Our Lady and St. Francis Primary School

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.

We introduced our Out of School Hours Learning clubs this week.  Miss Ainslie held an Art Club, Miss McCluskey led a Disney Club, Mrs Mushet offered a Drawing Club and Mr Maxwell took Football, Netball and Multi-Sports.  We have been lucky to have some Sports Leaders and former pupils from Taylor High School  – thank you Carly Curran, Sarah McGuinness and Caitlin McMahon for giving up your time to provide opportunities to our pupils.

Well done to our Outstanding Citizens for the last two weeks who participated in afternoon tea with Miss O’Donnell on Friday.  The children received a treat and listened to some music. Photos will soon be uploaded to twitter.

Our assembly on Monday included a challenge for our pupils.  As part of International Literacy Day I requested the pupils read a book and tell me about in by any means they wish.  I was delighted to see so many pictures, book reviews and photos on Teams.  I also had countless children approaching me in the corridor to tell me about their stories.  I am so proud of all of you, getting into the spirit of the challenge – well done!  Each child will receive a house point for the excellent effort.

Our assembly this week will focus on Roald Dahl, as we celebrate Roald Dahl day on Tuesday 13^th September.  This will also fit in to our Rights Respecting School Article of the Month, The Right to Education.  We will also celebrate our Wider Achievers – if you have an achievement/award, bring it in on Monday morning to share with our school community.

We will hold a virtual Parent Council meeting on Wednesday at 6:15.  The instructions to access this will be emailed this week.

Mrs Semple

We introduced our Outstanding Citizens this week at assembly.  These are children who have contributed positively to the school community by either being kind, helpful, compassionate, respectful or showing excellent manners.  The children selected will join the HT on a Friday afternoon for a small treat.  Unfortunately this could not be managed this week, however it will carry over to next week.

Our First Friday Mass was celebrated last week and P7b did an excellent job at leading the mass and coffee morning which followed.  All of our P7s performed 4 wartime songs to our wonderful audience.  It was amazing having our wider community back into the school building, who were all good sports at joining in.  We raised £151!  Thank you for your generosity.

Our assembly this week will focus on Children’s Rights and International Literacy Day.  UNESCO hold an annual International Literacy Day which falls on 8^th September.  I will be challenging the children the children to read a book and tell me all about it, either by drawing a picture, writing about it, uploading a review to Mrs Semple’s Team page or by chatting to me about it.  Please encourage your wee one to participate.   We will also celebrate our Wider Achievers – if you have an achievement/award, bring it in on Monday morning to share with our school community.

Please note the school and nursery are open every day this week.  I look forward to seeing everyone on Monday morning.

Mrs Semple

Our breakfast club was very busy last week and we are delighted to see so many children taking up this offer.  If your child is in P6 or P7 please remember to top up their dinner card.

We also have a good uptake for Kevin Cameron’s choir, both on a Monday and Wednesday afterschool.  If your child has not signed up for this and would like to, let the class teacher know.

Our assembly this week will focus on Growth Mindset, where we will encourage our children to reach their potential and never give up.  Please ask your child about this.  We will also celebrate our Wider Achievers – if you have an achievement/award, bring it in on Monday morning to share with our school community.

The Parent Council will meet in the school at 6pm on Tuesday.  The PC are always looking for new members, if you are interested in becoming a member of the parent council please come along to the meeting on Tuesday.  If you can’t manage the meeting but would still like to become a member, email enquiries-at-ourlady-st-francis@northlan.org.uk.  The work of the PC is very important and crucial to the school, please think about joining.

On Friday the whole school will be attending First Friday Mass at 10 o’clock, which will be led by P7b.  We are also very excited to host our first coffee morning since March 2020.  Please note only P7b will attend the coffee morning.  We are looking for donations for our raffle and cakes/biscuits which can be handed in to the school office.  Any leftover cakes/biscuits will be sold at 10p to children in the school.

I look forward to seeing everyone on Monday morning.

Mrs Semple