St Bartholomews

The weather is very much highly featured in the news at the moment, and I would encourage you to check the North Lanarkshire Council website to keep you up to date on;

https://www.northlanarkshire.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=20199

Fingers crossed that the snow does not have a detrimental effect on our pupils’ education! As always, we will endeavour to do our very best to deliver our service.

St Ambrose High School sports leaders will be working with our Primary 6/7 boys and girls. Our pupils very much look forward to working with this enthusiastic group of young people. Thank you everyone!

It’s World Book Day on Thursday and  leaflets have already been sent out in school bags, last week ,to provide relevant information. Mrs Dunn also sent out a text to provide some basic details. Children are invited to dress up as their favourite character from a book in the afternoon, as a special assembly will be held  to award prizes to the pupil from each class with the most interesting costume. We are looking forward to some interesting creations! Thank you in advance for your support with this.

Mrs Bolland

We look forward to seeing Mrs McGuiness today, who has been teaching our pupils about food handling and nutrition. This will be her last day, working in St Bartholomew’s Primary and we wish Mrs McGuiness all the very best for a long and happy retirement. Thank you for helping our boys increase their skills and knowledge in cookery, skills that will stay with them for a very long time.

Claire Gordon from our NHS dental team will be working with us today to ensure that our toothbrushing programme is maintained. This is a very worthwhile programme as our dental health is fundamental to overall general good health. Thank you Claire.

Primary 5 are very much looking forward to their swimming lessons a5 the Time Capsule and have been sharing the bus with Primary 5 boys and girls from Townhead Primary. There are plans afoot for the Primary 5 children from both schools to work together in a meaningful way that both Mrs Gamson and myself will let you know about in due course.

Mrs Bolland

Primary 6 and Primary 7 boys and girls will be attending a netball festival today. The very best of luck everyone and we know that you will make us all proud. Enjoy the challenge!

A reminder that the dance after school club is on today and a reminder to parents and carers to ensure that the children gather their kits and water bottles so that they are fully equipped to enjoy this activity.

Our monthly Parent Council meeting is on this evening, and as always, faces that are familiar and those who are unfamiliar, are more than welcome. I would encourage you to  get involved in the life of the school and contribute to your child’s experiences at St Bartholomew’s. See you at 6pm until approximately 7pm.

This Friday is World  Day  of Prayer and the theme is ‘ All God’s Creation is very good’ , and has been written by the Christian Women of Suriname. We will keep you up to date on how we will mark this very special day in the Church’s calendar.

Mrs Bolland

The day has finally arrived for Primary 1/2- it’s assembly time! The children will be performing at 2pm, and we will open the doors at 1.45pm so that parents/carers can be settled in plenty of time, before  the assembly starts.

A big thank you to Fr James for celebrating mass in our Oratory at 8.30am, yesterday morning. The same arrangement will take place next Thursday and future arrangements will follow shortly in respect of Lenten services. I would encourage as many people as possible to join us in these services, at this very special time in the Church’s calendar.

Lenten thought;

We ask the Lord to change in us whatever needs changing, to mould us in whatever way we need moulding, so that we always see as God sees, and live as people of the light, whatever the consequences. Redemptorists

Mrs Bolland

Fr O’Kane will be celebrating mass for us this morning , at 8.30am,as it is Lent. He will also be here next Thursday and will confirm dates in due course, for March. We are very grateful to Fr James for volunteering to do this for our parish community. It is much appreciated as I know that he has a very busy schedule.We look forward to seeing you there.

A reminder to P1/2 parents and carers that the children are performing their assembly tomorrow afternoon at 2pm. We will open the doors at 1.45pm and look forward to seeing you! As always, parents and carers will be invited to join the children in their class, after assembly and be able to enjoy some light refreshments whilst you are there. The children have been working hard in rehearsals or their ‘Friendship’ themed assembly and are sounding great.

Mrs Bolland

A wee reminder that our weekly service is on today at 8.45am. As it is lent, this is a particularly special time in the church’s calendar and a great opportunity for our faith community to attend this service, the children lead this service and is a wonderful opportunity for them to fully immmerse themselves in God’s words and teachings. We look forward to seeing you there.

