Our Lady and St. Francis Primary School

Another busy week has flown in at OLSF!  Father Philips delivered a beautiful, interactive assembly to our children on Wednesday afternoon and our Pupil Voice groups began on Friday afternoon.  All children in our school were consulted about ‘What makes our school unique?’ in preparation for rewriting our curriculum rationale.

Looking to our week ahead, our Continuous Improvement Officers, Mr Philip McGhee and Mr Kevan Egan, will be visiting classrooms on Monday afternoon to observe the good practice that is going on in our school.

Our Meet the Teacher evening is on Wednesday evening; if you have not already returned your slip for this, please do so as soon as possible so that we can plan for numbers.

Mrs Watt and Mrs Mushet will be visiting Rochsolloch Primary and St. Gerard’s Primary on Thursday to observe good practice in numeracy and ‘Big Play’.  This is building on our successful Family Group collaborative work from last session.  Staff from our Family Group schools will also be coming to our school to observe good practice and work collaborative with their peers.

This week we have started on our new context, “Our nursery”. We are developing our expressive side through drawing, painting and use of the construction toys. Making models also helps the children develop their problem solving skills.
While focusing on our maths outcome of times and seasons we are beginning to look at Autumn, particularly the changes in our own outdoor area. The children have all had the opportunity to hear the story of The Enormous Turnip during story & rhyme time and have acted out the actions. Some of us used autumn vegetables to make soup, which we all enjoyed at snack time.

Ms Douglas

Our busy week last week ended with a hugely successful coffee morning on Friday where a massive profit of £283.60 was raised. A massive thank you to all who organised, participated and/or contributed to this.  Many thanks also to all of our new parents for coming along and helping on the day – we couldn’t do this without you!

Looking to our week ahead, Motherwell Times will be in on Monday to take photographs of our new Primary 1 pupils.  Our Junior Road Safety Representatives will attend  an Authority run event on Wednesday and a representative from North Lanarkshire will also come to our school on Wednesday to speak with our pupils about available clubs on offer locally.  Father Philip from the Holy Ghost Fathers also wants to speak with our children at assembly on Wednesday to thank them for their contributions so far in helping them with their much needed car park fund.  Wednesday is also the day that Sports Leaders will begin a block of lunch time clubs for some of our pupils.

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The children have been enjoying our group sessions in music, literacy and physical play this week which will continue throughout the term. This furthers their knowledge and ability in these areas as well as giving them an opportunity to get to know staff better.
We have welcomed more new starts to the nursery again this week and continue to settle them within their new environment.

Ms Douglas

Last week was our first full week of our new academic session.

The SSPCA visited our school on Wednesday and had a session with every class on the importance of caring for animals.

On Thursday, our two year old room in the nursery opened and our first two children settled in very well.

Our Primary 1 children continue to settle well and are getting used to the routines of the school.

Looking to our week ahead, our PC AGM is on Tuesday evening at 6.30pm in OLSF and we are looking for new recruits.  There are several vacancies on our Parent Council so please come along if you are interested in becoming part of this.

On Wednesday, our assembly focus will be on Road Safety and we will be visited by Barbara Ramage who will lead the assembly on this.

On Friday, we are having our First Friday Mass and coffee morning, led by P7.  As always, all are welcome and we are looking for donations of raffle prizes and shop bought baking.  We are also looking for volunteers to help set up and serve the teas and coffees, so if you can spare a few hours on Friday morning, please contact the school office.

We have noticed that some families are ‘cutting through’ our car park when dropping off and collecting children – can we ask that you use the gate, as it is not safe to use the car park and the safety of our children is paramount to us.

Having had their first whole week back in nursery the returning children are all settled and engaged in their play. We have welcomed a number of new children to the nursery setting and they are now becoming familiar with the routine of the day.
We have been enjoying our outdoor setting daily, engaging in a variety of expressive activities and making lots of new friends.  Ms Douglas

A very warm welcome to all of our new parents and children this term.  Our Primary 1 pupils have settled in very well, and their Primary 7 buddies have been doing a great job making sure they are happy and well looked after.

