Our week culminated in a wonderful Mass this morning.

Congratulations to our 32 Primary 6 pupils who have chosen to participate in the inaugural cohort of Pope Francis Faith Award. Each of our candidates was today enrolled in the award during the 11.30am Mass in Our Lady of Good Aid Cathedral Church. This was a lovely ceremony where our children, their parents and we as a staff pledged our support, encouragement and our prayers for our candidates.

Well done to all of the boys and girls who have elected to show their commitment to our Faith and who will, over the next year and a half, by virtue of their actions demonstrate their Faith in a variety of ways working at home, in school and with the parish.

Please remember our candidates in your prayers. We wish them every success as pioneers on this initial programme of the Pope Francis Faith Award.

Over this week we have been delighted to welcome some of our colleagues from our locale to our school. Tuesday morning we welcomed Mrs Audrey Burke, DHT at Knowetop Primary School. Mrs Burke had asked to come to see some active maths lessons throughout our school, thanks to all classes who welcomed Mrs Burke and demonstrated an excellent example of contextualized learning within the mathematics curriculum.

On the afternoon of the same day we welcomed Mr Robert Dalzell, our link Quality Improvement Officer to our school. Mr Dalzell met with myself to discuss our progress in fulfilling the components of our Improvement Plan.

Mr Dalzell was most impressed by the commitment of so many of our staff to engage in developing the curriculum and taking forward sector leading aspects of learning across the school. Well done to our forward thinking, inspirational staff.

Tuesday evening our school hosted a meeting lead by senior management from Our Lady’s High School. Mrs Sinclair, HT and Mrs Donnachie, DHT presented to our P6 & P7 parents providing all with a flavour of secondary education. This meeting was very well attended and our thanks to all of the parents who took the time to come along. We enjoy a very close relationship with OLHS and our children experience a most robust programme of transition ensuring a smooth, trouble free transfer to secondary education.

Wednesday morning and afternoon we welcomed our prospective P1 parents. Mrs Duffy, DHT (acting) led two parent workshops discussing our next steps in nursery and our transition plans. Mrs Duffy also discussed with parents how best to prepare their child for coming to school. Thanks to all who came along, both meetings were very successful.

Thursday morning our CaFi Council met together to discuss up and coming events. As a campus we are taking forward ‘World Book day’ celebrating reading for enjoyment (one of the components of our Improvement Plan). Watch our for more details coming soon. World Book day is March 6^th.

Friday dawned and once again we welcomed many parents and friends of our school to our P7 Coffee Morning – their last one- Awwwww.

The coffee morning ran very smoothly (as always) thanks to our faithful coffee morning ladies who organize all of the food, drinks, raffles and children!

Our coffee mornings are a wonderful chance for all in our community to come together for a chat and a welcoming social gathering, thanks to all who came along. It was great to see such a range of parents/carers and grandparents from right across the school, a most delicious, enjoyable morning. Thanks also to all who took the time to bake and donate to our morning.

On Friday we also welcomed some children from Muir Street Primary, who came along to play in an informal football tournament on our pitch.  Sadly on this occasion, we weren’t the winners, but Mr McBirnie, who trains our footballers, said our pupils played very well and their behaviour was excellent.

Friday lunchtime we were overjoyed to welcome young Matthew Laird to our school. Matthew was born 12 weeks early at just over 2lbs. He is now a very healthy 8lbs and looks fabulous, he is perfect. Congratulations once again to Mrs Laird on her beautiful new baby. Mrs Laird was also looking very well and she has asked me to pass on her thanks to everyone in school for their good wishes and their prayers.

Meanwhile, very strange happenings in the nursery!!!

