This week was in many ways a very exciting week in school. On Tuesday we received  a phonecall from NLC press department asking if the BBC could come and film some of our P7 pupils for an item to be shown on BBC evening news on Wednesday. Our children were asked about their hopes and dreams for the future and their expectations for their careers. Six of our P7 pupils (two from each class) were selected to participate:

David Nugent

Aidan Simpson

Hannah Townsley

Euan Whitehead

Abigail McNally

Weronika Kahl

Our children spoke very eloquently and gave an excellent, insightful viewpoint of their hopes for the future. Well done to all six participants, we are very proud of you all.

Throughout the week our children, from P4 through to P7 and all of our parent forum has been asked for their viewpoints on many different aspects of our school. I am delighted with the high number of parents who took the time to complete the self-evaluation and return it to school. Thanks so much for this. Self-evaluation is a very important tool for us in school to ensure we are providing a service which is pertinent to our pupils and is in line with the expectations of our parent forum. I am completely committed to endeavouring to do the best we possibly can in our school to provide the highest and most appropriate education for all of our pupils in both nursery and in our school.

A very small number of parents have raised some points which I will address over the coming weeks. I have tried to contact any parent who is unhappy/dissatisfied with the service we provide. Communicating with all parents is a key aspect of our success and, I truly believe, there is no point in ascertaining views if you are not willing to discuss them with the relevant stakeholders.

All self evaluation feedback will be collated and published on our website. Any concerns raised I will provide a written response following discussion with the parents. That being said, we handed out almost 600 questionnaires and, to date, only 6 parents have raised issues with which they are not totally satisfied. 594 happy parents is an excellent result. Many thanks to the large number of parents who responded so positively and provided excellent feedback, most encouraging for all in school.

Our P4 to 7 pupils have been involved in our own school self-evaluation and also in respect of the proposed merger of OLHS and Taylor High. Again, I will take on board the points raised by our pupils and discuss with them how best we can improve any aspect of school with which they are not entirely satisfied. Thanks to our pupils for their, honest and frank opinions.

We pride ourselves in listening to all stakeholders in our school and endeavouring to discuss any concerns in respect of any aspect of school life. Unfortunately, we cannot please everyone all of the time and there are times when people simply have to understand that things happen in school for the correct reason. Again, I emphasise the importance of discussing concerns with both parents and children. Communication is the key to moving forward.

Saturday saw the final First Holy Communion celebrations for our P4 children, again we enjoyed a most uplifting, spiritual Mass with our 14 children and their families. A huge thanks to Fr Millar and to the great number of our staff, both teaching and non-teaching who gave of their own time to come along and support our children in this most important step in their faith journey.

We look forward to celebrating our mass of Thanksgiving in school for all of our sacramental children on Tuesday 3rd June at 2.15pm in school hall. Please come along even if you do not have a child in P3 or P4, we welcome everyone and encourage all to participate in all aspects of school life.

Our nursery has also enjoyed a very busy week……Here’s all the gossip from Mrs Murphy.

The Growing Together Learning Forever Programme a parental workshop has come to an end. Eight parents/carers who took part in it received certificates of participation last week from their children. The main aim of the workshop was to support parents/carers to improve their interaction with their children through everyday activities. It provided resources to help them improve on health and well being, literacy and numeracy. The feedback has been very positive and we hope to be able to provide similar courses in the future.

The mini-beasts topic is now in full swing with the delivery of our live caterpillars on Wednesday. The children will all be able to see the life cycle of a butterfly right in their own playroom.  Some other creatures are living in the nursery playroom as well. The children found some snails and have brought them in. They have been named Turbo, Lighting and Belle. This has given the children the opportunity to care for these creatures and they have been mesmerised by the snail trail. A story about Norman, a slug who really wants to be a snail, has become very popular in the story corner since the snails have arrived.

In the maths area the children took part in a mini-beasts hunt and have recorded their findings on a graph which can be seen on the wall.

They have been writing the names of different creatures in the writing area with the magnetic letters and watching the Very Hungry Caterpillar on the Smartboard.

In art they painted caterpillars and made them from playdough. They have also been searching for bugs in the soil in the sandpit.

In snack they made butterfly cakes and decorated them.

Outside the transformation of the garden continues. An afterschool club run by Mrs Keenan and Mrs Imray started on Tuesday involving some P6 children. The aim is to develop an outdoor musical area in the nursery garden. The children came up with some fantastic ideas and immediately started to research how they could provide the resources with of course recycling being foremost in their mind. Watch this space or maybe listen to this space!
On Friday afternoon with the help of some parents the garden tidy up continued. We have been lucky enough to have been provided with some new child friendly planters made from the wood from the original ones and also a bird table and seed which was donated by a parent. Again the nursery staff are indebted to all the garden gang helpers. The garden area is now looking fantastic and the children are enjoying caring for the flowers and vegetables that they have planted.

A reminder that this Thursday we are having an Ugly Bug Ball. The children will get the opportunity to make their own masks for this during the week.

As always, thanks for reading, all comments most welcome.

Apologies for the lack of photographs, we are experiencing technical difficulties which we hope to rectify in the very near future

Mrs Shields