St. Brendan's Primary School and Nursery

St Brendan’s Weekly News

Welcome back to our Weekly Blog with our exciting news and learning experiences from our pupils.

Take a look at the exciting learning experiences our pupils have been involved in this week!

Spotlight Story of the Week – World Book Week

Listen to our ‘Spotlight story of the week’ with our news team all about World Book Week with 2 of our Reading champions and teachers, Mrs Shaw and Mrs Kennedy.

This week we have had so much fun celebrating ‘World Book Day’ which was a fantastic celebration of reading, imagination, and creativity! Our pupils have been diving into the world of books through a variety of exciting activities. From dressing up as their favourite characters to participating in storytelling sessions, the excitement has been contagious. Pupils have worked together with other classrooms on their level to transform the area outside their classrooms, stay tuned next week to find out the winner!

Pupils have also enjoyed sharing their favourite books, creating their own characters and listened to audio books from the North Lanarkshire online library.

You can sign up for the online library here https://culturenl.co.uk/elibrary/joinonline/

These activities not only promote a love of reading but also inspire young minds to explore new worlds through the magic of books. It’s been wonderful to see the joy and enthusiasm in every classroom!

Our Spotlight class of the week P5

Our spotlight class this week is Primary 5 with Miss Waldron.

P5 have had fun this week! We have been very busy preparing our world book day display and have finalised our PE block of badminton with a tournament to find our class champion. After some very close games and fantastic rallies, Jude was the winner.

We have also been learning lots about money in maths. We have been looking into how to keep our money safe and making careful choices as to which payment methods we use, as well as looking at different coin values and using supermarket catalogues to spend our budget.

Primary 5 are leading our March ‘First Friday Mass’ too this week so we have been exploring the season of Lent to help us prepare our readings and prayers.

Skills Academies – Critical Thinking

Our Skills Academies were in full swing yesterday, with a special focus on developing critical thinking skills! Pupils engaged in activities that challenge them to analyse information, solve problems creatively, and make thoughtful decisions.

-From making electrical circuits in our community academy

-looking critically at fake news and reliable sources in life skills

-solving coding errors and the steps taken to edit codes within design and manufacture

-editing stories and creating characters linking in with world book day in creativity

-solving conversion problems as well as unjumbling a recipe to make delicious cookies and cupcakes in food technology

These experiences not only enhance their academic abilities but also prepare them for real-world situations. It’s incredible to see our pupils growing into confident, independent thinkers!

News from our Nursery

This week the boys and girls in our nursey have been busy looking at shape, number and letters through games, collage, threading and writing materials. The pupils have also received SHANARI star awards for settling well, toilet training and being respectful to our friends.

P7 Fundraising

Our P7 pupils have been showcasing their entrepreneurial spirit with a fantastic fundraising event! They’ve been busy creating and selling beautiful jewellery and crafts, organizing a fun “Guess the Sweets in the Jar” challenge, and preparing delicious mix-up sweet bags. To add to the excitement, there’s also a prize raffle with some amazing rewards up for grabs! It’s been wonderful to see their creativity, teamwork, and enthusiasm in action, all while raising funds for their P7 residential trip. Well done, P7—you’ve made us proud, and we can’t wait to see how much you manage to raise!

Golden Times Club – Digital

Last Friday, our Digital Golden Time club had an exciting surprise. One of our P7 children has been working with 3D modelling software, TinkerCAD, to design his own battlebot at home. He was able to 3D print his design and brought it in to show it to the boys and girls in our club. Everyone was very impressed with his design which, with the help of a Sphero Bolt coding robot, could travel around the Digi Den. He then showed everyone how to use TinkerCAD themselves and we had a great afternoon building our own 3D models afterwards. Well done to this budding engineer!

Stay Tuned – Upcoming news

We hope you have enjoyed this week’s

Weekly Blog and the snapshot of our learning experiences from the past week.

Stay tuned for our highlights next week.

St Brendan’s Weekly News

We are excited to share with you our new weekly blog. Each Friday we will post exciting news and learning experiences from our pupils.

Take a look at the exciting learning experiences our pupils have been involved in this week and the upcoming experiences we have planned next week!

Spotlight Story of the Week – Dance Competition

Yesterday Thursday 28^th our talented dancers ‘The Barnyard Boppers’ hit the stage for an electrifying dance competition! After countless hours of practice, they mastered every step, spin, and flip with precision and passion. Their hard work and dedication shone through each move, capturing the spirit and energy of country rhythms, their chosen theme.

