Our second week in school has proved as successful as our first, with all our pupils showing they have settled very into their new classes and routines.  We began our week with our Assembly as usual, although without our Primary Sevens, as they were invited to Mass by Fr Millar during the 40 Hours Adoration.  On Tuesday, our Primary Six pupils also celebrated Mass in the Cathedral Church.  Thanks to those parents who took the time to accompany our children.

Tuesday brought our first Football session of the year with ‘Willie the Football Man’, otherwise known as Mr McBirnie, who started working with our P5 – 7 girls this Tuesday.  Our ‘Friday Football’ will be re-established in the coming weeks with P6 and P7 boys taking part.

It was all smiles on Wednesday, as our Primary One pupils were photographed by the Motherwell Times for the first time!  Look out for all those smiling faces coming soon.

This week, Mrs Duffy  met with Jenny Thompson, our Active Schools Coordinator, known in school as ‘Jenny Duracell’!  Jenny works with great enthusiasm in our school, providing many and varied opportunities for our children.  Our ‘Young Leader’s’ programme, which was trialled to great success last session, will begin soon with our Primary Seven pupils.

We ended our week with our first whole school Mass of the session.  Primary 1 – 7 gathered in the hall, with many parents, grandparents and parishioners.  Together with Fr Millar and Deacon Tom, we celebrated Mass for our new session and all pupils, particularly our Primary 1 pupils, participated very well indeed!

And now to the nursery!

This week has flown by so quickly. We continue to settle in our new recruits as another few children joined us this week at the start of their nursery journey.

As we get to know our new children we are finding out lots about them and their families. To help us even more the children have been asked to bring photographs in of them and their families. These will be shared with their new friends and added to the family tree in the middle of the playroom.

All children had the opportunity to design their own flower for the “All About Me” wall. Please take a minute and let your child show you their fantastic designs. To make it easier the flowerpots are coloured co-ordinated with each group. This helps the children to relate to which group they belong to.

This week in the literacy area the children have been reading stories relating to the “All About Me” theme, they read a story about jungle friendships and from that they decided to create their own story using the nursery monkeys. They wanted a snake in their story like the original one and they decided to make one. They squashed up newspaper and stuffed an old pair of patterned tights (always a popular activity) made a forked tongue and named him Snakey. They took photographs of all the characters and these will be put together next week to finish their book. Look out J.K. Rowling!!

In the numeracy area the children have been busy sorting and matching the washing. They have sorted the patterned socks into pairs and matched the vests and pants by colour. They have pegged them on the washing line using different coloured pegs. This activity created a discussion about the washing at home and this led to some children helping to do the real laundry in the nursery. This activity will continue next week looking at the different sizes of the clothes.

Outdoors the children continue to explore the nursery garden and all its nooks and crannies. They had the opportunity for the first time to use the bikes this helps promote sharing and turn taking and the importance of wearing a helmet. As the weather got worse at the end of the week the new children discovered the nursery waterproofs. As always we encourage independence in getting ready to go outside and the children are working hard to get used to the nursery routines.

In the expressive arts area the children have been making their own handprints using paint. They created their own family tree in the middle of the playroom to display them. The family photographs will be displayed beside them next week. They also had the opportunity to explore the shaving foam and made handprints and numerous other designs with them.

In the home corner role-play continues and this week the children were discussing their own families and who lives in their house. The children drew pictures of their family members and these can be seen displayed in the nursery.

Through continuous use our wellies are needing replaced. If you have a spare pair of wellies lying about the house please bring them in and we will place them on the welly wagon.

A warm welcome back to our new school session.  We have had four fantastic days back at school as we welcomed our 67 new Primary One pupils on Tuesday, as well as 10 new children who have joined our  community throughout the school.  Already we are all back into our school routines, with our senior pupils volunteering to assist our Primary ones in the dining hall.  Sadly we have begun our year without Mrs Shields, however she is recovering well and hopes to be back at school soon.  She is hopefully reading the blog to keep up to date with the school gossip!

