St Bartholomews

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

Priamry 1 – Talia

Primary 1/2 – Elyse

Primary 3 – Ella

Primary 4 – Brodie

Primary 4/5 – Stuart

Primary 5/6 – Nathan

Priamry 6/7 – Wiktor

Primary 7 – Carly

Cool Class Cup: Priamry 5/6

Winning House: Summerlee

I will be visiting Fr Doherty, who , as you know, has recently retired as our Parish Priest from St Bartholomew’s RC Church. Pupils representing our upper school, will come along with me to pay him a visit. We will also be armed with the beautiful cards that all of our pupils have made for him, to mark his retirement. The boys and girls will also present Fr Doherty with a gift, as a token of our appreciation for all of his years of service. I have it on good authority that Fr Doherty is very well settled in his new home and we are all looking  forward to visiting him later on this afternoon.

Again, this is a wonderful opportunity for our senior pupils to represent the school and in true curriculum for excellence fashion,be ‘responsible citizens’. Thank you boys and girls.

This has been a very busy first week back and thank you to all of our staff and pupils, who have worked incredibly hard. I hope that you all enjoy a restful and well deserved weekend.

Mrs Bolland

Our boys and girls will be super excited today! It’s the Halloween disco this evening. I know that the main focus of conversation at break and lunch time will be centred around the costumes that the boys and girls will be wearing tonight. Our Primary 1 to 3’s disco starts at 6pm until 7pm. Primary 4 to 7’s disco starts at 7.15pm until 8.15pm. Our parent fundraising and events group have managed to book the same DJ that we’ve had at the last few discos. The children love the set up and party games. We are all looking forward to it!

Tickets are, as always, available from the school office and Mrs Dunn and Mrs Clare are delighted to help you with this.

Mr Mark Millar is popping in to St Bart’s today as a journalist from the Sunday Times will be interviewing him in the school,later on in the afternoon . We are looking forward to welcoming him to St Bartholomew’s and appreciate his continued support towards the school and Parish Community.

Mrs Bolland

I previously  mentioned that we had visitors in the school, Sancta Familia Media, who were very impressed with our wonderful senior pupils. Both Primary 6 and Primary 7 pupils were represented with 5 children from each year group, answering a variety of questions, whilst being filmed.The main focus of the project is the Pope Francis Faith award and the prayer life of the school. All of our pupils, without exception, answered very articulately and gave a great account of the school. They should all be very proud of themselves!

The organisation are visiting 32 schools throughout Scotland, to report on the progress and impact of the Pope Francis Faith award. They were particularly impressed with our beautiful Oratory and all the more, as we are the only Primary school in Scotland with one. The experience of taking part in filming is a very unique opportunity and one that will stay with the children for some time. We are delighted to be in a position to offer such unique and meaningful experiences to our pupils.

Next week ,we are hosting a variety of ‘Developing the Young Workforce’ events in St Bart’s. There is a huge variety of activities and experiences that have  been carefully organised by Mrs McLean. Some of these activities take place in school and some are out with school. The children will learn so much about themselves and others and hopefully, inform future decision making. We will keep you up to date on a daily basis and as always, keep you informed on twitter. A big thank you to the parents and carers who have volunteered their time to help escort the children to a variety of trips out of school.

Mrs Bolland

A company called Sancta Familia Media will be visiting St Bart’s today. They are particularly interested in speaking to our Primary 6 and 7 children , who are currently working towards the Pope Francis Faith award. They will film the children during an interview and also in class, whilst working hard! Representatives from this organisation will be asking the children about their ambitions and also how prayer features in their lives. I know that our pupils will do themselves, families and the school proud. I am looking forward to seeing the finished article and will keep you up to date. Again , we are very lucky to gain recognition for the wonderful ethos that we have cultivated in our school and this is very much a testament to the wonderful input from our entire faith community .Thank you.

Halloween disco tickets will be on sale today, from the school office. Mrs Dunn and Mrs Clare will be happy to assist and tickets are priced at £1.50. Our younger pupils disco, Primary 1 to 3, will take place from 6pm- 7pm. Primary 4 to 7 ‘s disco will start at 7.15pm and finish at 8.15pm. Again, a big thank you to our parent helpers who are instrumental in organising our discos. Without this crucial input, we wouldn’t be able to provide our pupils with such fun events. We are always looking for more parents to get involved in such events- please pop in to the office and pass on details of your availability. Thank you in advance for your support.

Mrs Bolland