The month of June marks our final few weeks of term and brings many of our successful activities to a close for this session.
Last week our penultimate group of Primary 3 ‘Dolphins’ earned their lovely trophies having completed a 6 week water confidence programme. This has been a most successful initiative, recognised not only by ourselves but by North Lanarkshire Council being shortlisted for an Excellence and Equity Award.
Our final set of ‘Dolphins’ for this session are already underway, we look forward to continuing this initiative next session with our new Primary 3 pupils. Grateful thanks to Mrs Webster, HT Firpark, for agreeing to allow us to use her fabulous pool.
Here are the proud ‘Dolphins’ receiving their trophies:
Throughout the year we have raised a tremendous amount of money for a whole raft of charities, coupled with this fundraising we also work closely with Motherwell Foodbank. Most recently David Shaw, from Motherwell Food Bank, asked us to organise a collection of toiletries as they were very short. Without hesitation our Enterprise Committee got to work and organised a whole school and nursery collection, well done and thank you to all who contributed, all pupils and staff got involved in this donation. Here are the Enterprise Committee delivering the goods to David.
Last week our winners of 1+2 Modern Languages Awards attended the Awards Ceremony in Airdrie, photographs were published on our App. Alongside the winners there were a number of pupils who were recognised for their great work throughout the year and their commitment to learning a new language, or two! Here they are with their certificates, proud as punch and rightly so!
Our Fabulous Fundraisers work tirelessly throughout they year to raise funds for all in our school community. One great addition has been a wide range of outdoor toys, chosen by the children for the children. As you can see from the photographs below our pupils are thoroughly enjoying being active in the playyard. Our thanks to our newly formed ‘Playground Patrol’ who have taken responsibility for ensuring toys are safely stacked away after each break. Great work from our newest Pupil Voice Committee.
On Thursday of this week we enjoyed our annual Magical Musical Morning where we showcase the incredible range of musical talent and skills being fostered in our school. This was a super morning which left everyone, performers and audience alike, feeling extremely proud of our musicality. Thanks to all who are involved in our music tuition, a great job well done. Special thanks to our wonderful pupils to who give so much of their own time to rehearse and practice, it has certainly paid off!
Photographs of the Magical Musical Morning will be published on our school App.
Last week we were delighted to welcome our 60 new Primary One pupils for August and their parents to our school. The children enjoyed 2 separate sessions in class with their teachers and we provided parents with a ‘snaphot’ of Primary one, a tour of the school, a look at our whole school programme and an opportunity to come together, have a coffee and a chat. Two lovely days in school. We look forward to welcoming our newest boys and girls in August. To ensure we capture parental views we used our App to create a survey and asked each of our new parents to tell us what they thought. 17 out of 60 families responded, we are delighted with the results and will publish all on our App in the coming week.
We hope to take our App surveys forward as a method of self-evaluation allowing all parents and pupils to have their views heard and their opinion shared.
Meanwhile down in the nursery, Mrs Murphy has all the gossip…….
We welcomed the children back after a lovely sunny weekend and we discovered our special little visitors. Five very hungry caterpillars had arrived in their special tub with their special food. The children were introduced to them and have been studying their growth each day using the magnifying glasses.
In the story corner they listened to the story of the ‘Very Hungry Caterpillar’ using the puppet book and recalled the amount and variety of food he ate. They have watched the metamorphosis on the Smartboard and have been amazed at the transformation from ‘creepy crawlies’ to beautiful butterfly. They also used a visual butterfly and placed the shapes of their choice to make a symmetrical pattern.
Outdoors the children went on a caterpillar hunt and found two little caterpillars and a huge snail. They quickly gathered some leaves and some fruit and put them in a box to observe. They made a chart of what fruit/leaves they preferred. They put the snail carefully on a bit of black card and followed it’s trail. They then released them back into their natural habitat.
In snack they made a mindmap of all the things the ‘Very Hungry Caterpillar’ ate. Watch out next week as they try out some of this food.
In the art area they made paper chain caterpillars and painted paper plates to create a big caterpillar display for the wall. This depicts what the caterpillar had each day to eat. Please stop and have a look at their hard work. Finally they made symmetrical butterflies using paint on one side and folding it over to create their own patterned butterfly.
On Wednesday we welcomed some of the lovely children who will join us next term. They all enjoyed exploring the nursery garden and some didn’t want to go home. Always a good sign!
A little reminder. Wednesday 6/6/18 is ‘BIG BONANZA DAY’ when the afternoon children attend nursery all day. Don’t forget the packed lunches!
Our big finale for our pre-school children takes place on Friday 8/6/18. Please remember to bring your tissues as graduation always brings a tear to the eye.
As always, thanks for taking the time to read our Blog, please leave a comment or two.
Mrs Shields
