Our Lady and St. Francis Primary School

Last week we held our Sacramental Information Evenings for P3 and P4 parents. It was lovely to see so many parents coming along and supporting their child’s faith journey.

This week, our P6 and P7 pupils are having a YDance taster session on Monday afternoon.

Our P7 pupils are going to Stirling Sheriff Court on Wednesday to participate in the mock court project.  They have been preparing hard and are really enjoying the experience.  There is still room on the bus for any P7 parents that want to come along and see their child undertaking their role in court.  Please contact the school office if you want to come along and join us.

Our P6 pupils are attending Taylor High on Friday for a Health and Well-Being event which kick starts their Continuity programme for going to high school.

Please remember, if you are shopping in any local Tesco store (Carfin, Coltness, Wishaw, Motherwell or Bellshill) ask for your tokens and put them in the Our Lady and St. Francis slot in-store.  If we have the most votes, we stand a chance to wine £4000 for our outdoors area.  Happy shopping!

Lovely to see all the children back after the holiday! Staff would like to thank everyone for the lovely gifts they received at Christmas, they are very much appreciated

• We have had a busy first week back with the introduction of our new learning intentions. The focus is on our Scottish heritage. Some time has been spent on introducing Scottish music into our day with photographs of our beautiful countryside.
• The health and wellbeing outcome involves preparing food and the children have been involved in making carrot soup for snack. We have discussed where foods come from and what we prefer to eat during snack time. Counting has and will be a daily focus centred around a variety of table games along with new and familiar number songs being introduced at activity time. 

Our choir performed beautifully at the Regent Shopping Centre on Thursday, and it was lovely to see so many parents and extended family members there to support them.  We came in fourth place; a massive thank you to all who voted for us.  (We think our choir are the best and are winners anyway!)

On Friday, our Christmas parties kicked off with P6 and P7 and they had a ball!

Looking to our week ahead, Father McGachey will hear confessions from P4-P7 on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday during the school day.  P4 and P5 have their party on Monday afternoon and P2 and p3 have their party on Tuesday afternoon.  The P1 party is on Wednesday afternoon and a special visitor will be coming to see them!

On Thursday, it is our Christmas Movie/Christmas Jumper day; please hand in your slip and money if you haven’t already done so.  All proceeds raised go to SCIAF, a very deserving charity.

Friday, it is our last day of term 2 and school closes at 2.30pm (nursery have normal session times morning and afternoon).  Mass has been cancelled as Father has other commitments on Friday.

We hope you all have a happy and holy Christmas.

This week we remain focused on our context of Christmas.  While playing in the sand and water we have been developing our knowledge of shapes.  We have also used matching games and picture collage. This month’s maths outcome has been extended into the writing area where the children have made pictures with a ‘colour by shape’ theme.
Our creativity has been encouraged within the art area, with a variety of Christmas activities. The children have also had the experience of making Christmas tree or star biscuits. We have really focused our knowledge of Christmas songs and music as you have no doubt heard at home.
We have had many writing experiences and as a result, have fulfilled our outcome for literacy. We have written Christmas cards and letters to Santa and have been experimenting  with writing our names on labels to add to our Christmas decorations.
We are learning the true meaning of Christmas through the story of the baby Jesus and have changed our home corner into a stable. The addition of some props has further encouraged the children to act out the story of Christmas in their own way to further their understanding.

We have had a very busy week with Nativity and upper school Christmas performances.   Both shows were out of this world and our children did so well.  We are very proud of them and I’m sure you are too! A huge thank you again to all staff involved in the preparation; a massive amount of work went in beforehand as you can imagine.

Our Christmas lunch was on Thursday, and over 200 children opted to have their Christmas lunch in school.  Our P7s were a super help in the organisation of all of this – thank you P7.

On Friday, we celebrated a beautiful Mass in honour of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and in the afternoon our whole school attended the pantomime in Motherwell Civic Centre.  A huge thank you once more to our Parent Council for their very generous donation towards this, keeping the cost down for every child in our school.  Our children also enjoyed a ‘goodie bag’ each at the pantomime, again, courtesy of the Parent Council – thank you!

