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What a week! Absolutely superb.

Tuesday and Wednesday P7 headed off to Our Lady’s High School for their 2 day visit and our P6 pupils began their P7 responsibilities. Our nursery pupils all enjoyed their sports days and on Wednesday our nursery Bonanza day saw all 100 little people join us for fun, games, treats and lots of laughter. A wonderful day for all concerned. Big thanks to Mrs Duffy and Mrs MM Murphy for organising all the activities. Thanks also to our P7 staff who found themselves working within our nursery – quite a change for them.

Thursday was our annual Magical Musical Morning, and what a morning it was. An outstanding display of talent and skill from our P4,5,6 & 7 pupils. Huge thanks to our musical instructors:

Strings – Mrs Serle

Brass – Mr Woods

Saxophone & Orchestra – Mr Cruikshank

Clarinets – Mrs Murphy

Flutes & Choir  – Mrs Campbell

Solo Singing – Mrs Shevlin

Kodaly & Boys Choir – Mrs Wilkinson

Biggest thanks has to go to our wonderful pupils who were simply magnificent.

Live video soundbites coming soon….hopefully!

The group missing from these photographs is our wonderful choir, apologies to them for missing them in the photographs. However, on Thursday evening our choir performed The Mass of St. Francis in O.L.G.A Cathedral Church working with choirs from across Motherwell Diocese: St Cuthbert’s – South Lanarkshire and St. Bridget’s  – Glasgow. Our choirs sang with the prestigious Motherwell Diocesan Choir and what a performance it was, simply amazing. More information and some wonderful live footage will be uploaded to Motherwell Diocese Facebook Page – log on and have a look and a listen, I’m sure you will be impressed. I am incredibly impressed by our choir and extremely proud.

Friday morning dawned filled with very excited Primary One pupils all ready and prepared for their very first assembly. It was truly magnificent, Primary One pupils excelled, they were brilliant. A laugh out loud and toe tapping morning. One of the best moments for me is watching the pride on the faces of teachers and parents as they marvel at what our children can achieve in just one year at school.

HUGE congratulations to all in Primary One and a very special thanks to Mrs McCarthy, Mrs Gillespie, Mrs Laird, Mrs McLaughlan, Mrs McCoy, Miss Falconer and all of our support staff and not forgetting Mrs Campbell. A wonderful way for our children to learn the importance of staying safe & healthy at home, at school and at play. Primary One be VERY proud of yourselves.

Photographs will be on Blog next weekend, watch this space.

Meanwhile on Thursday morning after our Magical Musical Morning our P7 pupils enjoyed their final workshop (at Primary School) for our Building Stronger Communities in Motherwell Project.

Whilst speaking with Professor Nigel Osbourne who is leading this project we were discussing our locale and I have to quote his view of our school. He said he visits many, many schools but O.L.G.A Cathedral is the ‘richest’ school he has ever been in. Not in terms of money but in terms of the experiences afforded to our children, the quality and commitment of the staff and the positive attitude of all in our school community. What a wonderful description of our school, a fabulous compliment.

Our week ended on a wonderful high with our annual Fundraisers Race Night. We raised an incredible ￡2355.00. WOW! Outstanding. A HUGE thanks (this seems inadequate) to our Fabulous Fundraisers and everyone who came along to support this evening, parents, staff, friends of our school. A great night, although my horses are still out there somewhere searching for the finish line.😳

And there’s more:

Here’s what’s been happening this week in our nursery, a very exciting and action packed week.

THEY’RE HERE!!

On Tuesday the children arrived to find a new addition to the nursery. A beautiful yellow fluffy chick had hatched. The children named her Snow White. As the week progressed each day brought new additions and by Friday we had 9 healthy chicks named Biffy, Bluebell, Chip, Wee Charlie, Rosie, Buffalo, Ariel and Superman. Please spend a minute looking at all the learning displayed in the Playroom that has been going on since the eggs arrived. The children have been caring for the chicks and have visited them each day to see them grow. Have a look at the photographs of our new little friends.

Wednesday arrived along with the sunshine. The beach party and sports day was full of fun active activities and the children enjoyed them all. Take a look at the photographs to see what they all got up to. They all went home tired and happy especially the staff.
Thursday’s weather for the morning children’s sports day was not so nice but the children put their hoods up and carried on. Each child received a medal for taking part in their sports day. Well deserved.

Another fabulous week in our outstanding nursery and school, absolutely brilliant. I hope everyone is very proud of their children, we most certainly are.

Mrs Shields – very proud head teacher

Our nursery this week:

A very eggciting time is happening down in our nursery class. Mr Delaney from the Educational Egg programme arrived in the nursery with 15 eggs and an incubator. He brought props and transferred information on to our computer to help the children understand the ‘Life Cycle of a Chicken’ He numbered all the eggs and the children made a chart to record which egg would hatch first. Mrs little and the children prepared the chicken coup with the heated box on Friday and we hope that we will have some additions to our nursery next week.

In the art area the children made a nest from straw, made clay models of chicks and made a mother hen from wire and collage. The mother hen is proudly sitting on her eggs in the display in the art area.
This week the children continued to explore a range of art materials and have been busy creating a papier mache egg.

