Welcome to 2015 another New Year another new opportunity to work together and continue to build our excellent school and nursery community.

I hope everyone enjoyed a Happy and Holy Christmas and a peaceful New Year.

School began on Monday with all of our children welcomed back. It was fabulous to see so many all in their uniform and all smiling and happy to return to their friends and teachers. At assembly we began our year with a reminder of what makes our school so special and so highly thought of in and around Motherwell, we discussed the importance of full school uniform, always to be worn in the appropriate manner. We talked about the necessity for good timekeeping and continuous attendance. We reminded ourselves about the necessity for good manners at all times to be shown to all. During the week we had a wee ‘spot check’ on house badges with 100 house points being awarded to those who sported their badge….further house points to be awarded this coming week. Our house system provides a great opportunity for the children to work together with their siblings and with pupils from across all of the school. This becomes particularly important as we head towards our sporting events in the coming months.

Coupled with this we took time to reflect on the great feast of The Epiphany and the importance of the Magi. We talked about the importance of this coming session particularly for those children celebrating a Sacrament. This involves almost 280 of our children, more than half the school. We have P3 celebrating Reconciliation, P4 receiving The Blessed Sacrament for the first time and P6 & P7 completing their inititation into the Catholic Church and becoming full members through Confirmation. This will be our first Confirmation Celebration with our new Bishop; His Lordship Bishop Toal. An exciting year ahead.

Hymn Practice on Wednesday saw us begin our preparations for the liturgy of all of our forthcoming sacraments, we look forward to all of our children actively participating in all aspects of The Mass.

This week we had no after school clubs as they begin within the next few weeks. Cross Country starts this Monday – waterproof clothing a must! Choir will not begin until the following week. This year we are having a competition free year, we have opted simply to sing for the joy of singing and not have to concentrate on preparing for competitions. This decision is mostly due to the timing of Confirmation as it is at the same time as Burns Competition and Glasgow Music Festival. I also think it is great for our choirs to have opportunity simply to enjoy singng together. We will be performing locally towards the summer at a concert in aid of Christian Aid, we look forward to this.

Friday saw Mrs Duffy meet with Jenny, our active schools co-ordinator. Jenny works very hard to try to provide sporting activities for all of our children. I have asked Jenny to consider the possibility of perhaps organising something for parents and children to keep fit together……watch this space for more info.

Also on Friday I received a phonecall from Mr John Scott from Supercounty. Previously, last October, our children were involved in designing posters showing the range of sporting venues and facilities in and around North Lanarkshire. This was to support North Lanarkshire’s bid to host The Transplant Games in 2017. A number of our children were chosen to represent the primary sector of NLC and we all trooped off to Motherwell train station to welcome representatives of The Transplant Games. On Friday Mr Scott informed me that North Lanarkshire has been successful in the bid to host the games. This is really exciting and a huge thanks to our children to worked so hard on their posters to ‘sell’ North Lanarkshire as a sporting host. The representatives were most impressed by our children’s work and their knowledge of the facilities available within the area. We look forward to continuing to support The Transplant Games 2017. Well done North Lanarkshire.

Meanwhile in the nursery…….Mrs MM Murphy has all the gossip….

On Monday morning we welcomed back our fabulous staff and our wonderful children who couldn’t wait to tell their stories of Christmas and the surprises they got. Some even had news of little brothers and sisters being born over the festive period. A busy time was had by all.

Outdoors the garden was looking very messy from the weather and the children got to work tidying up the mess and putting things back in place. There maybe a repeat of their hard work this week as the high winds have blown some of our garden and outdoor signs away.

Our new topic is Winter and the children started the week off with a story about the Gruffalo’s child, a story set in a snowy Winter scene. In the literacy area they retold the story and these can be seen on the wall.

They watched Winter stories on the SmartBoard and played matching and pairing games in the numeracy area.

In the art area they made Winter pictures which they took home.

Over in the snack area they chose some hot food that keeps you warm in Winter.

On Thursday Mrs Shields arrived at the nursery door from a faraway cold land with a special delivery. It was a sledge filled with snow and sitting on the sledge was a very sad snowman called Olaf, he brought with him a letter asking for the children’s help. He said that the snow had all melted and he had lost his friends Sven, Kristoph, Anna and Elsa and needed help to find them. The children immediately agreed to help him look for his friends and their ideas about how they can do this were recorded on mindmaps which are displayed in the cloakroom. This visit sparked their imaginations and they got to work right away. They made an ice box for Olaf so that he wouldn’t  melt in the hot nursery playroom and made icicles that they placed in his ice box to keep it cold. They made a mindmap about how they could plan and build an ice castle outside for him as he might melt if he stays indooors.
They also made a mindmap of what Olaf would like to eat which is displayed in the snack area. Ice lollies, ice, ice cream, carrots the list is endless. They even filled the ice cube trays to make ice to make sure he will have something to eat over the next few days.
One of the children’s suggestion is to make an igloo in the playroom, watch out for more information on this shortly.

The weekly lending library re-started this week with all the children choosing books to take home.

Many thanks for taking the time to read the Blog, maybe you could consider (as a New Year  Resolution) leaving a wee comment every now and again. This would be much appreciated.

Mrs Shields