St. Brendan's Primary School and Nursery

Whole class blog – Week beginning 23/01

Welcome back to our first whole school blog of 2026! We have had a busy first few weeks here in St. Brendan’s and it’s been great to see the pupils settling back into their classrooms with enthusiasm. Routines are settling in and meaningful learning is already underway. We’re excited for all the fun and learning that this term has to offer.

Our Sports Committee Swap Shop Appeal

We are launching our St. Brendan’s Sports Swap Shop and would love your support! This initiative aims to ensure that every pupil in our school has access to sports equipment and clothing, helping all children take part confidently in physical activity and do our bit to help the environment!

More than 60% of householders in the UK say they have unwanted clothes and textiles stored in their homes so by creating a safe space for people to pick up, drop off and recycle unwanted sports clothing, you can help to make sport more accessible within our school and reduce the amount of waste in landfills.

We are appealing to pupils and families to donate any unwanted, unused, or good-condition sports equipment and sportswear. Items such as trainers, football boots, sports bags, dance shoes and costumes, tracksuits, shorts, tops and equipment would be greatly appreciated.

Your donations will help promote inclusion, sustainability and equal access to sport across our school community. We will be charging a small fee of £1 for pupils and families to purchase these items; the profits made from this initiative will then be used to purchase sports equipment to use within our school and playground.

We will have a collection box located in the front foyer of the school for any donations to be dropped off.

Thank you for your continued support in helping every child enjoy being active.

Double Digits Survival Guide Group

On Thursday, our Double Digits Survival Guide group met for the first time. During the project some older children from St Brendan’s and Muirhouse will be meeting each week to play and spend time together, and to learn about how we can be the best ambassadors for our own and other children’s rights in Muirhouse. We are also working towards achieving our Hi5 Award. This week, we were learning more about young people’s growing and changing brains. We also enjoyed drawing, colouring and playing some games together – darts was very popular! We can’t wait to meet again next week.

Pupil Voice at the Parent Council Meeting

This week, we were delighted to welcome members of our Pupil Voice Groups to the Parent Council meeting, where they confidently shared updates on the work they have been doing and their plans for the year ahead.

Representatives from each committee — Eco, Rights, Sports, Reading Schools, Mini Vinnies and the Pupil Council — spoke enthusiastically about their achievements so far and the initiatives they are looking forward to developing. It was wonderful to see our pupil’s taking responsibility, showing leadership and having their voices heard.

A big thank you to all the pupils who represented their committees so well and to the teachers who lead the pupils within their committees for their continued hard work. We would also like to thank the Parent Council for their continued support. We are very proud of our pupils and the positive impact they are making within our school community.

Sacramental Meeting

We would like to thank all the parents and carers who attended the recent sacramental meeting on Tuesday the 13^th of January. Your presence and support play an important role in helping our pupils prepare for the sacraments of First Reconciliation, First Holy Communion and Confirmation.

It was a lovely opportunity to come together as a faith community, reflect on this important stage in the children’s journey and strengthen the partnership between home, school, and parish. We are grateful for your continued commitment and support as our pupils prepare for these special moments.

Our Sacramental dates are as follows:

First Reconciliation – 19^th March 6:30pm

First Holy Communion – 30^th May 11am

Confirmation – 4^th June 7pm

We would also like to invite pupils and their families to our Sacramental Enrolment Masses which are on the following dates: 

First Reconciliation and First Holy Communion – Sunday 8^th February 11am

Confirmation – 26^th April 11am

Mrs Oates takes part in a local Validated Self-evaluation of St. Aloysius’

This week Mrs Oates visited St. Aloysius’ primary school within the authority to take part in a VSE, Validated Self-Evaluation which is a collaborative process led by the local authority. It supports and challenges self-evaluation by confirming strengths and identifying areas for improvement, helping to improve outcomes for learners, communities, and stakeholders. During the VSE, Mrs Oates worked alongside staff through professional dialogue and mentoring to support improvement planning.

Celebrating our weekly successes here in St. Brendan’s

This week’s assembly was once again a fantastic celebration of our learners’ achievements. We recognised many pupils who have shown excellence as Successful Learners, Responsible Citizens, Confident Individuals and Effective Contributors. Their hard work, positive attitudes and dedication to learning truly stood out.

Well done to everyone involved!

Primary 4 Class Blog

After a well-earned Christmas break, Primary 4 pupils have returned to school full of enthusiasm and positivity. The children enjoyed sharing their holiday experiences before quickly settling back into classroom routines.

They have shown great focus, responsibility and readiness to learn and look forward to an exciting and productive term ahead. We have already had a busy two weeks back, here is an overview of what we have been up to.

Literacy

Since returning after the holidays our pupils have immersed themselves in an exciting poetry study, developing a deeper understanding of how poems are written and structured. Throughout the unit, they have been exploring the structure of poems, identified rhyming schemes and learning how to pull out the main ideas from each verse.

Inspired by our study, the children then wrote their own poems based on the adventure’s books can take us on and the wonderful world of imagination they open up. The creativity, effort and enthusiasm shown were fantastic, with pupils using thoughtful language and imaginative ideas to bring their poems to life.

I am incredibly proud of the work produced during this unit. There are some very talented young poets in our class and it has been a joy to see their confidence and creativity grow through poetry. We look forward to analysing Scottish poems next week as part of our mini topic on Scotland and in preparation for Burns Day.

Numeracy

Our pupils have been working extremely hard to deepen their understanding of multiplication and division as we come to the end of this learning unit. They have shown great determination when solving problems, explaining their thinking and applying different strategies with confidence.

Next, we will be moving on to our new topic of money, which we are all very excited about. This unit will allow pupils to explore real-life problems, helping them see how maths is used in everyday situations and develop important practical skills.

Alongside our number work, pupils have also been developing their understanding of symmetry in non-number maths. They have enjoyed identifying lines of symmetry and creating symmetrical patterns, showing strong visual and problem-solving skills.

Science

As part of our science topic pupils have been developing an understanding of electricity, explaining it as the flow of electrons in a complete circuit using appropriate scientific vocabulary. They accurately drew circuit diagrams, built and tested simple circuits, identified and fixed faults and classified materials as conductors or insulators. Through a fair-testing investigation, pupils showed they could change one variable at a time, demonstrating good practical skills and an understanding of reliable scientific testing.

IDL and Showcasing our Digital Skills

To begin term 3, our pupils have begun an exciting short topic on Scotland, where they are learning about Scottish wildlife and exploring how food chains work. In the Digi Den, pupils worked hard to create eye-catching infographics about a Scottish animal of their choice, combining research with creativity.

Alongside this, pupils have continued to develop their digital skills by confidently accessing Teams and Glow. They have been learning how to copy and save files correctly, as well as editing and designing PowerPoints to produce impressive, high-quality pieces of work that showcase both their learning and creativity.

Pupils have also been developing a clear understanding of the importance of reliable research and learning how to distinguish between fact and opinion. By using a range of digital tools, they explored different sources of information and discussed how to identify whether a source is reliable or unreliable. This work has helped pupils become more critical and confident researchers, strengthening their digital literacy skills.

Pupils used coding to demonstrate their understanding of food chains by creating their own programmes. Through this activity, they showed awareness of how plants and animals are linked and how energy moves through a food chain. Coding allowed pupils to combine science knowledge with digital skills, resulting in creative and engaging programmes that showcased their learning.

The class have had a fun-filled, jam-packed beginning to Term Three, with things only looking to get busier as we head towards our preparations for First Holy Communion. We are excited to see what the next few weeks have instore for us.