What a week! If you thought there was a lot happening last week…..welcome to this week.

I begin with news which is both delightful and very sad. Miss Lesley Phee one of our Primcipal Teachers has successfully secured a post as Depute Head Teacher in Saint Paul’s Primary in Shettleston, Glasgow. I am thrilled for Miss Phee, she deserves such success, but I am very sad for our school. Miss Phee has been with us for a number of years initially as class teacher and then onto Prinicipal Teacher. Throughout her years at our school Miss Phee has enjoyed a wide variety of class posts and laterally teaching ICT/Technology across the whole school, her input in our school cannot be defined in words. She has been instrumental in so many creative innovations and has worked with all of our staff giving her best at alltimes. Her talents and skills will be greatly missed. Miss Phee has been an excellent member of staff and I have thoroughly enjoyed working with her, it’s been great fun. I am sure she will continue successfully in her new post as DHT in St. Paul’s, Shettleston. On behalf of our whole school community I wish her every joy and happiness in her new challenge ahead and say a great big THANK YOU from everyone in our school and nursery. Good Luck Lesley ~ we’ll miss you.

Tuesday and Thursday of this week we were very proud of all of our Primary Six and Primary Seven Pupils who received the Sacrament of Confirmation on both O.L.G.A Cathedral Church and Saint Luke’s Parish. Congratulations to all involved, both Masses were spiritually uplifting and most prayerful. Our children participatied throughout the Mass with their spoken and sung responses and their beautiful hymn singing. Thanks to all involved in working with our children to prepare them for this final Sacrament of Initiation into the Catholic Church:

Class teachers: Mrs Irwin, Miss Kane, Mrs McLaughlan, Mrs Carr, Miss Lafferty, Miss Green, Mrs J Murphy, Mrs Duffy & Mrs Campbell

Music Ministry: Mrs J Murphy, Miss Love, Miss Phee & Mrs Campbell

Clergy: His Lordship Bishop Toal, Monsigneur Millar & Canon O’Mahony

Thanks also to all parishioners who helped prepare the churches and to the servers who assisted during the Masses.

On Wednesday afternoon if you were within the vicinity of the school you may have heard humungus cheering and much celebration coming from P7a. Mrs McLaughlan, Mr Leach all of Priamry 7a and a recruit from P7c (Keela-Chae McCreaddie) represented our school at NLC Handball championships. And….guess what….they won!!!

The teams won every game they played (11 in total) and emerged as worthy handball champions. congratulations to everyone involved and a huge thanks to Mrs McLaughlan (the most competitve of the lot) and Mr Leach for their training and encouragement. We look forward to the National Championships later this month.

Here’s the team in action:

Thursday of this week saw the final week of one of our most successful after school clubs – Bag Making. A big thanks to Mrs Munro and Miss Falconer who give up their own time to teach the children after school. Both ladies are employed as additional support needs assistants to work with specific children in our school. It is so fabulous to see how committed they are to our school community. I am indebted to them and indeed to all who give so freely of their own time to share their talents and skills with our children. Thanks ladies, and I hope I’m not spoiling any ‘mum’s’ surprise by showing off the finished articles!

On Friday morning Primary 5b set out for a day trip to Hunterston Power Station, this is part of their interdisciplinary learning on the topic of Energy. A great day was had by all. The children had opportunity to look, learn, listen and interact with a range of energy resources and skilled personnel. Thanks to the parents who came along to assist.

Here’s some photos of their day:

 

Our busy, busy week ended with a fantastic Race Night in Saint Bride’s – newly refurbished (very posh) downstairs hall. This was a brilliant evening and it was woncerful to see so many of our regular supporters and also some new parents and families who have recently joined us. Our Fundraising Team are magnificent. I cannot thank them enough for the incredible work they do for our children. The Fundraisers work so hard all year to ensure they help all in our school and nursery community enjoy all the additional extras which takes our school and nursery from a great community to an excellent community.

The Race Night raised an incredible £2366.90 WOW! Absolutely Brilliant. Details of how we will enjoy spending this to further enhance our childrens learning experiences will be given in due course…I’m enjoying simply thinking about spending it : )

Thank you is inadequate for this group of Fabulous Fundraisers. They are amazing.

Meanwhile…….it’s all going on down in the nursery….Here’s the gossip from Mrs MM Murphy (who’s horse won on Friday night!)

Group activities this week revisited activities that we carried out earlier in the year to track the progress that has been made.

Outdoors the children put on their own shoes and coats to continue to promote independence. The majority of children achieved this and received a certificate of achievement to take home.
In literacy they discussed the different nursery rhymes that they knew and listened for the words that sounded the same.
In the numeracy area they used the ten green bottles numberline to count 0-10 and to put the numbers in the correct order, they also picked out the numbers at random.
In the art area they used training scissors, patterned scissors and normal scissors to cut around an egg shape and follow the zig zag cracks in the egg. These can be seen over beside the Humpty Dumpty display.
In snack they followed instructions to help prepare snack where they produced tasty pizza and delicious lemon cupcakes.

This week the children have been exploring the patterns of language through nursery rhymes. The children chose Humpty Dumpty last week and this continued throughout the week.

Outdoors they worked as a team and built a wall from the wooden blocks and role-played Humpty Dumpty falling off the wall. They also explored the indoor climbing frame following directional language.

In the Literacy area they read a variety of nursery rhymes using books with story boards and wrote their own versions of Humpty Dumpty. In music they sang the nursery rhymes listened to the rhythm and then used the beaters and bells in time to the rhythm.

In the numeracy area they played an Incy Wincy Spider board game and a Humpty Dumpty board game which gave them the opportunity to explore positional and directional language.

In the art area they completed the Humpty Dumpty display which can be seen at the far end of the playroom. They made their own Humpty Dumpty role-play masks and then sang and role-played the rhyme over at the display using blocks and chairs. They followed the pictures on the Humpty Dumpty playdough mats to create a wall and their own characters from the rhyme.

The first block of the Forest Kindergarten started on Wednesday and to see what the children have been exploring and learning about please have a look in the floorbook in the cloakroom.

As always, thanks for reading. Comments always welcome.

Mrs Shields