We are well on our way in Term 2 now. During last week we had a visit by Scottish Water,  who gave us a very interactive and informative assembly.  Our pupils learned lots about the importance of protecting our water cycle and using water wisely.

Two of our P7 pupils represented our school at Taylor High School on Friday for the Patronal Mass which was celebrated by His Lordship, Bishop Devine.

Mrs Ewart spent some tme with our choir on Thursday and they are preparing well for the upcoming Regent Shopping Centre Choir Competition.

Mrs Wilkinson then spent some time with our P6 and P7 pupils for kodaly; the pupils thoroughly enjoyed it and Mrs Wilkinson commented on how well-behaved and respectful our pupils are.

A number of after school clubs have started, including choir, Hama Beads and jewellery making.

For our week ahead, we have our Parent Council Disco on Monday evening.  Children are welcome to come dressed in their Halloween costumes for this.

Our P7 Continuity Programme begins; pupils from P7 will attend Taylor High on Tuesday mornings for the next eight weeks.  They will experience a range of subjects, including English, art, PE and science.

On Friday, we will have our Halloween Parade in the afternoon.  Please note children should come dressed in their school uniforms in the morning as usual.  Children can either go home for lunch to get changed for the afternoon parade or bring their costumes in to get changed into at lunch time.

This is also Mr Dinsmor’s last week in Our Lady & St. Francis as he will join the St. Aloysius’ team from Monday 2nd November. A letter will go out to P5 parents with staffing arrangements this week.

It is hard to believe that we have a full term under our belts already – it has flown in! This week we have Scottish Water coming out to talk to our children on Thursday morning at Assembly which we are looking forward to.

Some new after school clubs are starting in Term 2 including our choir – further details will be posted on our school website this week.

Our Halloween Disco which is run by our hard-working Parent Council will take place on Monday 26th October. There will be two separate sessions for P1–3 and P4-7 and details of this will be issued soon and will also be posted on Twitter.

Our Parent Council are still looking for more members for our popular 200 club – if you are interested in joining, please contact the school office as soon as possible.

We hope you have had a relaxing and restful October week and we are looking forward to welcoming you all back tomorrow.

Our First Friday Mass was beautiful and Father McGachey told the children all about Guardian Angels (on the Feast of the Guardian Angels).  This was reinforced back in school during our whole school assembly where children learned more about guardian angels and learned the Guardian Angel prayer.

Our coffee morning was another success and was very well attended by parents and the community.  P6/7 have to be commended for their fabulous hosting skills and for leading the Mass so well.  Our coffee morning raised a massive £226.30 so a huge thank you to all who supported by either attending or sending in cakes or raffle prizes.  We must also take this opportunity to thank our lovely ladies who give up their own time every first Friday by setting up the hall, serving teas and coffees throughout and clearing up afterwards; we couldn’t do any of this without their help and appreciate it greatly.

On Friday we also held our first Pupil Voice session and every child is now a member of a Pupil Voice group within our school.  Introductions have now been made and they will establish roles and priorities at their next meeting.

For our week ahead, our Nursery children are going to Deep Sea World on Wednesday and we hope they have a fabulous day.

It is parents’ evening on Thursday and appointment times are being issued on Monday.  Please check your child’s bag for this and alert the school office as soon as possible if there are any problems.

Friday is our last day of school for term 1 – it is hard to believe that we are already one term into this academic year.  It has been a very busy and very exciting term and I am sure term 2 will be equally exciting.

School and nursery reopen on Monday 19th October.

We hope you all have a restful October break.

It was a relatively quiet week in OLSF last week and pupils and staff continued to make good use of the lovely weather we are experiencing.  I’m sure both staff and pupils have had the opportunity to recharge their batteries during our long and sunny weekend and all will be raring to go tomorrow!