In the writing area they have been scribing words ‘hatched, cracked, incubator and coup’. They are preparing the wall to display all their new language on. They continue to sing songs relating to the topic.

In numeracy they have been sequencing the ‘Life Cycle of a Chicken’ and comparing sizes. They have been watching the whole process on the SmartBoard.

Outdoors the children have been discussing where foods come from and have been sorting them into healthy and unhealthy foods using our fun food boards.

On Wednesday the children took part in Clubbercize for their final fundraising activity this year. A huge thank you to everyone who contributed to the fun we all had.

Back by popular demand is the ‘Challenge of the Week’. Each week the children will have the opportunity to challenge themselves through a variety of activities. Look out for the special gold challenge of the week stickers.

Meanwhile the bigger ‘uns have been very busy working extremely hard to jump into June and finish our school year with a bang.

Lots of celebrations and exciting events:

1+2 Language Awards, from 187 entries our school had three children nominated as finalists, in categories of Most Enthusiastic Modern Language Learner P1-3 and then P4-7 and also most successful Multi Lingual Learner. Congratulations to our three representatives. Congrats also to Madame Ali who has created a wonderful multi lingual community within our school inspiring our children to learn in French and Spanish. Madame Ali’s work is exceptional, trés bien Madame.

Our Ibike crew along with Mrs Carr has been very busy out and about in Motherwell participating in Cycle Road Race on 23rd May, well done to all involved.

Huge thanks to the great number of parent helpers who came along to assist and to take part, great support and fabulous example to our children to ‘get on their bikes!’

Our netball teams have also been in action this week enjoying a ‘friendly’, albeit a competitive friendly with Muir St Primary teams.

Enormous well done to our netballers who displayed great skill, sportsmanship and offered a warm welcome to our visiting teams. Thanks also to Miss Caitlin McEwan, P.E teacher from Firpark Primary who trains our teams and gave so willingly of her own time after school to referee the matches. A brilliant example of true team spirit in our campus!

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.

Our Come Clubbersize @ Cathedral sponosred event was a huge success. We’ve raised over 3000 pounds! what a magnificent amount of money going directly to children in our locale, in Scotland, in UK and all over the world, who are less fortunate than ourselves.

Big thanks especially to the great number of parents who came along to join in the fun and to our Clubbersize Crew: Mrs Rimmer, Miss Donnelly & Miss Love.

As always, thanks for reading, please leave a comment or two or three….

Mrs Shields

Last week’s blog we focused on our fabulous First Communicants, here’s a wee snippet of how smart they looked:

Two wonderful celebrations. Once again, congratulations to all concerned.

Our new entrants joined us once again on Tuesday of this week enjoying a further opportunity for children to get to know their teachers and enjoy a lovely lunch, courtesy of our kitchen. Thanks to Karen Guthrie, our cook, for facilitating this. We look forward to welcoming our newest school pupils on Thursday 17th August for their very first day.

Thursday morning dawned bright and dry – thankfully- as this was the first time our P6 pupils were going on a Forest Adventure. Grateful thanks to Mrs Jacqueline Murphy and Miss Monica Donnelly  – both P6 staff- who organised, risk assessed, devised activities and facilitated this wonderful learning opportunity for our pupils. Here’s the staff review:

Forest Fun in Primary 6

Thursday 18^th May, 9.10 am Yellow base and the moment had finally arrived. Primary 6 were heading off to the forest! We skipped down the Greenlink chanting as we went – hopefully there won’t be any complaints from the neighbours! First task was to make sure we knew the boundary and one last minute revision of the safety rules. Then the adventure began.

We started by exploring the forest and found 4 very cute fairy doors. Next we went into groups and moved around 4 activities including making pictures of bark rubbings, building free standing structures from only twigs and string, identifying minibeasts and making a leaf picture using nature’s palette!

It all ended much too soon! Finally we sat down together to talk about the ways in which we can preserve our forest for the future so that everyone will be able to enjoy it.

Many thanks to our happy helpers – without your support it just wouldn’t have been possible.

Miss Donnelly and Mrs Murphy – home for a long bath and to recharge before it all starts again tomorrow!

 Zzzzzzz

Friday of this week our Primary 4 pupils excelled themselves as hosts and hostesses at their first ever coffee morning. Well done to P4, they raised an incredible  ￡588.00. Amazing.

Huge thanks to everyone who came along to assist with our coffee morning, we would be lost without our wonderful parent volunteers.

Speaking of fabulous volunteers, an enormous thanks to the army of volunteers who came along to assist with litter picking across our school and nursery on Friday afternoon. Thanks also to Mrs Findlay and her ECO Committee who all helped along. I am somewhat ashamed to say the amount of litter lifted exceeded our expectations enormously and there’s still lots more out there. I will be speaking to the children on Monday at assembly about this issue, one which, with a little more thought and care on everyone’s part could easily be eradicated.

A very special thanks to:

Mrs Findlay, our ECO Committee and all of our parent helpers who gave so generously of their time.

Mr Barry Gallacher (dad of Abbie, Shannon & Holly) who organised a last minute skip for us as our bins were overflowing. I am indebted to Mr Gallacher for his assistance.

