North Lanarkshire Learning Festival 2015 – Parents’ Conference Thursday, 26 March
The 2015 North Lanarkshire Parents’ Conference will be held in Motherwell Theatre and Concert Hall from 4.30pm – 7.30pm on Thursday, 26 March as part of the wider two day Learning Festival.
There will be two keynote speakers – Mike Stevenson of Thinktastic and Graham Logan, Strategic Director of Education Scotland. There will also be seminars on a range of topics of interest to parents. A copy of the programme for the parents’ conference and details of the seminars are attached. I would ask you to note that parents are also able to attend any seminars or talks by keynote speakers at the Learning Festival outwith the 4.30 – 7.30 time period.
Parents can register online for the conference at https://surveymonkey.com/r/NLLF2015
If any parents wish to attend any other keynote addresses or seminars they can also register for these online. Full information on all the keynote speakers and the seminars can be found at http://www.northlanarkshire.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=31499
To celebrate Red Nose Day, Rooms 9 and 11 have been focusing on World Poverty and have organised an Assembly on Friday 13th March at 9.30am. Parents welcome! The classes have organised some surprises for the afternoon.
As well as this we have been selling Red Noses and to date have sold 300, with many children trying to get one of each type.
On Friday we will also have a Non-Uniform Day but we are asking the children to pay £1 to wear something Red or a Red Nose Day T- Shirt.
To celebrate Mother’s Day we are having a gift sale to allow the children to buy a gift for a special lady in their life. Gifts cost 50p, £1 and £1.50 and will be on sale on Friday. Children will also have an opportunity to wrap their gift.
Primary 7 pupils have been working hard with Primary 7 pupils from Christ The King Primary over the past 2 months on a project based on the Novel “Divided City”. This is an exciting project funded by Scottish Government and North Lanarkshire Council and delivered by The Citizens Theatre Company.
The novel has been transformed into a musical and covers themes such as Sectarianism and Racism.
Our performances are on Friday 27th March 2015 at 1.45pm and 6.30pm and will take place in the school hall.
The BBC have commissioned a special programme to celebrate The Citizens Theatre’ 70th Birthday and will be filming our performance to be shown as part of this special programme. More photographs to follow.
We are always looking at ways of improving our Communication with parents.
As part of our In-Service Training on Wednesday 11th February, all staff received training with creating blogs. We are using these to update our school website. Information on what has been happening in each class will appear in the Class Blog section. This can be accessed via the school website, www.holytown.n-lanark.sch.uk and clicking on the Class Blog tab at the top or via https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/nl/holytownclassblog/
The information Blog contains general information about the school.
We also have a twitter account @holytownPS. Please follow us and keep up to date.
If you do not wish your child to appear in any website or twitter photographs, please inform us in writing.
What a busy week we have had at Holytown Primary School and Nursery Class.
Police Scotland Visit
On Monday our Nursery pupils were visited by two officers from Police Scotland. They were in the Nursery as part of their ongoing learning. The officers were playing with the pupils in the House Corner, reading stories as well as talking about their jobs and ways they can help the children, their families and the local community.
Winter Weather
I am sure you are all aware but the children have not been able to go out to play all week due to the conditions in the playground, which have been really icy as well. Fingers crossed we will have a thaw over the weekend. Please ensure your child comes to school with appropriate clothing, it would also be useful if pupils could have extra socks/tights in their bags incase their feet get wet. We have distributed our Winter Weather booklet, this can be used in the event of a school closure and activities can either be completed in homework jotters or on blank paper. This work will only be marked if the school is closed. A copy can be downloaded by clicking here.
Hall Equipment
This week we have been able to use our new Hall equipment, the new screen received a round of applause at Assembly on Monday when it descended from the ceiling!! The music from our new sound system is great and due to the four speakers it is almost like having surround sound. Some of the pupils have been watching DVD’s during wet play and I was told on Wednesday it was like being at the Cinema! Thank you to everyone who attended our Christmas events, which have helped pay for it.
