Having been out of school for much of last week, it’s great to be back in St Bartholomew’s this morning. The theme of this year’s Catholic Head Teachers’ conference, which I attended on Thursday and Friday, was ‘Renewing your vocation’. It was good to be reminded that St Bartholomew’s Primary exists for the service of others: parents, the parish, our local community and – most important of all – the 275 children we are privileged to have in our care. I’m looking forward to catching up with the boys and girls today!

The Scottish Catholic Education Service is holding a special event for parents next month. Details are given below.

It’s the second day of the annual Catholic Head Teachers’ conference. Bishop Robson from Dunkeld Diocese opened the conference yesterday with a thought-provoking address on renewing our vocation. We then heard from Patricia Watson from Education Scotland about the new ‘How Good is Our School?’ self-evaluation document which will be released at the end of this month. Michael McGrath from the Scottish Catholic Education Service also focused on school self-evaluation after lunch, introducing a new resource called ‘Developing in Faith’ before the afternoon closed with Mass. The annual dinner took place in the evening and this was great chance to catch up with Head Teachers from across Scotland. Of course, the blethering continued into the early hours and I’m a bit bleary-eyed as I write the blog this morning! We’ll be hearing from Professor Bart McGettrick and Sir John Jones this morning – both unfamiliar speakers to me, so I’m very much looking forward to the rest of the conference.

Although there will be no whole-school assembly back in St Bart’s this morning, there will still be Pupil of the Week certificates and the Cool Class Cup and house points will also be awarded. Make sure you check out the website later today.

I am attending the annual Catholic Head Teachers’ Conference today and tomorrow. Mrs Bolland and Mrs McIntyre will be on hand to deal with any issues.

Primary 7 had a fantastic trip to Franky & Bennies yesterday morning. The boys and girls returned to St Bartholomew’s with huge smiles, their very own chef hats, activity packs and (most importantly) the leftovers of their individual hand-made pizzas! Here’s a photograph of their trip; check out Twitter for more.

One of our Primary 2 pupils was stung by a wasp at lunchtime yesterday. He was an extremely brave boy, without a single tear, so I promised I’d post a picture of him being courageous on today’s blog.

Primary 7 are off on a very exciting trip today. You may be surprised to know that their destination is Frankie & Benny’s! The children will be given an introduction to the business, find out about the ins and outs of running a busy restaurant and learn about hygiene in the kitchen. Then the fun begins when they will be given pizza bases and toppings to create their own pizza masterpieces! Sounds like a great way to spend a morning!

Having been out of school for the past two days, I’m looking forward to catching up with pupils and staff today. I took the following photograph as I was passing P2/3’s classroom on Friday. It’s a message that could be said about our whole school!