Mr John Quinn (Grace’s dad) who came along to assist and provided us with fabulous photographs some of which you can see above. More photos of the event can be found by clicking the link below.

https://goo.gl/T698Fw

Many photographs of the volunteers at work but, as is often the way, some folk always jump in at the last minute and try to steal the glory! See below.

Also on Friday our footballers were once again in action:

North Lanarkshire Malawi Football Festival.

Ravenscraig Sports Facility         Friday 16^thMay.

The Malawi Education Partnership Annual Football Festival took place at Ravenscraig Sports Facility.

This annual charity event helps to raise much needed funds to support the education and welfare of the young learners in Malawi.

Our P5-7 boys and girl ( can you spot her?) won every game. Pupils were commended for their excellent sportsmanship and participation.

SPECIAL MENTION to Mrs Margaret Mary Murphy who on Thursday spent the day at Our Lady and Saint Francis School demonstrating her excellent Forest skills, encouraging whole school participation in outdoor learning. What a star! Mrs Shearer, Head Teacher, commented:

Mrs Shields

I just wanted to say a huge thank you for allowing Margaret Mary to come to our school yesterday to assist with Forest Kindgarten activities as part of our Outdoor Classroom Day.
She was an absolute star and the children enjoyed playing on rope swings, hammocks and even made some outdoor art using natural resources!
I can’t begin to tell you how much the children got out of the experience – Margaret Mary’s knowledge and enthusiasm rubbed off on them entirely and they had the time of their lives!
Thank you again.

Whilst all that is on-going our youngest pupils have, as always, enjoyed a fabulous week. Lots of great outdoor learning and ‘hunners’ of photographs!

 

This week the children have been learning all about the Life Cycle of a Chicken after a visit to see the chicks in Firpark school.

They have been watching a video of the chicks hatching and watching them grow.

In the story corner they listened to the story of ‘Chicken Licken’ and ‘The Very Happy Hen’ They went on to draw pictures of the events from the stories and scribed some of the words. In music they have been singing a song all about little chicks.

Outdoors they have been out searching for nests in the tall trees in the school grounds and in the garden they have been exploring our new sandpit. On Friday Mrs Kinnear our garden expert co-ordinated Groundforce day, where many parents came to help spruce our garden up for the coming months. A Huge thank you to all parents who gave their help, garden knowledge and service. Mrs Kinnear went home exhausted but very happy with the amount of work that was carried out all in one day.
Charlie Dimmock eat your heart out!

In snack the children have been discussing heathly foods versus unhealthy foods and this will be expanded on next week.

In the art area the children have been exploring different coloured pasta using their hands and the tongs, a great way to improve fine motor skills.
They have also been exploring seeds and soil in the sand tray. Green fingers all round. They also painted the egg and the little chick in the correct sequence.

The final block of play on pedals has finished with the children receiving their certificates at their graduation on Friday. A big thank you to Mrs Duffy and Mrs Imray the course instructors who are now training other members of staff to enable them to take this forward.

Children continue to explore the forest and this week they had the chance to do bark rubbings and make their own art work from natural resources. A great way to spark their imaginations.

The pre-school children have started to prepare for the forthcoming graduation and have chosen the songs that they want to sing on the day.

A week where our wonderful body of parent helpers have once again proved invaluable. Thanks to all.

 

As always, please feel free to leave a comment or two…or three…or more…..

Mrs Shields

What an incredible week, so many exciting things happening.

On Tuesday of this week we said extended an initial welcome to 73 brand new prospective Primary One pupils and their parents/guardians. What a lovely day we all enjoyed. Our children came to school class by class giving each child and their parents a chance to enjoy a very personal welcome to our fabulous school. Mrs McCarthy (P1a), Mrs McLaughlan(P1b), Mrs Shevlin(P1c) and all at school look forward to repeating this lovely liaison this coming Tuesday.

Wednesday evening our Primary 4 pupils along with their parents/guardians joined us in O.L.G.A Cathedral Church to make final preparations for their forthcoming First Holy Communion celebrations.

It is now Sunday afternoon and we have experienced two most joyful, spiritual and uplifting First Holy Communion Masses. Each of the Masses was concelebrated by a number of clergy so ably led by Fr. Chromy. Our grateful thanks to all clergy, Fr. Chromy, Canon O’Mahoney, Fr. Martin, Fr Bridie & Deacon Tom. Thanks also to pass keepers and altar servers.

We extend our thanks to our P4 staff; Mrs McDerment, Miss McAvoy, Miss Hughes & Mrs Carr, to staff who with their musical talents greatly enhanced each of the celebrations; Mrs Campbell, Mrs Murphy, Miss Love and Mrs Ferry. Indeed thanks to all staff, the majority of whom came along to support our children on their special days. I trust all P4 pupils and their families have enjoyed a joyful celebration over this most memorable weekend.

One of our highlights of this week has to be our Primary 7 final assembly, and what a way to end their 7 years on our stage. The young people of P7 talked, danced, sang and entertained all who came along describing their memorable moments in our school. It was truly outstanding and what came through loud and clear was the great pride our pupils have in their accomplishments and their commitment and dedication to our school. It was a wonderful display of talent and fun with a huge dash of sentiment leaving everyone in the hall reaching for their tissues. A HUGE well done to all of our P7 pupils and their teachers; Mrs McCulloch, Mrs Shevlin, Mrs Loose, Mrs Duffy & Mrs Ferry. What a team; fantastic.

