I would like to start my Blog this week with a HUGE thank you to all of the ladies who planned, supported and came along on Friday Evening to our Fabulous Fundraisers First ever Ladies Night. This was an outstanding success. The hall was full the atmosphere was fun fun fun and what a great night this was. Thanks to all parents, grandparents, aunties, friends, staff, former pupils!!!! (how old do I feel?) and everyone else who came along, fantastic support for our school and nursery. Coupled with a great night the Fundraisers raised an incredible £1555.00-Amazing! Thank you, thank you, thank you and thank you again.

Earlier in the week our Primary Seven pupils all enjoyed their first taste of High School. On Tuesday of our P7 pupils spent the day at OLHS to experience a real sense of what is to come. As always our pupils were a credit to our school, well done to all of our P7 pupils.

Tuesday evening we, as a staff, were delighted to be invited to join the parishioners of St. Luke’s Parish to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of the Parish. This was a truly beautiful celebration, prayerful and uplifting. Thanks to St. Luke’s parishioners for their wonderful contribution to the Mass, and thanks to all of our pupils who also came along with their parents and grandparents. I was delighted so many of our staff could be there (21 in total) and also a couple of ‘ladies of leisure’. It was great to welcome Mrs Collins and Mrs Mullen back to the fold, both looking great and thoroughly enjoying their new found freedom!

Wednesday morning we began our weekly morning Mass in our library, this gives our pupils and staff opportunity to begin their day in a most prayerful way. It also provides a great platform for us as a school community to welcome parishioners of O.L.G.A Cathedral Parish and St. Luke’s Parish to our school. This gives us a true sense of being a community of Faith & Learning.

Mass is celebrated every Wednesday from now until Christmas holidays at 8.15am in our library. All welcome.

Thanks to Mgr Millar, Deacon Tom & Canon O’Mahoney for taking the time to celebrate Mass for us.

Friday morning was a very busy morning in school with our Primary 6 pupils providing a very tasty treat. The P6 coffee morning was a great success. It is lovely to see so many parents coming along to support our coffee mornings and so many new ‘coffee morning ladies’ without whom we could not organise all of these additional activities for our pupils. Thanks to all who provided home baking and so many Raffle Prizes. Another great success in our school. Well done Primary Six.

And so to the nursery, here’s Mrs Murphy’s latest gossip…..

This week nursery went with a BANG when the children were busy learning and making lots of different things relating to Bonfire Night.
Outdoors the children made a Guy by stuffing old clothes with crushed up newspaper. They made a face using a variety of materials and wrote a sign “Penny for the Guy” then paraded him around the school in a wheelbarrow an old tradition that seems to have died out. They also drew chalk rockets and sparklers on the ground with the chunky chalk and painted glittery firework pictures.
In the literacy area they listened to a story about Guy fawkes then they wrote firework words and their own Bonfire night stories.
In expressive arts they made rockets from clay and painted them, they also made rockets from junk and displayed them before taking them home on Friday.
In numeracy the children explored lots of new resources including shapes and number hopscotch and used the carpet tile shapes to make rockets. They used the SmartBoard to draw their own fireworks.
In the snack are they made rocket popcorn they listened carefully to the sound of the popcorn which reminded them of fireworks and they made sparklers from chocolate fingers and sprinkles and as a treat they made hot chocolate to go along with them.
The topic of “People Who Help Us” is nearing the end and we were very fortunate to have visits from numerous people this week.
On Monday Emma from the SSPCA spoke to the children about being kind to animals, she showed them a short presentation of how the SSPCA rescue animals in trouble and how they find them new homes. She told them some stories of wild animals who have been stuck in some weird and wonderful places. The children retold what they had learned in their floorbooks.
On Tuesday Christine from Childsmile visited the children along with a big yellow dog named Smilez, she showed them how to brush their teeth properly and told them how to keep their teeth healthy. All children have now been allocated a new toothbrush and the toothbrushng programme will continue each week.
On Thursday it was the turn of the Fire Service who brought the fire engine as close to the nursery door as they could, the children got the opportunity to sit inside the engine, they got a turn on the hose and got to try on some of the safety equipment such as the helmet. This was a fantastic learning experience for the children and they were so pleased when the driver turned on the siren. Again they put lots of information in their big books and some even drew a huge fire engine with ladders, siren and hose.
On Friday a Policeman and woman visited the nursery along with Jackie the police dog (stuffed but very lifelike). The children got to get up close and feel how heavy the handcuffs were, they tried on the hats and were delighted when the policeman’s walkie talkie went and he had to answer it. They got to see the police car and again hear the siren. Both emergency services were surprised at how much the children had learned about them already. The fire service gave us a great website to look at packed with information on how to contact the emergency services and what to do in a fire. STOP, DROP and ROLL. The children will get an opportunity to practice this next week.
Our daily group activities are now concentrating on our forthcoming Christmas show. The children are learning the songs and listening to the story that they are going to perform. This will continue next week.

As always, thanks for taking the time to read the Blog, any comments always welcome.

Mrs Shields