This week we embraced National Science and Engineering Week, and what a fabulous learning experience our children have enjoyed. Every child from nursery through to P7 had opportunity to visit the planetarium and learn all about the wonders of the sky. Each class also enjoyed Science workshops then, as a school we marvelled at our Science Roadshow. Huge thanks to Professor John Davies – our external science expert – who delivered the lessons, providing all equipment and even bringing his own planetarium! The cost of bringing Professor Davies in is substantial but he offers a unique, specialist set of learning experiences, which we feel are worthwhile to all of our children and staff. Thanks to Mrs Marie Clare Duffy – our internal science expert – who organised all the activities and timetabled ensuring everyone had opportunity to enjoy this wonderful learning experience. Another great, fun filled way to learn.

Tuesday evening was our bi-annual Parent Evening, which provides every parent an opportunity to look around their children’s class, and indeed the rest of the school, and marvel at all of the magnificent work on display. Parents are also invited to peruse their own child’s work in jotters and workbooks etc. I am delighted at the outcome of Parent Evening for a number of reasons. Firstly, over 90% of parents came along which is a fabulous % to achieve – although I do still worry about the 10% of parents who did not manage to come and be amazed and delighted at their children’s work. Please remember if the time allocated or indeed the Tuesday evening does not suit your situation simply call the school and we will happily arrange an alternative. NO child should miss the opportunity for their parent to come along and see their work and their learning environment.

Another one of the highlights of this parent evening was the success of our first ever Easter Fayre. Our Enterprise Committee organised and implemented a huge number of activities for every class to complete and these were then collated and displayed for sale on the evening. Our young entrepreneurs came along on the evening itself to mann the stalls and ‘encourage’ people to purchase. And what a successful job they did. The Fayre raised £1012.66 which, when we take off our outlay, leaves a profit of £512.66. Fabulous work. All proceeds will be added to our Lenten Charity Fund. Thanks also to the number of support staff who volunteered to come along on the evening to assist our young entrepreneurs.

The Raffle will be drawn on Monday at assembly. Winners will be posted on Blog on Monday afternoon – so watch this space – it could be you!

One final highlight of our parent evening was the large number of parents who spoke so highly of the work in and around our school. We are very proud of our learning environment and staff continually strive to ensure children’s work is displayed throughout the school in a variety of formats. It is great to hear such positive feedback. Parents also commented on the high quality of work and the volume of work in jotters. Presentation has been one of our Improvement Plan priorities and I think we can safely say we have overtaken this most successfully.

As a Senior Management Team (SMT) we monitor every child’s jotters twice per year. This gives us opportunity to provide feedback to our children and our staff. We monitor language and maths ensuring pace of learning and presentation of work is appropriate. As a school we are committed to monitoring every single child’s work from nursery through to Primary 7, we do not sample jotters; we strongly believe every child has the right to hear from SMT about their work. It is a time consuming task but which I feel is very worthwhile.

Meanwhile we continue to rehearse for our forthcoming school show ‘My Son Pinocchio’. This week we have also engaged the talents of Mrs McCarthy to design and paint our backdrop. Mrs McCarthy is an incredibly talented artist; she is bringing Pinocchio to life with her skills and talents. At the same time Mrs McCoy is employing her incredible talents and skills as creative producer and choreographer of our show, I am amazed at the magnificent vision Mrs McCoy has and her ability to transfer it through her work with the children. A huge thanks to Mrs McCarthy and Mrs McCoy.

Thanks also to all of the teaching staff and support staff who are currently making props, rehearsing songs and doing whatever needs done! Our rehearsals are great fun; our children are thoroughly enjoying this learning experience and have fully committed to their roles.

An enormous thanks in advance to the 31!!!!! yes…31!!!!! staff who have ‘volunteered’ to participate in our staff scene…..The rehearsals, sorry our one rehearsal went surprisingly well……. I don’t believe there are many other schools where staff so willingly give of their own time to show their support and encouragement to our children. We have a fantastic staff, they are truly excellent. I believe this also demonstrates the great ethos within our school community. Like the rest of the show, the staff scene promises to be great fun.

