St Bartholomews

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

Today is a non-uniform day. All pupils are asked to bring in an item of tinned food, with all donations going to the Whifflet food bank.

There was a great turnout at Parents Evening yesterday and – as always – huge smiles from lots of parents and carers as they left the hall. There must have been plenty of good reports! I’ll be encouraging the children at today’s assembly to take on board any advice they were given last night and to begin next term with a determination to do their absolute best and reach their full potential.

Please can I take this opportunity to thank all St Bartholomew’s staff for their commitment and hard work last night; I know you will have been tried at the end of the evening. However, the October holidays are now only a few hours away and a well-earned break awaits!

Many thanks to Mrs Di Cacca for running the Book Fayre. It’s always a busy place on Parents Evening, but never fails to run like clockwork in your capable hands! Thanks too to Mrs Woods for organising the raffle: we now have a healthy pot of money to cover any outlays for the Christmas Fayre.

Finally, thank you to Mr Fowler for gathering the views of parents and carers on the essential learning experiences parents feel St Bartholomew’s pupils should encounter during their seven years in the school and to Miss Duffy for promoting and providing input on Class Dojo.

There will be Pupil of the Week certificates and trophy awards as usual this morning, and this week’s raffles will also be drawn at assembly. All winners (including for the raffles) will be posted on the website later today.

Have a fantastic holiday, everyone, and see you on Monday 24th!

The children had a fantastic time taking part in yesterday’s sponsored obstacle course. You can check out Twitter for some photographs of the children making their way through the various challenges. Many thanks to Vicky, our Active Schools Co-ordinator, for organising yesterday’s event and a HUGE well done to all the boys and girls for their efforts. Please can I encourage everyone to get their sponsor money in as soon as possible, ideally by the end of the first week back after the October break. Thank you.

The children will be staying in their gym kit today for some football coaching. This input is being delivered to all classes and I’m sure the boys and girls will thoroughly enjoy the opportunity to improve their football skills.

It will be a quick turn-around in the hall after football to get things set up for Parents Evening. As you know, an interim report card was sent out a few weeks ago; we hope parents and carers found this information helpful. Tonight will give parents an opportunity to speak directly with their child’s teacher and to have a look at their work. Mr Fowler will be gathering the views of parents and carers on the essential experiences they think their child should have during their time in St Bart’s. These will be used to inform our revised curriculum programmes, so please do take the opportunity to jot down your ideas on a post-it. Miss Duffy will be providing information on Class Dojo and, as always, the Book Fayre will be open throughout the evening. Of course, a St Bart’s Parents Evening just wouldn’t be complete without a raffle! I look forward to seeing you this evening.