Our Lady and St. Francis Primary School

Last week was an extremely busy week. From Tuesday, Mrs Cahill was taking photographs for the school calendar which we hope to have ready to sell by the beginning of December.  I would like to thank Mrs Cahill for her hard work and effort and our parents/carers who provided some amazing costumes.

The children thoroughly enjoyed showing off their Hallowe’en costumes on stage last Monday as we held our annual Hallowe’en Parade. The children were very excited to be able to come together as a whole school for this event at last.

The whole school attended mass on Tuesday for the Feast of All Saints and Friday for First Friday Mass.  Thank you to P5 who led our mass and coffee morning and to those of you who supported us by either coming along or handing in gifts/cakes.  The P5 year group entertained us by singing 3 songs from hit movies – well done, P5.

Our bookfair was very successful and we would like to thank everyone who came to look and purchased a book.  The school receive books from Scholastic as commission for this and this year we plan on topping up our core reading books.

Looking to next week, we have many Out Of School Hours Learning Clubs starting/continuing.  Please check Twitter for updates on these.

Mr Rankin and Miss Kane have organised our annual World of Work Week this week.  We are lucky to have 3 parents whom have volunteered to talk to the children about their jobs – your support is most appreciated.  Please remember to ask your little one what they have been learning in the class in regards to the World of Work.

On Friday Mrs Taggart will lead the school in celebrating our rights.  Our Lady and St Francis have our Bronze award for Rights Respecting Schools and are now looking to achieve Silver status.

Congratulations to our Carfin Choristers who performed in Evita last week.  It was such a busy week for you and we are all so proud of you. You are all superstars.

Last week we enjoyed our first Hallowe’en Disco since pre-COVID and it was a huge success.  The children behaved so well and did themselves proud.  We had a dino race (congratulations, Kai), our very own Barbie Girl dancing on stage (well done, Gabriella) and we must be in the running for most children squeezed on to a school stage.  It was a fantastic evening!  Our thanks go to the Parent Council for organising this event, the parent volunteers for additional supervision and to the staff who led the dancing.  It couldn’t have happened without you all.

This week we will take the photographs for the School Calendar, which will be a Books and Authors theme.  You should have received an email detailing your child’s birthday month and the day they are getting their photo taken.  This information is also on the Twitter page.  The Calendar was a huge success last year and we would like to thank you sincerely for your co-operation with this.

We will hold our Hallowe’en Parade on Monday afternoon.  Each class will get a chance to dance on stage and show of their costumes.

The whole school will go to mass at 10 o’clock on Tuesday for the Feast of All Saints.

The bookfair has arrived in the school.  Classes will be timetabled to visit the bookfair throughout the week, however parents/carers are invited to come along to see the books and make purchases each day from 2:30pm.  Please go to the school office for this.

The Flu Vaccine will be administered on Thursday 3^rd November.

Primary 5 will lead the First Friday Mass and Coffee Morning on 4^th November.  They will be joined by the P5’s from P5/6 to sing a few songs afterwards.  Please support the children by coming along, if you can’t manage along, please think about donating some raffle prizes.

Review of the North Lanarkshire Council Scheme of Devolved School Management (DSM) was approved by the Education, Children and Families Committee on 13 September 2022.  The below link provides access to the Committee report via the Council’s website:

Review of NLC Scheme of Devolved School Management (DSM) September 2022

Thank you to those of you who managed along to First Friday Mass and our Coffee Morning.  Primary 6b were leading this and were joined by the rest of the Primary 6 year group to sing a few songs, which have been uploaded to Twitter.  We raised a whopping £214.50, which goes to the Parent Council.  A special thank you to Mrs Miller who set up the Coffee Morning and organised the draws.

Congratulations to our MISSIO Champions, who attended mass on Friday afternoon with Miss Loughran.  Such dedicated children, who represented our school beautifully.  The MISSIO Champions will also lead all MISSIO charity related events in the school.  Our MISSIO ambassadors are Lucy Brownlie, Christopher Kelly, Aela Harkin and Keira Ovenstone.

Looking to next week:

• Our assembly will focus on Road Safety.
• The Snapshot Jotters will be sent home to view your child’s progress.
• The school photographs will be taken on Wednesday.
• We will hold our Parent/Carer Information Evening on Thursday from 3 o’clock until 9 o’clock. (Please note after school clubs are cancelled on Thursday).
• We will hold our Winning House Party on Friday (it’s very close at the moment).
• The school will close at the normal time on Friday for the October Week. Happy holiday!

Mrs Semple

The children have had such a busy week.  We took part in Maths Week Scotland and our corridors have been buzzing this week with children excited about numeracy.  Some of the activities happening this week are maths scavenger hunts, whole school tessellations, shape monsters, rocket shapes, QR Code hunts, play sessions in the gym hall for all classes, problem solving assemblies and our very own Carfin Counts. This is a snap shot of what was on offer this week and thanks go to Mrs Mushet who led our Maths Week Scotland.  Carfin Counts will carry over to this week so if you haven’t managed to start and would like to, you have one week left.  The winner of the estimation station will be announced at assembly to tomorrow.

We were lucky this week to be able to take the children to mass on Wednesday to honour St Bernadette.  Schools across Scotland have been selecting representatives to visit the Grotto for mass and venerate the Holy Relics of St Bernadette, so we were very fortunate to be able to take the whole school.  Our upper school children venerated the Relics of St Bernadette on Thursday and 3 children from P7 represented our school, along with Mrs Taggart at Holy Mass on Friday morning.  A special mention goes to the Carfin Choristers and our Altar Servers, who attended mass every day last week.  I received 4 phone calls from members of the public who wished to congratulate the school on the splendid behaviour and the beautiful singing from the children.  You are a credit to our school, boys and girls and we couldn’t be more proud of you.

Looking to next week our assembly will focus on Our Lady of the Rosary, so please bring your rosary beads if you have some.  Mrs Taggart has also organised rosary prayer sessions for all classes, which will take place every day after lunch, led by our very capable Primary 7s.

Primary 6b will lead our First Friday Mass on the 7^th October.  This will be followed by a Coffee Morning (all welcome), where our whole P6 year group will entertain you with a few songs.

We will celebrate our MISSIO Champions mass on Friday 7^th October.  Mrs Taggart is our MISSIO Ambassador and will accompany the children to this mass.

Please note, Parent/Carer Information Evening takes place on 13^th October, if you have not booked an appointment time log on to the Parent Portal.

Mrs Semple

Please note this menu starts on Tuesday.

Our children are still surprising me with the books they have been reading over the last few weeks which has been a joy to hear about and I am delighted to see some children using ‘Mrs Semple’s Team’.  Some children have also been making an extra special effort this week to read Roald Dahl.  Well done everyone for the effort.

Looking to next week, Mrs Ewart will once again take our P5 children for Kodaly and our Out of School Hours Learning Clubs continue this week, as per our ‘Week Ahead’ blog.

Our assembly this week will focus on the Wellbeing Indicators, Safe and Healthy. We will have a further assembly on Thursday morning about International Peace Day – this year’s theme is ‘End Racism.  Build Peace’.

We will host our first Curriculum Night since 2019 on Tuesday at 5pm.  It will start with a presentation in the gym hall, then afterwards you are free to go to your child’s class to meet the teacher and learn about the curriculum for his year.

Please note the school is closed on Friday 23^rd and Monday 26^th September for the September weekend.

Mrs Semple

This menu is for Tuesday and Wednesday.  Thursday will be a special menu.