Welcome back to primary 2/3 and our first Reflective Friday post. 

I hope that all the children are delighted to be back with their school family after lockdown. The boys and girls have settled in really well and have been working hard to adjust to the one way system and the play and learning zones. We have had a huge focus on Health and Wellbeing and the children have learned all about keeping themselves and others safe through increased hand washing, sanitizing and social distancing.   

This will be a very busy term for Primary 2/3 but the children have shown they are ready and willing to learn. In Math’s and Numeracy we have been focusing on developing their mental agility, counting forwards and backwards in 1’s,2’s,5’s and 10’s.  They have been exploring up to 3 digit numbers and will go on to apply this to addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. I hope you will continue to support your children by encouraging and supporting them with homework tasks which will always reinforce their learning in class. 

In Literacy the pupils will continue to develop their skills in reading, writing, listening and talking, and are progressing well through the core programmes. These last few weeks we have been revising and consolidating phonemes and spelling taught to date. To further support your child at home, please encourage them to read aloud every night and to discuss what they are reading as this will be beneficial to their understanding of the book. Please also practise weekly taught phonemes and spelling words as this will really help your child in their class work. Children have been issued with a homework jotter and should take opportunities to develop handwriting skills by completing any written tasks here. 

We take every opportunity to get outdoors, and participate in the Daily Mile. In addition to this the children have been developing their communication skills and physical fitness through participation in a variety of outdoor and indoor activities and really enjoy this.

This has been a very busy time in Primary 3 as we began the new term after a long break from school.  The children have been working hard to learn the new one way system and also learning to keep themselves and others safe by washing and sanitising their hands.

Our priorities have been Literacy, Numeracy and Heath and Well-Being with the children revising aspects of all areas in class and for homework.

We have been spending lots of time outdoors doing our Daily Mile and participating in outdoor games.  We are still operating our indoor and outdoor bubble system to keep your children as safe as we can.

In literacy. we have been revising all of the phonemes taught to date as well as focussing on proper letter formation.  You can really help by encouraging your child to write letters the correct way when completing homework tasks.

In maths, we have been counting on and counting backwards as well as learning our days and months.  The children know songs that they can share with you and you can help them learn them well by asking each day what the day, date is and asking questions such as, “What day will it be tomorrow, what day was it yesterday.

Could I please ask you to try and listen to your child read each night, check to see if they can read/write their common words and play counting games with them.

Primary 7 are enjoying being back at school and are very much enjoying being “top of the school.”  The children are obviously disappointed that they can’t work with their buddies in the usual way, but we have been looking at inventive ways we can get around this. The children have already sent a Welcome to Holy Family poster to their buddy with a note and we are looking forward to hopefully having a virtual link up with the P1s very soon.

We are currently reading Divided City by Theresa Breslin as a class novel. The children are all really gripped by the book and enjoying the story and the many themes it covers. It is so lovely to see each and every child so engrossed in a book.

In numeracy we have been revising rounding, estimating and place value and we are now focusing on addition and subtraction with numbers to 1 000 000.  We will move on to work on multiplication and division.

The children are also enjoying a Health and Well being focus and this month we have been thinking about how we can stay safe, especially during the pandemic. We have written instructions to show anyone how to stick to our new school safety rules and designed posters to promote this too. We are looking forward to continuing with our outdoor PE even as the weather gets a little colder.

The children have really enjoyed looking at Scottish Inventors. We have been researching the lives of famous inventors as well as imagining what it would have been like when these inventions were first discovered by creating newspaper articles and diary entries. Most of all the children have loved creating their own invention and writing a persuasive piece to encourage others to buy it.

In RE we have been looking at the liturgical year and reminding ourselves of the special times in our church year and the colours that symbolise each one. We spent some time thinking about Mary and why she is so special and will continue to do this in the month of October. We are also learning about Luke’s Gospel.

Finally the highlight of the month has to be the election of our new House Captains. All of the children worked really have to complete their application and the short listed candidates all produced really interesting speeches. I think those voting must have had a very difficult decision to make. Congratulations to Ava, Sophia, Shannon and Alfie.

The children have made me feel very welcome at Holy Family and we are looking forward to what October brings.

Remote Learning Arrangements

Please note that if your child has to self isolate due to possible or confirmed infection or as a result of quarantine then contact us at school on 01698 274967 or email ht@holyfamily.n-lanark.sch.uk to let us know.

In the case of individual absences learning packs will be provided but where a large number of children are affected eg. a full class we will revert to remote learning for these pupils using the model created during lockdown March – June 2020.

All classes have now had Microsoft teams created by their teacher and the website has been updated to reflect our new classes. It is here you would locate tasks under your class tab on a daily/weekly basis if required.

Return to school parental information updated HF Covid 14.8.20

Today’s announcement from the Scottish Government outlines the plan to reopen all schools on a full time basis from August.

We are currently considering the practicalities and implications of this announcement and will await further clarification and guidance from government, particularly in relation to public health and scientific advice.

Our priority is the safety of our pupils and staff across our network of primary, secondary and ASN schools, as well as our early learning and childcare settings.

We understand that you will have questions, and as this news was only announced today, we will make further information available on how this impacts on our schools and facilities in the coming days.

We are preparing for pupils to return full-time to school on 12 August and we will be working closely with our schools and partners, including our early years and childcare provision to establish our plans, which we will communicate as soon as we are in a position to.

Gerard McLaughlin

Head of Education (North)