Looking to our week ahead, the Taylor High Continuity Programme continues for our P7 pupils on Tuesday.  On Thursday, our choir will perform at the Regent Shopping Centre in Hamilton at 11.30am.  We are in the final ten of this annual competition, and if we win, our school will receive £500.  Please help us win by voting at:          http://subzerorecordingstudio.co.uk/choir/

On Friday, it is the first of our Christmas parties, and P6 and P7 are first.  On party days, children can be collected no earlier than 12.20pm and should be back at school for the normal time of 1.20pm.

We have been focusing on investigating and recalling stories this week as part of our literacy outcome. The children have been making tea in the water tray while reflecting on “The tiger who came to tea”. Some of us recalled the story and talked about the characters we liked. We then used our artistic talents to draw our favourite.
Later in the week we moved onto looking at the story of the 3 bears we used the porridge in the water tray along with different sized spoons, paper cases and compare bears. The children enjoyed the use of the playdough to make bowls, chairs and beds of different sizes while recalling the story in their own words. These activities also allowed us to further our understanding of size.
We continue to use directional and positional language during rehearsals for our nativity and for the annual day of dance which the children thoroughly enjoyed participating in.

What a week in OLSF! Our P7 parents enjoyed a visit to Taylor High School on Tuesday and then attended the Taylor roadshow on Thursday evening.

On Friday, it was our annual Day of Dance.  Every stage, from Nursery to P7, performed for their parents and extended families in our school hall.  I’m sure you’ll agree they were fabulous?  Many thanks must go to Miss O’Donnell for overseeing the full event and her input with the dances; thanks must also go to our fabulous parent helpers – we could not organise these events without their help!  Finally, thank you to all who attended and contributed in any way; all funds raised will go towards school funds to benefit our pupils.  Tunnocks were also very generous with their donations of biscuits and tea cakes, so thank you to them too.  We will publish our final total as soon as we have it.

Looking to our week ahead, it is the flu immunisation programme on Monday.  Our P7 continuity programme at Taylor High continues on Tuesday and interim reports will be issued on Friday.  We will also be celebrating Mass for the Feast of St. Francis Xavier on Friday at St. Francis Xavier Church at 10am.  Please note, there will be no coffee morning following this Mass.

This week we have been busy learning more songs and actions for our Christmas show, “A present for the baby”. Cast lists will be displayed in the cloakroom next week and tickets will be on sale at a later date. This has encouraged our interest in the Christmas story and the characters within it. As our literacy outcome is all about recalling stories and discussing characters the children have discussed a few different stories including “The bear hunt”.
We have also been rehearsing for the day of dance on Friday 24th and developing our understanding of directional language while doing so. Please speak to nursery staff if you require more information for this event.
Our context of “The Toy shop” continues with the children involved in a variety of art activities as well as the role play within our shop.

Nativity, Carol Concert and Day of Dance practices are in full swing!  Children are working hard to prepare for their upcoming performances.  Our choir were also recorded this week for the annual Regent Shopping Centre Christmas Carol Competition – keep your eyes peeled on twitter as we will let you know when voting opens!

Please remember that Monday is an In-Service day, so school and nursery are closed to pupils.

There is a Parent Council meeting at 6.30pm in the school on Monday evening and all are welcome.

On Tuesday, our P7 parents are invited to attend Taylor High School to see their children during their continuity programme.  On Tuesday evening, some of our Pope Francis Faith Award children are participating in a SCIAF Mass at St. Francis Xavier Church.

SCIAF will be presenting an assembly for all of our pupils on Wednesday afternoon, explaining the invaluable work that they do.

On Thursday evening, our P7 parents are invited to our school hall for the Taylor High Roadshow, where they will find out valuable information about their child’s transition to High School.

On Friday, it is our annual Day of Dance.  We think you will be very impressed with our children’s dancing and performing abilities!  We are still looking for parent helpers to assist with teas and coffees, so if you can help, please contact the school office.

Our continuity programme with Taylor High school continued last week and our P7 pupils continue to enjoy this worthwhile experience.  P4/5 visited Newarthill Library on Tuesday  for an author visit and enjoyed this very much.

Looking to our week ahead, the continuity programme continues for our P7 pupils.  Nativity practices are underway, as are practices for our upper school carol concert.  Our pupils are also continuing to prepare for our upcoming Day of Dance on Friday 24th November.