We have had a quiet first week back, but there next week we’re back to being busy as usual!  On Monday and Tuesday, our Primary 7 and 6 pupils will attending 10.00am Mass in Cathedral Church during the 40 hours Adoration. If you are available to accompany P7 on Monday or P6 on Tuesday, please let us know.  We also celebrate our first whole school Mass of the year in school, at 10.00am in the school hall.  Primary 7 pupils will be leading this liturgy.  Please come along and join us in this first Eucharistic celebration of our session.

Our Nursery also resumed this week, and our roving reported Mrs Murphy has the news…

Welcome back to all of our pre-school children who have taken on their role as buddies very seriously indeed. The children adorned their buddy badges and wore them with great pride.

A BIG welcome to all of our new children who have joined us this week. With the help of the buddies the children are settling in well. Our new children have had their nursery shoes painted, this always help staff remember all the names in the first few weeks.

Take a look at the photographs to see how much fun they have all had in their first week back.

The children have been exploring the nursery garden where they have found some surprises. Over the holidays some fairies have set up home beside the big logs and the toadstool. The children are using their imaginations with their new found friends.

Dinoland both inside and out is proving very popular with our new children.

The mud kitchen is living up to its name and there has been some baking creations made this week. Watch out Mary Berry!

A new construction area has been created outside where the children can transport sand and stones using a variety of different vehicles. The tool box has been put to good use when the children decided to build an extension on the fort.

The ship has also had a makeover with the children painting and rebuilding it using the new tools. It now has a new flag pole and a new flag. YO HO HO!

The vegetables that the children planted before the holidays have grown so tall that they can’t reach them. They continue to water them to see how much more they will grow.

The children have had great fun with the new superhero costumes and as always the house corner is busy showcasing a variety of role-play opportunities.

In the art area the children have explored the water, sand and paint and in the numeracy they have taking turns using the Ipads. And thats just 4 days. PHEW.

Our Primary Seven Pupils celebrated together at their Leaver’s Disco on Tuesday, and as you can see, they all enjoyed their Roller Disco. Thankfully, they were MUCH better than most of the staff!

A huge thanks to all of our musical tutors – detailed above – who contributed so enthusiastically to our Magical Musical Morning (MMM) on Thursday morning. These talented adults are responsible for the fabulous array of musicality within our school. I am indebted to them for their time and patience in ensuring our children have opportunity to learn so many musical talents and skills.

Our instrumentalists, solo singers, choir and P5 Kodaly pupils demonstrated the range and high standard of their musical abilities at our MMM. I was immensly proud of all of our young musicians, they are a credit to our tutors, our school and their families – not least themselves.

Suffice to say, initially our Magical Musical Morning lasted for 20 minutes, this year in order to present the enormous range of talent it took us 1 hour 30 minutes! abolutely fantastic, it was an incredible morning enjoyed by all who attended and performed.

Our display of talents and skills continued on Friday morning with what has to be one of the highlights of our year. Our Primary One Assembly.

This was a triumph! A brilliant display of confident, successful little learners who entertained, sang, laughed, joked and danced their way through the journey of milk. I was so incredibly proud of each and every one of our Primary One pupils who clearly loved showing their talents and skills to their school friends and most importantly their parents. A wonderful morning thoroughly enjoyed by all who watched and participated. It was a laugh out loud experience.

A huge thanks to Mrs McCoy, Mrs Murphy, Mrs Tominey, Mrs Mellon, Miss Falconer, Mrs McAllister and all of our staff who assisted in the preparation, dressing, face painting and ‘prompting’ of our fabulous 5 and 6 year olds. Thanks also to all parents and carers for their assistance with costumes and props.

A great end to seven very different and most successful assemblies throughout which every single member of our school community has had opportunity to perform and share their classroom learning. When you consider each of our teachers begin with a blank sheet of paper and then endeavour to relate all they do in class onto a stage performance it is incredible. What a talented staff we have. A special thanks to Mrs McCoy who assists with all stage assemblies as part of her Principal Teacher remit, she is fantastic.

Meanwhile on the football field our female footballers were demonstrating their team skills on the pitch. The girls participated in Friday’s Firpark Football Festival and I am delighted to say they won every game. However, more importantly, Mrs Ellis from Firpark, reported that our girls were ‘outstanding on the field, they were great team players and wonderful ambassadors for Cathedral Primary School’. Well done girls. Thanks to Mrs Ellis for overseeing our girls on the pitch – standing out in the rain cheering them on!

