St Bartholomews

A group of St Bart’s pupils took part in a dance festival at St Ambrose High School last night. The children did extremely well and Mrs McIntyre dropped me an email last night telling me how proud she was of the boys and girls. Well done to you all!

Primary 2/3 are off to Glasgow Science Centre today. It’s a great place to spend a day, full of exciting things to explore. Have a super time, boys and girls!

Meanwhile, Primary 6 have a visit from the community police this afternoon…. Let’s hope they’re on their best behaviour!

Finally, this is the last day before the remaining show tickets go on general sale. Please remember that once tickets are sold out, no further seats will be available as we are required to comply with fire regulations. NO TICKETS WILL BE AVAILABLE ON THE DAY!

Our senior pupils will take part in the annual North Lanarkshire Dance Festival which will be held at St Ambrose High School this evening at 6.30pm – 7.30pm. Good luck boys and girls, I am sure you will do us proud, as always, and look forward to hearing about it tomorrow.

Talking about all things fitness related…our sports leaders from St Ambrose High School will be visiting us again today to help put our P6 pupils through their paces. I know that both the high school pupils and our own pupils very much look forward to this session.

Box Fitness will be holding their weekly session of boxing related fitness activities in their after school club today – please remember kits etc.

Finally, our P2/3’s will be out all day tomorrow at the Science Centre, so please remember packed lunches. I know that the boys and girls are very excited about this trip and will be able to make lots of connection to their current school work whilst at the Science Centre. There will certainly be plenty to do and see, it’s a worthwhile visit!

Mrs Bolland 🙂

This very talented young lady appeared in my offfice on Friday with a huge trophy that she had won for her skills in dancing. I promised that I would use her photograph for something nice…keep up the good work!

I met with a number of parents on Friday for a consultation about our plans for the future of St Bartholomew’s. We talked about our vision for the next three years and our parent group were in agreement with many of the ideas and suggestions that staff had made at a previous consultation. To summarise some of the main points would include; Integrating Catholic social teaching, further develop STEM and Digital Learning Zones, outdoor learning and develop application of skills in real life settings.In terms of learning and teaching, we will further enhance meaningful collegiate planning and further develop the World of Work/ employability. We also talked about increasing parental and family engagement through Glow.

We also discussed the fact that Programmes of Study for each curricular area will be completed before the end of term and implemented at the start of the new session in August.We will also examine spiritual formation, further develop more able pupils and develop pupil/ SMT dialogue. Personal support will also be further enhanced with evidence based interventions and focus on the celebration of wider achievements. Personalisation and choice will be further enhanced into curricular planning to benefit our pupils. How data is accessed and used effectively was also identified as an important area of focus in addition to enhancing and developing moderation across the school.

Time was also spent on discussing the Pupil Equity Fund, which is money that the school will benefit from in order to improve and enhance learning opportunities for our pupils.

I truly appreciate the contributions that were made by our parents and carers and they  will certainly be considered in our future plans.I would extend an invitation to all of our parents and carers to get in touch if there any further action points that you would like us to include. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all of the parents and carers who took part in the surveys that were given out in relation to our plans. Your contributions are greatly appreciated.

Mrs Bolland 😀

Today, 19th March, is the Feast of St Joseph. St Joseph, the foster father of Jesus, is patron saint of the Universal Church, families, fathers, expectant mothers, travellers, immigrants, house sellers and buyers, craftsmen, engineers, and working people in general. We could ask for St Joseph’s prayers today, then, for Pope Francis and the church throughout the world, for our families, for help with our school work and for refugees who have been forced to leave their homes.

Please remember that tickets are now on sale for the school show. These are restricted to two per family at the moment but all remaining tickets will go on sale later this week. Due to fire regulations, once tickets are sold out for the two performances, there will be no more made available. Don’t miss on the chance to see what is sure to be a fantastic show!

Primary 1 – Jayde

Primary 2 -Maia

Primary 2/3 – Shay

Peimaey 3 – Craig

Primary 4 – Liam

Priamry 5 – Michael

Primary 6 – Ethan

Primary 6/7 – James

Happy St Patrick’s Day to everyone in St Bart’s!