• Ahoy Me Hearties! It has been a very exciting week in nursery. On Monday the entrance to the playroom looked like a cove and a very large treasure chest was sitting in the middle of the nursery. Inside it the children discovered a letter which was from a very worried pirate who had been imprisoned and his treasure had been stolen by a scallywag called Blackbeard. Fortunately Blackbeard was not as clever as he thought as he left clues to the whereabouts of the imprisoned pirate. The children followed the clues and discovered a treasure chest in the school library. The excitement gathered momentum as the children thought they had found the stolen treasure but when they opened the chest they found Pirate Pete quivering inside. Pete was so glad that he had been rescued and asked the children if they could help him get all his treasure back. The children quickly came up with ideas on how to do this. “Build a ship, make a map, put a message in a bottle” and lots of other ideas. (Mindmaps of these are on display). The children returned to the nursery and got busy with their ideas.
• The house corner was transformed into a pirate ship with its very own cannon and plank to walk, the tree in the middle of the playroom is now a mast with a crow’s nest and there are more transformations to come!
• In the writing area the children sent messages in a bottle with their ideas on how to recover the treasure. They wrote pirate words, played pirate games on the smartboard, read pirate stories and sang pirate songs. Some of their work can be seen on display throughout the playroom. They also painted the name they had chosen for the ship on a flag “The Neptune”
• In the maths area they got busy designing their very own treasure maps with directions, palm trees, sand and of course X marks the spot. All of their hard work can be seen on the maths wall.
• In the art area they made pirate flags, hats and telescopes. They painted pictures of pirates and found gold coins in the sand. They made models of ships from recycled junk in the junk modelling area. If anyone has any kitchen roll tubes or hanky boxes please bring them in as the children will continue to create their own models over the next few weeks.
• Outdoors the children were equipped with metal detectors or metal protectors as one child called them. They went into the grounds of the school and discovered some arrows which they followed and found gold coins and sparkly necklaces. They counted all the coins they found and brought them back to Pirate Pete but he told them that was only some of his treasure and that there are many more coins still to find. During this activity the children learned that the metal detectors only buzzed when they found metal, they then embarked on an experiment to see what other things outside were made of metal. Pictures of their discoveries coming soon!
• In the snack area they made palm trees using bananas, kiwi and apples. They made pirate pizza and palm (ham) sandwiches. They roleplayed pirates on the ship and made each other walk the plank.
• In softplay they built a ship and played a pirate game “Who stole the treasure”

This theme has sparked the children’s imagination and the playroom has been a hive of activity all week and there is more to come!

Once again, thanks for reading. All comments most welcome.

Mrs Shields

Thursday dawned like any other day however…..something strange was afoot in our school.

As you will be aware staff were all in school on Wednesday for an In-Service day. This was a great learning opportunity for us as a staff and was a most productive day. Our main focus was assessment and moderation; we met together to discuss our planning formats, our evaluation process and our assessment techniques.

Together we discussed a way forward to ensure our learning is in line with the core principals of A Curriculum for Excellence. Also on this day we took forward our ‘Swap-Shop’ day. This was a discussion, which took place some time ago, when in conversation with staff we talked about the professional and personal benefits of everyone having a different class/stage for a day.  I put this idea forward to our Parent Council who could also see the benefits of such a day.

We opted to host our Swap-Shop day on Thursday of this week. Each class teacher planned for their own class but overtook the day-to-day teaching within a different class. It was a most enjoyable learning curve for all staff and indeed was greatly enjoyed by our children. On Monday of this coming week, at our weekly assembly, Pupil of the Week and Good Work Wall Awards will be those as selected by the teacher the children had on Thursday – an additional incentive for children to impress an alternative teacher.

Interestingly, I have received some communication from other head teachers who have heard of our Swap-Shop day and have indicated an interest in taking this forward in their own school.

Friday normal services were resumed. Friday football continues to be a most successful joint venture for our two establishments – a big thanks to ‘Willie’ the football man who overtakes all of the work – and all on a voluntary basis, fantastic.

Our littlest people also enjoyed a new face on Thursday, they too enjoyed having a different person with whom to enjoy their learning.

Here’s Mrs. Murphy’s Blog…

Only two days in nursery this week but as always the two days were jammed packed full of activities.

To celebrate St Valentine’s day the children got the opportunity to make cards for their loved ones, they decorated them with a variety of materials and traced heart shapes on them. Each child had a special message for the inside of their card. In the art area they made heart shapes from salt dough and decorated them. Some of these can be seen displayed in the art area. They made and explored heart shaped ice and made heart shaped biscuits in the snack area which were delicious and went down a treat on Friday. They also had the opportunity to go on a hunt for red hearts which were hidden throughout the whole nursery building. This is always an enjoyable activity that the children love to take part in. In the maths area they were concentrating on matching number to quantity using all things red and heart shaped.

On Thursday we were joined by Mrs. McCoy in the teacher swap shop programme. Mrs. McCoy spent the whole day in nursery and thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience!

Normal service will resume next week!

As always, thanks for reading and please feel free to comment.

Mrs. Shields

As we mentioned last week, our Choir won the Festival of Music last Saturday morning.  Here they are with the competition shield!  Well done everyone.

We have enjoyed our last week in January, to date the weather has been kind to us – long may it continue. Looking around the school grounds there are signs of spring all around. Our winter pansies continue to bloom, the buds are beginning to show on the bushes in our welcome garden and the Garden Club planters have shoots coming through, spring is in the air (hopefully).