Here’s some photos of the day:

Our Primary Seven assembly was attended by a very special guest. Mr Kevin Egan, our new Continuous Improvement Officer (CIO) joined us on the day. This was Mr Egan’s first visit to our school and I think it is fair to say he was ‘well impressed’. Mr Egan was astounded by our fabulous campus, our polite, well-mannered, happy children and our incredibly talented Primary Seven pupils. We look forward to working with Mr Egan as we continue our journey to excellence.

Whilst our P7 pupils entertained us all our Primary Three pupils were busy wielding swords, dressing as knights and other ‘castle personnel’ and learning all about castles through the centuries. These wonderful, enlightening workshops with a variety of artifacts were provided by staff from Motherwell Heritage Centre, such a fabulous way to learn all about Scottish history. Here’s a couple of photographs, more to come.

Meanwhile, our nursery pupils (when not visiting primary one) have enjoyed a very busy week. Here’s all the gossip from Mrs M M Murphy.
What a glorious week the children have continued to plant more flowers and vegetables in the garden. Each pot has a label indicating which group have planted them.

Outdoors they have used the big sponges to create a range of different sized flowers for the numeracy wall. In numeracy they have been measuring and comparing flower sizes.

In snack the children have made their own flowers using fruit, vegetables and breadsticks. They discussed the names of the different parts of the plants while creating them.

The art area has been busy this week with the opportunity to paint still life flower pictures and make sunflowers from a range of shapes. They made flower power headbands.

In literacy they have been singing their favourite nursery rhymes and scribing rhyming words.

Down in the forest the older children have taken on the responsibility of helping the younger children with the rules and routines and they are proving to be confident individuals and effective contributors. Well done to all.

Play on Pedals continues with a few more children now pedaling independently. A fabulous lifelong skill!

 

As always, thanks for taking the time to read our blog, any suggestions, ideas, opinions or comments most welcome.

Mrs Shields

Our final week in April began with our P4 First Communicants enjoying a guided tour of O.L.G.A Cathedral Church with Fr. Chromy acting as tour guide! What an informative guide he was. Fr. Chromy welcomed the children to 10am Mass and then spent a great deal of time explaining all of the important icons and features of our beautiful Cathedral. This was such a great learning opportunity for our children and for us as staff too. A HUGE thanks to Fr. Chromy for taking the time to provide our children with such an insight into the Cathedral.

On Tuesday 25th April our wonderful Reading Quizzers headed off for the grand final, they scored an magnificent 93 points! WOW, well done to all concerned they should be very proud of their performance, I know I’m very proud of them.

Huge thanks to Mrs McCarthy, who schooled the quizzers and to the young people themselves: Matthew Munro, Katie Hendry, Marc Findlay, Ryan Winton & Joseph Moore. What a great team they made.

Wednesday evening our Fabulous Fundraisers met to discuss our next exciting events for our pupils. We have a number of activities coming up:

Friday 19th May at 10.00am P4 Coffee Morning – all welcome

Tuesday 23rd May Shorts ‘n Shades Disco

P1 – P3   5.45pm – 6.45pm

P4 & P5 7.00pm – 8.00pm

P6 & P7  8.15pm – 9.15pm

Also on this night we will be collecting items for our bi-annual Bag2school collection, time to clear out all the old winter woolies, all donations gratefully received.

Friday 9th June our annual Race Night in St. Bride’s Hall, 7.30pm. Come along and join the fun, a great night guaranteed. Tickets 5 pounds available from school office or Fundraisers.

Tuesday 20th June Leaver’s Jive and Jeans Evening – with Pizza for all (well if you’re in P7) 7.00pm – 8.30pm

Friday 23rd June Leaver’s Mass & graduation

Our fundraisers are actively involved in the practicalities of each of these events and also fund all of the above! Without them, and your support, our children could not enjoy the array of activities they have.

Please support our Fundraisers in any way you can.

Friday 28t April our nifty netballers attended a North Lanarkshire Council tournament and earned themselves a place in the Grand Final! Excellent work netballers. Big thanks Miss Caitlin McEwan (P.E teacher in Firpark Primary) who trained our teams during her own lunchtime, what commitment and what a fine display of campus working together.

One slight problem, the Grand Final clashes with our P7 assembly so I’m afraid we’ve had to drop out. To compensate for this we’ve arranged a game with Muir St Primary late in the month.

Here’s our teams in action:

Tuesday 2nd May our school was invited to attend North Lanarkshire Council Excellence and Equity Awards where we were successful in the category of ‘Going the extra Mile – Successful Interventions’. Our submission detailed our Come Clubbing @ Cathedral initiative. Well done and huge thanks to all who lead, organise and participate in our Come Clubbing each week. It is lovely to see our school recognised for the ongoing commitment of staff, pupils and parents. Well chuffed.

Mrs Duffy, and Jenny Thomson, our active schools co-oordinator joined me on stage to accept the award. Our trophy and framed certificate now have pride of place in our trophy cabinet in the front hall, come in and have a look.

