HF Diary 07102024

We have had a very busy September in primary 1. We are becoming more independent at the same time as learning lots of new skills. We are learning more about the our class routines and rules and are trying hard to follow these. We helped Mrs Simpson to create our class charter and we try so hard to follow these four important rules:

• Work hard
• Gentle hands
• Keep our classroom tidy
• Listen to adults when they are speaking

We love the praise and rewards that we receive if we follow these rules. We especially love Class Dojo, Star of the Week and when we receive head teacher certificates and stickers.

In literacy we have been continuing our active literacy programme and already know how to read and write s  a  t  p  i  and n. We have been listening to jolly phonics songs to help us to learn our sounds. You can access these on YouTube by searching for ‘jolly phonics songs in order’. We can now build lots of words using our new sounds, and we practise this on the magnetic board in school. Our grown ups could help us practise reading and writing lots of simple words at home too (e.g. sat, pan, tip, sit, pit).

We have now learned 10 new common words. Mrs Simpson sends these common words home every week in our homework pack. We should keep all our words in a little tub at home and practise them every single day. This will help us learn them well and enable us to read and write them easily.

We have already begun to develop our writing skills in primary 1. We know that Charlie Checker is always there to make sure that we are meeting our core writing targets;

• Capital letters
• Full stops
• Finger spaces
• Writing on the line

We have been working hard on overwriting and underwriting. Mrs Simpson is so proud and has picked Star Writers each week.

In maths we have been learning numbers to 6. We are beginning to show that we understand that numbers represent quantities. We are learning to put numbers into the correct order and to find missing numbers. We love subitising. This is when we can recognise the number of objects in a group without counting. We love watching Jack Hartmann on Youtube. Please ask us to show you how well we can subitise at home. We are working hard on number formation. We try to remember to make our numbers point in the correct direction and not visit Back to Front Land.

Our class topic is Julia Donaldson. Julia Donaldson is a famous children’s book author who has written lots of super stories including The Gruffalo, The Smartest Giant in Town, Monkey Puzzle and A Squash and a Squeeze. We focus on one book per week and lots of our learning is related each story. We recently made our own fairground horses based on the book Sugarlump and the Unicorn.  We also completed a range of Gruffalo themed challenges including creating a new home for the Gruffalo.  As Halloween approaches we will look at the story Room on the Broom and complete lots of spooky activities.

In R.M.E we have been learning about belonging. We know that we belong to our families, and we enjoyed learning about all the other ways we belong. We made a Tree of Belonging for our class display and we thought about all the people in our school who make us feel like we belong. We made our primary 7 buddies thank you cards for making us feel so safe and loved in our new school. We know that we belong to God and that we should all look after each other. We try to show our friends kindness and love so that they feel like they belong.

We are looking forward to another exciting month in Primary 1. We are so excited to be entering into October because we know this is an Autumn month and ends with Halloween. We can’t wait for our school disco and all the Halloween related learning that we will experience.

Please keep checking X for regular updates from primary 1.

Primary 4/5 September Update

Hello and welcome to our first update for Primary 4/5. We have settled really well into our new classroom and are all very excited to have a brand-new Smart board to help us with our learning. It has been really fun getting to know each other again and Mrs Stevenson feels very lucky to have the opportunity to work with us again further up the school, we have all grown very tall!

We were so excited to welcome our families to our new classroom for our Meet the Teacher event and to share our timetable, class activities and expectations. The boys and girls hope you liked the surprise that they made for you!

Our first month of school has been spent learning about one of our favourite things – CHOCOLATE! The class novel has been Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl and we have really enjoyed exploring the chapters and getting to know more about the reading strategies. We couldn’t believe our eyes when we came into school one Monday morning and some Oompa Loompa’s had transformed our classroom door into a Wonka Bar! This topic has allowed us to use our imaginations and to create art work, learn about how chocolate is made and lots of fantastic writing linked to the novel.

The majority of the class have started our Stage4/5 spelling programme and are following a 4-week rotation, which looks like this:

Week 1/2 – Phoneme family sounds

Week 3 –  Common words (spelling strategies)

Week 4 – Common words (spelling rule)

P4/5 are enjoying the variety of activities to improve our spelling and are working hard to use our knowledge in our reading and writing tasks. We know it is really important to practise our spelling and reading every week for homework. This can be accessed on our class tab on the Holy Family website.

Maths

Our new Smart board has allowed us to explore lots of digital resources to help to develop our knowledge of place value and numbers to 10,000 and beyond. We are developing confidence in talking about the strategies we use to add and subtract larger numbers and can sequence large numbers, double numbers and round to the nearest 10, 100 and 1000.  We love to be challenged with number talks and daily ten/hit the button, as well as learning videos and ppts to explore number concepts and challenges.

