St Bartholomews

Please can I extend a final invitation to this Sunday’s annual education Mass in St Bartholomew’s Church. As usual, our pupils will lead the music and I will be giving the Head Teacher’s address. The Faith section of our website says:

‘Catholic education is a great deal more than schooling. It is a lifelong process of human growth and development which begins in the home, continues in the school and matures through involvement with the Christian community in the parish. These three dimensions of home, school and parish must work together in St Bartholomew’s if the Catholic education we offer is to truly attain its goal of contributing to the formation of happy, balanced, loving individuals in the image and likeness of Christ.’

This Sunday’s education Mass offers a wonderful opportunity for the three dimensions of home, school and parish to come together to celebrate the gift of Catholic education. I would strongly encourage all of our pupils and families to make a special effort to join us on Sunday morning at 11.00am.

See you on Sunday!

Mr Young 🙂

On Tuesday evening, I had the opportunity to share some important news with the Parent Council. The Children and Young People (Scotland) Act now requires local authorities to offer eligible families of two-year-old children up to 600 hours of free early learning and childcare. After many months of planning by North Lanarkshire Council, St Bartholomew’s will soon become one of the nurseries offering provision for two-year-olds and this will involve a purpose-built extension being added to our existing nursery. The unit is currently being built off-site and will be craned into place in the coming months. Further information, including details of those children who may be eligible for a place, can be found at

http://www.northlanarkshire.gov.uk/childcare

Primary 6 and 7 are now only a week away from receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation. Please continue to remember the children in your prayers.

Finally, please remember that this coming Sunday, 31st January, is Education Sunday. It would be wonderful to see a packed church for the 11.00am Mass in St Bartholomew’s Church, so please join us for this annual celebration if you possibly can.

Some of you may have noticed a new face at Breakfast Club? We are very lucky to have Vicki from Active School joining us on a Wednesday morning to encourage children to exercise. An online video called ‘Jump Start Johnny’ is shown on the ‘big screen’, where all the children can follow his instructions while dancing and exercising to the music. It’s brilliant fun and I’m pretty sure I’ve noticed our dinner ladies dancing along to the music! The nursery staff were so impressed with it that they now use it for ‘physical time’ in the nursery and the children always look forward to it.

Talking about music… We have our annual ‘Valentine Disco’ next Thursday in the school. Tickets are now available from the school office and details are posted below on a photograph of one of our tickets.

Mrs Bolland 🙂

Our boys and girls were a credit to themselves, their parents and the school yesterday for their appearance and lovely manners for the whole school photograph. They were super smart and smiling the whole time! We are all very much looking forward to the end result and can’t wait to see the final photograph. We will keep you up to date..

Our Parent Council have a meeting tonight at 6pm in the staffroom to discuss school business and any new events that are up and coming in St Bartholomew’s.New parents to our school are welcome. We will keep you informed with the outcome of this meeting.

I encountered a very pleased young lady in Primary 1/2 yesterday who had a beautiful shiny trophy for her hard work and talent at a dancing competition – well done Ellie McLean. St Bartholomew’s are very proud of you.

Mrs Bolland 🙂

John Wilson photographers will be in St Bartholomew’s today to take our annual whole-school photograph. As was the case last year, the photograph will be created using some technical wizardry: each pupil and adult will have an individual photograph taken and these will be put together back in the studio using a computer to create the final photograph. Clever stuff, indeed!

Education Sunday falls this coming Sunday, 31st January, and will mark the start of Catholic Education Week. As always, St Bartholomew’s Primary will provide the music at the morning Mass in St Bartholomew’s Church and I will give the usual Head Teacher’s address. Letters have already been distributed to P4-7 pupils inviting them to be part of the choir. I would encourage as many pupils and families as possible to make a special effort to attend the Education Sunday Mass, when our school and parish communities will come together to give thanks for Catholic education and the work of St Bartholomew’s in particular. Mass begins at 11.00am.

Our Primary 6 and 7 pupils will receive the Sacrament of Confirmation a week on Thursday, 4th February. Please remember the boys and girls in your prayers over the coming days.

Finally, with it being Rabbie Burns Day, I thought I’d share some wise words from our national poet:

Primary 1 – Emily

Primary 1/2 – Nathan

Primary 2 – Sophie

Primary 2/3 – Logan

Primary 4 – Harvey Jo

Primary 5 – Amy

Primary 5/6 – Jade

Primary 7 – Kai

Winning House: Lochend

Cool Class Cup: Primary 7

Friday already! With it being the Year of Mercy, we will be continuing to reflect on the story of the Lost Son from the Gospel of St Luke at this week’s whole school assembly. Of course, we’ll have our usual certificates and trophies and names of winners will be posted on the website later in the morning.

Have a great weekend, everyone, and don’t forget about our whole-school photograph on Monday. White shirt, tie and bright, cheesy smiles, please!

St Bartholomew’s FC played a great match last night. Despite not being the winning side, they displayed fantastic team work and scored four cracking goals. There were also some phenomenal saves from our goal-keeper, Kai. Well done, St Bart’s!

A slip went home with all pupils yesterday reminding parents/carers about our whole-school photograph this coming Monday. This has become an annual St Bartholomew’s tradition in recent years and it’s always great to see our whole school community, young and not-so-young, smiling out from the wall!

Finally, a wee reminder to check out our class pages on a regular basis. There’s always something exciting going on in St Bart’s and it’s a great way to stay bang up-to-date with learning across the school.

It’s good to be back in St Bart’s this morning and I’m looking forward to catching up on all the boys and girls’ news.

I heard that the first day of the new cashless system ran like clockwork yesterday. This hasn’t been the case in every school, so well done to St Bart’s pupils and staff for making day one such a success.

St Bartholomew’s FC have their first match of 2016 after school today. The team will be heading down to St Ambrose for the fixture and I know they’ll do themselves and the school proud, as always. Mr McGinty has been coaching the team in Mr Fowler’s absence and he’ll be on the sidelines today to provide coaching and encouragement during the match. Of course, the team will have an extra burst of confidence and pride this afternoon as they don their brand new football strips. Keep an eye on Twitter and tomorrow’s blog for photographs of the smart new kit. Good luck, team!

Mr Young 🙂

Great news! Our ‘cashless’ system will be starting today. Technical services were in yesterday to ensure that the computer system is fully functioning and ready to go. All of our pupils will receive their own card with a photograph on it and the cards will stay in a colour coded box in classrooms. The plan is that pupils will put money on their card at the beginning of the week so that it saves them having the responsibility of looking after money on a daily basis. Please be advised that Primary 1 -3 do not need money for lunch as this is already paid for by the authority.

The cards will also be used to pay for snack at interval time, therefor, all pupils from primary 1- 7 will need money on their cards to pay for this.

It was also an exciting day for our netball team as they had their first game of the season. St Bartholomew’s netball team are playing in a local league and will be featuring in a number of games over the coming months. We wish them the best of luck and hope they go the distance and appear in the league finals! We will certainly keep you posted.

Mrs Bolland 🙂