The end of this month marks a new theme in our assemblies, although we will continue to re-visit our New Year Resolutions throughout the term. Our theme for February will be announced at assembly tomorrow morning, Mrs Campbell, Mrs Mullen and Mrs Duffy have the privilege of this as I am at a meeting in Glasgow first thing tomorrow morning. During our assembly each Monday we have added another new component – The Throne! You may have heard your children refer to ‘sitting on the throne’; this privileged position is reserved for those children whose work is displayed on the Good Work Wall. All of our pupils enjoy sitting ‘on the throne’ and entertaining the school with details of their good work. The Throne is our large storytelling chair, which is housed in the library and used throughout the week by staff and pupils for reading for enjoyment. Ask your child/ren about it – they love it! and, as is our tradition, it is of course painted in school colours and adorns a large school badge. The chair was part of the items made for our school by the inmates of Shotts prison during our summer break 2013.

The reading for enjoyment initiative has been a great success in school, led by Miss Phee, please continue to encourage your child/ren to read at home and I would ask you to continue to read to and to read with your child/ren. Each class has a slot of time every day when the teacher reads to the children. This is a great way to focus on reading with expression and to read for fun. Coupled with this our children’s listening skills are also improving. Well done Miss Phee and all involved. We look forward to celebrating World Book Day in March.

On Monday evening we held our first Parent Council Meeting of this year, as always it was extremely well attended and a most productive meeting ably chaired by Mr Gerry Bonnar, our Council Chairperson. Our Parent Council has agreed to act further on the parking concerns, which continue to be at the forefront of our school, literally!

Please encourage all to park in appropriate parking spaces, to leave the nursery car park for nursery children, the three allocated disabled spaces for our children who require assistance to and from school and to resist parking in our bus lane and in the road area outside the nursery car park. There is good reason why the road side in an inappropriate parking space and why it has not been allocated as parking bay. Quite simply it is unsafe. Parents parking here are putting their children (and their own) lives at risk as all are required to enter cars from roadside. I am sure you appreciate how busy the drive is with traffic at 3pm, why parents take this unnecessary risk remains a mystery to me.

This week we will be publishing our February Newsletter, it is filled with items of interest, things happening in the near future and lots and lots of photographs showing the wide range of learning opportunities offered to our school and nursery children on a weekly basis. (and there’s a wee moan about parking in it too…..sorry)

Please remember you can access the newsletter on line as well as having a paper copy. We are now also putting any letters issued on line to ensure all parents have opportunity to keep up to date. We are aware that some children are better than others at bringing letters home, hopefully the on line versions will help.

This Tuesday coming is our Mass of Enrolment for our P4 children who will receive the Sacrament of Holy Eucharist for the first time in May of this year. We look forward to welcoming all of our P4 pupils (in their uniform) with their parents/carers and family members on Tuesday at 7pm in O.L.G.A Cathedral Church. I am looking for a parent to volunteer to read at this Mass, please let me know if you would consider reading on Tuesday evening. Although the Mass is for our P4 pupils we welcome all friends and families from our school, please come along and support out P4 pupils at this important time in their faith development.  We have also invited our P5 – 7 choir members to come along and enhance the music liturgy at this Mass.

Our nursery children and staff have had an amazing week, let’s read…..

On Monday the children were lucky to experience a Tae Kwon Do taster session. They listened well and followed the instructions given by both coaches and were amazed at the height Mr Cumming the coach could jump!
All week the children have been learning all about China and Chinese traditions!

In the writing area the children heard the story of Nian a Chinese dragon. This story sparked their imaginations and from the ideas the children came up with, the house corner was transformed into a Chinese restaurant. Mrs Little went on an adventure to Chinatown with an afternoon mum to get lots of resources that could be used. A big thanks goes to Logan’s mum for all her help.
The children had the opportunity to write lots of different words and read other Chinese stories with Mrs Imray.

Outside the children had a red envelope treasure hunt. The envelopes they found had gold coins in them a Chinese tradition where red envelopes with money in them are given to children. Also outside they painted a dragon which would be used on Friday for the dragon dance.

In the maths area the children got busy writing a Chinese numberline. This is proudly hanging near the entrance of the playroom. Please take time to look at how well the children did. They were also learning to count to 3 in Chinese.

In the music area the children listened to Chinese songs and got the chance to dance in the hall with the ribbons.

In the art area the children made red and gold lanterns and dragon puppets. They explored play dough and created noodles and dragons with it.

In the snack area they have been smelling touching and tasting Chinese food and have been experimenting with chopsticks.

