Mrs Jacqueline Murphy who prepared the girls.

Wednesday we welcomed Mrs Marion Barr, a representative from Lepra. Mrs Barr spoke to the children about the good work of Lepra – it costs £25 to treat a child with awful disease. As a school we pledged to include Lepra in our end of year Alms Giving.

Thursday Mrs Duffy met with Gillian Brogan from Motherwell Heritage Centre. Gillian has asked our school to become invovled in a very exciting local event. More information nearer the time.

Friday we hosted a football tournament on our fabulous pitch. Well done to our girls and boys who, once again, were excellent ambassadors for our school. Special thanks to Mr McBirnie (Willie, the football man) who gives so much of his own time to train and work with our footballers.

Meanwhile our school show rehearsals continued. This show looks to be our best ever. Our costumes are ready, our actor and actresses are fully prepared all we need now is a receptive audience. Please support our school and come along to our show on Wednesday and Thursday of this week at 1.30pm and 7.00pm. We have spent the day in school with the ‘sound crew’ ensuring all is ready. Particular thanks to Mrs McCarthy, Mrs McCoy and Mrs Campbell who have been in school across the weekend helping finish off scenery and props. I am really excitied about Pinocchio, our chidlren are so talented and so committed to their roles. Make sure you don’t miss out!

Throughout the week Fr Millar and Canon O’Mahony have been ensuring our children are spiritually prepared for the great Feast of Easter. Both priests have been hearing P4, P5, P6 & P7 confessions, our thanks to them for taking the time to do this.

And, as always, our littlest people continue to have great adventures every day………..

The ship has well and truly sailed and pirate Pete, Blackbeard and Tinkerbell are now just a happy memory.
Our new topic is all about New Beginnings.
The children are learning all about Spring and new life.
In the literacy area they have been playing interactive games on the Smartboard learning how plants grow and what they need to grow. They have been naming the different parts of a flower and sequencing the stages of growth. They have been reading stories about new life and learning the names of baby animals.
In the maths area they have been naming and sorting baby animals and completing jigsaws that show the life cycle of different animals and insects.
The children have been creating their own flower pots and Spring flowers in the art area and some of these can be seen on display on the art wall.
Outdoors the Garden Gang have been busy at work digging over the vegetable patch to get the soil ready for planting after the Easter holidays. They have been learning the different names of the garden equipment. While doing this they discovered some creatures living in the garden and they used their magnifying glasses to get a closer look at them. The garden is in need of some TLC and if anyone can spare some time we would be delighted to get any help we can.
The home corner has been transformed into a garden centre and tearoom and the children are busy roleplaying buying and selling plants and gnomes.
In science they had the opportunity to take part in an experiment involving celery and food colouring and hopefully on Monday they will be able to see the outcome of this experiment.
All children continue to learn about the importance of recycling through the story of Michael Recycle a true recycling superhero. The Eco song is now complete and the children are starting to learn the 2nd verse, a copy of this will be sent home soon.  Our recycle display is beginning to take shape and the children participated in Earth Hour on Friday by completing their very own stars for the eco wall in the school.
At group time this week the children made mother’s day cards and Easter cards. They will continue making a variety of goods which will be sold at the Easter Enterprise this week.

This is my final blog of this term, on behalf of our school community I wish everyone a happy and holy Easter.

Mrs Shields