Tickets for Pinocchio are on sale at school office priced at £4. Please come along and enjoy the marvellous talents of our upper school children. Pinocchio performances are:

Wednesday 2nd April & Thursday 3rd April 1.30pm and 7.00pm

It promises to be our best show yet!

Last Friday saw an incredible range of crazy hair creations. Our children really enjoy being ‘different’ for a day, well done to all who participated, staff as well as children.

Meanwhile……..the pirates in the nursery continue on their quest……..
Science week has been a great experience for the nursery children. They visited the planetarium where they had to crawl through a very dark tunnel to get into it. They learned about the names of different stars through stories told by Mr Davies. They also went along to different workshops throughout the week where they learned about electricity and the effects of helium gas especially on the voice. They saw some very simple experiments that they could do at home.

On Monday the children began to prepare for the party on Wednesday. They all shared their ideas of what they wanted to do during the party. They made pirate crispy cakes and top hats with pirate flags in them in the snack area.

On Tuesday we had a visit from Barbara our ABC music representative. She led a programme of music and movement on the Smartboard and introduced the children to different musical instruments.

The search for Blackbeard finally came to an end on Wednesday when the children discovered some arrows in the nursery which led them through the school. They followed them and found Blackbeard hiding in a treasure chest with the rest of Pirate Pete’s treasure. They brought him straight back to nursery where they decided to make him walk the plank. The perfect punishment for this scallywag. The children then celebrated by singing, dancing and playing pirate games. This has been a fantastic fun theme that everyone has learned from and enjoyed.

Over in the maths area the children played ten pin bowling using recycled materials. The children are learning all about the importance of recycling and have started to learn their very own eco song.

In the writing area they have been playing directional games on the smartboard and reading pirate stories.

In the art area the children finished off their anchors and started to make pictures of Spring flowers.

Some of the children went on a Spring walk with the Greenlink rangers they came back with lots of stories of exciting things they had seen. “Bambi’s footprints” “snuffle holes” “snails”  A big thanks to all parent helpers who accompanied the children on the walk. The final Spring walk will take place on Wednesday 26/3/14.

On Friday some of the children went on a Spring adventure in the grounds of the school they searched for Spring flowers, new leaves growing on trees and blossom. They brought back a few daffodils and ended science week with an experiment. They put the flowers in a vase and added water and food colouring. On Monday they will see if their experiment has worked!

The Growing Together Learning Forever Programme got under way on Wednesday with 6 parents taking part. More parents/carers are due to join the group next week.

As always, thanks for reading and please leave a comment……just to let me know you are there!

Mrs Shields

On Thursday evening, our Primary 5 & 6 Solo Singers performed in the Glasgow Music Festival.  Our Primary 5 singers, Diana Feenan, Imogen McFadden and Laura Findlay all sang ‘The Inchworm’ beautifully, with Laura being placed 3rd and Imogen and Diana placed joint 2nd.  Our Primary 6 girls sang ‘Omens of Spring’.  Lucy Thompson, Lucy Haggarty and Sophie Galloway all sang well, with Lucy Haggarty being placed 2rd.  Well done girls!

Yet another week filled with our children representing our school in a whole variety of ways, each one demonstrating their commitment to our school and showing their wide range of talents and skills.

Monday morning saw 65 of our children represent our school in the Glasgow Music Festival singing in both Primary choir section and Hymn Singing. Choir was, as always, magnificent and they won a well-deserved 2^nd place in Hymn Singing. Adjudicator’s comments included:

‘Excellent tuning, beautiful range, lovely happy faces who brought the song to life.’

Well done to our entire choir who has given so much of their own time to rehearse, we are all enjoying a well-earned rest for a few weeks now. Choir will resume after Easter break.

Thanks also to the great number of parents, grandparents and supporters of our school who came along on the day to assist with supervision and to show their support for our children and indeed our school.

Evening Times last week published a lovely picture of our choir at the Festival.

