This week we had our infant registration, and so far we have 33 children coming into Primary 1 in Our Lady and St. Francis in August 2015.  We will hear about placing requests soon, which should make this number even higher.  We look forward to welcoming all of our new starts to an induction day in May (details will be issued nearer the time).

We also had a visit from Mr White from our Parent Council with a representative from Restorative Justice.  They have great plans in mind for wooden planters which will enable us to grow fruit, vegetables and herbs in our garden.  Many thanks to Mr White for organising this for us.

Mrs Donnelly from our Parent Council also contacted us to tell us that we had been awarded £250 from Warburtons – again a huge thanks to our Parent Council for organising.  They have some great fundraising plans in mind in the coming months – please keep an eye on this blog and our school twitter account for details.

The Literacy Base will be in our school this week filming a training video that will be used for teachers or Authorities that are new to the Active Literacy Programme.  Our Primary 3 and Primary 7 pupils will have starring roles in this!

Our new golden  time on Friday was a huge success and children enjoyed going to their chosen activities and mixing with pupils throughout the whole school.  We look forward to doing it all over again next Friday!

Our new ipads are now set up and our children should get an opportunity to experiment with them this week.  Mrs Ayton has been very busy ensuring that they have lots of educational apps on them.

Remember it is our Sacramental Information Evening this week for P3 and P4 parents on Tuesday evening at St. Francis Xavier Hall.  P3 parents should arrive for 7pm and P4 parents should arrive for 7.30pm.  We are hoping for a good turnout as the Sacramental workbooks have changed this year and it is important that parents come along, where possible, to get a preview of this before we send them home.  We look forward to seeing you all then.

Happy New Year to all of our parents and carers!

We have our first week back at school under our belts and are all set up for the rest of our term.  Our new golden time starts this week and children are very excited about having the opportunity to ‘sign up’ for an activity of their choice.  We have been busy sourcing resources to supplement our new golden time and are good to go!

Our after school clubs also start back this week and include a Quiz Club, a Science Club, Cross Country, Zumba and Tri Golf.  A huge thank you to our very dedicated staff who have all signed up for at least one club this year.  Our children are very lucky!

Infant registration is this week – our enrolment times are Monday to Friday from 1.30pm until 3pm.  Please bring with you your child’s birth certificate, an up to date council tax bill and the baptismal certificate if you have one.

Our local councillor, Helen McKenna, donated a cheque for £500 to our school funds on Friday – many thanks go to her for this.  This money will be used to buy additional ipads for our children.

Our ipads have arrived in school!  We are just awaiting our Computer Centre to set these up for us and our children will have weekly access to these to support ICT and other curricular areas within the classroom.

We have also had a large delivery of infant banded reading books – a huge thank you goes to Mr Tim Sharpe and North Lanarkshire Council’s Literacy Base for organising these much needed resources for us.

We have pencilled in a Sacramental information evening for Tuesday 20th January in St. Francis Xavier Centre.  As soon as Father McGachey returns from holiday, we will confirm that this date suits and inform parents.

With children’s safety being of utmost importance to us, we have asked that P6 and P7 children no longer go across to the Pilgrimage Centre for their lunch.  We cannot guarantee pupil safety when they are outwith school grounds therefore think it is much safer that children either remain in the school building at lunch time or go home for their lunch.  We thank you in advance for your cooperation with this.

As always, please use the ‘comments’ facility if we can improve the way we communicate with you, or if you have any comments or suggestions to make.

It is Christmas indeed in Our Lady and St. Francis Primary School.  We have just been given a cheque for £1900 from our Parent Council from all of our recent fundraising ventures.  We have already placed an order today for 15 iPads that all of our children will have access to in January.  We cannot thank everyone enough for all of their support over the last few months.  Please be assured that every penny raised goes directly benefits our children.

Thanks again to everyone and a very Merry Christmas!

Our last full school week before the holidays was our best and busiest yet!  Our Primary 7s had the time of their lives at Kilbowie Outdoor Centre all week with St. Teresa’s.  All children got on really well and tried their hand at every activity on offer.  I must say a huge thank you to Mr Dinsmor, Mrs Ayton and Mrs Condie for leaving their own families behind the week before Christmas to accompany our pupils on their week away.  I hope you all enjoyed seeing regular updates on twitter of the children’s adventures.

Our choir performed on stage with Abbamania on Thursday and Friday evening this week.  On Thursday, they performed in Glasgow Royal Concert Hall and on Friday they travelled to Kilmarnock Grand Hall.  It’s safe to say the children had the experience of a lifetime and rose to the challenge beautifully.  They sang their hearts out and received a standing ovation and a roaring applause from both audiences.  Again, I must say a huge thank you to Miss O’Donnell, Mr Maxwell, Mrs Curran, Mrs Taggart and Mrs Donnelly for accompanying our children to the venues.  A massive thank you must also go to Mrs Ewart for giving up so much of her free time recently to ensure our children were well prepared for their performances.

