I have to begin with a HUGE thanks to everyone for their incredible generosity with our Lenten Charity Sponsor Event – Beat The Goalie. We have raised £647 from the nursery and £ 3061.34 from the school giving a grand total of £3708.34 – this is amazing. Our charities include helping those less fortunate across the world, around Scotland and right here in Lanarkshire, think of how many lives will be enriched by the generosity shown by our school community. This is indeed Faith in Action. Coupled with this the children ( and staff) had a great time trying to beat the goalies. A big thanks to all who volunteered to be goalies for us on Wednesday, we couldn’t do this without the help of our volunteers. Well done to all involved.

Throughout the week our Primary 5, 6 & 7 pupils are all very busy rehearsing for our forthcoming show The Lion King. The Lion King is to be the focus of our whole school community approach to learning with everyone from the nursery through to P7 enjoying Inter Disciplinary Learning through the media of this topic. It promises to be a ‘roarin’ success!

Tuesday evening Mgr. Millar and Fr. Martin presented worksops to Primary 4 parents and children in preparation for their First Holy Communion. This event was very well attended and met with very positive feedback. Thanks to all who came along and to our ever faithful clergy for their continued active support and encouragement in all of our childrens’ spiritual development.

Both Mgr. Millar and Canon O’Mahoney have also been in school hearing confessions in P4 – P7 throughout the week, this will continue next week ensuring all upper school children have opportunity to celebrate the sacrament of Penance during this season of Lent.

Wednesday dawned cold, crisp and dry – a great day for our Beat the Goalie, which, as i’ve detailed was a fabulous success.

Wednesday also saw the beginning of our preparation for our forthcoming Primary One pupils. Mrs Duffy and Mrs MM Murphy provided stimulating and informative pre-school workshops for the parents of our current pre-schoolers. This workshop gave parents and carers an insight into the work on-going in nursery to prepare the children for ‘the big school’ and how they can best help at home. Thanks to Mrs Duffy and Mrs MM Murphy for their great work.

Thursday saw our clergy involved in school life once again celebrating a Class Mass in P3b, this was the second class Mass of the week with P3/4 having this unique opportunity on Tuesday. All staff remark on how a Mass within class provides such an intimate and meaningful experience for the children. Our grateful thanks, once again, to our clergy.

Friday was a fabulous day. Our Primary Two Assembly was simply magnificent. Such an enthusiastic year group who threw themselves wholeheartedly into entertaining and educating their audience. It was a super assembly which guided through a whole year, taught us about the themes for each month and gave us an indepth study of the history (and the science) behind the leap year. HUGE congratulations to all of our fabulous Primary Two pupils, they were brilliant. Thanks also to our dedicated and talented staff who, as always, scripted a super educational and entertaining experience.

Meanwhile, as well as beating the goalie our nursery pupils have enjoyed a very busy week. Here’s all the gossip from Mrs Margaret Mary Murphy in finest technicolour!

This week the children have been out and about in the community visiting Pets at Home in Hamiltion on the mini bus and visiting the new pet shop in Motherwell. The staff in both shops gave a short talk about the animals in their care and the children got up close and personal to a variety of domestic and aquatic pets. The children returned form their adventures full of stories and these have been collated and made into a book in the writing area. These books will be displayed in the cloakroom next week for everyone to see.

After these visits role-play increased in the nursery vets with children displaying some of the leaflets they were given on their visits and discussing the different animals they saw with their friends.

In expressive arts the children used the sponge paints to create various sized paw prints and used a range of collage to make turtles that they had seen in the pet shop. They made animal playdough and explored the big block of ice in the water tray that the children had found in the garden.

Outdoors the children went on a wild animal hunt around the local community but unfortunately the animals seemed to all be in hiding so they explored some of the cut down trees instead showing off their balancing skills.

In the numeracy area they have been gathering a lot of information on the names of baby animals, the sounds diffferent animals make and even discussed where some of these animals live. They have explored the wild animal jigsaws and watched some information about wild animals on the SmartBoard.

On Wednesday all the nursery children took part in our 2nd charity event ‘Beat the Goalie’ and they certainly did. Even the children in the forest had the chance to participate and we have the photographic evidence to prove their excellent ball skills. A big thank you to John’s dad for being our forest goalie.
The 2nd Forest Kindergarten block will come to an end next Wednesday when the children will celebrate their graduation in the forest with their families.

Preparation for block 3 got underway this week with the children discussing what they will see in the forest and what they think the forest will look like. They have made their wood cookies and have been practicing all of the safety games using the nursery garden as the forest.

This week we said goodbye to Mr Crawford our student who has been an asset to our nursery team. We wish him well in everything he does in the future. The children will miss him.

Next week look out for some changes in the nursery playroom as we join with the school on a whole school topic and the clue is

HAKUNA MATATA!

As always, thanks for reading. Please leave us a comment.

Mrs Shields