World Book day is on Thursday 1st March and we have some great planned activities for the children to look forward to. From our parent survey in October, some parents and carers expressed a desire for children to take a more active role in World Book day. We have responded! From the beginning of that week, children will take part in related activities in class. On Thursday itself, children will have the opportunity to dress up as their favourite character from a book. We will hold an assembly on Thursday afternoon, where a prize will be given to a pupil from each class for the winning costume- the more creative the better! A ‘readathon’ will take place on Friday, where children will time to simply read for enjoyment.

Mrs Bolland

Fr James very kindly celebrated mass in the Oratory on Thursday of last week. This was a lovely start to the day and the children were delighted to be involved with the liturgy. Fr James has agreed to celebrate mass again this Thursday and next. He will let me know about dates for March in the very near future. I would encourage as many of our school community to make the effort and pop along to 8.30am mass, during this very special time in the Church’s calendar.

As always, on a Tuesday, we have cookery lessons from Mrs McGinness and the Primary 5’s will continue with their swimming lessons at the Time Capsule. I hear that there is great progress with skills in swimming across our Primary 5 boys and girls. What a great life skill to have. Well done boys and girls!

Mrs Bolland

Yesteday was the first Sunday of Lent and included the shortest gospel in the entire lectionary. However, although this gospel is brief, it contains a very important message on  temptation. During His forty days in the wilderness, Jesus experienced temptation and turned to the angels to support and guide Him. This brings the message home to us, as mere mortals, that we should be calling on our own Guardian Angel to assist us when we experience and /or are unable to resist temptation. If Jesus needed the help of the angels, then how much more so we need their help?

Clare from the NHS dental team is visiting St Bartholomew’s today and will check that we have everything that we need to successfully carry out toothbrushing, across the school. We appreciate Claire’s help and support with this very important task.

A wee reminder that the dance after school club is on today and that children are appropriately equipped with kits and water etc.

John Wilson photography will be visiting us on Thursday this week to take  the annual Primary 1 photograph,  this will provide a very special momento of this important stage of the children’s lives . They will also take a class photograph  of  our Primary 7 pupils , which will again provide an invaluable means of being able to look back at this special time in St Bartholomew’s Primary School.Finally, they will take a whole school photograph. It is worth noting that individual photographs or nursery photographs will not be taken at this time.

Mrs Bolland

As you can see from the photographs above, our boys and girls had a fabulous time at the Valentine disco last night. The children danced the night away, had fun with their friends and enjoyed some light refreshments. Again, a huge thank you to the parent helpers who organised this event, supervised in the hall and ensured that all the children had something to eat and drink. We couldn’t do it without you!

There are a number of upcoming events that this loyal group of parents will be organising in the very near future. As always, we will keep you posted.

Keep your eye on this site for news of pupils of the week, they will be posted later on today. Congratulations in advance to the well deserving pupils who win this fantastic award.

Mrs Bolland

The Valentine disco is on this evening! If you have not already purchased your ticket/s ,then please do so from the office. Both Mrs Dunn and Mrs Clare will be delighted to help you with this. Our infant pupils, (P1 -P3) will enjoy music, dancing, games and refreshments from 6pm until 7pm. Our junior and senior pupils, (P4-P7) will enjoy their celebrations from 7.15pm until 8.15pm. As always, this is an event that is organised and supervised by our parents. We very much appreciate all of our parent helpers who support such events as without them, these events would not take place. It is very much appreciated that our volunteers give up their time to support our pupils. Please contact the office if you wish to volunteer your services this evening.

Our staff enjoyed professional development activities yesterday, some of them related to growth mindset. This is not a new concept and is widely used in the private sector, in addition to the public sector. The emphasis is very much on cultivating a positive and honest approach and has given us some food for thought. All of our staff are consistently  interested in improving outcomes for children and I  know that this training has contributed towards this.

Mrs Bolland