Our Lady and St. Francis Primary School

We have just finished our first full week in our new term.  Our week ended with a lovely Mass over at St. Francis Xavier Church where P7 led the liturgy.

Our Primary 1 pupils continue to settle in really well, and their P7 buddies have been doing a great job with them.  From next week, the buddies won’t join them for lunch but will let them eat with their peers, work on their independence, and meet them in the yard.

Your child should now have a note of their PE day; please ensure your child has their kit with them and does not wear jewellery to school that day.  On that note, please remember that hooped ear-rings of any kind are not permitted to school for health and safety reasons.

Some of our parents have asked about purchasing new homework bags; please contact the school office for this.

Looking to our week ahead, we have a Parent Council meeting on Monday at 6.30pm and all are welcome.  We really need new members, so if you can spare an hour every six weeks, please come along.

The following week is our World of Work Week and we are looking for parents to come along and talk about their jobs to our senior pupils – a letter has gone home about this.  If you can help, please let us know as soon as possible.

Welcome to our new school year!  Our new Primary 1 pupils have done well so far and our Primary 7 buddies have been fantastic role models and friends to them.  We will now be encouraging the children to line up themselves so we ask that parents move behind the green gates when the bell rings.

Our first newsletter will be issued next week, so please keep an eye on your child’s bag/emails for this.  We will also post a link to it electronically on twitter.

Please return your annual data form to the office as soon as possible if you haven’t already done so and please provide an email address so that we can email letters out to you quickly and efficiently.

Our whole school will attend Mass on Friday at St. Francis Xavier Church to celebrate the start of our new school year.  Please note, there will be no coffee morning following this Mass as we already have  one scheduled for the 7th September.

As always, if you have any comments or suggestions for our blog, please use the comment facility on this page.  Any urgent enquiries, please contact the school office.

Another busy week has passed in OLSF. We had our transition afternoon on Thursday where children got the opportunity to meet with their new teacher.  On Friday, our P7s had a lovely Mass, followed by their leavers’ assembly and prize giving.  They did themselves proud again and we really are going to miss them when they move on to High School.

On Saturday, the rain didn’t stop us from going ahead with our Summer Fayre and we made a massive £1312 profit! Thank you to all involved in this event; the money raised directly benefits every child in the school.

Our P7s are off to Kilbowie in the morning – they should be in school between 830am and 845am and please remember to bring all medication, including travel sickness tablets for the return journey, that your child will need.  Keep an eye on twitter throughout the week; we will tweet lots of pictures and updates each day.

Our nursery children will enjoy their graduation on Friday; full details of this have been issued to nursery parents concerned.

What a week we have just had in OLSF! Our Madagascar show was a great hit and our children are shining stars! Thank you to all who came along and supported our children.  The final performance was recorded and we are in the process of copying this to discs; please contact the school office if you’d like to purchase a copy.

Looking to our week ahead, we are hosting a Nursery Induction Evening on Wednesday night.  Some of our Pope Francis Faith Award children will be representing OLSF at the National Schools’ Mass on Thursday in Falkirk to celebrate 100 years of catholic education.  On Friday, it is our P7 Mass and leaving ceremony.

Our summer fayre is on Saturday; please come along and support us if you can.  We are looking for donations of the following for the day: home baking, raffle prizes, tombola prizes, bottles of wine, empty bottles of wine and wine bottle bags.  If you can help with any of the stalls on the day, please contact the school office and they will pass your details on to the Parent Council.  Let’s pray our good weather holds and the sun shines for us.

Our nursery had a busy week last week with enrolments and a trip to Almond Valley.

We had our first dress rehearsal for Madagascar on Thursday afternoon and our P1-P4 got a sneaky peak at our show.  On Friday, we had our annual sports’ day which our children really enjoyed.  We managed to stay outside until after 2pm, when the weather forced us to stop, but the children still had a great time.  Many thanks to Mr Maxwell for organising this.

Looking to our week ahead, we have a further dress rehearsal for Keir Hardie and St. Teresa’s senior pupils on Monday afternoon.  The show itself will take place on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons and evenings.  There are still tickets left for all performances – please contact the school office if you would like to purchase more.  I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank the amazing staff team we have at OLSF, who have worked an incredible amount of hours over the last few weeks, to ensure that the school will be a success.