This Monday our parents will enjoy seeing all the in-class learning of our children as we send home our jotters and workbooks to keep our parents fully informed of all of our school work. We look forward to your comments.

Final end of year reports will be issued on Friday of this coming week. I am sure the majority of parents will be delighted with their children’s progress, once again, we look forward to your feedback.

Down in the nursery, here’s what has been happening……

Our farm topic continues and this week in the literacy area the children used the ABC music programme to enhance their knowledge of sounds of the farm. They used the resources to match the sounds to the animals and the machinery. At the end of the week they red the story of The Little Red Hen and this has sparked their interest so the children have decided to make some of the characters from the story next week.

In the art area they completed their big tractor project which they made from recycled materials. This is now on the wall in the art area giving a 3d effect. From this activity the children went on to paint detailed pictures of the tractor, some of these can be seen surrounding the big tractor on the wall. They also made wheels for their tractors using the farm playdough mats.

In the numeracy area the children used a grid to measure the sizes of different farm animals from smallest to largest and played farm games on the iPads. They continue to explore a variety of different farmyard jigsaw puzzles and board games.
In the science area some of our little tadpoles have now turned into frogs and the children recorded this in the tadpole diary that they have been keeping. They had begun to climb on the rocks in the tank and by Thursday were climbing up the wall in a bid for freedom. In keeping with our love of nature the frogs and remaining tadpoles have now been returned to their own environment to carry on growing. The children said a fond farewell to their little friends. The science area is now housing two snails that the children have brought in and they have been getting up close to our new nursery additions. The children will continue to take care of them.

Outdoors in between the torrential rain the children managed to plant some vegetables in our new planters this will continue this week.

In the cafe in the farm shop the children continue to make food that they get when visiting garden centres with their families. This week they made wraps, sandwiches and baked biscuits. Role-play continues in the farm shop using real fruit and vegetables.

On Thursday and Friday the children had the opportunity to see the P1 assembly which was all about the farm. They were a great audience and couldn’t believe that it related to their topic and they learned all about the journey of milk from the cow to the supermarket which sparked discussions on return to the playroom. A great example of joint learning over two stages.

Wednesday is our very first ‘Big Bonanza day’ all letters have been issued with information regarding this.

Graduation practice continues for the forthcoming graduation ceremony on Friday. A very busy week ahead for our early learners.

As we come to the final month of a most successful year of blog after blog after blog…..please, please, please let me know what you think. A wee comment would be much apreciated.

Mrs Shields & Mrs MM Murphy – desperate for feedback

Next week, our school menu will be following the National School Week Menu!  Check our what our main meals will be.

Welcome back.

It is two weeks since our last blog and consequently I have lots to tell you about.

To ensure clarity of information I have posted Lenten Charities and Young Leaders under separate headings.

This week in school at our Monday morning assembly we celebrated Catholic Education Week. Each of our classes brought forward examples of their work all of which ‘Proclaimed The Joy of The Gospel’ – the theme of Catholic Education Week. The range and quality of work produced is exceptional, I am delighted to showcase such originality and depth of spirituality on our good work wall. Photographs included at end of blog. As always I congratulate our pupils and staff on their commitment and dedication to our Faith.

On Tuesday Primary 5b and Miss Mooty visited The Mission Centre. Whilst there the children entertained the residents, made (and enjoyed eating) pancakes and spent some quality time listening to the stories of our elders. A wonderful example of living history. Well done Primary 5b & Miss Mooty.

Wednesday we celebrated the beginning of the season of Lent, a time of reflection of ourselves and preparation for the great feast of Easter. All children attended Mass in Our Lady of Good Aid Cathedral Church at 10am. Our children participated enthusiastically in all parts of the Mass, spoken and sung. Their behaviour was exemplary, and commented upon most favourably by many of the parishioners. I am immensely proud to be able to show our church community the excellent standards of our children’s spiritual development. A huge thanks to all parents and friends of the school who assisted with walking our upper school children to and from the church. Thanks also to the local police for their escort ensuring a safe passage for all.