Friday of this week our Primary One pupils excelled in leading their first ever school Mass. Well done to all P1 pupils and staff for their fabulous singing, responses and participation in the Mass. Our youngest school pupils demonstrated their successful learning, their individual confidence their ability to effectively contribute and how responsible they have all become. Excellent work P1. Once again, we offer our gratitude to Fr. Chromy and Deacon Tom for their commitment to our children’s spiritual development.

Meanwhile, here’s a sneaky peek at the nursery in glorious technicolour:

And here’s all the gossip from Mrs M M Murphy:
Our Spring/New Beginnings topic continues. The children have listened well to the story of ‘The Very Hungry caterpillar’ They have made their own caterpillars from a range of art and recycled materials which they have proudly displayed on the art wall. They made all the food that the hungry caterpillar ate on his journey. Please take a minute to look at their hard work.

In snack they used grapes and tomatoes to make their own caterpillar which they then ate. A fun way to try new food!

In science the children have expanded their knowledge by sequencing the Life Cycle of a butterfly using the magnetic board.

This week outdoors they have been concentrating on the growth of plants and fowers. They have been busy planting and growing a range of vegetables and herbs. Each group has been given specific plants/herbs to look after in the garden, they have been watering them and caring for them. The lovely sunny weather has helped them watch them grow. This will continue next week as we concentrate on different flowers and their size.

In numeracy the children have been comparing the size of flowers through a range of games and jigsaws.They have created giant flowers in the middle of the playroom, they painted the soil, seeds,shoots and leaves while learning all about the names of parts of the plants.

The children continue to role-play in the farm using the farmyard costumes and tractor they continue to learn the names of animals and their young.

The final block of ‘Play on Pedals’ has commenced with the children already gaining confidence on the balance bikes. This will continue on a Monday and Friday until the block is complete.

A wee Forest Kindergarten taster session has begun in the forest and will run for 4 weeks. Some of the younger children are getting the opportunity to see what it is all about and in turn they will be able to help future blocks creating confident individuals. Photographs from the forest and play on pedals will be displayed in the cloakroom.

As always, thanks for taking the time to read our blog all comments gratefully received.

Mrs Shields

 

What an incredibly quick school year this has been, it’s hard to believe we are now in our final 10 week term. A most successful and productive year to date.

We ended our last term with some excellent news. Mrs Pauline Findlay & Miss Monica Donnelly have now been appointed to our school as permanent members of staff, we are delighted (as are both ladies too). This continuity of quality teaching staff is a great way forward for our school. In August we will also welcome a further new permanent member of staff, Miss Kathleen McAlinden. We look forward to Miss McAlinden joining our fabulous team.

Tuesday morning began with more celebrations as two new signs diplaying our recent successes were installed.

A few of our Come Clubbing @ Cathedral after school classes have begun already in this first week of term. Miss Love is running a lower school astronomy club, they’ll all be seeing stars!

Choir has resumed for this last term with our focus now on a brand new project. We are delighted to have been asked to take part in a Diocese of Motherwell project entitled: The Mass of St. Francis. This will take the format of an evening performance in O.L.G.A Cathedral Church on Thursday 8th June based on the life of St. Francis. We are joined by Motherwell Diocescan Choir, the choir of St. Cuthbert’s Primary in Burnbank and the choir from St. Bridget’s Primary, Baillieston. Further details to follow.

Friday of this week we were delighted to be joined by The Tapestry Team, Professor Nigel Osbourne, Mr Graeme Wilson, Mr Richie Carey, Mrs Kathryn Clarke and Miss Carolyn McCluskey. Carolyn is a former pupil of our school.

This is a project entitled ‘Building Stronger Communities in Motherwell’ the aim being as the title suggests. Essentially this is a secondary school initiative involving P7 pupils as a further element of transition. Mrs Marie Clare Duffy is our school representative at all planning meetings and is driving this initiative forward within our school. Thanks to Mrs Duffy for her preparatory and on-going work with this important initiative.

The photographs give a wee flavour of the project. As we go through this project with P7 I will ask the children to provide their thoughts and opinions on their work and report this through my Blog.

A quiet start in our nursery this week, here’s a wee snippet from Mrs M M Murphy of how the first week back has been.

On Tuesday we welcomed the children back after their long Easter holiday. They all looked well rested and some even looked as if they had been in a grow bag over the holidays.

This term the nursery children are learning all about Spring and new beginnings. They will be discussing traditional Nursery Rhymes, looking at life cycles, planting, growing, looking after and naming the different parts of plants. They will be comparing and matching sizes through animals and their offsprings

This week they have chosen the story of ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ and are busy listening to the story and creating the characters and the events in the story. Look out for their hard work on a display next week.

A big thank you to everyone for supporting our Easter Fayre. We raised a WHOPPING £1044. This money is going to good use in our outdoor area and other projects.

As always, thanks for taking the time to read our blog, why not take another wee minute and leave a comment…..please.

thanks

Mrs Shields

 

What a busy fortnight we have all enjoyed.

Monday 13th March our wonderful choir performed really well in Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, we didn’t win this time but we can certainly be proud of our performance. Well done and thank you to all in our choir. Choir will resume on Thursday 20th April.

