A very varied week featuring lots of different learning opportunities for our children.
As always, we began our week as a community of faith and learning with our weekly assembly. This is an opportunity for us all to come together to pray and to celebrate all that has been happening in our school community. It is also a great platform from which our many school committees launch exciting new challenges for our pupils. Monday 23rd May promises to be one to remember. Watch this space for more information coming soon.
Once again this week we welcomed our 82 (an additional enrolment from last week) future Primary One pupils and their families to our school. Once again, this was a super experience for all concerned. We have issued evaluation sheets to all of our new entrants, if this concerns you please take the time to complete and return the evaluation. Your views and opinions are vital to our programme of continuous improvement.
Huge thanks to all who were so actively involved in our Pre-Entrant Programme:
Primary One Class teachers for August 2016; Mrs McCarthy, Mrs Gillespie, Mrs Laird & Mrs McLaughlan.
Mrs Mellon and all classroom assistants who help to settle our new pupils.
Mrs Campbell for preparing all of the paperwork and our Welcome Booklet.
Mrs McCoy for sharing her Primary one expertise with all new parents.
Mrs Duffy, acting as liaison for our nursery pupils.
Mrs Munro, Chair of our Fabulous Fundraisers for coming along to speak about the wonderful work this group of people does for our school. I know we have a few more interested recruits now, well done Mrs Munro.
Big, big thanks to Leah McCalden, P1a and Idris Ali, P1b who both spoke so eloquently and engagingly of their Primary One experience. Both pupils showed themselves to be confident individuals, successful learners and responsible citizens who effectively contributed to our Pre- Entrant programme. Great work.
Throughout this week you may have noticed our Primary Seven pupils and their teachers out and about in Motherwell. Primary Seven are currently studying ‘chocolate’. This involves, designing, marketing research, purchasing materials, creating recipes and (the best bit) tasting! This last week they have been out shopping for their ingredients and making great use of our newest facility – our teaching kitchen.
A particular thanks to Mrs McGill (Michael’s mum) who drove two of our injured boys to and from Asda ensuring no-one missed out.
Pupils in Primary 4b have also been making great use of our teaching kitchen, they all enjoyed ‘bread week’.
I am reliably informed that coming soon to our teaching kitchen is a ‘bakeoff’ a Pancake Challenge in Primary Five……more info as it develops.
On Wednesday of this week our Bikeability students, under the careful eye of their trainers; Mrs Carr and Miss Green, all had a unique opportunity to take part in ‘The Pearl Azumi Road Race’.
Here’s Mrs Carr’s account:
“P6 children, currently completing the Bikeability training, had the wonderful opportunity to participate in the Pearl Izumi cycling tour which was held in Motherwell last Tuesday. The school event offered the children the chance to cycle the course along the street of Motherwell under professional race conditions, cheered on by many enthusiastic onlookers.
The attached photos show the children enjoying the warm up activities before the race began. They thoroughly enjoyed this too as it gave them the chance to enjoy cycling freely on the courses laid out in such a wide open area.”
More photographs taken at the race can be found on the following link:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/northlanarkshirecouncil/albums/72157667865033720
Huge thanks to all who came along to accompany the children and support them. Specific vote of thanks to Mr Nugent (Robbie’s dad) and Mr Maughan (Abbie & Emma’s dad) who donned their cycling gear and accompanied the children to, from and through the route. A great day was had by all.
Wednesday & Thursday of this week North Lanarkshire Council hosted it’s Annual Learning Festival. This is an opportunity for all involved in education to enhance our own learning. A number of our staff attended throughout and out-with the school day broadening their own skills and bringing back new methodologies to enhance our children’s learning experiences.
On Friday of this week our school hosted an area wide Football Tournament. Mrs McBirnie, more usually known as ‘Willie the football man’ working alongside Mrs Duffy and Jenny Thompson our Active Schools Co-Ordinator, organised this most successful and well attended event. Seven teams from around our locale took part. They were:
Our Lady of Good Aid Cathedral, Ladywell, Knowetop, St Brendan’s, St Bernadette’s, Noble Primary and St Teresa’s.
Here’s some photographs of the teams:
Also on Friday, staying with the football theme we were delighted to have our Annual Football Awards Ceremony. Mrs Duffy is preparing a separate ‘Blog’ to tell you all about our visiting ‘celebrity’ and announcing all the winners. Watch this space or all the info and lots of photographs.
Friday morning, what a busy day! Also heralded our Primary Seven coffee morning. Their last one ever…Awwwww.
I am delighted to say this was a great success, we had lots and lots of home baking all of which was delicious. Our Coffee Morning was very well attended and many people left carrying lovely raffle prizes. Huge thanks to all in P7 for their contributions and active participation on the day. Big thanks also to the large number of parent helpers who came along to organise the whole event and make teas and coffees for all. An amazing £528.55 was raised. Well done and thank you to Primary Seven and all concerned.
Coupled with all this amazing work on-going throughout the school day, after 3pm our school community continues to be a hive of learning activities. This term we have:
Netball, Handball, Bikeability, Spanish, Cookery, Choir, Solo-Singing, Art “n Craft & Olympics. Our children’s learning goes on and on and on and on……as it should!
A HUGE thanks to all teaching, non-teaching staff, external coaches and parents who so diligently give of their own time to allow our children to have such a broad range of excellent learning opportunities. I am indebted to each and every one of them.
As if this isn’t’ enough going on our nursery pupils have been incredibly busy….Here’s the gossip from Mrs Margaret Mary Murphy:
The children have been out and about this week again visiting the local Aquatic Centre looking at a range of sea creatures. They came back full of stories and told their friends about their experiences. Back in the garden the children have been planting flowers and vegetables in our big planters. They will look after them, water them and watch them grow. They have also been taking part in energetic games in the garden and in the infant yard with Mr. Munro our student athletics coach in preparation for our forthcoming Big Bonanza Day.
In Literacy they have been scribing a long list of words from the ‘Rainbow Fish’ story and reading other stories about a range of sea creatures.
In Numeracy they have been sorting, matching and naming a range of sea creatures using the coloured bowls and exploring the ‘Under the Sea’ jigsaws.
In Science they drew faces on their mini plant pots and planted cress to make cress heads. They have been watering them each day and they are starting to grow already.
They have been watching a whole host of water related clips on the SmartBoard.
Expressive Arts has been awash with creative activities this week. The children created fish using their handprints and collage and placed them in the fishbowl. They made their own individual Octopus using sponges, paint and tissue paper. They explored the frozen sea creatures in the water and made their own fish using the playdough.
Snack has been a bit fishy this week again with tuna sandwiches, tuna pasta and fishfingers Yum Yum! Lots of role-playing taking place throughout the nursery using the submarine and the big fish.
Our forest site is starting to flourish with plants and vegetation growing weekly. The children enjoyed another sunny day in the forest on Friday. En route to the forest they discovered a huge number of giant slugs and a large family of snails living on the burnt grass area. During the session the children worked together as a team to create a den for a monkey and the Keeper of the Forest, this activity went on for such a long time working together, using their imaginations and their brute strength to move heavy rocks. A Fab day in the forest!!!
Our Graduation preparation has started and the count down to this special day is on.
Here’s the photpgraphs of all that’s been happening:
Please leave a comment and let us know what you think of all that’s happening in our school community.
REMEMBER: No Blog next week as it is the holiday weekend.
Thanks for reading.
Mrs Shields