Last week began with our P6s and P7s attending the Fatima Mass at the Grotto on Monday.  Our P5 pupils continued with their swimming block on Wednesday and two P6 pupils represented our school by competing in a K’nex event in East Kilbride on Thursday.  We welcomed our new P1 pupils and their parents on Thursday afternoon and they had a great time in their new classrooms.

On Friday we had Outdoor Learning Day, which was a huge success.  A massive thank you to Mr Maxwell for all of his hard work in organising this event.  On Friday afternoon we welcomed P6 and P7 parents for a Kilbowie Information Session.  On Saturday, the remainder of our pupils made the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist at St. Francis Xavier Church.  They did so well and we are very proud of them.

Looking to our week ahead, the weather looks set to hold so please continue to dress your child appropriately for lots of outdoor learning, and apply suncream prior to coming to school.  Next week sees the start of Health Fortnight and children will enjoy Karate and Zumba sessions as part of this.  Our Book Fair will arrive and parents will have the opportunity to have a look at what’s on offer at Parents’ Evening on Wednesday.  Our P7 pupils will attend Taylor High School on Wednesday and Thursday for their Induction Days and I am sure they will thoroughly enjoy this experience.

We welcome back our new P1 pupils and parents on Thursday afternoon for their second Induction Afternoon and they will also enjoy a lunch with us while they are with us.

Thursday is the last day of school prior to the May bank holiday weekend; please remember that school and nursery are closed to pupils on Friday 25th and Monday 28th May.  We hope you all have a restful weekend.

We had a very short, but very busy week last week.  On Wednesday, our P5s continued with their swimming programme, our P1s had their heights and weights checked and our staff attended Sir John Jones at North Lanarkshire’s Leadership Festival after school.  On Thursday, our P4/5 class led a beautiful Mass and then a very successful coffee morning in our school.  On Saturday, some of our P4 pupils made the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist.  We are so proud of how well they did, and continue to keep them in our prayers.

Looking to our week ahead; on Monday, our P7 pupils will be visited by the Maths Department of Taylor High in the morning.  In the afternoon, our P6 and P7 pupils will participate in the Fatima Mass at Carfin Grotto.  On Wednesday, our P5 swimming block continues in the afternoon.  On Thursday, two of our P6 pupils will represent our school at the K’Nex Finals in East Kilbride.  We will also welcome the new parents to our school on Thursday for our new intake Induction Programme.

On Friday of next week, it is Outdoor Learning Day.  Please ensure your child is dressed appropriately for the weather and has no jewellery on, as this will be a very active day.  On Friday at 3pm, there will be an information session for P6 and P7 pupils on Kilbowie.  To finish off our week on Saturday, the remainder of our P4 pupils will make the Sacrament of First Holy Communion.  Let’s continue to pray for them, and that they have lovely weather like this weekend.

The children may have a short week but have been very involved in their play.

Our literacy outcome is about listening to gain information and the children have been demonstrating how effectively they are.  Lots of discussion has taken place about what we have learned and how we can help the planet by recycling. We are creating responsible citizens for the future!

Children have helped prepare snack this week and have shown impressive  skills while spreading butter on the toast and sandwiches over the last few days. Others have used their organisational skills to sort the snack names and lay out the milk and water. These are all useful life skills for the children to learn.

We are working our way through the Shanarri cycles in our groups and the children are giving their own feedback on how they feel they are progressing in each area. It’s lovely to see how enthusiastic they are about taking the pack home and the positive feedback we have had from parents.

The bumblebee group had an outing to the heritage centre on Thursday and were fortunate enough to experience an exhibition about mining. This enhanced their understanding of the jobs people do and they even had the opportunity to dress up. A great time was had by all involved!

As the mud kitchen outdoors has become very popular we would like to ask for donations of old kitchen utensils, pots, kettle and small plastic tubs to allow us to develop this further. Thank you.

Sent from FirstClass with my iPad

Last week our P5 pupils enjoyed a STEM workshop on Monday, and our P6 and P7 pupils represented our school at a North Lanarkshire cross country event on Wednesday.  Rehearsals for Madagascar are well under way now and it looks set to be a great show!

Looking to our week ahead, our P4 pupils are having a First Holy Communion retreat on Tuesday led by Mrs McMahon and Father McGachey.  Our P7 pupils will have their photographs taken for the Motherwell Times on Tuesday also.

Our P5 pupils will continue with their swimming block on Wednesday.

We are hoping to get the children outdoors for PE and outdoor learning as much as possible, so please bear this in mind when sending your child to school and ensure they have an appropriate jacket and footwear.