Monday afternoon all area head teachers were called to a meeting to discuss forthcoming savings to be made within Learning & Leisure Service. This was not such good news for us as the proposal is for our management structure to be altered cutting the number of senior and middle managers in our school. The savings have to be in place for 2016 but as yet they are proposals. More information will be given as more detail is provided.

Tuesday and Wednesday evening were very special times for our P3 pupils from St. Luke’s Parish and O.L.G.A Parish as they celebrated the Sacrament of Reconciliation for the first time. Both evenings were spiritually uplifting and our children were a credit to themselves, their parishes, their parents and to our school. Our grateful thanks to Mgr Millar, Canon O’Mahoney & Fr Krzysztof for their contributions to the celebrations. Well done to our P3 children and their teachers, Mrs Blaney, Mrs Collins, Mrs Duffy, Miss McIntyre, Mrs McDerment & Miss Brannigan.

Thanks also to the number of staff who came along on both nights to support our sacramental celebrations.

Lenten Charities:

Last week our children were involved in bringing non-perishable foodstuff to help those who are in need. What an incredible response we got! Absolutely brilliant. Miss Stack organized all of this and she has been overwhelmed by the generosity shown by our children. Miss Stack has collated 42 hampers filled with a huge variety of foods to be given to SVDP in our local area. We also have a large amount of surplus foodstuff, Miss Stack has been in touch with local NLC foodbanks and they are very grateful for this tremendous donation to their cause. A fantastic way to begin our Lenten Charity Appeals. HUGE thanks to Miss Stack for the organization of all of this. Each hamper has been decorated and sealed – a lovely gift to give to those families in our locale who are in need. This display of generosity has really brought to life the phrase ‘ Charity begins at home’. Well done to all involved.

This Friday ‘bounced’ in with all of our nursery and school children involved in this week’s Lenten Alms Giving. Our sponsored bounced was great fun and incredibly well organized. A HUGE thanks to Mrs Loose for organising all of the activities and the timetable on the day. We will let you know the amount of money raised as soon as all monies are received.

Next Friday – Crazy Hair Day!

Throughout this week I have had opportunity to visit P1, P2,P3 &P4 classes, to sit in on lessons. What a pleasure this has been. I am amazed at the creativity of our staff. Every lesson saw children fully involved in their learning, with lessons being personalised to allow children choice and breadth of learning indiscriminate of their ability. I thoroughly enjoyed working with the classes and admiring all of the children’s work on display in and around the class.

Parent Evening:

I look forward to all of our parents being just as impressed this coming Tuesday at our bi-annual Parent Evening.

Tuesday evening our appointments begin at 3.20pm through to 5.00pm and then again 6.00pm to 8.30pm. Should you not have an appointment as yet please contact the school as soon as possible.

As well as having opportunity to view the work in and around the class, look through your child’s won jotters and workbooks this March we have added a little something extra.

Easter Fayre:

Our Enterprise Committee has been working very hard organizing activities for each class to produce a raft of resources and gifts for Easter. All of the items are being put on sale on Tuesday evening and every item has been custom made by our children. Please come along and purchase some lovely Easter gifts.

Again HUGE thanks to Miss Stack and Miss Mooty who have been working after school with the Enterprise Committee to construct and collate many of the items.

New 2 U:

Also on Tuesday evening our Fabulous Fundraisers have on show an incredible amount of school clothing, which has been left in our school.

We have returned any item to their original owners but many, many items of clothing remain un-claimed. Coupled with this we also have a great number of uniform items which have been donated to the school and are all still in perfect condition. Our Fundraisers have laundered all of the items and these will be on sale on Tuesday evening – we simply ask for a donation.

There will also be a lost and found section of clothing, which is not school uniform. ENORMOUS thanks to our fabulous fundraisers who have, once again, been a great support to our school.

Nursery News:

It looks like the search for Blackbeard will get fully underway this week, as the ship is about to sail for faraway lands. The children have been busy preparing the ship to sail. They have scrubbed the decks, hoisted the sail, caught enough fish for the journey and all that is left to do is to fix the ships wheel on the helm. On Tuesday they arrived to find Pirate Pete had climbed out of the crow’s nest and climbed across the rigging along with Tinkerbell. It looked as if they were heading for the helm to sort out the navigation equipment.

