Monthly Archives: November 2021

HT Blog – 19 November 2021

Welcome to the latest update of the HT blog.  It’s been a busy time with lots continuing to happen in the school. It is a real privilege for me to be HT of this school, where I regularly see such a commitment from staff and pupils alike, both in and out of class.

Bannockburn

Recently we had around 60 of our S2 pupils out on a trip to Bannockburn. They had a great time exploring the battlefields, trying on different pieces of armour and weapons from the battle and visiting the Robert the Bruce statue. 

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COP 26 Mass

As part of COP26, the Apostolic Nuncio to Great Britain, His Excellency Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti represented the Pope, who was unable to attend.    To mark the occasion a mass was celebrated in St Augustine’s Church in Coatbridge along with the Bishops of Scotland. It was a privilege to attend this lovely Mass along with Cavan and Amanda along with other representatives form schools across Scotland. Image

Flu Vaccinations

As part of the push to have as many people vaccinated as possible before the worst of the winter season arrived, we were visited by a number of NHS workers who vaccinated a large number of staff and pupils.  Thanks to Mr Lang for organising and coordinating this.  

Annual Education Mass

The Annual Education Mass at the start of catholic Education week was able to take place again this year in the Cathedral, after missing out last year. it was great to be able to attend this along with staff and over 30 of our Caritas pupils  in the school. 

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Catholic Education Week

Catholic Education week is now actually 2 weeks long and runs from the Feast of St Margaret (16th Nov.) to the Feast of St. Andrew (30th November).  The theme for this year is Celebrating and Worshipping. Classes have bee discussing Catholic Education in RE classes and we have pupils visiting parishes over the next two weekends.  To celebrate, we finished this week off with a very successful Prayer Breakfast – plenty of pancakes eaten!  Thanks to Mrs Smith for organising events over the course of the week.

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Caritas Retreat

Our caritas pupils have also recently had the opportunity to have a retreat in the school led by Fr. Mark O’Donnell.  The feedback from this has been overwhelmingly positive.  A big thanks to Father for coming in to the school to do this. 

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Scottish Youth Parliament Elections

Once again the Scottish Youth Parliament Elections took place and we were in a position to organise for most of our pupils to vote in this. It was worth a bit of disruption during the day as this is an important platform to ensure that young people’s voices are heard.   Thanks to our S6 pupils for helping out!

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War Memorial Mass

Our Annual War memorial took place in St Brendan’s Parish in Muirhouse again this year.  Due to restrictions it could not take place in our War Memorial Chapel in the school. So, we are very grateful to Fr Ness for hosting and celebrating the Mass for us. It was lovely to welcome the trustees and others to the Mass, along with Provost Jean Jones who took the time out to join us.  S6 pupils Niamh and Mark had the privilege of reading out the roll of honour at the Mass, remembering former staff and pupils from Our Lady’s High and St Joseph’s High who were killed during World War II.

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Twitter

Staff continue to give updates on what is happening in the school via Twitter.  Please follow them to see lots of the things that are happening.

  • School Twitter: @OLHSMotherwell
  • Social Subjects: @OLHSSocSubjects
  • Friday Afternoons: @FridayOlhs
  • Expressive Arts: @ExpressiveOLHSM
  • Health & wellbeing: @olhs_healthwb
  • Support for Learning: @OLHS_SFL
  • Developing the Young Workforce: @OLHSDYW
  • Modern Languages: @OLHSModLangs
  • Technologies: @OLHSTechnical
  • RE: @OLHSRE
  • Library: @OLHSLRC
  • Maths: @OLHSMathematics
  • English: @OLHSEnglish
  • Eco Committee: @EcoOlhs
  • Art & Design: @OlhsartD

Forthcoming Events 

Tuesday 23rd November – S1 Virtual Parents’ Evening 

Thursday 2nd December – S5/6 Virtual Parents’ Evening 

Monday 6th December – S4 Prelims begin 

Wednesdays 22nd December – School closes at 2.30pm 

Monday 10th January – School reopens 

HT Blog – 1 November 2021

Class Masses

Thanks to Fr Ness who has spent a great deal of time in the school celebrating Class Masses – 13 Masses so far since we came back after the October break.  This has been an enormous undertaking and we are grateful to Father for his commitment to the school.

Assemblies

We are now in a position to start having assemblies again, albeit in half year groups.  We took the opportunity to highlight some of the basics, eg. uniform, the use of mobile phones (which are not allowed out in school), behaviour in the community, etc…  It was great to have the chance to talk to the pupils in this forum again to get some messages over.

Parents’ Evenings

With the restrictions that are in place we are unable to have parents on-site for a Parents’ Evening. We are working on setting up a virtual parents’ evening for parents/carers of S1 pupils, scheduled for Tuesday 23rd November.  An email will be sent with instruction to set up appointments.  If you have a new email address or have not been receiving emails from the school, please contact the school with up to date contact details at: enquiries-at-ourladyshigh@northlan.org.uk

(Please note that all the school email addresses for staff and office changed in the summer. As a result any school email addresses that you may have, ending ‘…@ourladyshigh.sch.uk’, are no longer in use).

Drama Prelims

Prelims took place for Nat 5 and Higher pupils in Drama recently.  I saw some of the practices and watched some of the performances – and was really impressed with the confidence of the pupils and standard of the work. Well done!

Students

We welcomed a number of student teachers in the school recently in Maths, English, Business, PE, Home Economics and Art.  We wish them all the best in their placement and have no doubt they will

Climate Change Conference

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North Lanarkshire held an online climate conference recently and we were able to et pupils involved in this including our Higher Geography pupils and our recently established Eco Committee pupils.

Prelims

Prelims for the S4 pupils are due to begin at the start of December. Mr McQuillan is working on the timetable for this and will get it out to pupils as soon as it is ready.

Parking

✓ Car park, parking lot, vector icon premium vector in Adobe Illustrator ai ( .ai ) format, Encapsulated PostScript eps ( .eps ) format

There have been complaints from local residents about cars being parked across driveways at the end of the school day as pupils are waiting to be picked up.  Please be aware of where you are parking if picking up pupils.

Forthcoming Events

9th November – S2 trip to Bannockburn

15th November – Inservice Day (holiday for pupils)

16th November – Annual Education Mass in the Cathedral at 7.30am

23rd November – S1 Parents’ Evening

2nd December – S5/6 Parents’ Evening