Scottish government have confirmed that children in primary and secondary school who receive a free school meal on the basis of low income are eligible for an additional £100 winter hardship payment. We encourage parents whose child is eligible for a free school meal to apply this week so they can receive this payment – www.renfrewshire.gov.uk/freeschoolmealsandclothinggrants

Anyone who has previously applied for a free school meal for this school year (2020-21) will receive the payment directly into their bank account before Christmas. Anyone who applies between Monday 30 November and Friday 18 December will receive this payment by mid-January at the latest.

P1-P3 pupils are not automatically eligible for this payment as every child receives a free school meal regardless of their family’s circumstances. We would urge all families on low incomes with a P1-P3 child to apply for free school meals by Friday 18 December.

Nursery children of low-income parents aren’t entitled to the winter hardship payment, but are entitled to the £27 free school meal payment to cover the festive break. If you are eligible, please apply at www.renfrewshire.gov.uk/freeschoolmealsandclothinggrants

Further information on the COVID winter hardship payment (£100 per child) can be found on Scottish Government’s website.

Fr Paul has shared this week’s video for the third week of advent and explains the significance of the pink candle on the Advent Wreath as we get closer to the special celebration of Christmas.

We had such a lovely day as a school community today with lots of Christmas Spirit.

Thank you to everyone for making the effort with their fabulous Christmas Jumpers, Headbands, Bobbers, Tinsel, Glasses and Hats – we had such fun sharing these together.

We also enjoyed a special message from Santa himself at assembly – you can watch by clicking on the link below. Santa was pleased to confirm that we are all on the nice list here at St David’s and left us some sweet treats to take home and enjoy.

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Our pupils also brought home a Home Shared Learning bag with a few things to enjoy at home including some hot chocolate,  a Christmas craft and a letter to send off to Santa. We would usually enjoy activities like this at our Christmas family afternoon so we hope that this bag can bring a bit of the magic home.

Our Christmas lunch was another exciting adventure today as we headed down to the lunch hall for this first time for months. Everyone enjoyed the table service and some pupils even commented that it was the best restaurant in town!

Finally our classes all enjoyed the magic of the theatre in their own classrooms watching our Panto or Funbox Christmas Special.

Have a look at some of our photos below

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Just a reminder of some of the special events we have in store for our pupils this week.  We’re  looking  forward  to enjoying  the Christmas  Spirit  in  our  school  community.

Join RSNO and Children’s Classic Concerts for a free family Christmas show, ‘The Night Before Christmas,’ this Saturday. Kids and grown-ups can watch and sing along as Owen Gunnell makes a mad-dash attempt to organise his Christmas festivities after discovering he slept through the first 12 days of December! The story follows the CCC presenter as he scrambles to organise his celebrations and even discovers he forgot to write his letter to Santa. With a little bit of help from the RSNO musicians and the RSNO Junior Chorus, Owen endeavours to get sorted on time, and get everyone in the Christmas spirit along the way.

‘The Night Before Christmas’ will premiere live on the STV Player and the RSNO and CCC’s Facebook pages and YouTube channels on 12 December 2020 at 2pm.  It will be available to watch for 30 days.

Thank you again to Fr Paul Brady for creating another special video for our parish and school community. We have been learning about Advent and preparing for the special Christmas season in school and at our weekly virtual assembly.

In this week’s video, Fr Paul talks to us about the significance of the second candle on the Advent wreath as we join together to light this.

As we enter the special season of advent, our school chaplain, Fr Paul Brady, is helping us to celebrate our school value of Faith by guiding us through the blessing of the Advent Wreath and lighting the first candle.

This will be a big focus of our learning in R.E this week and we will use Fr Paul’s video to support us but we also wanted to share it with our wider school community as we can’t celebrate in the usual way.