This week in school was our official enrolment week, we were delighted to welcome 37 new enrolments for August. These children all live within our catchment area, this number will increase significantly when we are made aware of our placing requests. At present we have been informed of 19 placing requests but we are aware there are a few more to come. We also have 7 placing requests out of our school where parents are opting to go elsewhere. It was lovely to see so many pre-school children and their parents for the first time and to see so many of our own nursery children beginning their transition to school. I look forward to welcoming them all once again at our Induction Programme scheduled for 20th and 21st May.

Should you be aware of any child who has not yet registered for school please encourage their parents to register as soon as possible.

Monday morning assembly was, once again, a very different experience. We welcomed Mrs Catherine McGrath from SCIAF to whom we presented our cheque for £1505.41 to help those in the Philippines so badly affected by flood. This incredible amount of money was the result of one day of fundraising – the generosity shown by our children, parents and staff never ceases to amaze me, you are wonderful. This generosity sets such an excellent example to our children and truly fulfils our motto: Living to learn Learning to live. Many, many thanks to everyone for their contributions. Catherine McGrath was saying that over the last 10 years SCIAF has begun to keep track of donations and within the last 10 years our school has raised just under £30,000-how incredible is that!!!! What a tremendous difference we are making to lives of those less fortunate than ourselves. As I re-iterate at assembly every week….every single penny counts, and every single penny helps.

Throughout the week our children have all been ‘getting back into the swing of things’, this coming week we are looking forward to lots of new topics and subjects about to be explored. Beginning a new Interdisciplinary Learning Topic in class is always exciting, it is great to ascertain what knowledge our children have and begin to construct our planning around building on that prior knowledge and furthering our children’s interests. Please ask your child/ren about their forthcoming topics to be explored and remember – if you can help in any way please let us know. We are always looking for parents/carers to share their expertise and skills with us and assist us in providing our children with excellent learning experiences.

Mid-week Primary Three pupils received their Reconciliation workbooks; this marks the beginning of their intense preparation for this forthcoming Sacrament. In addition to their workbook each child also received a candle, as a gift from the school, to assist them in their family prayer times. Please remember Primary three pupils and staff in your prayers as they prepare for this lovely Sacrament.

Friday morning saw Primary Four have their first opportunity to host a coffee morning, this was a great success. Primary four pupils, prepared the tables, welcomed their visitors, sold raffle tickets, and socialised beautifully throughout the morning. This is a fabulous chance for us to come together as a school community and simply get to know one another better. A huge thanks to all in P4 (and their mums and dads and extended families) for their generous donations of lovely home baking and super raffle prizes. Not sure of the total amount raised as yet but will text this to whole school community throughout the week ahead. A big, big thanks also to our stalwart parent helpers, our coffee morning ladies without whom we could not have these lovely events. These ladies are part of our Fabulous Fundraisers. Our first Fundraisers meeting of 2014 is this forthcoming Wednesday at 7pm in our staffroom. Please come along and join us, they are very light hearted meetings and allow us to plan great fun events for all of our children.

This week also saw us ‘cast’ our school show and distribute our scripts. Our Pinocchio show looks to be the best yet, great music, super routines and talented children – we cannot fail – I can’t wait. Those who know our school shows over the last 8 years are aware that, as always, we have the ‘compulsory’ staff scene! Oh dear, Oh dear……

Please encourage your child/ren to continue to follow our New Year Resolution, taken from those highlighted by Pope Francis:

Don’t Gossip

Finish Your Meals

Be Happy

Meanwhile down in the nursery, in between enrolling for school, here’s what’s been going on…..

Another busy week in nursery with a few new children joining us.

The children are continuing to revisit the golden rules to help the new children settle in.

In the maths area they have been building castles, towers and different sized structures which they have been measuring. They have drawn some of their creations and evidence of this is displayed in the nursery. The children had fun measuring each other and all members of staff. They also built towers in the softplay area and measured and compared them.
At group time the children made a height chart so they could see who was the smallest and who was the tallest. Their findings can be seen on the maths wall.

In the writing area the children were concentrating on pencil control using a winter maze. They also had the chance to write some wintry words and they explored writing letters in the sand on the lightbox.

At the beginning of the week the art area was turned into a winter wonderland when the children got the opportunity to explore shaving foam and bath foam which made great snowballs. On Wednesday the children painted a sign for the boat outside. This has now been attached to the boat please take a moment to look at how well they done! By the end of the week they were busy making tartan bunting for our forthcoming Burn’s Supper, this gave them the chance to explore patterns which they will be concentrating on in the next few weeks.

Outside the children were experimenting with water to see how it can change form. They filled rubber gloves and balloons with coloured water and added some sparklies as well. They had great fun as the balloons kept spouting the water like a fountain. They hung them on the tree and the fence with ribbon and pipe cleaners and left them to see what would happen. Our strange weather for this time of year did not perform and they remained in their original form. So they decided to put one in the freezer to see what would happen. “At last it’s icy” said one of the children. They also had fun making muddy puddles and measuring some of the outdoor equipment. They discovered that the dinosaur was the smallest and the fort was the tallest.

In the snack area they made healthy smoothies again seeing what happens to water when you add different things to it. This is always great fun as they love pressing the button and hearing how loud the smoothie maker sounds. Squeals could be heard from the snack area each time the button was pressed.

As always, thanks for reading and any comments would be gratefully received.

Mrs Shields