Yet another exciting week in our school community.
This week throughout each afternoon we have been enrolling our new Primary One pupils for August. It has been a busy time with 46 catchment children enrolled to date. We are aware we have at least 21 placing requests to add to this total. Placing request decisions will be known by late April.
Should you know of anyone who has yet to enroll, please encourage them to come along to school at their earliest convenience.
We look forward to meeting our new intake ‘officially’ on our induction days scheduled for Tuesday 9th and Tuesday 16th May.
Monday saw some of our P7 pupils enjoying participating in Young Leaders Training with our fantastic Active Sports Co-ordinator – Jenny Thompson ( or Jenny Duracell as we affectionately call her). This is a most successful initiative which sees our P7 pupils take full responsibility for lunch time clubs for our younger pupils. A super way to promote a healthy, active lifestyle for our youngest and oldest pupils and a fabulous opportunity for our P7 pupils to show their maturity and their responsibility in a most practical and enjoyable manner.
Tuesday morning we welcomed personnel from Reel Music to record our P7 Song Writing Musical Extravaganza. P7c and some senior pupil volunteers have been working very hard to compose their very own song and then record their efforts. The song is entitled ‘Living to Learn, Learning to Live’ – based, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, on our school motto. I am really looking forward to hearing the song. Our pupils will have opportunity to perform at Motherwell Civic Centre on Tuesday 1st March. Exciting times ahead. Huge thanks to Miss Green, class teacher and Mrs Wilkinson, our Kodaly expert who have been working tirelessly with the children. Mrs Wilkinson said they sounded absolutely amazing, high praise indeed. Well done P7.
On Wednesday we welcomed a number of S6 Caritas pupils from Our Lady’s High to work with our Sacramental Classes. It was great to see so many former pupils returning to join us in this way. We look forward to working together to provide the best spiritual preparation for our children.
Thursday was a very busy day. Primary 3a enjoyed an exciting educational outing to Glasgow Science Centre. This was to launch the Clyde in The Classroom Project, a joint initiative working together with our friends and neighbours in Firpark Primary. We look forward to following the progress of the project and hearing lots of fishy tales! Well done to all of our P3a pupils who won the hearts of all at The Science Centre with their unreserved enthusiasm, super manners and insightful questioning. Congratulations boys and girls. Well done also to Mrs Gillies & Miss Duncan.
Thursday afternoon I was delighted to attend the award ceremony for The Trish Wilson Memorial Illustrated Writing Project. Matthew Munro, now P6b, was awarded First Runner Up in Second Level. This is a magnificent achievement, especially when you consider Matthew was only P5 when he wrote and illustrated this work. Matthew was the youngest by 2 years in his category of winners. Miss Stack, Mrs Campbell, Mrs Munro, John (Matthew’s wee brother and biggest fan) and I all cheered loudly and were very proud of Matthew as he confidently read his work to the audience engaging all in his work. For his efforts Matthew was awarded an inscribed trophy, gift vouchers and a copy of a book written by the late Trish Wilson. Well done Matthew. This is Matthew receiving his award from Mrs Gillian Hanlon, Continuous Improvement Officer with responsibility for Literacy.
Throughout this week we have begun our preparations for our forthcoming school show – The Lion King. Every child in Primaries 5, 6 & 7 has been allocated a part in our show and will have opportunity to be on stage. Auditions have also taken place for specific character parts. This promises to be a fantastic show – our best yet. Mrs McCoy has started class scene rehearsals and the enthusiasm is oozing from our pupils. It promises to be an exciting term ahead.
Meanwhile the nursery pupils and staff have been up to all sorts – as always…..Read on to find out what’s been happening in the playroom, the outdoor area and the forest.
At the beginning of the week the children were asked what they wanted to learn about and due to a few new animal additions to their families at Christmas the discussion was all about their pets. A mindmap of all their ideas can be seen displayed in the house corner. So this is the new nursery topic.
In snack the children discussed what kind of food that their pets needed to stay healthy. A mindmap with all their answers can be seen in the snack area. In the house corner the children used the animal resource box to locate a range of dog baskets, cat beds and some very lifelike pets. These have now taken up resisdency in the house corner and the children are busy looking after them.
Our shape learning continues and in snack the children had triangle toast, square toast, and spaghetti hoops. The children were all able to name the different shapes.
In expressive arts they drew pet portraits used playdough to make their pets and used a range of shapes to make fishbowls to keep their fish in. Some of their portraits can be seen displayed in the art area.
In numeracy the children played a 2d shape matching game and used a range of construction to build 3d models. They also played the animal matching game which proved to be a very popular game that the children were able to play independently.
In literacy they have been concentrating on the different patterns of language through a variety of rhyming stories and nursery rhymes. Humpty Dumpty has proved as ever popular. They have used the musical instruments to listen to different sounds and this will continue next week using our ABC music resource.
Outdoors they have been experimenting floating and sinking. They used lots of different objects and made a chart of their discoveries. This is displayed in the nursery. They have also played the shape corner game outside and used the big shape floor tiles to make their own shapes.
Due to the cold temperatures they have explored the ice in the garden. The mud kitchen had frozen over giving the children the chance to see different shapes and ice with objects frozen inside them. They used the hammers to break the ice into different shapes. They also read snowy animal stories outside.
French continues this term with Mrs Ali teaching the children the birdie dance in French which fitted in perfectly with our new topic.
The second Forest Kindergarten block started on Wednesday. A cold but beautiful day. The children wrapped up warm and had great fun exploring the forest site. Evidence of all their adventures will be in the Forest floorbook in the cloakroom each week. Please take the opportunity to look at it with your child.
A ‘COUPLE’ of photographs for you to see…..
