St Bartholomews

Our boys and girls were a credit to their families and the school on Tuesday as they walked in the beautiful sunshine to celebrate mass at St Bartholomew’s Church for All Saints feast day. Their behaviour was exempliary at all times and the children received a number of compliments as a result. A big thank you to our parent helpers for escorting the children. We appreciate your help!

It was great to see the After School Running club members out and about enjoying the lovely outdoor weather that we are experiencing at the moment. Mrs McLean tells me that the children are making good progress and I certainly think that fitness levels will undoubtably increase. Keep up the good work…

Remember that we have both the Art and Netball after school clubs on today. I know that the children enjoy extra curricular activities very much and we are  lucky to have committed and energetic staff to facilitate this. Thank you to all of our staff who give up their own time to organise these clubs.

Our  ‘bring a healthy snack to school ‘ challenge is working well at the moment and I  checked in with a number of classes to see how things were going. I am glad to report that there has been a good uptake from each class and would encourage you to maintain this. The winning classs will receive an extended play time with our active schools coordinator, Vicki.

Mrs Bolland 🙂

Today is All Saints Day and is a Holiday of Obligation. All parents, carers and friends of the school are most welcome to join us for Mass in St Bartholomew’s Church at 10.00am.

Our Primary 6 pupils will be formally enrolled in the Pope Francis Faith Award during this morning’s Mass. The Pope Francis Faith Award is designed to help children show “signs of love” in their daily lives, inviting them to use the Gifts of the Holy Spirit to make a difference in their home, school and parish. The short ceremony during today’s Mass is an opportunity for our school community to pray for our Primary 6 pupils and to ‘send them out’ on their various ‘missions’.

“How beautiful it would be if each of you, every evening, could say: “Today at school, at home, at work, guided by God, I showed a sign of love towards one of my friends, my parents, an older person!”  
(Pope Francis, addressing young people, April 2013)

Tomorrow, 1st November, is All Saints Day and is a Holiday of Obligation. Our school community will join parishioners for Mass in St Bartholomew’s Church at 10.00am. All parents, carers and friends of the school are very welcome to join us.

During tomorrow’s Mass, there will be a short enrolment ceremony for our Primary 6 pupils who are participating in this year’s Pope Francis Faith Award.

The fitting of new flooring continues this week and will include the school office. Please bear this in mind if you are looking for Mrs Clare later in the week… she may not be in her usual location!

As I have mentioned several times in my blog, we have invested a considerable amount of money in revamping our library, including purchasing some exciting new pieces of furniture. Now that the new floor is down and new blinds fitted, we are in need of a team of volunteers to help assemble the new library furniture, including the pirate ship which will form the centrepiece of the new space. Are you a dab hand with a screwdriver? Have you built flat-pack furniture before? Do you fancy a day working alongside other parents and friends of the school? If so, ST BART’S needs you! If you can help, please contact the school office and we’ll co-ordinate the rest. Thank you.

Finally, the Parent Council survey on the school grounds has been kept open for another few weeks. Please take a few moments to let us know your thoughts by clicking on the link below:
Parent Council survey

Primary 1 – Lucy

Primary 2- Bridget

Primary 2/3 – Nathan

Primary 3 – Sophie

Primary 4 –

Primary 5 – Katie

Primary 6 – Ally

Primary 7 – Melissa

Winning House: Monklands

Cool Class Cup:

The boys and girls had a fantastic time at the Halloween disco last night and there were some phenomenal costumes… Check out Twitter to see them for yourself. A MASSIVE thank you to the amazing team of parent helpers who organised and ran last night’s event. Things ran like clockwork and your hard work resulted in the children having a SPOOKtacular time! Thanks again!

Primary 4 are off to the Science Centre today. Have a great day, boys and girls!

I received a nice surprise via email earlier this week from another St Bartholomew’s Primary, way down in Bolton. A teacher in the school contacted various St Bartholomew’s Primaries across the United Kingdom and suggested a clever way of the schools connecting with each other. The idea is for the seven year groups from each school to write and send a postcard to the other schools and then they’ll receive seven postcards in return. Watch this space to find out how things unfold!

Great progress is being made on the fitting of our new flooring. All classrooms have their new carpet and the new vinyl is as far down as Primary 2/3. Two of the offices will be carpeted today and the library and staffroom will be fitted with new flooring over the weekend.

St Bartholomew’s school community and, indeed, the whole of Townhead are deeply saddened by the death of Sean McKenna, a former pupil of the school. Our thoughts and prayers are with Sean’s family and friends at this very sad and difficult time.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace.

Sean McKenna, Rest In Peace

Our boys and girls are very much looking forward to the Halloween disco this evening,Primary 1 to 3’s celebrations start at 6pm until 7pm. Primary 4 to 7’s start at 7.15pm until 8.15pm. As always, a DJ is booked, the hall is decorated with lots of ‘spooky’ characters and there are plenty of snacks and drinks for everyone. Again, a big thank you to all of our parent helpers for coordinating all of this.

