St Bartholomews

As you can see from the photographs above, our boys and girls thoroughly enjoyed crazy hair day.Thank you to all of our parents and carers who contributed to this event, it is much appreciated. All funds raised will be used to provide essentials for our Christmas Fayre. Football cards are also in circulations and our earnings to date are looking healthy, so far.

The photographs above illustrate our Primary 5/6 and Primary 2/3 boys and girls respectively, who were part of a learning journey folder focus group. Mrs McLean and Mrs MacIntyre spent time with the children to discuss their learning. A very worthwhile activity! A big thank you and well done for all of the wonderful contributions.

Primary 4’s trip to the Science Centre has been postponed and has been rescheduled to the 23rd of November. Thank you to the parent helpers who volunteered for this trip, we hope you can join the children in a couple of weeks time.

Mrs Bolland

It’s crazy hair day today! This has been organised  by our wonderful group of parent volunteers who are helping with the Christmas Fayre. I am sure that we will see some weird and wonderful designs and styles today. It’s for a good cause and the money collected for this event will contribute towards the initial outlay required for setting up the stalls etc for the Fayre. We are all looking forward to this event and the children especially look forward to joining in with all the festivities at this time of year.

Paper plates will be with you shortly,so that children can work on a Christmas design at home, where they have more time to produce a spectacular design. The plates will be entered into a competition, where a winner from each class will be announced, on the day of the Fayre,this will also include our nursery children. Remember that it is the children’s work! We will also use the plates to decorate the hall, which will help add to the Christmas atmosphere.

Letters will be going out to ask for your support with contributions to a class hamper this year. Each class will be allocated a theme and a list of suggested items to go in a hamper. We will then display the contents  in a beautifully designed hamper, which will then be raffled on the day of the Fayre.

Thank you in advance with supporting our Christmas Fayre, we look forward to seeing you there on Saturday the 2nd of December.

Mrs Bolland

Yesterday, our school was filled with a wonderful aroma from our new kitchen! Mrs McGuiness was helping the boys and girls make rock cakes. They looked as good as they smelled and I am sure that the children would have shared them with mums and dad!. I know that we received many complimentary comments about the home baking that provided last weeks delegates with sustenance form our kitchen. Thank you Mrs McGuiness, boys and girls.

As I mentioned earlier, we had visitors from St Conval’s Primary in Glasgow, who were very impressed indeed with our wonderful teaching practice in Primary 1. They were also delighted to learn about our Oratory and the many wonderful resources that we have in St Bart’s.They have asked to pop back soon and we are happy to welcome them any time.

Our Pupil Voice groups are meeting today, and I am looking forward to hearing about all of their plans at the afternoon business meeting.I know that some exciting ideas have been banded around, in order to improve our learning environment and experiences for all pupils. A special thank you to our Primary 7 pupils, who have been leading the groups so well.

Please remember that our Prayer Service takes place today at 8.45am in the Oratory. Our pupils lead this service and is it wonderful that St Bartholomew’s can provide a very special environment for our Parish community, especially in the month of November when we particularly remember our dearly departed.

Mrs Bolland

This young lady had appeared in my office, over a week ago, with her fabulous trophy. I’ve not had the chance to put it in our blog as we have had so many photographs from the DYW events. I am sure that you will agree, this is a wonderful reward for achieving fabulous success in dancing. Keep it up and well done!

Today, we are looking forward to welcoming two members of staff from St Conval’s Primary in Glasgow. They are visiting us to share in our excellent classroom practice and also to have a look around our beautiful school and maybe pick up some tips about display, amongst other things. You are most welcome,and we are delighted to have you visit St Bartholomew’s.

I will be spending a considerable amount of time in Primary 4 today.I am looking forward to working with the children and asking them about their learning. I know that there are lots of interesting things going on in class and can’t wait to se for myself. Thank you Primary 4 and Miss Connor for inviting me.

Mrs Bolland

This is our first full week in November, at school, and is an important month in the church’s calendar, when we especially remember our dearly departed. Our pupils learn about the relevance of this month and mark it accordingly with prayers and related activities. Remember that we have our prayer service, lead by the pupils, every Wednesday morning at 8.45am in the Oratory. Please keep up to date with memorial services in St Bartholomew’s RC church. Fr O’Kane will be happy to assist families, at this, sometimes difficult time.