In the maths/science area the children have been experimenting floating and sinking. They have used a variety of materials and have recorded some of their findings.

In the literacy/sensory area they have been exploring the Tropical Island in the corner of the playroom. They have been investigating their senses, using their feet in the sand, looking, touching and smelling tropical fruit.

In the art area they made their own anchors from saltdough and will get a chance to paint them this week. They made ships from different shapes and they can be seen displayed on the art area wall.

In the snack area they made pirate porridge and pirate pasta building up their strength for the journey ahead. They made and decorated their own pirate biscuits and they tasted tropical fruits.

Outside the children have been learning all about recycling, they have been busy tidying up the outdoor area and looking for the recycle symbol on various items in the playroom. They have been working on their very own eco song and hopefully that will be completed next week.

At gym this week they played a physical game, they scrubbed the decks, hoisted the flag, climbed the rigging, saluted the Captain and some scallywags even got to walk the plank into shark infested waters.

The ABC music programme continued with the children listening to the instructions and moving certain parts of their bodies in different ways.

On Thursday some of the children went on a Spring walk with Susan and Clare the Greenlink rangers. They listened to the sounds of different birds, discovered new buds growing on the trees, looked at some mini beasts and their eggs and were shown the hoof prints of a deer and a badger’s pathway. It was a lovely day and the children enjoyed their time away from the nursery. Thanks to the parents/carers who came to help out. The rest of the children will get the opportunity on Wednesday 25/3/14. We are looking for helpers on this day as well morning and afternoon.

On Friday the children took part in the sponsored bounce organised by the school Health Committee. They had great fun bouncing on two different bouncy castles and trampolines. They all went home exhausted!! Sponsor money should be handed in as soon as possible.

A wee reminder Parents night is on Tuesday 18/3/14.

As they say in all the best cartoons ‘That’s All Folks’. Thanks for reading.

Mrs Shields

The children in Primary 5a, along with pupils from Firpark, have been caring for some fishy friends over the last few weeks.  The pupils have cared for 200 fish eggs, which have grown enough now to be released into the Calder River!

The highlight of our week has to be the fantastic Race Night on Friday in St Bride’s Hall, organised by our fabulous Fundraisers.

This small, but incredibly effective, group of parents has once again raised an amazing amount of money for our school and nursery. £2,475.66 – outstanding. A HUGE thanks to the Fundraising Group for all its hard work and thanks also to everyone who came along on Friday night. It was a fantastic night, enjoyed by all. However, I’m still waiting for one of my horses to actually finish a race!

The work of the Fundraising Group cannot be praised enough, I am indebted to them for their wonderful work and support for all we do in school and nursery. I genuinely feel privileged to have such a great team of people working with us in our school community; every penny raised goes to help enhance our children’s learning. We could not ask for more.

This whole week has been a very busy and exciting one in school and nursery.

On Wednesday of this week we all joined the parishioners of O.L.G.A Cathedral Parish to celebrate Ash Wednesday – the beginning of Lent. Mass was simply beautiful and the children’s singing and behavior – outstanding. Indeed our Parent council Chairperson, Mr Gerry Bonnar, said Ms Susan Boyle, who was at the Mass commented on how well our children sang. Praise from a celebrity singer!

Thursday and Friday Masses in our school library at 8.15am have been very well attended, well done to all those boys and girls from nursery through to P7 who are making the effort to come to early morning Mass during Lent. Thanks also to the parents/carers who bring the children along to daily Mass, a wonderful example of faith in action.

Thursday was World Book Day, and what a celebration we had in school. Almost every child (and staff member) was dressed as their favourite character from a book. It was a wonderful day and everyone participated in the ‘STOP DROP & READ’ throughout the day. Great fun was had by all. A HUGE thanks to our CaFi Council and our Junior Librarians who under the watchful eyes of Mrs Duffy, Miss Phee and Mrs Ellis (Firpark) organised all of the events throughout the day. Watch out for some familiar faces in the Motherwell Times this coming week.