We also welcome new members of staff this session; Miss McCafferty in P2/3, Miss Duddy in P6/7, Mrs Buchanan in our nursery, and Mrs Harden to our support staff.

Our brand new homework diaries arrived late on Friday afternoon, so children will be issued with these on Monday. Please check these daily for homework, school news etc.  Children were all issued with their own water bottles on Friday, kindly paid for by our hard-working Parent Council. Children have access to water in school and are encouraged to have their water bottles with them every day.

Please ensure your child has money on their dinner cards if you pay for a school meal and/or if your child uses the Breakfast Club Service.

Looking to our week ahead, the SSPCA will be in school all day Wednesday, visiting classes, for educational sessions on the important work that they do.

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Our P6 pupils continued with their Playground Leaders training last week and will be excellent buddies to our new P1 pupils in August.

On Thursday, our nursery children had their graduation ceremony and there were lots of proud parents and grandparents there to see them on stage.  The children were fabulous, and many thanks must go to the nursery staff for preparing them so well.

Our week ended with a fantastic P7 leavers’ Mass and Assembly. Our P7 pupils were shining stars and their parents must have been very proud of them. A huge thank you to all the work that Mr Duffy, Mrs Crooks and Miss O’Donnell put in to preparing our children so well.  We have added some pictures from the day to twitter – many thanks to Mr Prentice for his fantastic photography skills!

On Saturday, one of our P7 pupils was invited along to a special Mass to receive the Ian Henderson Award.  It was a lovely Mass and her family were all there to support and celebrate with her.

Incredibly, we only have two and a half days to go until we finish for the summer holidays!

Our P7 pupils are having their end of term treat to Hollywood Bowl on Monday – this is heavily subsidised by our Parent Council, so a huge thank you to them for this.

Our whole school will attend Mass at 10am on Wednesday to celebrate another successful school year as a community of faith.  School finishes at 1pm on Wednesday for our summer holidays.

Thank you to all of our families for their continued support of our school throughout the year.

We wish you all a happy, healthy and restful holiday.

This week we have been focusing on our creative development in a variety of different ways. Some children used the collage materials, some the construction materials and others the dressing up. Whilst practising for Graduation the older children have been learning new songs and some creative dance moves.
Looking after our seeds and plants in the garden is an ongoing thing and we would ask that anyone who has nurtured their nursery plants at home to bring us in photographs off how they are growing.
Today all the children are very enthusiastic about the Teddy Bears’ Picnic and enjoying the activities provided for them. Your donations will be gratefully received by St Andrews Hospice and thank you all for supporting this cause.

Mrs Douglas

Last week began with our P6 and P7 pupils making the Sacrament of Confirmation on Monday evening. It was a beautiful service and the children did all of us proud. A massive thank you must go to Mrs Taggart, Mr Maxwell, Mrs Crooks and Mr Duffy for all of their hard work in preparing the children so well for this Sacrament.

On Friday, we had a non-uniform day to help raise funds for the Holy Ghost Fathers.  We raised a massive £300, so thank you to all who gave so generously. All proceeds will go directly to the Holy Ghost Fathers to help them with the necessary work required for their car park.

For our week ahead, the Parent Council have organised school discos for Monday evening and a separate letter has been issued with details of this.  Our Primary 6 pupils will begin their training as ‘Playground Leaders’ on Tuesday.  We have a transition afternoon planned for Tuesday afternoon, but this may need to be postponed to later in the week as we are still awaiting final confirmation of staffing for next session.

Our nursery and P1 pupils will have a ‘Teddy Bear Adventure’ on Friday, and a whole host of fun activities have been planned for this.

On Sunday, our First Communicants are invited to attend a Corpus Christi Mass at St. Francis Xavier Church at 11am.  This will be followed by a procession in the Grotto, weather permitting.  A separate letter has been issued from Father McGachey regarding this.

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