Last week’s ‘Developing the Young Workforce’ events were a huge success. Again, a huge thank you to all of our business partners for supporting St Bartholomew’s Primary. We have a wide variety of photographs of events that were held both in, and out of the school  from last week on Twitter, please check it out!

It’s back to business, as usual, this week and we are looking forward to working hard and putting all of our gifts and talents to good use. Some newly acquired skills and knowledge from last week will also be put to good use!

Mrs Bolland

Yesterday we held a ‘Dragons Den’ type event with our infant department. Each class had to work in groups, in order to create a money making scheme that has a social purpose. The ‘Dragons’ were presented with fantastic pitches and some wonderful ideas that could be very readily sustained . Each class had a winning group; Primary 1 had a wonderful idea to support a charity whilst making and selling dog biscuits.Primary 1/2 decided on hosting a cake and candy in order to support the elderly. Primary 2/3 had the fabulous idea to recycle toys, before Christmas and sell them to support the homeless. Primary 3 will organise a competition for Christmas stamps and envelopes, with the winning entries used for our Christmas Post initiative and profits used for charity.

The Social Entrrprise Awards company will continue to support our boys and girls with sustaining their ideas in the future and consequently allow our charities to benefit.

Today is obviously the last day of our wonderful week of Developing the Young Workforce! We are going out with a bang and hosting a fantastic Careers Fayre for our Primary 4 to Primary 7 pupils. Representatives from a number of very interesting and exciting companies are visiting our school, and will provide our pupils with an insight into their business. Mrs McGuiness, our cookery teacher,has made  a scrumptious selection of cakes and savouries for our delegates to enjoy. I know that our boys and girls thoroughly enjoyed taking part in their creation…

I would like to extend a huge thank you and much appreciation to Mrs McLean, who has spent a considerable amount of time and effort coordinating all the weeks’ events. The children have thoroughly enjoyed them and you only have to look through our pictures on twitter to see this. Developing the Young Workforce is very worthwhile and the children have learned so many new skills and gained in confidence in so many different areas. Well done everyone !

Mrs Bolland

The photographs above are evidence of our infant classes taking part in the ‘Hoots Owls’ event yesterday.This was part of Developing the Young Workforce week and was a huge success. The boys and girls from Primary 1 to Primary 3 had a fantastic morning, learning so much about a potential career in falconry and watching a fabulous flight display from the owls. The children were enthralled by the grace and beauty of these very special birds. What a very special experience for our younger pupils! Our children were a fantastic audience and the Hoots Owls presenter commented on the wonderful manners and behaviour from our pupils. Well done boys and girls.

St Bartholomew’s was a little bit quieter yesterday as so many of our boys and girls were out of school taking part in exciting events and activities, organised as part of Developing the Young Workforce. Primary 4/5 had a brilliant time in Tesco, Coatbridge ,where children found out about so many different jobs and got a chance to look around the store and warehouse. They even got a shot on the tills!

Primary 5/6 thoroughly enjoyed themselves at Sky Academy in Livingston, where the children had fun putting a news presentation together. They looked so professional and I definitely think that we have a few budding TV presenters in our midst …

Primary 7 were also out of school today, and paid a visit to sunny Paisley. They were visiting the University of West of Scotland, where the children had fantastic fun in the STEM department. All of the children brought back ‘slime’ that they made themselves in the lab.

A huge thank you to all of our parent helpers who supervised the children on all of the above trips. Please check out our fabulous photographs on Twitter that provide a really great insight into the fantastic opportunities that the children have taken part in.

Today, we have the Dragons Den event this afternoon, and are looking forward to hearing about all of the wonderful entrepreneurial ideas that the children have been working on. Primary 4 to Primary 7 will take part in a Santander Workshop and will learn about the world of banking.Primary 6/7 will visit Terex in Coatbridge this morning and will enjoy their lunch whilst they are there. Again, our pupils will experience another type of workplace  and learn so much about potential careers.