Our daily Lenten Mass at 8.15am has been most well attended on both Thursday and Friday of this week. I have set a personal challenge to each of our children to aspire to participating in at least one of these morning Masses throughout the season of Lent. please encourage your child(ren) to attend. As always we welcome everyone in our school and church community to join us in prayer. Mass is held in the school library Monday through to Thursday each week during Lent at 8.15am. All P6 & P7 pupils are encouraged to volunteer to read at these Masses.

Also on Thursday our school was delighted to welcome His Lordship Bishop Toal. Bishop Toal spent the whole morning with us taking time to speak to each of our Confirmation classes and also some of our Reconciliation children. I am indebted to His Lordship for taking such a chunk of time out of his extremely busy schedule to speak with our children. Each of our Confirmandi appreciated the importance of this visit and were honoured to be able to listen to and question Bishop Toal.

Friday saw the first of our Lenten Charity events (listed separately). Crazy hair day! Great fun was had by all, thanks to all pupils and staff for their active participation – much appreciated.

Our wonderful pitch facility was well utilised on Friday by a number of local school football teams. Knowetop Primary, Muir Street Primary, Ladywell Primary and our own school teams all enjoyed a number of fabulous football games. A huge thanks to Mr McBirnie (Willie the football man) for his organisation of all of this work. Mr McBirnie is a volunteer in both Firpark and O.L.G.A Cathedral schools – he gives freely of his time and his skill to benefit all children in our campus. We are very lucky to have such a person working with our children. Thanks Willie!

Meanwhile, down in the icy depth of the nursery, here’s Mrs Murphy’s gossip…..

A quick update from the last two short weeks. The igloo has now been completed and sits proud of place in the story corner. The children are using it as a quiet place to read stories. The children decorated the wall behind the igloo with all the information they gathered about Arctic animals. Pippa the polar bear has taken up residence on top of the igloo. A big thank you goes to Hugh Devine a Grandad who gave up his time to help build it. The children took part in a group activity to create their own Golden Characters to remind them of the Golden Nursery Rules. Their creations can be seen as you enter the playroom.

Brilliant Bluebells – Made Tidy Tom a Superhero who helps the children to tidy up. Fantastic Foxgloves- Made Listening Louie to help them to learn when to talk and when to listen.

Happy Heathers – Made Sharing Shelley who helps them to share and take turns. Super Snowdrops – Made Caring Cara who helps care for the toys and all her friends at nursery.

Terrific Thistles – Made Walking Willie Wonka who helps them to walk in the playroom and throughout the school. These characters can be used at home please feel free to use them.

On Monday the children were introduced to The Challenge of the Week this is a new initiative to encourage perseverance “If at first you don’t succeed try try again” The children are given a different challenge each week set by Larry the Leprachaun, if they succed they get a gold sticker and if they have tried really hard they get a green sticker. Each week the challenge will change look out for those stickers. On Tuesday the children had some delicious pancakes with a choice of spreads. Gong Hey Fat Choy! This week the children have been learning all about China and Chinese New Year. The home corner was turned into the Hup Lee restaurant and the children got busy role playing waiters, customers and chefs. They explored real noodles chopsticks and used string to create their own noodles. How imaginative! In snack they have prepared and tasted chicken noodle soup, chicken curry, sweet and sour dips and prawn crackers. In the story corner they read the story of Nian the dragon and discovered why the colours red and gold are significant in Chinese culture. They made their own menus for the restaurant using Chinese writing.

In the numeracy area they created their own Chinese numberline which can be seen displayed on the maths wall. They played Chinese counting games on the SmartBoard and watched the story of the dragon dance. The children went to the gym hall where they re-enacted the dragon dance and used the twirling ribbons to dance to Chinese music. In art they made Chinese flags, lanterns and Chinese hats which can be seen hanging in the playroom. Outdoors they went on a Chinese treasure hunt looking for pandas and red envelopes full of Chinese yen.

On Thursday Barbara from the ABC music programme visited, this is a great resource that the nursery will be using on a regular basis in the near future. Barbara provided a variety of activities for each group and commented on how attentive the children were throughout the activities.