Tuesday 14th March was the finals of the Cross Country Trials. What an incredibly successful day our runners enjoyed. They brought home a plethora of medals and not one, not two but THREE team trophies and shields! Magnificent work. Congratulations and well done to all involved. A special thanks to Mrs MM Murphy, Mrs Harrison, Mrs McCarthy and Mr Nugent who work so hard to prepare our children for this event. Well chuffed.

Also on Tuesday 14th March we held our bi-annual parent consultation evening, thanks to all who came along and I trust you were delighted with your child’s work and report. We sent a text detailing the great response – over 90% attendance. This is our most well attended parent evening to date. Thank you for your active participation in your child’s education. An encouraging trend.

Wednesday of this week we were enthralled by 3sixty cycle display. This exciting event was enjoyed by all in our school, such a magnificent display of cycle expertise. A number of our ibike crew also enjoyed a cycle workshop. Motivating all to ‘get on your bike’

Friday our usual Lenten ‘madness’ ensued with the strangest concoctions of hairstyles ever!!! It is wonderful to see all of our children so committed to helping those less fortunate than ourselves and enjoyed the fun of participation at the same time from nursery right through to P7. A total of 506.05 was raised from all in our school community.

And onto the next week…..

Tuesday 21st of March our P3 pupils celebrated the Sacrament of Reconciliation. All 68 pupils were outstanding; they were beautifully presented, they sang so tunefully and their reverence throughout the service was commendable. A huge thanks to class teachers Miss Cawley, Mrs Gillies and Mrs Murphy , thanks also to Mrs Campbell for beautiful music.

Friday I was delighted to be invited to attend Our Lady’s High Annual Feast Day Mass celebrated by Bishop Toal. It is always wonderful to visit OLHS and see so many of our former pupils take lead roles in Mass through altar serving, bidding prayers, offertory, play in the band and sing in the choir. Both band and choir were exceptional. A lovely end to a fabulous week.

A huge thanks to all of our P6 & P7 pupils who have volunteered to read at 8.15am Mass during Lent, a great sign of faith in action.

In Advance – Good Luck to Marc Findlay this coming Tuesday as he represents our school in the Finals of Burns Competition in recitation. We’ll be there supporting (and cheering)!

This will be the last Blog for this term.

May I take this opportunity to wish you all a Holy and Happy Easter and an enjoyable holiday ahead.

Here’s all the nursery news:

Last week a special visitor came to the nursery. Barbara Ramage the Road Safety Officer brought some props to help teach the children how to cross the road safely. They role-played the Lollipop person, children crossing the road with an adult and some even got to pretend they were cars on the road. Barbara was introduced to some of the group Aliens who have been learning all about safety here on Earth. She was very impressed with the children’s knowledge of road safety that she gave them all a super sticker and a reflector band to keep them safe at night. She kept the biggest surprise until the end when ZIGGY her very own Alien came to see the children. They were super excited to meet Ziggy after hearing all about him and listening to the stories of his adventures here on Earth. A Superb learning experience!

Continuing with safety the children have been discussing how to stay safe, who to contact if they get lost or what to do in an emergency. A mindmap of their ideas can be seen in the playroom.

They have listened to ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ and discussed how she met a stranger while walking through the forest. They have watched an age appropriate Stranger Danger clip on the SmartBoard and have learned the words to a safety song.

This week the children have also been out and about in their groups on a sign hunt in the school grounds. They worked in pairs to find and identify a range of signs from their sheet. They used the ‘clipper boards’ to help them record their findings.

In the garden they have been role-playing using the garden props that they have turned into vehicles.

In the art area and writing area they have all been busy making a surprise for Sunday and as well as all that they have been making their Easter crafts to sell at next week’s Easter Fayre. On that note the Easter Fayre will take place on Wednesday of next week at the start and end of each session. There will be a raffle, guess how many eggs in the jar, hunt the golden egg and a range of Easter crafts for sale.

The pre-school activities continue with the children using the alphabet pebbles to identify the letters in their name. Some children were able to form their name using them. They have also been on a shape hunt within the nursery searching for 2d and 3d shapes. Each week the children will be given a different challenge to help prepare them for school.

As always, thanks for reading.

Happy Easter when it comes and we’ll see you back here on Friday 21st April for our first blog of the new term.

Mrs Shields

There will be no Blog this week due to essential maintenance being carried out in North Lanarkshire Council Intranet.

We’ll be back next week.

Mrs Shields

This week we rejoiced with our P6 & P7 pupils as they celebrated the Sacrament of Confirmation. 127 young people were confirmed by His Lordship Bishop Toal. Our congratulations to all for a truly uplifting and spiritual Mass. Thanks also to Fr. Chromy, Fr. Martin, Canon O’Mahoney & Deacon Tom who all give so generously of their time to our school community. Indeed on Monday of last week Fr. Chromy, Fr Martin, Canon O’Mahoney and Fr. Krzystof all came along to school to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation with our Confirmandi. We are indebted to our clergy for all their support and spiritual guidance.

Thursday and Friday were dominated by our fantastic Primary 2 pupils who had us all laughing out loud at their wonderful assembly based on The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch. An inspirational piece of work, it was superb.

