St Bartholomews

A huge thank you to everyone who supported our Christmas Fayre on Saturday. It was a huge success and we will share the total amount of monies raised as soon as we have a final count. Again, we couldn’t have done it without all the help and support from a number of our parents who have dedicated themselves to this event for a number of weeks. An announcement for the ‘Christmas Plates’ competition will be made on tomorrow’s blog. This was a very difficult to conclude as there were so many fantastic entries.

Primary 7 parents have a Parents Information evening at St Ambrose High School this evening from 6pm – 7pm that will contain important information about the transition to High School. Further meetings will follow and as always, we will keep you up to date.

The boys and girls who attend our after school Dance club will be delighted to know that it is back on today from 3pm-4pm.

Mrs Clare is sending out a text this morning to remind everyone that the Parent Council meeting is on tonight at 6pm. As always, please feel  to pop along and join us. Yoiur contributions will be greatly appreciated.

Mrs Bolland 🙂

We arrive at the end of what has been a very busy week. I received feedback from our visitors yesterday and they all spoke very highly of St Bartholomew’s: polite, well-behaved, hard-working pupils, highly committed and loyal staff, very good teaching across the school, great resources and exciting spaces to learn. A massive thank you to our phenomenal team of staff for all your hard work both in the lead up to, and during, the visit… you did us all proud! An equally massive thank you to our AMAZING pupils for being your wonderful selves: every one a star! And I mustn’t forget the parents who had a chance to speak to our visitors and made so many positive comments about the school. I left the children and staff with a wee thought at the end of last week’s assembly: LET’S BE AMAZING TOGETHER! That’s exactly what we did this week. Well done to you all!

We have another busy day ahead today getting organised for tomorrow’s Christmas Fayre. The stalls and games will be getting set up in the hall during the course of the day and Santa’s grotto will be built in time for his arrival tomorrow morning. I can’t even begin to express how grateful I am to the team of parent helpers who have organised this year’s fayre. You’ve done an amazing job! Of course, the best ‘thank you’ our school community can give them is to turn up in huge numbers tomorrow morning and help raise lots of money for our school funds! See you at 10.00am!

St Bartholomew’s welcomes back Mr Duffy, Head Teacher of St Mary’s Primary, today along with Mr Beers, Mrs Hanlon and Mr Moore from the Continuous Improvement Service. Our visitors very much enjoyed their time in the school yesterday and, for me, we got one of the best complements possible: “Your children are really polite.” Well done, boys and girls, for being your usual friendly, polite selves!

Included in the day was a meeting with the chairpersons of our six Pupil Voice groups and some Primary 3 representatives from the infant groups. The boys and girls spoke enthusiastically about their work to improve the school.

Our four visitors will be visiting classrooms again today to join in with the children’s learning; I have no doubt they will continue to be impressed by Team St Bart’s!

Please remember that our Christmas Fayre takes place this Saturday at 10.00am. It’s always a fun-filled event and this year will be no exception, with lots of great stalls to keep everyone amused. There will, of course, be the usual visit from Santa. He spoke with me briefly on the phone yesterday to double check the directions to Townhead… he said the trip will be a good practice-run for Christmas Eve! The Christmas Fayre is our main fundraiser of the year, so please make a point of being there and encourage your neighbours and friends to come along too.

A very warm welcome this morning to four special visitors. Mr Jim Beers, Mrs Gillian Hanlon and Mr Stephen Moore from the local authority’s Continuous Improvement Service will spend today and tomorrow in St Bartholomew’s to observe learning and teaching across the school. They will be joined by Mr Brendan Duffy, Head Teacher of St Mary’s Primary School in Whifflet. In every walk of life, it’s always helpful now and again to have an outside pair of eyes look at what you’re doing. We have a fantastic team of staff here in St Bartholomew’s and, as our Twitter page says, ‘children who are, quite simply, OUT-OF-THIS-WORLD!!’ The next two days gives an opportunity for the great work of St Bartholomew’s to be recognised and celebrated and, just as important, for the school to get some useful feedback on things that can be improved to make St Bart’s even better.

Please note that, due to our visitors meeting with teaching staff at the end of the day, all after school clubs have been cancelled. Our whole-school samba workshop which was originally planned for today has also been postponed until Wednesday 11th January. Apologies for any inconvenience.

Finally, please remember that the Christmas Fayre is this coming Saturday, from 10.00am onwards. Due to the setting up of the hall on Friday, there will be no hot school dinners. However, pack-a-snacks will be available for the children as usual.