On Friday we celebrated Chinese New Year (Gong Hey Fat Choy). The children visited the restaurant in their groups with their keyworker and their orders were taken and they were served by the P6 buddies. Mrs Shields, Mrs Campbell and Mrs Duffy all visited the restaurant and sampled the menu along with the children. The menu consisted of chicken noodle soup, prawn crackers and noodles. They had Chinese crystallised fruits for dessert and got a Chinese sweet that is only given out at New Year to take home. They danced to Chinese music with ribbons and performed a dragon dance. The whole learning experience has been fantastic and the theme will continue as the children are enjoying it so much.

As always, thanks for reading, any comments will be very welcome.

Mrs Shields

Woo Hoo…At last; our wonderful choir have gained the recognition they so deserve!

On Saturday 25th January our choir won ‘A Festival of Music’, a choral competition which involved choirs singing a set piece ‘ The Wizard’ and a piece of their own choice. Our choir chose to sing ‘Put on a happy face’. Well done to all of the children from P4 through to P7 who sang so beautifully, looked fabulous and all smiled. Fantastic, I am so proud of them all. Our choir come after school every Wednesday and towards competition time freely give of their own lunch times for additional rehearsals, they demonstrate real commitment to the choir and to our school. (We’ll not mention the role of Percy Pigs in all of this!!!)

Our week began with us enjoying a ‘traditional’ Monday morning assembly – our first of the year. Well done to our proud Workers of the Week and our Pupils of the Week well earned recognition to our children.

P5a missed our assembly as they; together with our Firpark friends enjoyed a day out at Glasgow Science Centre. This expedition was in connection with our joint “Clyde in The Classroom’ Topic. P5a together with P7 Firpark pupils will, over the next couple of months’ be responsible for nurturing 200 fish eggs and taking care of them as they grow into little fishes. Once big and strong enough the children will then release the fish into The River Calder to allow them to fully grow and develop. This is s super opportunity for our pupils to learn so much about life cycles and rivers. Well done to P5a for their active involvement in this project.

Over the last couple of weeks we have welcomed Sean McCluskey and Catriona Bell, two young people who are looking to train as primary teachers this coming year, both Sean and Catriona thoroughly enjoyed their time in school and we look forward to welcoming them back as ‘official’ student teachers.

Tuesday evening our school played host to an evening twilight session for teachers and head teachers across North Lanarkshire to learn more about Pope Francis Faith Award. This Award is being piloted by a number of schools across Scotland; we are delighted and honoured to have been selected to participate. The Award involves P6 pupils who are required to demonstrate, in a variety of ways, their active participation in their faith. We will work closely with our 30 candidates, their parents and Fr Millar to provide an excellent learning curve for all involved. More information can be found in Parish Bulletin.

Wednesday of this week our P7 pupils enjoyed visits from Scottish Parliament Outreach Programme, where they were encouraged to question and debate aspects of the work of The Scottish Parliament. Yet another fabulous learning opportunity for our senior pupils as they prepare to move onto High School.

Wednesday evening our Fabulous Fundraisers Meeting took place, once again – and I make no apology for repeating myself – I cannot speak highly enough of this fantastic group of parents who continuously work to offer our pupils such a range of opportunities. They are magnificent. Currently we are looking to purchase outdoor, waterproof jackets for our Cross Country Runners and some all in one outdoor suits for our nursery pupils. Please support our fundraisers by participating in our next venture our annual Race Night on Friday 7th March. Tickets cost £4 and are available from Fundraisers or from school office. This is always a super night, enjoyed by all. Should you be unable to attend please consider sponsoring some horses or a race, alternatively we would greatly appreciate raffle prizes. More information being provided by letter on Monday 3rd February.

From now on it is our intention to put every letter onto our website to ensure any lost mail can be accessed by parents. We are also currently seeking a volunteer to translate our Newsletters into Polish. If you can help in any way please get in touch.

Meanwhile, Mrs Murphy is keeping us up to date with the nursery bairns:

Och Aye the Noo!

A very Scottish week in nursery this week with our main focus on all things Scottish. On Thursday Mr Sean McCluskey joined us for some nursery experience.

In the writing area the children listened to some Scottish stories such as Nessie and Hairy McClairy. The story of Nessie led to the children wanting to make Nessie which they did on Wednesday. Their fab efforts can be seen on the art wall.
They learned some Scottish songs and discussed Rabbi Burns which led to the opportunity to write some Scottish words such as moose, hoose, tatties, neeps, haggis and dug. They listened to a Scottish poem called “A dug a dug”

In the maths area the concentration this week is on patterns, the children have some pattern pictures to help them make their own patterns and designs. This focus will continue next week.