Forest Kindergarten On Wednesday the children on the first block got a sneaky peak at the site in the Greenlink. The children have been preparing for their trips to the forest over the last few weeks and the preparation paid off. The children set off with the new nursery waterproofs and backpacks provided by the fundraising committee. They were led by Freddie the fox, Bertie the badger and the Keeper of the forest. The children followed all of the saftey rules they had learned and explored the forest with a great sense of freedom. The photographs say it all. The first official block starts on 4/3/15. Every pre-school child will have the opportunity to take part in a four week block. A short presentation about the benefits of the Forest Kindergarten approach will take place at the pre-school workshops this coming Wednesday.

The Young Leader Training Sessions are a great introduction into leadership giving learners knowledge of how to organise and lead small games and activities that can be used as part of lunch time clubs. The Young Leader qualification aims to help learners develop leadership skills such as organisation, communication and teamwork, as well as helping to build confidence and self-esteem as they take on the responsibility of leading their peers and younger children.

Primary 7 children attended training sessions by Jenny Thomson, our new Active Schools Co-ordinator this term. They are now qualified to work as Young Leaders with small groups of children to lead lunch time clubs.

 Monday P1 – Fun Games

Tuesday P2 – Multi Sports

Wednesday P3 – Dance

Thursday P4 – Football

Although adult supervision is present at all times our Young Leaders are the ones leading, directing and implementing this unique learning experience. What a fantastic opportunity for our P7 pupils to demonstrate their leadership qualities and a great way for our younger children to learn.

Children teaching children – fabulous!

I am so very proud of our Primary Seven who are setting an excellent example to all in our school – and thoroughly enjoying the experience:  Philip Meikle, Joe Chambers, Ciaran Hendry, Johnny Devine, Kieran Allan, Nathan Walker, Aedan Dunne, Olivia Latimer, Lucy Tougher-Mitchell, Lucy Haggarty, Keara Watson, Megan Owens, Hannah Gallagher, Liam Knox, Mark Fitzpatrick, Luke Robertson, Henry Kyanda, Robbie Brown, Keir McGarry, Eva Winton, Joey Leach, Alicia Kearney, Sarah McCool, Sophie Galloway and Lucy Thompson, who are our Young Leader’s this term.

As a school community, we will again be raising money for our Lenten Charity appeal, where we support local, national and global charities.  Here is a reminder of our fundraising events!

Friday 20th February:  Crazy Hair Day!  Contribution £1.00

Friday 27th February:  Easter Hamper Appeal:  children are asked to wear their own clothes on this day, but also to being non-perishable food items such as tins, dried goods, teabags etc.  There is no money charge for this day.

Thursday 5th March:  Bedtime Story Day:  to celebrate World Book Day, children are asked to wear their pyjamas to school and bring their favourite bedtime story to read in class.  Teddy Bears welcome too!  Contribution £1.00

Friday 13th March:  Sponsored Bunny Bounce:  children will take part in various ‘bouncing’ activities involving bouncy castles and space hoppers.  This will be our sponsored event and children will be given one sponsor sheet per family.  Children should wear their school polo shirt, tracksuit bottoms and trainers to school on this day.

Friday 20th March:  Design a Boiled Egg!  Pupils should bring a hard boiled egg to school on this day, that they can decorate in class and roll down the grassy hill.  Contribution £1.00

Friday 27th March:  Movie Afternoon.  Children can wear their own clothes to school and enjoy watching a movie as their classroom becomes a cinema for the day. Contribution £1.00

The results from Week One:

Due to our holiday weekend last week, we will roll over our usual blog until next week.  Check back then for all our recent news.    Important things to note this week are that we celebrate our Ash Wednesday Mass in Cathedral Church at 10.00am.  Please let us know if you can assist with walking with our older children.  Our P1 – 3 children will travel by bus.

Mass will be celebrated in our school library on Thursday and Friday at 8.15am.  Please come along to celebrate Mass with us during the season of Lent.

This week also saw our children participating in Catholic Education Week activities; our Good Work Wall will feature work from all our classes on this year’s theme, ‘Proclaiming the Joy of the Gospel’.

Thanks for reading!