I’m very much looking forward to this morning’s whole-school assembly. Last week, each class performed one of their school show songs at assembly and every class was absolutely FANTASTIC! The children will perform their second song to the rest of the school today… I can’t wait!

Mrs Bolland will be meeting with a group of parents/carers from across the school this afternoon to get some final feedback and input on our new three-year strategic plan as well as the priorities for the 2017/18 School Improvement Plan. There will also be some discussion about how we can best spend our Pupil Equity Fund. The outcomes of this afternoon’s consultation will be reported on next week’s blog to allow our whole parent body to give any final input on our future plans for the school.

To our whole school community: have a great weekend, once it arrives.

The Scottish SPCA will be in St Bart’s today to help the children learn about the important work of the charity. Primary 1-3 will have a special assembly and Primary 4-7 pupils will take part in activities within their own classrooms.

We’re delighted to welcome Mrs Eileen Rafferty, Head Teacher of St Anthony’s Primary School in Rutherglen, to St Bartholomew’s this morning. Mrs Rafferty is coming to see Active Literacy in Primary 1 and Primary 6. I know she’ll be very impressed with our hard-working pupils and I’m sure she’ll leave with lots of information and ideas on how to implement the North Lanarkshire Active Literacy programme back in St Anthony’s.

Finally, this is the first opportunity I’ve had to say a formal ‘well done’ to our Primary 3 pupils who celebrated their First Reconciliation on Tuesday evening. There were a few nerves when the children arrived at the church, but 100% smiles by the time they left. “I feel washed clean!” was one of the comments as a pupil left the church. That put a huge smile on my face!

Tickets for our school show, ‘A night on Broadway’ are now on sale from the school office. Tickets are priced at £2 and are limited to two per family, until next Thursday, when surplus tickets can then be available on a first come basis.We are restricted with fire regulations and need to be careful not to exceed this limit.We appreciate your understanding in advance with this important matter.

Our boys and girls have been rehearsing in the hall and in class and I have to admit that they all sound great. As always, St Bartholomew’s puts on a brilliant show and is very much down to the talent of our pupils. Mr Young plays a huge role in the musical accompaniment of each show and we have been extremely lucky to have such a gifted musician in our school!

I am looking forward to working with a number of parents in a focus group that I have organised on Friday. The main aim of this is to consult with parents on our plans for the next three years in St Bart’s. It is always interesting to listen to a variety of opinions and views  and look forward to including these in our future plans. Thank you to everyone who is able to attend, I appreciate your support.

As always, on a Wednesday, Box Fitness after school club is on so please remember kits etc and our Primary 6 pupils have the good fortune to receive training from St Ambrose sports leaders.

Mrs Bolland 😀

Our Primary 3 pupils are looking forward to joining their mums and dads at a short prayer service in the school at 2.15pm.This will be led by Fr Doherty and will be the final part of preparation for their sacrament of Reconciliation which will take place in the evening at St Bartholomew’s Church. Children have all been given allocated time slots, which range from 6pm until 7pm.

The children are all very well prepared and are looking forward to this very important and special part of their spiritual journey of faith. I would encourage our parish community to pray for our boys and girls at this very special time.

Our Primary 5 pupils are looking forward to the input from the Badminton coaches who will be teaching our children some crucial skills during the school day as part of their P.E curriculum. It always looks like everyone is having great fun when I am walking past the gym hall!

Talking of all things sporty – our After School Runniung club is on again today, so please remember kits etc. Again, fingers crossed for nice weather, or at least dry weather…

Mrs Bolland 🙂

St Bartholomew’s is always very keen to learn from other schools, as well as share our own ideas and good practice with others. Mrs McLean and I are heading to St Thomas’s Primary in Wishaw this morning to find out how their staff are supporting the children’s learning. We’ve heard lots of good things about St Thomas’s and are very much looking forward to our visit. We’re confident we’ll pick up some new ideas to bring back to St Bart’s.

If you haven’t been on Twitter for a while, it’s well worth a visit. Six of our eight classes have already had the chance to spend time in our new STEM Zone, and there are lots of fantastic photographs on Twitter showing some of the children’s amazing technological creations. It’s the turn of Primary 6/7 this week and I’m sure the children will enjoy the experience as much as Primary 1 – 5 have over the past few weeks.