In the art area the children continued to make tartan bunting and Scottish flags to display for the Burns Shindig. They concentrated on the patterns involved in making both.

In the snack area they made shape shortbread for the party on Friday.

Outdoors the children have been busy making colourful footprint patterns with their wellies; some of these patterns are displayed on the maths wall.

On Friday the children all came dressed for the Knees Up wearing some kind of tartan. Mrs Loose gave them a quick Scottish dance lesson to the song “you canny fling pieces oot a twenty storey flat” and the children picked up the moves in the Highland Fling very quickly.
The bow at the beginning and the end of the dance was taken very seriously! They had haggis, neeps, tatties and shortbread and good old Scottish water for their snack. One child announced. “I’m having my dinner at nursery”
They then went to the gym hall for a wee mini Highland Games where they joined in welly wanging, shot putt and sang a few action songs like 3 craws sat upon a wa. They then returned to the playroom where Mr McCluskey accompanied them on his guitar to sing Ali Bali, You Cannae shove your Granny aff a bus, Bonnie wee Jeanie McCall, ma maw’s a millionaire, Donald where’s your troosers and finally 500 miles. Mr MCCluskey had a fantastic two days in nursery and was a great addition to the nursery team.

As always, thanks for reading, any comments gratefully received.

Mrs Shields

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

A warm welcome to 2014, I trust everyone enjoyed a Happy & Holy Christmas and a New Year to remember.
We began our year on a rather sad note at our first assembly where we prayed for Mrs Collins and her family. Mrs Collins husband, Jim, sadly passed away over the holiday period. We extend our hearfelt sympathy to Mrs Collins, and her children Martin and Claire. Please remember them in your prayers.
As a school community we have decided to focus on three New Year Resolutions. Each of the resolutions has been taken from those identified by Pope Francis. They are:
Don’t Gossip
Finish Your Meals
Be Happy
Please talk to your child/ren about these resolutions and help us to fulfil our New Year promises.
During Monday morning assembly we welcomed some gentlemen from The Knights of Saint Columba, they came to deliver the good news that eight of our children had been successful in achieveing awards in the Keep Christ in Christmas Competition. The winners are:
Julia Brola
Laura McCann
Mark Fitzpatrick
Rebecca Whyte
Molly Tominey
Hannah Gallagher
Laura Findlay
Imogen McFadden
Caitlin Ross
Well done to all of our children for their active participation.
We continued our week settling back into school routine. Pupils from P5,P6 & P7 auditioned for parts in our forthcoming school show – Pinocchio. Parts were issued on Friday, we look forward beginning our rehearsals very soon. The theme of Pinocchio will be replicated throughout many classes as this is the chosen Topic for this forthcoming term.
This coming week we look forward to welcoming our prospective P1 pupils for August 2014. Enrolments will be on-going Monday to Friday 1.30pm – 3.00pm.
In our ever expanding nursery this week, they’ve been having great fun…..
Welcome all to 2014!
On Monday we welcomed back all of our nursery children and as the week went on we welcomed some new children as well. On Thursday our new teacher Miss Love joined us filled with great enthusiasm. Miss Love is job sharing with Mrs Keenan. Miss Love spent her first few days getting to know the children. We welcome Miss Love to the nursery team.~ Over the next few weeks the last of our children will be joining us.
Some of the areas in the playroom have had a makeover. The sensory area has moved over to a quieter area and has had a revamp. The music area is now more accessible in the middle of the room. The home corner is now a home again and a new washing machine was delivered on Thursday and the children got busy roleplaying doing the washing and hanging it out to dry.
This week we have been concentrating on revisiting our Golden Rules and our Golden People.
In the writing area the children have been telling their own stories of the Golden People and what they think they get up to at nightime in the playroom. These will be displayed in the cloakroom during the week so please take time to look at their fantastic stories.
In the maths area the children have been measuring themselves and objects in the playroom. They are going to check out how much they have grown since they started nursery.
In the art area they explored snow using cornflour and baby oil and made snowglobes with snowmen in them.
Outdoors they had great fun jumping in muddy puddles and measuring rainfall in the raincatchers.
In the snack area they were busy making jelly and angel delight. They were exploring how water can change form when different things are added.
The lending library is up and running again as we continue to promote reading for enjoyment.
Mrs Shields

We think Ralph got lost with the photos – apologies for the delay!  Here are the wonderful photos of our afternoon performers – what stars they are!

As promised, here are some photos of our wonderful ‘morning’ nursery children performing ‘Ralph the Reindeer’…..’afternoon’ children to follow!