The Motherwell Times photographer, Alan has been coming to our school for many years, he is a firm supporter of all we do in school and has a wonderful manner with the children. Alan will be leaving Motherwell Times in a few weeks time. I simply wanted to extend my thanks and gratitude to him for all the times he has come along and showcased our children in the media through photographs and video. We wish Alan every success in the future; he will be greatly missed.

Thursday evening some of our solo singers performed at Glasgow Music Festival.

Well done to :

Morgan Brown, Abigail McNally, Collette O’Neil, Ciara Scullion and Katie Torrance

All 5 girls sang beautifully, suffice to say in the adjudication there were only 3 marks between all of the girls. Congratulations to Abigail (1^st), Ciara (2^nd) and Morgan (3^rd).  All the girls should be very proud of their achievements, they are a credit to our school.

Friday morning brought more competitions, singing, recitation and football.

The local Burns competition took place in Coatbridge High. Well done to our singers:

Diana Feenan, Imogen McFadden, Lucy Haggarty and Abigail McNally

And to our poetry reciters:

Kian Scullion, Ellie Hutchison, Salwa Ahmad and Collette O’Neil

Gold medals were awarded to Ellie and Diana with Abigail and Salwa earning silver and a bronze was awarded to Kian. Well done to all competitors.

A huge thanks to Mrs Murphy, Miss Green, Mrs McCoy & Mrs Campbell who prepare the children for solo singing and recitation. Super work and wonderful recognition, once again, to our school.

Friday morning we hosted a football tournament on our pitch with a variety of schools participating. Our boys and girls won 3 out of 4 matches. Excellent sportsmanship was shown by all. Well done to all participants.

Friday was also our first Alms Giving event for Lent, what a magnificent response!

We had requested non-perishable foodstuff to collate hampers to give to those in need in our local community. We have an enormous amount of hampers with a wide range of foodstuffs. The generosity shown by our children and their families is outstanding. Thanks to all who took the time to provide goods for the hampers. A wonderful start to the season of Lent, we look forward to your continued support.

Meanwhile down in the nursery…..

Blackbeard has become a recluse the children have still not discovered his whereabouts. The nursery pirate ship is now taking shape and is nearly ready to set sail. The children have been learning all about pirate jobs and the names of parts of a ship. The Captain has taken up residence in the story corner which has been converted into the Captain’s quarters. The Captain is a very knowledgeable old sea salt and requested lots of reading material for his journey to search for Blackbeard.

• In the writing area the children got busy making books with their own stories to put on the Captain’ bookcase in the corner of the playroom. They have also been writing a variety of pirate words and writing the names for the parts of their very own pirate ship on the art area wall.

• In the art area they completed their own model pirate ship which they named the Blackbeard. They made an anchor using metallic paint for the big nursery ship and made a Jolly Rodger flag. These can all be seen on the helm of the ship.

• In the snack area they made and designed their own pirate biscuits and on Tuesday had the opportunity to toss some pancakes. They had pirate porridge to make them big and strong for the forthcoming journey to faraway lands.

• In the maths area they made a map of Motherwell using all the directional information that they had learned from making their own treasure maps. These can be seen in the Captain’s quarters. They completed various mazes and join the dots pirate activities.

• Outside the transformation of the HMS Cathedral continued with the children making a flag, constructing a plank and creating a plan to make a map of the outdoor area. They drew arrows and followed directional instructions during a pirate game.

• In the gym hall and softplay they have been playing a pirate game that involves actions for all the various pirate jobs e.g. scrub the decks, climb the rigging, fire the canons, hoist the sail and walk the plank.

• On Thursday the children came to nursery dressed as their favourite character from a book to celebrate world book day. They listened to stories and shared the names of their favourite books with all their friends.

• Mrs Imray introduced a new music programme called ABC music. The children got the chance to listen to different types of musical tempo and had to move their bodies accordingly. The loud music was Blackbeard and the nice soft music was Tinkerbell. They were also shown all our new musical instruments and the children could name some of them. This programme will continue over the next few weeks.