Abbamania very kindly gave our children a goodie bag containing an Abbamania CD, an Abbamania keyring and a selection box each for their performances.  They also made a donation of £200 to the school to go towards the cost of our buses to and from the venues.  I can’t thank Abbamania enough for inviting our choir to join them on stage and I am sure our children will be talking about it for years to come.  Again, I hope you enjoyed seeing our pictures on twitter of both evenings.

This week ahead includes our Nursery party on Monday morning in the school hall, and the P1, P1/2 and P2 party in the afternoon.  Tuesday is our last day at school before the Christmas holidays and school closes at 2.30pm.  Our bus children will also be picked up early on Tuesday; please ensure you have arrangements in place for children’s early departure.  School resumes on Monday 5th January at 9am.

Can I take this opportunity to wish everyone a very happy and Holy Christmas.

Our week began with our feast day Mass on Monday morning.  The children from Primary 6 led a beautiful mass and had a hugely successful coffee morning afterwards.  They raised a massive £255.50 profit which will go towards buying iPads for our pupils.

Our Nativity performances on Thursday and Friday of this week proved to be a huge hit.  Many thanks once again to our fabulous children from Primary 1 to Primary 4 for their outstanding efforts and singing.  A huge thank you again to all staff involved in preparing the children so well for their performances.  We have taken lots of photographs which we will get on to our school twitter account.  Some of our parents haven’t given permission for their children’s photos to appear on twitter, so it will take us some time to ensure that we only publish pictures of children whose parents have given permission.  Apologies for the delay with this.

Practices for our upcoming performances with Abbamania are indicating that our children are going to be superstars on stage!  They are really doing well with their singing.  If your child is in the choir, you should have received a letter on Friday with final arrangements for this week.

This week ahead our Primary 7 pupils are heading for Kilbowie.  A letter was issued on Thursday with final arrangements for the week ahead in Oban.  The weather looks set to improve over the weekend, but the temperature is still very low so make sure your child packs plenty of layers.  The bus company are hoping to be with us by 9am on Monday morning, so please be in the school hall by 8.45am at the latest.  Remember to keep an eye on our Kilbowie blog and our twitter account for regular updates while they are away.

Our school parties begin this week.  On Monday afternoon, it is the P5, P5/6 and P6 party.  On Tuesday afternoon, it is the P3, P3/4 and P4 party.  Our Primary 7 pupils will have a Christmas disco on Thursday evening in Kilbowie.  Our P1, P1/2 and P2 party is next week.

As always, if you have any comments or suggestions for our blog, please let us know.

This week we had a School Improvement Visit  including our Quality Improvement Officer and two Head Teachers from local Primary Schools.  The team recognised our very confident, well-behaved children and hard-working and committed staff.  The team very much enjoyed visiting classes and speaking with staff, pupils and parent representatives.

Ewa from Abbamania joined our school choir on Friday along with Mrs Ewart for a practice for our upcoming performances.  She is most impressed by how well the children are doing so far.  We are trying to schedule in some after school practices this week as it is quite challenging fitting this in during the school day due to the busy time of year.  If your child is in the Abbamania choir then you should have had a letter home about this on Friday.

For our week ahead, we have Mass in St. Francis Xavier Church on Monday morning at 10am for the feast of the Immaculate Conception.  Please join us if you can for our coffee morning afterwards in the school hall.  We are still looking for donations of home baking and raffle prizes – please send these in with your child tomorrow if you can.

Our Christmas lunch takes place on Tuesday and looks set to be a very busy event!

We are joined by Mr Maxwell this week who will be with us until February.  He will be working with Primary 7 pupils in close partnership with Mr Dinsmor.

Our infant Nativity takes place on Thursday and Friday of this week.  There is a very limited amount of tickets left – please enquire at the School Office as soon as possible if you require further tickets.

Our Primary 7 pupils will be having their last full week in school before the Christmas holidays as they are heading to Kilbowie on week beginning 15th December.  It looks as though it is going to be very cold so I for one will be packing some extra layers to wear outdoors!

As always, we welcome comments or suggestions for improvement; please use the comment facility to leave any feedback.

This week in school we have had the flu vaccination programme and the fluoride varnishing programme.  Our after school clubs continue to be very popular and well attended.  Please note – the arts and crafts club on Tuesday and cross country club on Wednesday are cancelled for this week only.

On Friday we had our ‘Day of Dance’.  The children had a fantastic time and danced magnificently.  This event was very well attended by parents and grandparents – it was great to see so many of you supporting and being involved in the life of our school.  There are pictures of this event on our Twitter account which you can see at – @OLSF Primary School.