For our week ahead, our Primary 1 and Nursery pupils will have their vision checked as part of the Vision Screening programme.  Mrs Ewart will be working with P4/5 and P5 for Kodaly and then with our choir, preparing for our upcoming entry to the Regent Shopping Centre Christmas Choir Competition.

On Friday, it is our First Friday Mass at 10am in St. Francis Xavier Church followed by our coffee morning.  All are welcome to attend both the Mass and the coffee morning.  As always, we will be looking for donations of shop bought cakes and biscuits for the coffee morning and also raffle prizes.  Our P6/7 class will lead both the liturgy and the coffee morning on Friday.

Just a further reminder – if you have not already handed in your parents’ evening slip, can you do so as soon as possible so that we can finalise appointment times.

Our good weather did continue after all and again we took advantage of our lovely weather with lots of outdoor play and learning.

We had a very successful Meet the Teacher/Curriculum evening on Wednesday evening.  The feedback that was completed on the evening showed that 96% of parents found the evening interesting and worthwhile.

On Thursday evening we had a lovely Mass for our P7 pupils at Taylor High School.  Our school was very well represented and pupils benefited from a tour of the building following Mass.

For our week ahead, we have a short week this week.  It is the September weekend and school be closed on Friday 25th and Monday 28th September.  We hope our lovely weather holds until then.

Our Parents’ Evening is coming up soon – if you haven’t already handed in your appointment slip, please do so as soon as possible so that we can finalise arrangements.

Here’s to another successful week at OLSF!

We took advantage of our lovely weather this week by having lots of of outdoor learning.  Sadly this doesn’t look set to continue!!

Our JRSO representatives had a lovely morning on Wednesday in Motherwell and represented our school very well.  They will get the opportunity to feed back to the school this week about the latest Road Safety competition.

We had a visit from Mrs Morrison from St. Andrew’s Hospice on Friday.  She spoke with the whole school at assembly and thanked us for our support so far.  This is an excellent charity that does outstanding work and we hope to continue to support it in the future.

On Monday this week our Parent Council are having their AGM in the school at 6.30pm; all are welcome and they are always looking for new members so please come along if you can spare some time.

On Wednesday we look forward to welcoming you all to school for Meet the Teacher evening.  The evening will also feature a presentation on God’s Loving Plan, the new curricular resource for relationships and sexual health education written by the Catholic Church in Scotland.  It is best that parents only are present in the hall for the presentation; we ask that where possible, children do not attend this event.  If this is not possible for whatever reason, Miss O’Donnell is on hand in the dining hall and will supervise a ‘creche’ for the duration of the presentation.

On Thursday evening, there will be a welcome Mass at Taylor High School for our P7 pupils and parents.  We hope that we have good representation for this.  Please note, children should wear uniforms for this event.

We are delighted to see so many children coming to school on bikes and scooters and would actively encourage this to continue.  Please discourage children from using these inside the school grounds as our yard is both small and very busy with parents and toddlers and we want to ensure the safety of all.

Another lovely week in OLSF!  Our Primary 1 pupils had their ‘photo shoot’ by the Motherwell Times on Wednesday, so please keep an eye out for their pictures in the paper.  Golden Time was another success on Thursday and children are enjoying their new choices this term.  On Friday, it was a particularly hectic day for all!  Our day began with a lovely First Friday Mass and our children behaved impeccably as always.  This was then followed by the first of our coffee morning which was a huge success as always.  Thanks must go to our loyal (old and new) parent helpers who assist every month with this event.  Thanks must also go to our P7 children and Mrs Crooks for coordinating and assisting throughout.  On Friday afternoon, we had an ‘Alice in Wonderland’ performance in school.  Our children really enjoyed it and it has inspired us to think about an upper school spring show next year…. watch this space!

For our week ahead, our Nursery and Primary 1 children are being visited by our Oral Health Educator on Tuesday.  Our JRSO children will be attending an event on Wednesday morning as representatives of our school.  On Friday afternoon, we are being visited by a representative from St. Andrew’s Hospice who will be telling our children about all the fabulous work they do.

