Our Burns Champions

Our Burns competitors did us proud on Tuesday evening; a most successful outcome.

Our children secured First Place in P4/5 verse speaking, Third and First place in P6/7 singing, Overall P6/7 winner and our school was awarded the Schools Trophy for Overall Cchampions on the evening. Absolutely fantastic, we are so proud of our young performers they were truly magnificent. Big thanks to all parents/carers who came along on the evening to cheer them on and to our staff, Miss Cawley and Mrs Shevlin who have been coaching the children. Thanks also to Mrs Campbell for providing the musical accompaniment on the evening.

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Thanks to Mrs Mary Little for taking our photographs.

This week in our school our nursery parents have enjoyed informative pre-school workshops which detail the work we will be doing next term to ensure our youngest pupils are all ready for ‘the big school’. Both workshops were very well attended, thanks to all who came along. Thanks also to Mrs Marie Clare Duffy and Mrs Margaret Mary Murphy for their preparation and presentation of the workshops.

Throughout this week our pupils across all stages have enjoyed spectacular author visits and story telling sessions in our lovely new library. Mrs Tominey and her trusty librarians, working with Mrs McGuire and Firpark librarians organised a wonderful array of events for everyone to enjoy and to further promote reading for enjoyment. We have been motivated and inspired by our author visits.

Friday of this week we held our grand opening of our outdoor classroom and al fresco orchestra. Mr Alan Blakley and Mr Charlie Millar from Forgewood Holdings joined us for the official opening. We were also delighted to welcome Mrs Anne Munro, chairperson of our Fabulous Fundraisers and Mrs Mary Frances Verrecchia, treasurer of our Fabulous Fundraisers and our Parent Council. Invited guest also included Mr Bulloch and Mrs Josephine Duffy, our wonderful janitors.

We enjoyed a magical morning with representatives from across our school and nursery all delighted to be a part of this exciting event. Mr John Wilson was on hand to photograph the event, photographs will be published on the App as soon as we receive them.

A HUGE thanks to everyone involved on the day with particular appreciation to Forgewood Holdings, our fabulous Fundraisers and EVERYONE IN OUR SCHOOL COMMUNITY. Every single person has been involved in raising funds to secure these new elements to our yard. Both will bring great opportunities for diverse, exciting learning and loads of fun.

Friday of this week we were honoured to participate in ‘Thinking Day’ with all of those in our school who are Rainbows, Brownies, Guides, Beavers, Cubs and Scouts. They proudly wore their appropriate uniforms on Friday, well done to all participants.

Meanwhile, when not attending official openings our nursery children have been very busy…..

As we come to the end of our ‘People Who Help Us’ topic the children transferred the Police station into a Hospital and have been role-playing the job of the Doctor, Nurse and Paramedic. They have used the stethoscope to listen to their own and others heartbeats. They have recorded their temperatures using the thermometer strips.

In Science they have been exploring a range of body part x-rays on the lightbox and from this have been learning the names of different bones inside their body.

In art they created their own handprint x-rays and make an ambulance from junk. Throughout the week the children have been using their senses as they explore different smells in the water tray and have used the playdough to make their own stethoscopes for the Doctors.

In Literacy they have been scribing their own life experiences of visiting the Doctors surgery, clinic or hospital. After telling their own stories they had the opportunity to visit the music area to use the props to sing some songs and rhymes relating to medical emergencies. Such as ‘Miss Polly, Humpty Dumpty and 5 cheeky Monkeys jumping on the bed’.

Outdoors they made a hospital bed from Quadro for the hospital and they created their own nurses and Doctors from the dress up collage.

The Smartboard has been put to good use as the children participated in a range of ‘Funny Bones’ stories and action songs.

Wednesday was the start of the 3rd Forest Kindergarten block. Look out for their adventures in the Forest floorbook and in the cloakroom.

On Friday all children had the opportunity to listen to a story from the author Lizzie Finnegan as part of our Library Launch. The children had fun participating in the story telling.

And here we are proudly presenting our brand new outdoor clothing, catwalk models in the making!

Final thanks to Mrs Mary Little, our brand new ‘photographer’.

As always, thanks for taking the time to read the Blog. Please leave a comment or two.

Mrs Shields