Happy New Year to everyone. I hope all enjoyed a joyous Christmas and peaceful New Year. In this Year of Mercy we will focus our prayer on peace throughout our world and put our faith in our merciful God.

We’ve had a we short week in school, a nice relaxing start to the year. It was lovely to see all of our children return safe and well having enjoyed a lovely Christmas. From their stories it is clear Santa has been VERY busy in and around Motherwell.

Throughout  these initial three days we have been preparing for our new Primary One pupils due to begin with us in school from August 2016. We look forward to a busy week of enrolment this coming week. Parents can enrol children each afternoon from 1.30pm to 3.00pm, however, if these times do not suit we will happily accomodate throughout each day, when we can.

Please remember when enrolling to bring birth lines (not the shortened version), proof of address in the form of a council tax statement/bill and, where applicable, Baptismal certificate. All of this paperwork will be photocopied and kept safely in each child’s school file.

We continue to be short staffed and, like all schools, are finding it difficult to access supply teachers. As a consequence of this, and to ensure minimal disruption to our children’s education, Mrs Duffy and Mrs Campbell are both finding themselves class committed at different times througout each week for the foreseeable future. Our priority in school is, and always will be, to provide excellent learning for all of our children. Our robust planning format and committment to collaborative preparation ensures continuity and progression in each of our classes indiscriminate of the teacher.

Thursday morning our Primary 5 children re-embarked on their swimming and dry sports programme, a great way to promote their health and fitness. This coming week some of our P7 pupils will be debating the merit of running/walking one mile each day. I await their views with great interest.

Friday morning I attended my new ‘Family Group’ meeting. North Lanarkshire Council has allocated each school to a ‘family’ where there are similarities to our school/nursery perspective. Our family includes:

St Timothy’s Coatbridge, Ladywell Primary Motherwell, John Paul II Primary Uddingston, Clarkston Primary Airdrie and Tannochside Primary Tannochside.

It was a really interesting meeting and great to have a chat about the challenges being in large primary schools (half of whom also have nursery classes) presents. We have been asked to decide on three shared priorities to take forward. Collaboratively we have decided we will focus our energies on upper school reading. Looking at ways to evidence, track and monitor reading progress in the upper school. I will keep you informed of our progress.

As we move to our nursery blog can I highlight a problem which is on-going throughout our school community; Head Lice!

Sorry to begin the year with this but it is so important each parent continues to monitor their child’s head for any signs of ‘itchy scratchys’ as they are affectionatly known! Please be vigilant in checking your child’s hair every week. Working together we can erradicate this annoying difficulty, please be pro-active in your approach. Thanks.

Meanwhile, in our ‘EXCELLENT’ nursery they’ve had a busy three days, here’s Mrs Murphy’s weekly update:

 

A short week in nursery this week but as usual a very busy one. On Wednesday we welcomed back all of our children and 7 new children in the nursery and a new member of staff. Mrs Diane Duffy has joined our excellent nursery as a permanent member of staff. By Friday our new recruits were settling in well.

The staff would like to take this opportunity to thank all parents/carers who purchased a calendar last term. The total raised from the sale of the calendars was £354. The children will be consulted in what they would like to spend the money on in the near future.

On returning to nursery the children were full of stories about Christmas morning, Christmas dinner and what they got from the man in the red suit. In the literacy area they wrote detailed stories and drew pictures of their new toys. Look out for these coming home soon.

In numeracy the children have been naming a range of 2d shapes and using the 3d shapes to build houses boats and very tall towers in the construction area. This will continue over the next few weeks to expand their knowledge of a variety of shapes.

Outdoors the children took part in a shape hunt. A range of shapes had been hidden within the nursery garden for them to find and by the end of the week they were beginning to identify shapes in the garden fixtures.

In expressive arts the children used shapes to make pictures of their houses and people. Look out for the shape display coming soon. They made their own shapes using playdough and explored cooked spaghetti in the water tray.

The heart of the nursery has been transformed back into a house corner which helps settle the new children in as there are familiar things in the house corner that they may recognise from their own houses. The children have been setting the table and role-playing with the babies.

As always healthy snack is on offer each day in the snack area and the children choose what they are having for snack and write up the menu board.

The second Forest Kindergarten block starts on Wednesday 13/1/16. All children involved have been preparing for their first visit this week. They have made their wood cookies and have practised going to the forest in the nursery garden. The children are excited about their forthcoming adventures which will be recorded in the forest floorbook which will be displayed in the cloakroom for all to see.

As always, thanks for reading. Please feel free to comment – this could be your New Year resolution!

Mrs Shields