Our nativity practices are coming along and every family has now had the opportunity to buy 4 tickets for either the 11th or 12th of December.  Any unallocated tickets will be sold from tomorrow (Monday 1st December) on a first come, first served basis.

This week ahead, we have a Parent Council meeting on Monday evening at 7pm and a Taylor High School information evening for Primary 7 parents on Tuesday evening at 7pm – both meetings are held in school.  We also have a formal North Lanarkshire Council ‘School Improvement Visit’ on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week.  The Inspecting team will visit every class including the Nursery and will take the opportunity to speak with pupils and representatives of our Parent Council to gain their views on our school.  I have no doubt that they will commend our children on their lovely manners and behaviour.

We are also being joined by two Caritas pupils from Taylor High School on Monday morning who will be making an appeal for tins and packets for our local food bank – more details to follow.

Our First Friday Mass will not take place on Friday 5th December as planned – instead it has been rearranged for Monday 8th December, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, which is a feast day for our school.  The coffee morning will take place after this mass in the school hall.  We will be looking for donations of home baking again for this event which will be led by our Primary 6s this time.

With our Primary 7 pupils going to Kilbowie very soon, we have made a separate ‘Kilbowie Blog’ so that parents can see just how much fun their children are having whilst up in Oban in December.

As always, we welcome your views and comments; please feel free to leave comments on this blog or any aspect of our school using the ‘Comments’ facility on this page.

Our week started with a jam packed inset day for teachers.  All of Taylor High School’s associated Primary Schools met on Monday morning to share good practice and participate in moderation in mathematics.

Our timetable for After School Clubs continues and children enjoyed Arts and Crafts, Quizz Kids and Cross Country clubs this week.  Many thanks to all of our teaching staff who have signed up to take an After School Club during this academic session.

We also had an informal School Improvement Visit from our Quality Improvement Manager, Tim Sharpe.  Mr Sharpe recognised our very well-mannered children and hard working staff and is looking forward to visiting us again on the 2nd and 3rd of December for a formal Improvement Visit along with two head teachers from North Lanarkshire Council.

Nativity practices are well under way and children are singing and participating well.  A letter with details of performances and ticket availability will be issued tomorrow (Monday 24th); please check your child’s bag for details.

We are looking forward to our ‘Day of Dance’ on Friday, and letters have already been issued with details of this event.  Please return sponsor forms to the office as soon as possible – all money will go to school funds and all children in our school will benefit from this.

Another fabulous week at Our Lady and St. Francis Primary School and Nursery.  This week we had our first First Friday Mass followed by our first Coffee Morning.  The Mass was beautiful (thank you to Father McGachey for making us so welcome) and the children sang and read very well.  Our coffee morning was a HUGE success.  Many thanks to our Parents’ Association for organising this, and to our fabulous Primary 7 pupils for assisting.  We made a massive £346.05 profit and I am sure we will make even more next time.  This will go a long way to raise much needed funds for the school.  It was so successful that next time we are planning on hosting it in our school gym hall which can accommodate much more people.  We are also planning on buying an additional urn and additional tea/coffee pots to cope with the many cups of tea and coffee that we will need for next time.  Our Primary 6 pupils will be leading our next one, and we will be looking for donations of baking and raffle prizes again for December.

Our Parents’ Evening on Thursday was also a huge success with a massive 92% attendance.  The feedback we received from parents was most positive and it was lovely to meet you all.

Fun Folk have also been in school this week working with our P1 and P1/2 children; the children loved hearing them play the harp and violin and participated really well.

This week ahead – we will be holding auditions for our choir on Monday and Friday and looking for Primary 4 pupils to join.  Our cross country after school club begins on Wednesday, led by Miss O’Donnell and Mr Dinsmor.

Here are some pictures from our coffee morning:

What a week this has been!  We started with our P1 and P6 and P7 discos on Monday night and ended with our Halloween Parades on Friday afternoon.  Our children had great fun dressing up and joining in with the games and songs.

Next Monday, our P2s – P5s have their school discos in our school hall.

We received fabulous news this week – our school choir have been invited to sing with Abbamania at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall on Thursday 18th December.  Our P7s will still be in Kilbowie that week, so we will be inviting interested P4s to join the choir.  We had a visit from one of the members of Abbamania on Monday, who was very impressed when she heard what a beautiful sound our choir made.

Please remember next week is our first Friday Mass at St. Francis Xavier at 10am, led by our P7s.  Our P7s will then also lead our coffee morning directly afterwards in our school canteen.  We are looking for donations of home baking (nut free, please) and raffle prizes.  Our Parents’ Association have very kindly suggested this to help raise funds to buy much needed ICT equipment for our school.  All are welcome, so please come along, have some home baking and help us raise funds.

Have a look at our spooky Halloween pictures: