I’ll begin our week at the end. Saturday November 30th we are delighted to share Mrs Laird’s joy.

Mrs Laird (P2c) gave birth to a beautiful baby boy last night. He is here before his expected time of arrival (11 weeks early) but has weighed in at 2lb 7oz and is doing well. Mrs Laird is also doing well. Please keep Mr & Mrs Laird, their family and in particular their lovely new arrival, in your thoughts and prayers. We extend our congratulations to them all and wish Mrs & baby Laird continued good health.

This being National Book Week our children and staff have been very involved with library and additional reading activities. Our week began with Miss Phee and representatives from each stage making a visit to Motherwell Library to review a variety of books. This involved our children being interviewed by representatives from The Big Issue, the children gave their views on a variety of literature. The presenation was to form a double page spread in The Big Issue, however, those involved were so impressed by our children they have asked for it to be extended to a 4 page spread. I will let you know when the relevant Issue goes to press. Well done to our children and Miss Phee. This week Miss Phee also announced the winners of our Get Caught Reading Initiative. Unfortunately I missed this assembly so cannot provide the names of the winners: (

Tuesday of this week we all danced and sang our way through the evening at our Touch of Tartan Discos. Great fun was had by all. Once again I have to commend our children and their exemplary behaviour. A huge thanks also  to our fabulous fundraisers who provided this disco free of charge for every child in our school. Thanks also to Mr Liam Benham for his magical DJ skills.

Coupled with our disco was our Bag 2 School Initiative. Our ECO committee happily assisted bringing bags from the foyer to the AV room and then onto the van. We had a super response to this and we await our total raised. Watch this space for further info.

If you (like me) have found even more clothing with which to dispense save it up for May 2014 our next Bag 2 School.

Wednesday our weekly Hymn Practice had a very different focus. We were delighted, and honoured to welcome Ms Ann Boyle to our school. Ms Boyle spoke to the children about the miracle of Fatima, a truly inspirational story. Our children were mesmorised by Ms Boyle’s delivery of this wonderful happening and were equally most impressed by the statue of Mary being carried through our hall. Mass was held at 10am in O.L.G.A Cathedral Church yesterday at 10am as part of A Day for Mary celebrations. Thanks to all who managed to go along and support this great event in our church.

On Friday we celebrated a beautiful Mass, led by Primary Three, in honour of our Patron Saint – Andrew. Our thanks to Fr. Millar and Deacon Tom for concelebrating this Mass in our school. At this Mass our P3 & P4 sacramental children all received a beautiful gift of a Children’s Gospel Stories book (a super way to end National Book Week). Our thanks to Fr. Millar for distributing these books and to the generosity of some ‘friends’ of our school who financed this most kind gesture. We strive to encourage our children to listen to and read about the Word of God on a daily basis; these beautiful gifts will further promote our school aim of spreading Gospel values.

Thursday and Friday passed in a haze of singing, dancing and dramatic performances as the nursery, the infants, the upper school and Firpark Primary all prepare for our forthcoming Christmas Nativities and Shows. I’m sure by mid- December we will know the words of every song being sung in our campus. This is a lovely time of year in school where we take time to reflect and prepare for the great feast of Christmas.

Mass will be held in our school library each Wednesday throughout Advent at 8.15am Please come along with your children to join them in this important time of preparation.

Monday and Tuesday of this week Fr. Millar has arranged Parental meetings for P3 parents – Monday and P4 parents – Tuesday. Both meetings will begin at 7pm and end at 8pm. Please endeavour to come along to these evenings and, where possible, let’s keep this to adults only.

Whislt all of this is ongoing in the school our nursery friends are very busy with their own learning and preparing, here’s what’s been happening……
Preparations for the Christmas show are ongoing.

•    In the maths area the children looked at winter pictures and discussed how many different shapes they could see in the pictures. They then made pictures from different sized shapes. This sparked their Christmas imaginations and in response to this the activity will continue next week. Watch out for some Fab Christmas shaped pictures.

•    In the writing area the children were busy telling their own stories about  Ralph the Reindeer. These can be seen on display in the writing area. They are busy learning about characters from different events and stories.

•    We ended the week with a St Andrew’s day Shindig. The children all turned out with various items of tartan and see you Jimmy bunnets! They  listened to Scottish stories, Scottish music, played Scottish musical bumps  and tasted some lovely haggis, good auld plain bread and some lovely shortbread! Mrs Loose showed off her Scottish dancing skills and taught the children how to do the Highland Fling. They then congoed round the room to the Wee Kirkcudbright Centipede. A great time was had by all!

Thanks for reading, remarkably I got a comment last week. Woo Hoo. It’s good to know someone is taking the time to log in and read.

Mrs Shields