Photographs, courtesy of John Quinn (Grace’s dad), are available by clicking the link below. The photographs really capture the essence of fun and enjoyment of the assembly. My thanks to John for sharing his talents and skills to give us a lasting pictorial memory of a truly motivating and inspiring morning.

https://goo.gl/kfWH7Z

Thanks also to our talented staff who scripted, rehearsed and produced such fine work. Particular thanks to Miss Love, Mrs Findlay, Mrs Blaney, Mrs Harrison, Mrs McAllister, Mrs Campbell & Mrs McCoy. However, our BIGGEST vote of thanks has to go to every pupil in Primary 2 who gave their heart and soul to their performances. Well done P2 you are indeed ‘stars’.

Our celebrations of success continued this week as we joined our threes sets of solo singers as they all performed on Thursday evening, Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning. The P5 to P7 pupils were magnificent. Huge thanks to Mrs Shevlin for her wonderful work preparing and presenting the children for these competitions. Here they are all spruced up and looking fab.

This weekend we also joined Julia Gawel, P3a, her family & Miss Cawley as Julia was presented with her trophy for winning first place for P1-P3 in Mother Tongue Other Tongue Poetry Competition. Julia recited her poem in SECC on Saturday morning and accepted her award from the Scots Makar, Jackie Kay. This was a lovely presentation with a number of children from across Scotland presenting their poems. Well done, once again, to Julia a magnificent achievement. The judges commented on how talented Julia was to be able to speak in Polish, converse fluently in English and write in Scots. Superb learning Julia.

This coming Monday our choir will perform in The Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow as part of Glasgow Music Festival, we wish them well. On Tuesday our Cross Country runners will participate in the NLC Finals, let’s hope for a dry day! Good luck to all of our runners. Here’s how they looked at the trials.

Tuesday of this week is also our bi-annual Parent Evening, we look forward to all of our parents and carers coming along to hear all about their children’s learning and celebrate all their good work.

And now for the nursery news:
Another busy week in nursery with the children extending their road safety knowledge.
The children have created a role-play area in the far corner of the playroom. They painted a zebra crossing on the wall and placed the finished painted Lollipop Lady on the display. The children have been role-playing using the props.

In art they have created a number of different vehicles from junk and when completed they will use these to further their imaginative play.

In numeracy they have continued to identify a range of road signs and made a display of their learning on the wall. They have been watching and listening to road safety stories and games and as the week went on they have also been listening to ‘Stranger Danger’ stories and songs to help them become aware of how to safe. This will continue next week.

In Literacy the children have been using the road signs during a cutting activity. This has helped to improve their scissor control and their cutting skills.

Outdoors the children have made a map of their road safety walk which they have proudly displayed on the numeracy wall. They played road safety games which involved them concentrating and listening to the commands. They used the wooden panels to make a road for their vehicles to travel on.

In drama they have been taking part in a range of activities with our student Miss Smith, this helps build their confidence as they express their ideas and share them with their peers.

Science has also been taken over by our other student Mrs Harrison who has provided a growth mindset activity using a brain prop and brain hats. The children identified where the brain is in their bodies and what it does. They discussed how they can help their brain to grow. The brain was very squishy and the children enjoyed touching it. See if you can spot them in this weeks photographs.

Pre-school activities this week concentrated on numeracy. The children took part in number recognition games, spot the missing number and they used the big dice and coloured vehicles to match number to quantity. The children are enjoying taking part in these special enrichment activities.

We look forward to speaking to all parents/carers on Tuesday at parent’s night.

 

That’s us for this week, see you all on Tuesday. As always, thanks for reading and please feel free to leave a comment or two…

Mrs. Shields

 

 

 

 

Last week our Good Work Wall focused on Catholic Education Week with this year’s theme being ‘Developing in Faith’. The work produced is outstanding, well done to every single class in school who excelled in their celebration of our Catholic school. A wonderful example of working together as a community of faith and learning.

This work is so impressive we have decided to leave it on our Good Work Wall for an additional week. Please come into school and have a look, I’m confident you will also be very impressed.

Meanwhile each day this week, in addition to all the ‘usual’ varied learning experiences our children have, we have also had a number of children out all around our community extending their learning in many different ways. Here’s just some of the things they’ve been up to:

Monday:

Monday morning assembly focused on our plans for our forthcoming Lenten Charity events. Our Enterprise Committee engaged the whole school in their presentation of what’s planned for Lent.

Each child also received a leaflet to take home detailing all of our planned activities. Just in case it got ‘lost’ on the way home here’s a copy for you:

Week 1: Friday 3^rd March 2017- World Book Day- Contribution suggestion: £1

Come dressed as your favourite character from a book and participate in lots of fun class and school based activities.

Week 2: Friday 10^th March 2017 – Easter Food Bank Appeal

Dress down day and bring an item of non-perishable food from the list supplied which will be donated to the food bank in Motherwell.

Items requested by Foodbank:

• Tinned Hotdogs
• Cup a Soup
• Long Life Milk
• Tinned Meat
• Tinned Potatoes
• Tinned Fruit
• Tinned Custard

Week 3: Friday 17^th March 2017 – Crazy Hair Day with a Twist – Contribution suggestion: £1

Come to school with a wild and wacky hairdo and dance yourself dizzy to the Bing Bong Bop.

