What a busy fortnight we have all enjoyed.

Monday 13th March our wonderful choir performed really well in Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, we didn’t win this time but we can certainly be proud of our performance. Well done and thank you to all in our choir. Choir will resume on Thursday 20th April.

Tuesday 14th March was the finals of the Cross Country Trials. What an incredibly successful day our runners enjoyed. They brought home a plethora of medals and not one, not two but THREE team trophies and shields! Magnificent work. Congratulations and well done to all involved. A special thanks to Mrs MM Murphy, Mrs Harrison, Mrs McCarthy and Mr Nugent who work so hard to prepare our children for this event. Well chuffed.

Also on Tuesday 14th March we held our bi-annual parent consultation evening, thanks to all who came along and I trust you were delighted with your child’s work and report. We sent a text detailing the great response – over 90% attendance. This is our most well attended parent evening to date. Thank you for your active participation in your child’s education. An encouraging trend.

Wednesday of this week we were enthralled by 3sixty cycle display. This exciting event was enjoyed by all in our school, such a magnificent display of cycle expertise. A number of our ibike crew also enjoyed a cycle workshop. Motivating all to ‘get on your bike’

Friday our usual Lenten ‘madness’ ensued with the strangest concoctions of hairstyles ever!!! It is wonderful to see all of our children so committed to helping those less fortunate than ourselves and enjoyed the fun of participation at the same time from nursery right through to P7. A total of 506.05 was raised from all in our school community.

And onto the next week…..

Tuesday 21st of March our P3 pupils celebrated the Sacrament of Reconciliation. All 68 pupils were outstanding; they were beautifully presented, they sang so tunefully and their reverence throughout the service was commendable. A huge thanks to class teachers Miss Cawley, Mrs Gillies and Mrs Murphy , thanks also to Mrs Campbell for beautiful music.

Friday I was delighted to be invited to attend Our Lady’s High Annual Feast Day Mass celebrated by Bishop Toal. It is always wonderful to visit OLHS and see so many of our former pupils take lead roles in Mass through altar serving, bidding prayers, offertory, play in the band and sing in the choir. Both band and choir were exceptional. A lovely end to a fabulous week.

A huge thanks to all of our P6 & P7 pupils who have volunteered to read at 8.15am Mass during Lent, a great sign of faith in action.

In Advance – Good Luck to Marc Findlay this coming Tuesday as he represents our school in the Finals of Burns Competition in recitation. We’ll be there supporting (and cheering)!

This will be the last Blog for this term.

May I take this opportunity to wish you all a Holy and Happy Easter and an enjoyable holiday ahead.

Here’s all the nursery news:

Last week a special visitor came to the nursery. Barbara Ramage the Road Safety Officer brought some props to help teach the children how to cross the road safely. They role-played the Lollipop person, children crossing the road with an adult and some even got to pretend they were cars on the road. Barbara was introduced to some of the group Aliens who have been learning all about safety here on Earth. She was very impressed with the children’s knowledge of road safety that she gave them all a super sticker and a reflector band to keep them safe at night. She kept the biggest surprise until the end when ZIGGY her very own Alien came to see the children. They were super excited to meet Ziggy after hearing all about him and listening to the stories of his adventures here on Earth. A Superb learning experience!

Continuing with safety the children have been discussing how to stay safe, who to contact if they get lost or what to do in an emergency. A mindmap of their ideas can be seen in the playroom.

They have listened to ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ and discussed how she met a stranger while walking through the forest. They have watched an age appropriate Stranger Danger clip on the SmartBoard and have learned the words to a safety song.

This week the children have also been out and about in their groups on a sign hunt in the school grounds. They worked in pairs to find and identify a range of signs from their sheet. They used the ‘clipper boards’ to help them record their findings.

In the garden they have been role-playing using the garden props that they have turned into vehicles.

In the art area and writing area they have all been busy making a surprise for Sunday and as well as all that they have been making their Easter crafts to sell at next week’s Easter Fayre. On that note the Easter Fayre will take place on Wednesday of next week at the start and end of each session. There will be a raffle, guess how many eggs in the jar, hunt the golden egg and a range of Easter crafts for sale.

The pre-school activities continue with the children using the alphabet pebbles to identify the letters in their name. Some children were able to form their name using them. They have also been on a shape hunt within the nursery searching for 2d and 3d shapes. Each week the children will be given a different challenge to help prepare them for school.

As always, thanks for reading.

Happy Easter when it comes and we’ll see you back here on Friday 21st April for our first blog of the new term.

Mrs Shields