• The pre-school activities continued this week with the emphasis on pencil control and matching number to quantity.

• Keep an eye out for Blackbeard he could be hiding in a house near you!!

The children have been visiting the living eggs in P1 and on Thursday afternoon the children saw the very first chick hatch. It was a fantastic experience to see this happening right before our eyes. They visited them again to discover that they nearly all had hatched, which came as a complete surprise to some of the children. They will continue to visit them to see and learn how quickly they grow.

As always, thanks for reading and please feel free to comment on any aspect of my Blog or of our school.

Mrs Shields

Ash Wednesday Mass will be celebrated in the Cathedral Church.

After that, Mass will be celebrated each week day during Lent in our School Library.

Mass will begin at 8.15 am.

On Thursday the cross-country trial was held at Wishaw Sports Centre in a very muddy field. Every child that competed completed the course and ten of the thirty-four children qualified for the final in March. Which is a fantastic number of children to reach the final especially as there has only been one trial this year.  Hopefully next week will bring news of the teams that have also qualified for the final, fingers crossed! The after school club will have a fun filled night on Monday as a big thank you to the effort the children put in and the following week it will be back to hard work in preparation for the final.

Our Last February week in school was one filled with preparation.

Catholic Education Week:

Throughout our school all classes worked very hard to learn more about how we can Shine The Light of Faith in our daily work and play. All aspects of our Good Work Wall this coming Monday will reflect the work carried out in our classes last week in respect of Catholic Education Week.  Please try to pop into the school and have a look at the Good Work Wall to see excellent examples of the creativity in each of our classes.

Ash Wednesday/Lent:

As a school we are preparing to begin the season of Lent. On Wednesday of this week we will all join together in O.L.G.A Cathedral Parish to celebrate Mass for Ash Wednesday. Please come and join us is you can. We are loking for volunteers to accompany our P4 to P7 pupils who will walk to church and to supervise our P1 to P3 pupils who will be bussed to Mass.

Date to remember: Wednesday 5^th March 10.00am Mass in O.L.G.A Cathedral Church.

My Son Pinocchio:

All upper school pupils (P5 to P7) are very busy rehearsing for our forthcoming school show ‘ My Son Pinocchio’ which promises to be our best show ever.

Whilst Mrs McCoy directs all stage movement and dance routines, class teachers continue to rehearse songs both in classes and in bases. We met together on Friday to examine our progress to date and wow! The singing was amazing. Our upper school children are so incredibly enthusiastic and so determined to give of their best at all times. Truly admirable.

On Friday we also announced the winners of the ‘design a T shirt ‘ competition. The winners – whose design will form our costumes are:

Grace McLaughlin, Luke Robertson, Salwa Ahmad, Keira Rieley, Rachel Donnelly, Niah Welsh, Ciara Scullion, Jamie Sweeney and Hannah Townsley

Well done to all who participated, all work was completed at home in children’s own time, once again great commitment shown throughout the upper school.

Remember to keep the dates free to come along and enjoy the show:

Wednesday 2^nd April & Thursday 3^rd April at 1.30pm and 7.00pm.

Reconciliation:

Meanwhile Primary Three are busy preparing for the reception of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, all pupils are using their workbooks as the main focus of their preparations whilst also learning two very important hymns, ‘Christ is my Light’ and ‘Whatsoever you do to the least of my Brothers’.

Please pray for our P3 children at this important time in their spiritual development.

Dates to remember:

St. Luke’s Reconciliation – Tuesday 11^th March at 6pm

O.L.G.A Cathedral Reconciliation – Wednesday 12^th March at 6pm

First Holy Communion:

Primary Four pupils are also now entering the intense preparation for their forhtcoming Sacramental Celebration, please also remember our P4 pupils in your prayers.

Important dates:

St Luke’s First Holy Communion Saturday 3^rd May @ 12.00

O.L.G.A Cathedral First Holy Communion Saturday 10^th & 17^th May @ 12.00

Primary Two Assembly:

What a week for Primary 2 pupils and staff. Intense rehearsals for their Assembly on Friday. And what an assembly it was. Truly Magnificent and all about a load of rubbish!!!!!