Primary 4 have an extra special treat tomorrow as they are on an excursion to the Science Centre where they will take part in workshops and have the opportunity to experience all of the wonderful learning opportunities in the centre itself. I am looking forward to finding out how they got on…

Our catering department are hosting an event on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday next week. This is to help raise 25,00 meals during World Food Week this year to help feed kids in Kenya. Children are encouraged to take part and  the menu has a very international feel and is a bit of a departure from the usual fayre. We would appreciate your support with this worthwhile cause.

The ‘Health for Life’ group are also organising an event during World Food Week by introducing a healthy snack chart in each class. Pupils are encouraged to bring in a healthy snack such as fruit, yogurts, cereal bars and dried fruits instead of unhealthy alternatives that contain high sugar levels. We would encourage you to support this promotion as it will run for 2 weeks from the 31st of October. The class with the most points on their chart will win a prize of an activity session with Vicki, our Active School’s coordinator. Thank you in advance for your support!

Mrs Bolland 🙂

Yesterday our pupils were outside in the sunshine, walking around the playground a number of times in order to keep fit and active.These efforts will contribute towards the ‘Walking Ben Nevis challenge’ and consequential Gold award from Sport Scotland.A big thank you to Vicki from NLC Active School’s for her contribution and support with this initiative.As you can see below, the children had a great time, well done boys and girls!

On a completely different note… Hallowe’en disco tickets are available from the school office, priced at £1.50.This takes place on Thursday and I know that our boys and girls are very excited about dressing up and giving us all a fright! We are looking forward to joining in on all the fun.Many thanks again to our parent helpers for organising this, we couldn’t do it without your help.

Unfortunately we were presented with bad news this morning- there was a number of graffiti on our outside walls.This is very disappointing and disheartening as we all take great pride in our school and so much time and effort has been put in to ensuring that we have a high quality learning environment for all of our pupils. Mr Young very quickly arranged for the painters to come in and cover up this eye sore. Could we please ask that everyone in our school community is vigilant and ensures that unwelcome behaviour is quickly eradicated .Don’t hesitate to phone the Police as this type of behaviour can quickly escalate.

Mrs Bolland 😀

Primary 6 and 7 thoroughly enjoyed their input from Euan McArthur from the Apostleship of the Sea yesterday. The children found out lots of information about the charity and reflected on how the organisation’s work relates to the Year of Mercy. Euan was extremely impressed with the children’s behaviour, manners, listening and eagerness to learn and also commented on the fantastic questions the boys and girls asked. The Apostleship of the Sea will be St Bartholomew’s Advent charity this year and Euan will be back in the school on St Andrew’s Day to launch this. Here’s a photograph taken at the end of yesterday’s visit:
New flooring has been fitted in almost all of the corridors and has transformed the interior of the building, particularly in the upper school where there were still the original 1950’s tiles. New carpets will be fitted in classrooms throughout this week. Primary 4 were the first to receive their makeover yesterday and you can see from the photograph just how delighted the boys and girls are!

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Welcome back, everyone! I hope you had a great October break.
We welcome Euan McArthur from the Apostleship of the Sea to St Bartholomew’s this morning. The Apostleship of the Sea – perhaps unfamiliar to many of you – is a Catholic charity supporting sailors and seafarers worldwide. The organisation provides practical and pastoral care to all seafarers, regardless of nationality, belief or race. Euan will be working with our Primary 6 and Primary 7 pupils today, providing the children with information on the charity and helping them reflect on the Year of Mercy. A very warm welcome to St Bartholomew’s, Euan; we hope you feel very much at home.

Staying on the theme of charity, a HUGE thank you to everyone who donated a tin of food on the last day of term as part of our non-uniform day. Here’s a photograph of pupils from the Faith in Action group with just some of the items that were donated for the Helping Hands Soup Kitchen in Whifflet.
Contractors have been busy over the holidays laying new flooring in the corridors. As usual, I’m writing today’s blog before I actually arrive at school, but I’m very excited about seeing the transformation when I walk into St Bart’s this morning. Keep an eye on Twitter today and on tomorrow’s blog for photographs of the new flooring.

Finally, please remember to get any remaining sponsor money in by the end of this week. Thank you.

Primary 1 – Lilly

Primary 2 – Jada

Primary 2/3 – Aimee

Primary 3 – Molly

Primary 4 – Rhys

Primary 5 – Aiden

Primary 6 – Gabrielle

Primary 6/7 – Lucy

Cool Class Cup: Primary 1 & Primary 2

Winning House: Monklands

Main Raffle Prize Winner : Harrison