This term we enjoyed learning more about measure and had opportunities to measure in the classroom and outdoors. We can make sensible estimations and measure accurately using different measuring tools. When baby Lily came to visit us we could even estimate and measure how tall she was!

We know it is important to practise our number skills  at home for homework and will use a mix of online games and written tasks to help us with this. Keep practising times tables as these are really valuable.

 RME

We have attended first Friday mass together and have enjoyed celebrating as a school community. Father Krzysztof visits our class regularly and teaches us wonderful things about our faith. This week he asked us to take part in a Rosary challenge for the Month of October and taught us about the importance of praying the Rosary to Mary Our Mother.

HWB

Primary 4

Primary 4 have begun our Roots of Empathy programme with Mrs Le blond. We had a visit from baby Esme and asked her mum, Natalie lots of fantastic questions about her developmental stage and her needs/likes. It was so interesting for us and we look forward to this time every Wednesday afternoon. We are really excited about Esme visiting again, as well as other important visitors in the coming weeks.

Primary 5

Primary 5 have been taking part in weekly Kodaly music workshops and are learning about rhythm and beat, through games and fun activities. We have really enjoyed being together as a whole year group for this and will have lots of opportunities for the classes to get together in the coming months.

We are well underway with our Swimming/dry side programme and are already showing excellent progress and increasing confidence in the pool! We swim for the first part of the session, then have time in the sports hall to improve our skills and fitness.

Please find below the minutes from last week’s Parent Council meeting:

Holy Family P.S.

Parent Council Meeting – AGM

Wed 18th September 2024, 6:30pm to 7:30pm

Agenda

1 School Prayer
2 Welcome/Introductions
3 Head teachers report – Mrs Harley
4 Nominations for PC positions
5 Christmas coffee morning
6 Potential Christmas Fayre organised by Leeann Gillespie
7 Other fundraising
8. Halloween Disco
9. Mr Creilly Leaving
10. A.O.C.B
11. Next Meeting

School Prayer

Jesus, Mary and Joseph,

Guide us, protect us, and help us to do good things for Holy Family Primary and our community.

Amen

Attendees:
Gillian Mackissack – Ella P2
Adele Duffy – Chair
Natalie Battersby
Carol Anne Doherty
Laura Murphy
Yvonne Currie – Treasurer
Lyndsay Donnelly – Secretary
Mrs Harley

Apologies:
James Duffy -Sophia P1

3 Head teachers report – Mrs Harley
• Mrs Harley provided copy of constitution -for review and update
• Copy of CoC to be read an signed by all members

• Activities supported by cluster support teacher
o Number Box
Read, Write, Ink
o Comprehension group
o Rainbow Reading
o Direct Intervention
o English language teacher
o ASNA – targeted support
• How are kids identified? – via HT and interaction with class teachers?
• Community of faith – School attendance at Fth Browns Mass was well attended
• Mother Angeline statue blessing – 6th November – will review kids’ attendance
• Confirmation prep in progress with support from FFM
• Residential session – parental input session – details required from the facility and dates to be confirmed
• Attendance – figures are positive across the school with HFPS scoring the best in the cluster @92%
o Target set at 95% (no more than two weeks absent per school year)
o Mrs Harley sending visual to all parents via email and comms channels
o Looking at strategy to encourage pre-holidays attendance
o Reminder ***Ability to report absence via Parent Portal
• Newsletter issued via link to GLOW and can be accessed there

4 Nominations for PC positions
2 new nominations for PC members – LD to email to arrange attendance at next session
Monisha Jose P1
Sandra Maguire P2
Chair – Previously Adele, replaced by Gillian McKissick
Secretary – Previously Lyndsay Donnelly, replaced by Laura Murphy
Treasurer – Previously Yvonne Currie replaced by Natalie Batttersby
Bank Mandate to be changes to include all three signatories
Vice Chair – Role Vacant

5 Christmas coffee morning/ Potential Christmas Fayre organised by Leeann Gillespie
• LD/AD – arrange time with LG to discuss proposal

6. Other fundraising – Possibilities – Bucket Collection, Silent disco

7. Halloween Disco – Dates to be confirmed – LD to contact Calvin for DJ support

8. Mr Creilly Leaving

9. A.O.C.B

10. Next Meeting – Sept Meeting changed due to availability, review dates for Oct due to poss clash with Halloween discos

HF Diary 20092024

Please click to read this week’s diary:

HF Diary 16092024

Please see the most recent newsletter.

Sep Newsletter PDF

The links do not work due to the file type. Here are the links that are mentioned:

https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/nl/holyfamily/

Parents Portal

Did you know we have a Holy Family Uniform Swap Shop?

One of our parents has noted down more details….

Uniform Swap Shop

HF Diary 26082024