Mrs Bolland

We are celebrating All Saints day with scheduled visits to our beautiful Oratory. Mrs Carlin has kindly organised  appropriate prayer service materials for all of our staff to use, with their class, in the Oratory. As previously mentioned, we are unable to celebrate this important Holiday of Obligation in Church,due to commitments with our business partners for Developing the Young Workforce events. Fr O’Kane has asked me to inform our Parish community of services in St Bartholomew’s RC Church  at 7pm.It would be lovely to see many of our pupils with their families.

Today is one of the busiest days for DYW events. Primary 1 to Primary 3 will be entertained in the hall with a company called ‘Hoots Owls’. The children will be enthralled by these beautiful birds and be able to enjoy the experience of seeing them up close! Exciting stuff… Primary 4/5 are visiting Tesco today and will have the opportunity to see behinds the scenes and ask a variety of questions , related to a number of different jobs. Primary 5/6 are visiting the Sky Academy in Livingston this afternoon. This is a very sought after experience and is booked up very quickly, well in advance. Our pupils are very lucky to take part in this experience and are looking forward to this trip immensely. Primary 7 are travelling to Paisley, in order to visit the University of West of Scotland. The children will be immersed in university life and experience some of the wonderful opportunities that current students have.

Primary 4 visited Coatbridge Fire Station yesterday and Primary 6/7 will visit Terex,in Coatbridge tomorrow. What a busy week! A huge thank you to Mrs McLean for organising the huge amount of varied and exciting activities and opportunities for all of our pupils this week. It is very much appreciated.

Finally, thank you to all of our parent helpers,who have supported the supervision of the wide variety of outings this week. We literally couldn’t do it without you!

Mrs Bolland

Our ‘Developing the Young Workforce’ week had a fantastic start yesterday, with some of our business partners introducing the children to the wonderful world of work. Pupils were introduced to very interesting speakers who spoke about their varied and exciting careers and truly inspired them to think ‘outside the box’ and that there is no one size fits all approach to the modern world of work. The Social Enterprise Awards team delivered some very interesting workshops to our boys and girls and sparked some interesting ideas that the children  could perhaps use in their own enterprise projects , within the class.

Time will be allocated to classes today, so that our pupils can put some serious thought to an enterprising project from  Micro Tyco, a company that we are currently engaged with.  They provide an investment of £1 and also support,so that our pupils have the ability to turn this pound into a considerable amount of money. Some children from other schools have duplicated this by hundreds, and even thousands. Watch this space for reports on some of our buddding entrepreneurs.

As I reported earlier, boys and girls will be out and about, visiting business partners and taking part in local initiatives. We are looking forward to hearing their news and sharing their experiences with us.

Keep up to date with Twitter , class pages and the blog to follow the children’s progress.

Mrs Bolland

As you may recall, I informed you that the children would be visiting Fr Doherty at his new residence. Myself, Trish Morris and four St Bart’s pupils all popped in to see Fr Doherty on Friday afternoon. He provided us with a guided tour and certainly proved to us that he was very settled in his new surroundings and enjoying his retirement. The children were very  impressed and Fr Doherty was delighted to have their company. Thank you for making us all feel so welcome!

As you are no doubt aware, it is a Holiday of Obligation on Wednesday as it is All Saints day. I have already informed Fr O’Kane that we will,uncharacteristically , not be attending mass as a school on this feast day. Mass times will remain the same and an evening service will be available at 7pm for you to attend, as a family.

We have a very full schedule, all week, in order to accommodate our ‘Developing the Young Workforce events. Quite a number of our pupils will be out of school,on Wednesday,visiting some of our business partners. Unfortunately we have to fit in with others’ schedules, although we are very lucky to be able to provide our pupils with such wonderful experiences. The entire week will be jammed packed full of brilliant opportunities and experiences for all of our pupils. Thank you to all of our parents and carers who have volunteered to supervise our pupils to various events and locations this week.We have, however, made alternative arrangements to mark this important feast day and have timetabled the Oratory accordingly.

As always, please keep your eye on Twitter , class pages and the daily HT blog to follow our pupils’ exciting activities and experiences.

Mrs Bolland