We have had another busy week in school as we move closer to our well earned summer holidays.  On Monday of this week, we held interviews for a new Principal Teacher and we are delighted that Miss Lesley Phee was appointed.  Miss Phee will officially take up post in August, however she already has great plans for our library.  Watch this space!

Most of our week has been taken up with 2 other very important occasions in the lives of our youngest and eldest pupils.  Wednesday saw graduation day for our pre-school nursery children.  Our pre school children entertained a large group of their parents, grandparents and extended families.  We had wonderful one-to-one interviews, hosted by Mrs Duffy and our brand new ‘Graduation Chair’ was unveiled – a huge hit with the children.  We also had a helping hand with the singing from our Baby Choir.  A huge thank you must go to the Nursery staff for working so hard with our children; the children are definitely ready for the ‘big school’.  You can hear more about this from our roving reporter Mrs Murphy:

Another fantastic week in nursery culminating in the graduation on Wednesday which was a huge success. The children of course were the stars of the show and they didn’t disappoint. They loved every minute of it from hiding backstage in the secret passage until it was time to Reach For The Stars. They performed  their favourite nursery rhyme ‘Twinkle Twinkle’ chosen by them and a song called ‘I Am Special’ which said it all! They then performed ‘Stir up the Porridge’, an action song from the Sticky Kids programme which linked in with their Burns activities. They then all got a chance to sit on our new nursery graduation chair where they were interviewed by Mrs Duffy who asked what they wanted to be when they grew up. This was well received by the audience especially when the slideshow pictures didn’t correspond with what they had told the staff. Mrs Duffy’s quick wit and ad-libing skills were priceless. All the children received a scroll and a school tie and these were presented by their keyworkers.The final song performed by the children was ‘Primary One Here We Come’ and at this point there were definitely a few tears shed in the audience.  The finale was a song chosen by both staff and children. The children had danced to this song many times in the nursery and they all did their own thing “Cathedral Style”.   A great finish to a fabulous experience.  I think everyone agreed they are all ready for BIG SCHOOL!
When it was all over and done with some of the children put on their school ties and each child had an opportunity to get their photograph taken on the chair with their keyworker. The keyworkers got the chance to speak to the audience and the comments were all fantastic.

The ante preschoolers didn’t lose out because they were a credit to themselves as they made at great audience and fully participated in the songs and actions. After the graduation ceremony they returned to the nursery and had  their own special little treat.

A little information about our new giant graduation chair. This was designed and made by Shotts prison and was kindly delivered by one of our parents just in time for Wednesday. So a big thanks goes to all involved.

This week there will be a Beach Party on Tuesday to celebrate the end of term. Children should come at normal nursery times dressed for a beach party with a jacket just in case! There will be party food, ice cream, face painting, hook a duck and beach games.

What a fabulous week we have had in our school with lots of very exciting events.  Our Primary 7 started their week with a ‘Welcome Mass’ in Our Lady’s High School, also attended by our Primary 7 teachers and our Management Team.  It was a wonderful way to begin their transition days on Tuesday and Wednesday.  The children had 2 busy days on their visits to secondary and as expected, excellent reports came back about their behaviour and positive attitude.  Well done P7.

On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, we enjoyed 3 fabulous, action packed sports days, organised by Mrs Loose in P6 and Mrs MM Murphy in the Nursery, and although the rain paid a visit, we didn’t let it spoil the fun. On Tuesday we had our Velcro olympic activities, along with a climbing wall, dance class and a visit from an Olympic Handball champion, who gave ‘taster sessions’ to some senior pupils.  Wednesday brought out the old favourites, ‘egg & spoon’, ‘3-legged race’ and sack races. We definitely have some olympic stars of the future in our school! Thanks to Mrs McLaughlan and P4b who made lemonade for all taking part. We even had enough to share with Firpark!  On Thursday, the sun finally shone and we hosted our team sports day, with all children competing in a range of ‘potted sports’.  Our Primary 7s acted as team captains and certainly cheered on their own teams.  The winning team will be announced at assembly on Monday! A huge thanks to Mrs Loose and Mrs Murphy, but also to the loyal band of parents and carers who always come along to help with our events in school.  The photos are coming soon!