Remember our Meet the Teacher/Curriculum Evening is coming up on Wednesday 16th September – please return your slip to the office as soon as possible to indicate whether or not you are able to attend.

Another successful week at Our Lady & St. Francis Primary School.  Our children had their first whole Mass on Thursday and their behaviour was fantastic as always; what a lovely way to start our school year.

Our congratulations go to Mr Stephen Duffy our new Principal Teacher who became a dad for the first time this week.  The lovely baby Anna Olivia arrived on Wednesday morning weighing in at 8lbs and both mum and baby are doing well.

Our children had their first Golden Time of the year and activities included: creative art, gardening, lego, origami, hama beads, drawing, music, cake decorating, football, early touches football, colouring-in and light cooking.  We will post photos of these fantastic activities this week once we have all of our data forms returned giving parental permission for photographs.

Due to unforeseen circumstances, the Alice in Wonderland performance has been postponed to this Friday so we still have that to look forward to.

Work on our brand new cooking kitchen will begin on Monday and we will post photos of this as work progresses; we can’t wait to have this facility to use with our pupils.

The Motherwell Times will be visiting school on Tuesday to take photographs of our brand new Primary 1 pupils; full school uniforms for this please.

Mrs Ewart, music kodaly teacher, will commence her fortnightly visits to our school on Thursday of this week and will be auditioning for our school choir.  Any pupil from P4 to P7 is welcome to audition for our choir and we hope to have a big uptake.

On Friday we are having our first Friday Mass followed by our monthly coffee morning.  Due to NLC regulations, we can no longer accept home baking so will be looking for donations of shop bought biscuits and/or cakes.  We will also be looking for donations of raffle prizes and our fabulous Primary 7 pupils will be responsible for this event.  Please come along to Mass and the coffee morning if you can; all proceeds raised goes towards our school funds and our focus this year is developing our outdoors area.

Our pre-order system has begun in our school kitchen; please discuss the menu with your child so that they can make their choices in the morning.  Menus are posted each week on twitter.

The September newsletter will be issued on Tuesday this week; please check your child’s school bag for this.

Please sign up to follow our school twitter page if you haven’t already done so as we will be using this increasingly to post updates and information for parents.  Follow us at:     @olsfschool

We have had a busy first week back at school and our Primary 1 pupils have been superstars!  They are getting better every day at lining up in our yard and have worked hard in the classroom and are already making new friends.  Their buddies in Primary 7 have been doing a fabulous job of looking after them but I suspect won’t be needed for too much longer!  Can I ask that all parents move back from the lines in the morning when the bell rings to give the children the opportunity to line up independently.

Our P1-P3 pupils had a talk from the SSPCA on Wednesday and learned lots about the very important work that they do.  They will be coming back to visit our school at a future date to talk with our P4-P7 pupils.

Our whole school had their first assembly on Friday afternoon and our P1 pupils sat through it very well; they even tried hard to join in with the hymns!

For our week ahead, we have our photographer in on Monday to take pictures of individual pupils; time permitting, the photographer may be able to take family photographs, but this will very much be dependent on time.

We are being visited by Morag Hay and Philip McGhee on Wednesday afternoon, both Continuous Improvement Officers from North Lanarkshire Council.  They are taking over from Mr Tim Sharpe as our school advisers.

Father McGachey has very kindly offered us a back to school Mass on Thursday of this week at 10am in St. Francis Xavier Church.  Please note there will be no coffee morning following this Mass; this will take place at our First Friday mass on 4th September.

On Friday of this week, ‘Alice in Wonderland’ is coming to Carfin!  Our whole school will have the opportunity to see this performance in our school hall on Friday afternoon and we are very much looking forward to this.

Please return the annual data forms as soon as possible to the school office – we are awaiting these before we can post photos to twitter and our school website.

As always, we welcome your views and comments.