Week 4: Friday 24^th March 2017 – Class Bay Sale – Contribution suggestion: £1

Bring in an unwanted toy, book or game and each class will sell their goods to the other classes in their bay for £1.

Week 5: Friday 31^st March 2017 – Pyjama Day- Contribution suggestion: £1

Come to school wearing your pyjamas and bring a cuddly toy.

An exciting array of events, thanks to Miss Cawley and the Enterprise Team for their hard work.

Late on Monday afternoon some of the Enterprise Committee visited the local Food Bank to see first hand what an important contribution we can make, they took some photos of their trip:

Tuesday:

Tuesday evening four of our children represented our school at the local Burns Recitation Competition:

Well done to Orlaith McCluskey, John Munro (bronze medal), Ellie Hutchison (bronze medal) and Marc Findlay (silver medal). All four children recited their Burn poems with style and panache! Marc Findlay will now represent Lanarkshire in the Finals on March 28th. Good luck Marc and well done to all involved. Thanks to Miss Cawley for preparing and presenting the children for the competition.

Wednesday:

Ash Wednesday provided us with an opportunity to join our parishioners in OLGA Cathedral Church to celebrate Mass marking the beginning of the season of Lent. Well done to each and every one of our pupils who were excellent ambassadors for our school. Particular thanks to Primary 5 who lead the liturgy in such an eloquent and revert manner.

REMINDER: Mass is celebrated each week, Monday to Thursday inc, during Lent at 8.15am in our school library. Please come along and join us in prayer.

Thursday:

Huge congratulations to Jeffthan Ofosuhene, Matthew Munro, Joseph Moore, Marc Findlay and Katie Hendry who represented our school at the local Reading Quiz. Earning a well deserved 2nd place has guaranteed our team a place in the final… exciting. Thanks to Mrs McCarthy for preparing and presenting (and cheering loudly for ) our children. Good luck in the final! Go Team OLGA.

Friday:

On Friday morning our Confirmandi were delighted to welcome Dr. Joe Bradley to our school. Dr. Bradley provided a unique insight into his life and how motivated he is by his faith in his everyday, very successful, life. This was a wonderful way to bring our Confirmation preparation to a close. We look forward to all 127 of our young people receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit this coming Tuesday. Please remember our Confirmandi in your prayers. Our grateful thanks to Dr. Bradley for taking time out of his very busy schedule to inspire our young people.

Friday was our first Lenten Charity event, we teamed up with World Book Day to dress as our favourite book character and throughout the day the children all enjoyed the opportunity to ‘STOP, DROP AND READ’. A wonderful way to promote reading for enjoyment and raising money for our chosen charities.

Also on Friday our footballers and netballers were, once again, in high demand. They all enjoyed a most successful tournament. Our netball team won EVERY match! WOW!

Well done to all who took part. and a big thanks to Mrs Duffy who organises all of our sporting events and is renowned for being a VERY vocal supporter at the events!

Here they are in action:

Our youngest pupils have been very busy this week, here’s all the gossip from Mrs M Murphy:
Over the last 2 weeks all groups have been on a road safety walk with their group Alien. The children are helping their Aliens to cross the road safely as their are no roads on their planet. They have walked holding their Aliens hand and have showed them how to cross at the Zebra Crossing, how to use the traffic lights to cross the road and they have even been introduced to our 2 lovely Lollipop Ladies while out and about and when they came to visit the nursery. Have a look at all their adventures.

Meanwhile back at base the children have been role-playing indoors and out the job of the Lollipop person. They have made props to help them. They have created their own set of traffic lights, a zebra crossing and a big lollipop stick.

In art they painted and used collage to sequence the colours in the traffic lights, painted Zebra Crossings and painted their very own stop signs. They have made playdough and used it to sequence the traffic light colours.

In numeracy they have been identifying a range of road safety signs and have used their knowledge to play the traffic light bean bag game.
Construction has been very popular this week with new resources arriving. A whole village has developed with signs and Lollipop people everywhere.

The children have used the gym hall to play the traffic light game and the drama room to explore a variety of interactive road safety games.

In literacy the children have created a road safety display. They have recalled their road safety walk, scribed a range of words and sequenced the traffic light colours and scribed their meaning.
They have listened to the story ‘Ziggy and the Lollipop’. A story all about an Alien encounter with a Lollipop Lady.

In snack they have been busy making traffic lights from fruit and worked with a partner to create their very own car from fruit and vegetables. On completion the children had great pleasure in eating their creations. A great way to get your 10 a day!

On Tuesday each group got the chance to make pancakes to celebrate pancake Tuesday.

On Friday the children came dressed as a character from their favourite book to celebrate World Book Day. They listened to a variety of stories.

The Play on Pedals graduation took place last Friday with every child receiving a certificate of participation and a Ziggy book all about staying safe while out cycling. Nine children can now ride their bikes unaided. Mrs Duffy and Mrs Imray the Play on Pedals instructors are over the moon with the success rate of the programme.

The Pre-school enrichment activities got under way this week with the children using Space resources to help them improve on their pencil control and their cutting skills. The children were very enthusiastic about taking part in these special activities.

Another very busy and exciting week. as always, thanks for taking the time to read our Blog.

Please leave a comment or two.

Mrs Shields