What a busy month, so many things on-going in our school community.
Throughout the first week Primary One had their photographs taken for Motherwell Times, we celebrated our Feast Day Mass with Fr. Paul leading the liturgy ably assisted by Primary 4. Also, at our Feast Day Mass we witnessed our Primary 6 pupils enrol in The Pope Francis faith Award. This is a two year programme of study designed to deepened, strengthen and guide our senior pupils in their Faith Journey.
This week we welcomed our new Active Schools Co-ordinator, Catriona Shields (no relation), we look forward to working closely with Catriona, already she has begun a programme of training for our Primary Seven pupils training as Young Leaders. This training will equip P7 pupils with the skills to develop and lead physical activities to motivate and inspire our youngest pupils. Pupils leading learning .
We also welcomed all of our parents/carers to our Meet the Teacher evening. On this evening each class teacher presented our new ‘Vision, Values and Aims’ (as detailed in my last Blog). Staff then provided their parents/carers with a workshop all about their class, what their children will be learning and how all parents/carers will be encouraged to be involved. A very industrious week.
The second week of September we held our first Parent Council(PC) meeting of the session, thanks to all those who volunteered to become part of our PC (seven in total), our clerk will be in touch to invite all volunteers to our next meeting.
Throughout this week our Junior Road Safety Officers, John Munro and Lilly Moore, conducted a ‘Hands Up Survey’ detailing how our children travel to school. Thanks to our JRSOs and to Mrs McCoy our new JRSO co-ordinator.
We had opportunity this week to celebrate the successes of our former pupils at Our Lady’s High School Senior Awards Ceremony. What a wonderful experience to see so many of our former pupils gain such great success, we are very proud of each and every one of them. According to Mrs Anne Munro, Head of Service, who attended the evening, we didn’t hide our pride! We cheered and cheered!
John Wilson, our school photographer came in on Friday of this week to take our class group photographs, these will be displayed in the foyer for all to enjoy as soon as they arrive. New staff photographs coming soon too. No more Miss Trunchball.
Our peer elected House Captains and Vice Captains enjoyed a ‘badge count’ this week. They visited each base to see which House could earn the most points for children displaying their House Colours. Here they are discussing who goes where and then setting off. Great team work!
The following week was a highlight for our Primary Seven pupils – KILBOWIE. A fabulous week was enjoyed by all. A link to all 909 photographs was posted on our App and on a previous Blog, here’s some highlights:
A HUGE thanks to Mr McMahon, Mr Massetti, Mrs Rimmer, Miss Forsyth, Mrs MM Murphy and Mrs Campbell for giving so freely of their time to accompany the children, although I believe the adults enjoyed it just as much as the pupils!
Throughout September I have enjoyed welcoming so many of our pupils to my office to proudly show off their wonderful work and been invited along to classes to take part in so many different types of learning. As you can see, learning does not stop at 3pm in our school, Come Clubbing @ Cathedral offers something for everyone.
This is the best part of my job, I love seeing our children be such successful learners. Here’s snapshot of some of our successes:
At the beginning of this week a number of our P6 pupils were invited along to a very special Mass in Carfin. As our Missio Champions, Jon, Cassidy, Evan Comerford and Aodhan McPolin accompanied by Miss Cawley represented our school at Missio Mass celebrated by Bishop Toal. Well done to our boys, they are great ambassadors for our school.
As we left September behind and moved forward into October we enjoyed a very special Blessing for our Primary One pupils, Fr. Chromy came along to individually bless each of our newest school pupils. This was a spiritually uplifting service, enjoyed by so many pupils (P1 and their buddies P7, parents/carers and extended family members). Thanks to Fr. Chromy for taking the time to come along and welcome our P1 pupils into our faith community.
Meanwhile down in the nursery……
Our nursery children have been learning all about Autumn through a range of activities.
They have been listening too and recalling some Autumn stories using the puppets. They have scribed some Autumn words and have been retelling their own stories.
Each group has been out on an Autumn walk to gather leaves for the display. Some children have brought in conkers and acorns for all children to explore. Please feel free to add to this display.
In art they have been busy making Autumn stained glass window pictures which are displayed in the nursery to catch the light. They have looked closely at the leaves during leaf rubbing and have used the leaves as paint brushes.
Our house corner has been changed into a harvest shop and the children have been busy role-playing with real vegetables. In snack the children used their senses to explore the Autumn vegetables and recorded their findings and drawings on a mindmap which is displayed on our learning wall. By the end of this week the children chopped up the vegetables and made a bit pot of healthy Autumn soup. Nearly all of the children tasted it. Thumbs up all round!
In numeracy they have been using the Smartboard to match the different shaped Autumn leaves and have been busy discussing their day and night routines through visuals and interactive boards.
Outdoors the children have been singing Autumn action songs and have made animals from the fallen leaves with hedgehogs being very popular. They have also used cotton buds to create their own Autumn trees. The children are starting to understand that the weather/season is changing.
As always, thanks for reading and please leave a comment or two.
Mrs Shields
And the P1s singing ‘If I were a butterfly’ at their blessing was just brilliant!
What a fantastic September everyone had. A big congratulations to the Missio champions. Lovely picture of Evan’s head.
Great read. What a fab school we have. My wee p1 has settled so well and is loving being at school. Thanks to everyone for helping his experience.
Great to be kept up to date with what’s going on, as always the kids are loving the various opportunities.
What a busy September you have all had. Great pictures of Kilbowie.