St Bartholomews

Welcome back, everyone! I hope you all had a fantastic spring break and are feeling refreshed for the summer term.

Term 4 is going to be very busy, with First Communions, the Primary 7 York trip and Sports Day only a few of the things we’ll be packing into the next couple of months. Of course, the usual long weekends and inservice day make the coming term all the busier. Please take a note of the following non-pupil days:

Monday 2nd May: Holiday
Thursday 5th May: Inservice
Friday 27th May: Holiday
Monday 30th May: Holiday

I have yet to hear anything from the local authority, but there is a possibility that the school will also be closed to pupils on Thursday 23rd June due to the European Union referendum. A full list of dates for this term will be sent out over the next few days.

Finally, I was informed over the spring break of the death of Arthur Chambers, a former janitor of St Bartholomew’s. His funeral Mass took place during the holidays. We pray for the repose of Arthur’s soul. May he rest in peace.

There were lots of smiling faces from parents and carers yesterday as they left the hall after Parents Evening… proof of the many great reports on pupils given by teachers! Well done, boys and girls!

A lot of children received a book from the Book Fayre as a reward for all their hard work. Thank you to parents and carers for supporting the Book Fayre; as usual, we will receive commission on all sales which we’ll use to purchase new books for the school library.

Father Doherty will be in St Bartholomew’s this morning to celebrate our end of term Mass. It’s been a very busy term, so this morning’s Mass will be a welcome opportunity for our school community to carve out some quiet time to thank God for all the blessings He has given St Bartholomew’s over the past few months.

Primary 3 have their class assembly this afternoon, linked to their recent First Reconciliation. We look forward to welcoming P3 family and friends to the school at 1.30pm. There will be the usual reception in the P3 classroom, including a cup of tea, after this afternoon’s assembly.

St Bartholomew’s closes at the slightly earlier time of 2.30pm today, marking the beginning of the two-week spring break. Please can I wish our whole school community – pupils, parents/carers, staff, parishioners and friends – a very relaxing and enjoyable holiday. See you on Monday 18th April !

I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the various egg creations appear on Twitter yesterday. As always, St Bartholomew’s pupils showed great imagination and it must have been a very difficult decision to choose the winning egg from each class. However, here are the winning masterpieces:

I was very entertained by another post on Twitter yesterday afternoon: the Science Club’s experiment involving a bottle of cola! If you haven’t seen this for yourself, please take the time to pop onto Twitter – it’s a great wee video! Our friend, Mark Millar OBE, spotted and retweeted it almost straight away. Mark has 72,400 followers on Twitter, so the exploding cola bottle experiment video may well go global!

Parents Evening takes place today and I look forward to seeing parents and carers during the course of the afternoon and evening. Please remember that the Book Fayre is open throughout Parents Evening, with a wide selection of books for all ages.

As mentioned in yesterday’s blog, we are holding our annual ‘Egg Decorating Competition’ today! All of the boys and girls will start decorating at 10.15am until interval time at 11am. A winner from each class will be announced and results posted tomorrrow,keep your eyes peeled….

The children simply need a boiled egg to compete and as an optional extra, decorative materials can be brought in as well. The main ingredient is imagination!

As it was Holy Week last week, we couldn’t give out our usual treat of a creme egg, however this has been remedied and ALL of our puils are now in receipt of a delicious treat! Enjoy…

Finally, the Book Fair has arrived and a big thank you to our parent helpers for being so helpful and patient to all of our pupils. The Book Fair will be here until Friday and the children will have plenty opportunity to examine a  title or two before Parent’s Evening.

Mrs Bolland 🙂

Welcome back, everyone. I hope you had a fun, relaxing Easter weekend.

Our weekly Prayer Service takes place at 8.50am this morning in the oratory.

Many of our parents and carers were absolutely blown away recently by the talent of Primary 7 in their World War II musical, ‘Archibald’s War’. It’s the turn of St Bart’s pupils and staff to be entertained today as Primary 7 take to the stage this afternoon for a special performance. They really are in for a treat!