Meanwhile, as the sports events took place, we prepared for a most important visit as we expected Archbishop Muller and Archbishop Tartaglia.  Archbishop Muller requested a visit to a school and we were delighted to be asked.  The Primary 6 & 7 pupils prepared a most spiritual prayer service, based on the Beatitudes, whilst Primary 4b and Mrs J Murphy prepared a lesson for the Archbishops to observe.  Archbishop Muller personally blessed each one of our senior pupils and was very impressed by his visit to P4b. The visit also included Bishop Emeritus Devine, Mr McGrath (SCES) and Mr Franchi (St Andrew’s Foundation).  Our wider community was represented by members of our Parent Council and Fundraising group.  It was a wonderful day in the life of our school.

Friday also saw the final end of year reports go out to all children in our school.  Please return the comment slip, your feedback is always appreciated.  Also encourage your child to complete their target for next session.

And now for the Nursery news….
This week has been an extremely eventful week with the 3 day event taking up the majority of the week. Tuesday was the first day where the children had the chance to take part in a dance class where they had to listen to the instructions so that they could follow the moves. There are some superb movers and shakers in our nursery and they loved showing off their breakdancing moves. The children also had a chance to have fun with the inflatables which consisted of a bouncy castle with a slide and a giant inflatable slide where they had to carefully climb up to to the top before sliding down to the bottom where they then rushed to do it all over again. Mrs Little skipped the queue a few times to slide down the big slide with some of the children.
Day 2 the obstacle course. This is always a popular activity with the children and this one was no different. The children had to jump over hurdles and use their skills to negotiate round the cones, carefully cross  a balance beam and  go through a hula hoop and a very long tunnel. This was great fun and the children didn’t even realise that they were learning to move their bodies in all different ways.
Day 3 saw traditional sports day activities. The children all got the chance to take part in group relay races such as the egg and spoon race, sack race, wheelbarrow race, welly wanging, three legged race and a bean bag relay. The weather was very kind to us and the whole day was a roaring success. The staff had fun demonstrating the wheelbarrow race, with Mrs little pushing Mrs Murphy in the wheelbarrow and winning even though MrsTominey and Mrs Imray had a false start! otherwise known as cheating. Miss Russell got a bit tied up in the 3 legged race and proved her coordination needs a bit of work! Mrs Tominey was the outright winner of the staff sack race and showed off her great skill of speed bounce. It was a funfilled day with both staff and children having a ball. Please check out the photographs in the cloakroom to see the happy faces of the children taking part. The children and staff all agreed that it was the best day ever in nursery.

Over in the Science area the children had to say a fond farewell to the tadpoles. After the discovery of legs on some of the tadpoles and the fact that they were now needing rocks to climb onto it was decided to return them to their natural habitat. Some of the children helped to put them into a very large bucket and Mrs Duffy and her boys returned them to the pond that they originally came from. The whole Life Cycle of a Frog has been a great learning experience for all of the children who have helped to look after them by feeding them and watching them grow over the last few weeks. Through this experience the children have learned the importance of the need to look after and care for living things.

The preparation for the graduation and pre school activities continued on Friday when normal service was resumed!

What’s on this week…..?

A busy week ahead sees our Principal Teacher interviews on Monday, our Nursery graduations on Wednesday and our Primary 7 Leaver’s Mass on Friday.  Please feel free to leave a comment on our blog.  We’d love to hear from you!

Last week, some of our Primary 2 and 3 children, escorted by Mrs Collins and a willing band of parent helpers, visited Motherwell Civic Centre to be treated to a performance of Purves’ Puppets.  We were given 40 tickets by Supercounty and had a lucky dip to choose which pupils could attend.  Big thank you goes to Supercounty for the free tickets, and to Mrs Collins and our parent helpers.

Thank you to all those parents, carers and friends who donated delicious home baking and fabulous raffle prizes for the Primary Coffee Morning.  We managed to raise £554.20 for school funds.  Well done to the P5s for organising this tasty event!

Well done to all of our talented young musicians who entertained their parents, families and friends this morning.  We are very proud of all our choir members, young and old (!), our instrumentalists (brass, woodwind and strings) and our solo singers and NL choir members. Also to our Primary 5 year group who performed their Kodaly Music and to Mrs McCarthy & Mrs Gillespie, their class teachers. Thanks also to Mrs Murphy, Mr Woods, Mrs McQueen and Mrs Wilkinson, who work with our pupils.

hopefully this will appear on the blog!