An excellent message portrayed in a most ambitious, educational, fun way. I was amazed at the learning our pupils overtook to deliver all of this work without a note or a prompt in sight. Fabulous. I was so proud of our P2 pupils and their teachers. Important messages like ‘renew, reuse recycle’ can be delivered in class but when our young people show us this message in such a creative manner it is truly memorable and the message is remembered by all. Well done to all involved, and many thanks to so many parents who came along to support the children.

Primary One:

Chick, Chick, Chick ,Chick ,Chicken…..

This coming couple of weeks will be very quiet in Primary One. Shhhhh..

This Monday they take delivery of ‘living eggs’, which throughout the next fortnight we will all watch become fluffy little chicks.

Our wee chicks need a quiet environment as loud noises scare them.

Good luck in P1 little chicks!!! Watch this space for weekly updates.

The search for Blackbeard and the lost treasure continued all week in nursery. On Tuesday morning a trail of green glitter led the children to discover Tinkerbell hiding in the treasure chest with some of the lost gems and some books all about pirates. Tinkerbell told the children that she wanted to help them locate Blackbeard and has taken the pledge to learn all about pirate jobs and the names of the different parts of the ship before it sets sail for faraway lands. The children welcomed her onboard as part of the crew and got busy showing her the ropes.

In the writing area they made WANTED pictures which will be placed strategically throughout the nursery and school to widen the search for the scallywag. They also played treasure games on the SMARTBoard and the singing of old sea shanties continued.

The sail the children made last week has now been hoisted and is ready for use. Pirate Pete has taken up residence in the crow’s nest along with Pearl the parrot whom the children made and named on Tuesday.

In the art area the children created their very own pirate Pete with beard, scars, gold buckles on his shoes and an earring. They decided to put him next to the pirate display and then made another parrot to keep him company. They started making pirate ships from recycled boxes and will continue with this over the next few days. They put a plank in the water tray and have made the pirates walk the plank.

In the maths area they continued making treasure maps and they also completed directional mazes in the hunt to find the treasure. They made pirates and ships from the mobilo in the construction area.

In the snack area they made ships with melon and other fruit, fruit kebabs and tropical smoothies. They roleplayed the ship leaking and came up with their own ideas of how to prevent it from sinking. Lots of good imaginative ideas and new language came out of this.

Outside they have been busy transforming the HMS Cathedral into a pirate ship, they have been making a plank and a flag for the ship as well as roleplaying scrubbing the decks and lifting the anchor. The transformation of the ship will continue into next week.

On Friday Nathan’s mum visited the nursery and told the children all about how Welsh children celebrate St David’s day. She showed them a short story and taught them a song in Welsh on the SMARTBoard. She explained all about the colours in the Welsh flag, dressed some of the children in traditional dress and explained the significance of the daffodil and leek being the Welsh emblems. Nathan got a chance to show off his rugby shirt and his rugby ball skills. She showed them beautiful wooden spoons that are carved from a single piece of wood which you receive on your wedding day. Nathan and Ryan made Welsh cakes and the children took them home to have with their tea. The children and staff found it all very informative and we would like to thank Mrs Baxter again for her excellent input on Friday morning and afternoon.

THE HUNT FOR BLACKBEARD CONTINUES! If anyone knows the whereabouts of this nasty scallywag please do not hesitate to let the children know. Ideas from parents/carers are always welcomed by the children and staff for this theme and any other. How would you like to take this forward? Suggestions in the suggestion box in the cloakroom please.

As always, thanks for reading, look forward to reading your comments.

Mrs Shields

Congratulations to our 200 Club winners this month:

1st Prize:  £90 to Mrs Tracey Murphy (Ciaran and Aidan’s mum)

2nd Prize: £45 to Mr Thomas Hughes (Thomas’ dad)

3rd Prize: £20 to Mr Patrick McCarthy (Carlina and Rory’s dad)

Thank you for supporting our school fundraising.