We are looking forward to the excitement of the next round as they once again will dance their hearts out and show off their incredible skills. Yeehaw!

Listen to our first ‘Spotlight story of the week’ with our news team and 2 of our talented dancers from the squad!

Our Spotlight class of the week P4

Our spotlight class this week is Primary 4 with Mrs McKendrick!

This week, our spotlight shines on a super class diving deep into their new novels. They have embraced a variety of tasks, such as, inference, comprehension and identifying main points. Some super discussions took place regarding relevant and current issues. The Bees group engaged in a debate regarding animals performing in the circus, pupils created some very strong arguments and used a range of persuasive language to argue their point. The caterpillars group explored non-fiction texts to deepen their knowledge about the country of Spain, using a digital text to identify main points to create a country fact file in links with a chapter from their novel. The ladybirds group explored the topic of gender equality through their book ‘It’s not fair’, the pupils discussed the importance of everyone being treated equally no matter your gender or interests.

Pupils also began their new topic of ‘Money’ within maths. Pupils used prior knowledge to create bright posters showcasing all they know. We are excited to dive deeper into this topic in the upcoming weeks!

Meanwhile, in IDL, lessons have come to life as they journey back to Ancient Rome. They’re discovering the fascinating world of Julius Caesar, exploring his influential role in invasions and the impact on occupied countries. Pupils enjoyed their trip to the Digi Den, using search engines and PowerPoint to create fact files all about his life.

Well done to this enthusiastic class for their hard work and curiosity across all subjects! Keep up the amazing effort!

Glee

We are so proud of our Glee Team ‘Voyaging Voices’ who performed recently at Hamilton Town Hall. The pupils worked hard to prepare for the first heat of the competition alongside their teachers Miss McShane and Miss Mitchell who dedicated their time during Golden Time and after school to prepare the children. The Glee challenge congratulated our team on “another superb performance” and stated that “there was so much energy and creativity in the performance along with some truly beautiful vocals.”

We would like to give a huge shout out to the winning Glee choir ‘Craigdhu Primary School’ as well as ‘St Marks Primary School’ who won the Espirit de Glee award. Congratulations and we wish you all the best in the next round!

Our glee team have begun preparations for the next heat of the competition as we patiently await the news of the choir who will make it through to the regional final on the 13^th of May.

Care Home – Primary 6 Visit

Primary 6 had a heart-warming visit to our local care home on Tuesday, bringing smiles and laughter as they played board games with the residents. It was a wonderful afternoon filled with fun, friendly competition, and meaningful conversations, making special memories across generations. A day well spent building friendships and sharing joy! We look forward to our next visit!

High School Induction Visit for Primary 6

Primary 6 took an exciting first step into their future with their induction visit to the high school! Filled with curiosity and enthusiasm, they explored new classrooms, met some of their future teachers, and got a taste of what’s to come. It was an inspiring day of learning, meeting peers from other schools. Some pupils were asked how they felt from their visit, some of their responses included:

Emma stated “It was quite a big change because the school was a lot bigger and having to move about classes was a change because we didn’t stay in the same class. We got to do RE, PE and Spanish. My favourite thing was PE because we got to play a game of dodgeball with people from other schools.”

Matthew explained that “he enjoyed exploring PE he got to see the trampolines and big gym halls and got to go to the gym which was cool. My favourite thing about my visit was Spanish we got to learn a variety of things about the Spanish culture”

Cosy book club – Primary 1 and 2

This week seen the launch of our new cosy after-school book club where stories come to life for pupils in Primary 1 and 2! Pupils had the chance to relax with friends to explore books, discover new adventures between the pages and engage in a range of tasks.

Nursery

This week in nursery the children have been exploring and experimenting with their writing skills through making friendships with their peers. They have had opportunities to draw and write about their friendships and what they feel about their friends.

Stay Tuned – Upcoming news

We hope you have enjoyed our first Weekly Blog and the snapshot of our learning experiences from the past week.

Stay tuned for our highlights next week.

We are delighted to now be able to share the report on the recent HMI inspection of both our school and nursery.

North Lanarkshire Council’s press release on the result can be accessed here:

‘St Brendan’s Primary School Celebrates a Glowing Report‘

Here you can read a summary of the key messages from our reports. The following areas were recognised as strengths of the school.

We are also delighted to have been specially recognised for our work around digital learning and teaching as ‘Practice Worth Sharing More Widely’.

To access the detailed summary of findings for St Brendan’s Primary School, click here.

To access the detailed summary of findings for St Brendan’s Nursery, click here.