A big congratulations to Cara in Primary 2/3 and Amaranth in Primary 3 who were competing in a dancing show at the SECC in Glasgow on Sunday.This is a very prestigious competition in the world of dance and the girls have done exceptionally well to win places in the ‘Alice in Wonderland’ themed show.We are looking forward to hearing all about it today!

Following on from the dental workshops that our ‘Health for Life’ group organised for the whole school, children have leaflets in their bags today.Please take a little time to read these as there are a few surprises in there about sugar content in popular drinks and foods that you may not expect…

Please note that our after school clubs are cancelled this week as we have visitors from NLC’s continuous improvement service who wish to speak to staff after the school day.

Mrs Bolland 😀

 Primary 1 – Ciaran

Primary 2 – Kerry

Primary 2/3 – Lewis

Primary 3 – Amaranth

Primary 4 – Sarah Louise

Primary 5 -Harvey Jo

Primary 6 – Adam

Primary6/7 – Paula

Winning House: Lochend

Primary 5 have been learning about the world of work this term and, as mentioned in my blog last week, have had the opportunity to hear from people with various jobs and careers, including a doctor and a policeman. The children have even been doing their own interviews! Today, at their class assembly, Primary 5 will be presenting what they have learned to their parents, family and friends. The assembly begins at 2.00pm, with the usual opportunity to visit the children’s classroom afterwards and enjoy some refreshments. Looking forward to seeing you there.

We will have four visitors in the school next Wednesday and Thursday. The local authority’s Continuous Improvement Service will be in St Bartholomew’s for two days to observe learning and teaching across the school and hear the key messages of our own self-evaluation. This visit will be very much led by the school community – pupils, staff and myself – and will give an opportunity for all the fantastic work that goes on in St Bart’s every single day to be recognised and celebrated. It will also give us the chance to get some feedback on what we can improve and help us fine-tune our plans for ongoing improvement. St Bartholomew’s has an absolutely fantastic team of pupils and staff (and let’s not forget our parents, parishioners and friends!) and I have absolutely no doubt that we’ll shine next week… We have lots to be very, very proud of!

Finally, please remember that Monday is an Inservice day and that the school will be closed to pupils. See you on Tuesday morning.

We are gradually getting the school back to normal following the fitting of the new flooring. Pupils and staff will be particularly pleased to know that we have our computer suite up and running today. Vinyl flooring has still to be fitted in a few areas, including just inside the main entrance. However, we hope this will be done by the time the children return to school after Monday’s Inservice day.

We are particularly excited about our new library which is slowly beginning to take shape. There was great excitement from P1 and 2 children yesterday morning when they spotted the new pirate ship which will form the centrepiece of our sea-themed library. We hope to be open to book-bugs of all ages within the next week or so. Watch this space!

Our annual trip to the pantomime at the Pavillion Theatre in Glasgow has now been booked. We’ll be off to Glasgow to see ‘Elfie’s Magical Adventure’ on the morning of Thursday 8th December. What a fantastic start to the Christmas season! Once again, thanks to the generosity of Mr Mark Millar, this trip will be entirely free for all P1-7 pupils. Thank you for your friendship and generosity, Mark.

Primary 7 are off to Glasgow today for a workshop at Glasgow Film Theatre. The trip sounds very intriguing and I’m looking forward to hearing all about it from P7 tomorrow morning. Have a great day, boys and girls.

Our Primary 2/3’s had a fabulous time with Vicki from NLC Active School’s. The children had over an hour of fun games and activities and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. A huge thank you to Vicki for her contribution – we really appreciate it!

Thank you very much to all of our parents and carers who have generously contributed to the Christmas Fayre so far. All donations are very welcome, no matter how small and every little helps. Please ensure that all donations are handed in to the office for the attention of Mrs Cummings, who has very kindly volunteered to coordinate events for the Christmas Fayre. Again, a big thank you to all of our parent helpers who have been very busy behind the scenes. We can’t wait until Saturday the 26th of November …

Mrs Bolland 😀

A big congratulations to Primary 2/3, who won the ‘ Healthy Snack’ initiative that has been running over the past two weeks. Our Health for Life pupil voice group organised this event as they felt that children were eating snacks at interval time that were both inappropriate in size and high in sugar. As already mentioned, the reward for the winning class is to have Vicki from NLC Active School’s to take the class for fun activities as part of an extended play time. I know that the children are very excited about their reward and it is very well deserved!

The Health for Life group will be organising this event again in February and May next year so that there is plenty opportunity to try and win…..

Our Primary 2/3 pupils can’t wait until later on this morning to take part in fun activities from Vicki!

Our regular timetable of after school activities continues today as we have both the Origami and Running Club on from 3 o’ clock until 4 O’Clock.

Mrs Bolland 😀