Please click on the link below to complete our feedback survey based on our spending of the Pupil Equity Fund for the session 2017/18.

Your views are very important to us and will guide our next steps as we look to spend our  allocation of £41,040 for the session 2018/19.

Good morning boys and girls !

What a strange week it has been and what a pity we have not been together to celebrate World Book Day 2018, First Friday Mass, our Fairtrade Coffee Morning and House Quiz.

It has been fantastic to see how you have been following the ideas posted on the website and twitter to keep progressing your learning although your teachers are not with you to teach you directly and I am very proud of your imagination and creativity.

The teachers and I have all been working really hard too as we still have access to our emails and glow. I have now transferred all of my desktop work onto glow one drive and hope that Miss Gallagher will be impressed by my ICT skills !

I have followed the advice on twitter and remembered to feed the wildlife in my garden too although I don’t think they liked the over ripe pears I gave them very much !

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I am going to work on my fairtrade assembly for Monday today and start looking at our classes for next year as well as reviewing our school improvement plan. While I am doing that I am hoping that my daughter can  practise her soup making skills !

This is what my street looked like last night after the gritters had been round so I am really glad NLC made the decision for us all to stay safe indoors and keep the roads clear for our emergency workers

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Enjoy your last snow day everyone and I look forward to giving out lots of golden tokens on Monday for all the hard work you have done at home.Plesae look at the Fairtrade website if you can and make a poster using the Fairtrade logo to help spread the message.

Here’s hoping the school doesn’t look like this by Monday morning !

Welcome to our school Reflective Friday Post.

February has been a busy month with lots of exciting experiences for our young people.  We are looking forward to our 2 day Developing The Young Workforce programme which will focus at the P5-7 stage and will involve those pupils in a rotation of activities aiming to establish their personal skills and qualities and how these can be used to identify future suitable forms of work.

Our after school clubs are continuing in fundamentals, musical theatre, football, netball, sumdog and cross country. The commitment of the children to these activities is fantastic and the increase in their associated skills base is already clear to see.

Our Thinking Circles questions have related to our monthly SHANARRI focus of being Respected and have explored ways in which we can all show respect to one another and receive it in return. We linked this to Catholic Education Week and set our question within the context of all faiths. The main theme of our responses was that showing respect and kindness was integral to loving your God and living his values in your daily life.

We had a focus on Internet Safety as part of Internet Safety Day on the 6^th March using the CEOP and Thinkuknow resources. The children showed a high level of awareness of how to keep themselves safe online and what behaviours were not acceptable. I would ask you to familiarise yourself with these websites and discuss these issues with your children as part of this effort to develop their understanding of keeping safe online.

On the 7^th March we enjoyed Global Big Play Day where all classes participated in a day of free play without electronics of any form. The purpose of this is to encourage team work, turn taking, use of imagination and problem solving and the feedback from the pupils reflected this with comments such as playing made them feel free, happy, enthusiastic and normal. This is definitely an experience we will look to repeat next year if not on a termly basis and I will follow up on the children’s request for an after school play club.

Our P6/7 pupils enjoyed great success at the NLC athletics festival on the 2.2.18 and our P3 pupils were similarly enthusiastic in their participation at the Active Schools Play Festival on the 9.2.18. We are currently looking forward to the NLC Cross Country heats on the 28.2.18 and have been practicing hard in preparation for this.

Our teaching staff have recently undertaken additional training by the SAMS group in the use of ipads to support numeracy and have shared this with the rest of the staff as part of our school improvement plan priority to enhance teaching and learning in this area. Miss Gallagher has also undertaken full day training in Microsoft 360 which she is implementing in her whole school McCrone lessons. Mrs Leblond and Mrs Stevenson have also undertaken training in Primary Engineering which we will link to our Developing The Young Workforce focus and STEM subjects in particular.

The children should have completed their learning journeys today and set new targets forMarch. Please take some time to go through this with your child as we value your input and want to work closely with you to ensure success.

Mrs F Wilson

Welcome to our school Reflective Friday Post.

I want to begin by thanking  you for your monthly foodbank donations as part of our Reflective Friday structure. We have had a busy start to the new year and have begun lots of new learning at all stages. We enjoyed  a Developing The Young Workforce assembly based on my own experiences and look forward to input from Mr Mulvanny on his role as a referee and John Wilson on his photography business in February.

Our after school clubs have begun for the new term in story sacks, fundamentals,musical theatre, football, netball,sumdog and crosscountry where the uptake so far has been outstanding.

Cooking for our P6/7 classes is set to begin also so we have loads on offer and are aiming that every child in the school should have experience of at least one club so if there isn’t something there that catches your eye then let me know what other opportunities you would prefer.

Our Thinking Circles questions have related to our monthly SHANARRI focus of  being active and have explored ways in which we can all become more active in the year ahead.

We also used this format to explore the impact of our PEF spend on health and wellbeing by asking the children if they felt there had been an improvement to their general health in all its forms.

The main theme of their responses was that they felt happier, healthier and more excited about the variety of opportunities they were receiving. They felt less stressed and had more energy with their mental health being improved even more than their physical health.

Sumdog in particular made learners feel happier as they could feel their numeracy skills improving and with that their confidence also growing.

Staff have been working after school with staff from Cardinal Newman maths department to ensure shared understanding of levels and teaching methodology based on the use of active resources. CNHS staff will be coming to Holy Family for the next session to see first hand the resources and approaches we use to support learning and we look forward to strengthening this partnership working.

Our primary one enrolments have taken place in spite of the snow and our projected intake is over 25 children. Visits are continuing to our partner nurseries and we look forward to welcoming our new pupils for their transition sessions within our school environment.

The children should have completed their learning journeys today and set new targets for February. Please take some time to go through this with your child as we value your input and want to work closely with you to ensure success.

Mrs F Wilson