Divided City
Our Primary 7 pupils have been working hard with Primary 7 pupils from Christ The King Primary School on their Divided City. I had a quick peek on Wednesday and I am delighted with the sensible and mature manner in which all the pupils from the two schools have been conducting themselves – Well done!
Kilbowie
Primary 7 are off to Kilbowie on Monday, separate information regarding the final arrangements will be sent out to parents on Friday afternoon. Whilst pupils are away, we will post photographs and information here as well as on our twitter account @holytownps. Please follow us and retweet our postings.
Kitchen Refit
We have just received information that our Dining Area will be refitted over the weekend. This work is due to start on Friday afternoon therefore we have had to change our menu for tomorrow. A hot meal will still be available and the choices will be fish & chips, quorn burgers & chips, fish fingers on a bun. There will still be sandwiches and baked potatoes and a selection of home baking. There will not be any soup.
GLOW
Information on GLOW has been sent out to all pupils today along with their login and passwords.
Hapy New Year and welcome back to school. It was lovely on Monday to see all the children and staff back to school. From all the chatter, I think everyone had a great break.
New Lunchtime Arrangements
As I am sure you know all Primary 1-3 pupils are eligible for Free School Meals from Monday. This is going really well within the school, with the numbers of children taking a school lunch increasing day on day. We have slightly altered our lunch arrangements to accommodate the increased numbers. We were given additional seating which has meant we can now seat 170 children in the Junior Open Area. Therefore we are having 2 sittings from lunch. Children in Rooms 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 are coming to the dining area at 12.30pm, with pupils in rooms 8, 9, 11 & 12 going out to play until approximately 12.50. When the second bell rings these pupils come into school and eat with their packed lunch or school dinner in the dining area. This is working really well so far.
Wet Mornings/Playtimes & Lunchtimes
Can I remind all parents that unless pupils are coming to school to the breakfast club they should not be in the school or the playground until 8.45am. This is due to Health & Safely arrangements. Even on wet morning, pupils will not be allowed into school until 8.45am as we do not have appropriate supervision. Whe the wet bell rings, pupils should enter the school via the front door, with puils in rooms 1, 2, 3 and 4 going to the Infant Open Area and the rest of the pupils waiting in the Junior Open/Dining Area. If it is a wet playtime or lunchtime the same arrangements will apply, rooms 1, 2, 3 & 4 will be supervised in the Infant Area where a choice of activities including DVD, colouring and reading will be on offer. Pupils in other classes will be supervised in the Junior Open/Dining Area and again a choice of activities is on offer. All activities are table based due to Health & Safety and space requirements.
Infant Enrolment
We will be enrolling our new Primary 1 pupils next Monday & Tuesday from 11am – 12 noon and 3pm – 4pm on each day. Any pupil who will be 5 years old between 1st March 2015 and 29th February 2016, should enrol at their catchment school. Please ensure you bring your child’s Birth Certificate as well as Council Tax bill/statement to allow us to complete the enrolment process.
Handbook
A new copy of our handbook is available on our website or by clicking here
What a great day. Today is our big day, our final big push to get as many votes as possible. All the children went out again, dropping off leaflets. Staff and pupils alike were sharing the excitement and the telephone numbers. Parents, friends and members of the local community came into the school for some coffee and cake. Even the Provost, Jim Robertson paid us a visit to show his support.
Motherwell Football Club ran some football taster sessions for all the pupils and Amey brought a massive snow plough for the children to see and honk the horn (apologies to our neighbours).
Our video was shown on STV during the 6 o’clock news and incase you missed it you can click here.
Thank you to everyone who has supported us. Fingers crossed, it might be us.
The school and nursery were a buzz today as the STV film crew came to visit us to film our People’s Millions video. Everyone was outside showing off our outdoor learning skills. We had children in the Garden Area, some pupils were playing playground games, Primary 7 pupils were orienteering and Room 7 were capturing signs of Autumn using the iPads to name but a few.
All the children had a great day and throughly enjoyed this experience.
We also have posters available for any parents who are able to display these in their house windows or at work, please contact the school.