Please remember tomorrow’s Egg-stravaganza. The children are asked to bring in a hard boiled egg, along with anything they need to decorate it. I won’t be in St Bartholomew’s tomorrow, but I’m looking forward to seeing the imaginative and whacky creations via Twitter!

St Bartholomew’s received a lovely card from Joe McDade’s daughter, Rena, yesterday thanking us for organising the recent exhibition of Joe’s work. ‘It turned out to be such an amazing afternoon’, Rena writes. ‘A bit emotionally overwhelming but happy overwhelming, all in our dad’s memory.’ Rena also said one of the highlights was meeting and sharing chats with her dad’s art friends. We’re delighted that the McDade family had such a special visit to the St Bartholomew’s and I’m also very happy to announce that the auction of Joe’s work raised £270 for school funds.

A HUGE well done to our dance group who did a great performance at St Ambrose High School last night, walking away with the second prize. Well done, team! Hopefully the rest of the school will get the chance to see your winning performance next week.

I had one very proud Primary 1 visit my office yesterday with a football trophy he’d won. I promised I’d post a wee picture on today’s blog:

With the close of school today, we enter one of the most sacred periods in the church calendar. The Mass of the Lord’s Supper takes place in churches across the world this evening, we commemorate the Lord’s passion and death at the Good Friday liturgy tomorrow, we welcome the light and joy of Christ rising from the dead at Saturday’s Easter Vigil Mass and Christians throughout the globe will gather to celebrate the Resurrection on Easter Sunday. St Bartholomew’s pupils have been learning about the Easter story in school this week; please take the opportunity to talk to your child about what they’ve been learning and, if you possibly can, attend Mass as a family over the Easter weekend.

Please can I take this opportunity to wish our whole school community – pupils, staff, parents/carers, parishioners and friends – a very blessed and happy Easter. St Bartholomew’s reopens on Tuesday morning.

It’s good to be back in St Bartholomew’s this morning after two days in headquarters.

Stations of the Cross continue this morning. Praying the Way of the Cross is a beautiful Catholic tradition, especially during Holy Week. I would encourage pupils, parents, staff and parishioners to join us in the oratory at 8.50am.

With it being Holy Week, we are holding off doing our annual ‘Egg-stravaganza’ until after the Easter weekend. All pupils are invited to bring in a hard-boiled egg, along with any materials they require to decorate it, a week today, Wednesday 30th March. There were some fantastic creations last year and I’m very much looking forward to seeing what whacky and imaginative ideas the children come up with this time round!

Finally, please note that there is no early closure tomorrow. The school day ends at the usual time of 3.00pm.

As mentioned yesterday, Stations of the Cross will be held in the Oratory all week , as it is Holy Week. Primary 5/6 pupils will be leading this as they are working towards  their Pope Francis Award this year. I am sure that our faith community will support these children at this very important time in the Church’s calendar. As always, everyone is welcome.

Primary 3/2 parents and carers  will be delighted to hear that the class assembly will take place on Friday the 1st of April at 1.30pm in the hall and thereafter in the open area outside the classroom for tea and biscuits and also a wee nosy around the class!  The children are  really looking forward to this as it has been re scheduled in the past and they are desperately keen to show off their talents. We are all anticipating a wonderful show!

Mrs Bolland 🙂

 

What a wonderful bright and sunny weekend we’ve just had – lets’s hope it stays like this all week!

Primary 4 parents and carers had a fantastic time on Friday afternon, watching a wonderful class assembly. The costumes were fabulous, the singing was exemplary and the boys and girls remembered every line and spoke out beautifully… I think the West End beckons for some of this class!

As it is Holy Week, the ‘Faith in Action’ group have organised Stations of the Cross every morning at 8.50am in the Oratory. We are very lucky to have such a beatiful space to pray and reflect at this very special time of year.

 

Mrs Bolland 🙂

Primary 1 – Cameron

Primary 1/2 – Lewis

Primary 2 – Emily

Primary 2/3 – Sarah Louise

Primary 4 – Cian

Primary 5 – Jennifer

Primary 5/6 – Jack

Primary 7 – Ava

Cool Class Cup: Primary 2