The calendar may say June however, the weather is certainly not convincing us that we are now in summer!

Despite the weather we did manage to successfully complete our sports on Friday. My thanks to Primary 7 and Miss McKendry for their wonderful organistion of this event. The children worked together in their houses supported by their House and Vice Captains. The results were being collated on Friday evening and the winning house will be the proud recipient of our Commonwealth Cup, part of the legacy of the Commonwealth Games 2014.

The second part of our Sports Day linked directly to our health and wellbeing curriculum. As a school we revisited our established vision, values and aims. I spoke to the children about my wish for the creation of a school motto. As a school we looked at some famous mottos and considered the use of another language. The children are now busy creating their entries for our school motto competition. The winning motto will be announced at our prizegiving ceremony after the end of session mass and the lucky winner will receive a Vue gift voucher. The children were very excited by this and the ideas were certainly flowing on Friday afternoon. I look forward to sharing our new school motto with you in the very near future.

Four of our senior pupils participated in a different type of sport on Friday morning. They represented the school at the swimming gala held to celebrate the 20^th Anniversary of Hamilton Water Palace. The pupils were Ethan Elliot, Claire Houston, Fraser Downie and Gillian Cassidy. I am delighted to say that the children achieved 2^nd place for the team event and Ethan secured a 1^st place for his 25m butterfly. Congratulations to all pupils and my thanks to Mrs Clark for accompanying them.

In the nursery summer has arrived! The children are busy preparing for their end of year concert. It promises to be something quite special! Despite the weather they have been working with staff to create their very own beach and busy making bags for passports for those travelling abroad.

We took delivery of the proofs from our photographer this week. I had a little peek and the pictures were beautiful. Please return orders by the 16^th June.

This week children are proudly showing their Learning Books to parents and carers. Please make time when dropping off or collecting your child this week to look at their book and share their learning. Transition Documents for pre school children will be issued tomorrow, Monday 8^th June.

 

Many thanks for reading my blog,

Mrs Hendry

Many thanks to all who attended and helped in any way to make our Summer Fayre another success on Friday evening. Despite the weather we had an excellent turnout and it was great to see so many people coming together to support our school community.

The atmosphere was fantastic. People enjoyed a wonderful display of dance from the Karen Borden School of Dance and some excellent moves from the McGowan Black Belt Academy. Almost all pupils taking part were pupils of St. Cuthbert’s.

 

I am extremely grateful to our parent helpers, in particular Mrs Mairi Claire Whitson, who enabled this all to take place. Total raised at last count was £650 and this will rise due to fund matching from employers of our parents. Fantastic result!

 

On Friday I was delighted to welcome representatives of our chosen charities to the school for our presentation of cheques. Miss Lucy Mitchell from St. Andrew’s Hospice received a cheque for £1306.30 and Mrs Kathlenn Gilgunn from SCIAF was delighted to receive £1000. This was the money raised during the Lenten Fundraising activities. In addition SCIAF received a cheque for £820. This was in response to the two earthquakes that hit Nepal. We held a one day event to raise money and the response of families and staff was fantastic. I am immensely proud of the actions of our school community in helping others.

 

On Thursday evening I was privileged to attend the St. John Ogilvie High School Junior Awards ceremony. It is wonderful to see former pupils excelling in so many areas. Well done!

 

It was a week of transition activity for our school. Primary 7 pupils spent two days at St. John Ogilvie and Hamilton Grammar becoming familiar with their new surroundings. All enjoyed the experience and are looking forward to the big move in August! Miss McLaughlin was out and about this week visiting our new pupils from other nurseries. It is very important for Miss McLaughlin to meet these pupils in their own environment as well as in our school building.

 

Last Wednesday we held our parents’ evening. We had a superb turnout, as always, and parents took full advantage of looking at the children’s hard work and speaking to staff. Many parents also took the opportunity to view the God’s Loving Plan material that will be used in the final weeks of term. The results of our recent evaluation of Star Cards were shared with parents. These are now displayed in the bubble should anyone wish to read again.

 

Finally a word of congratulations to Miss Speirs who over the May weekend was married and is now Mrs Boyd! We wish Mr and Mrs Boyd every happiness for their future together.

 

Many thanks for reading the blog,

Mrs Hendry

Head Teacher

The pupils may have been at school for three days this week but so much has been happening.
Last Saturday, 17 of our primary 4 children received their First Holy Communion. This was a very spiritual occasion and a most important step on the journey of faith for our pupils. My thanks to Father Bogan, the parishioners of St. Cuthbert’s, Mrs McCart and all school staff for making this a very memorable occasion.
On Tuesday morning we said goodbye to staff and 21 of our senior pupils as they headed for a week of adventure at Ardentinny. A wonderful time was had by all with reports of gorge walking, rock hopping and abseiling being the favourites. Many tired faces arrived back at school on Friday. Please check the blog this week for the photographs of the trip to tell the story.
We welcomed a film crew to the school on Wednesday to film our pupils and staff taking forward the 1 plus 2 language initiative. The footage will be used at the council launch later this month. I immensely proud of our pupils and staff being able to participate so well in this project. This is an example of the commitment of staff to continual improve their own skills and abilities to further develop the educational experience of our youngsters.
On Thursday the staff worked with myself reflecting on The progress that has been made on this year’s School Improvement Plan. They also undertook the evaluation of the Star Card system. Please return the parent/career evaluations of Star Cards as soon as possible.

In the nursery…. ​this month’s focus is mini beasts.

Outside area
The children have enjoyed being outside making mini beast hotels and searching for the beasts by going on bug hunts. Between the wet spells they have also been attending to their garden where the flowers are blooming and the vegetables are growing.

Numeracy
Children were making ladybird pictures following patterns and counting spots.

In Literacy we will be sharing a variety of books on our topic mini beasts. Children have been enjoying finding out facts about the insects and are now able to label parts of them . We also started up the lending library in which the children all enjoyed picking a book to take home to share with their family. Please make sure all books are returned on a Monday .

Our topic wall has been changed please feel free to have a look and see all the fabulous work from our children.

PE
Children were doing some yoga this week and acting out the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Staff consulted the children during the week about their nursery and what change if any they would like. The children seemed to like the new layout when they returned to nursery on Friday. Please feel free to look at the children’s ideas which are displayed in the foyer.

We are all looking forward to a visit from Amazonia on Wed both am and pm sessions. Parents and carets are invited to come along if you are feeling brave!

Another busy week ahead for our nursery children and we also have Primary 4 and 7 heading out on educational excursions.

Thank you for reading our blog,
Mrs Hendry

A warm welcome back to our final term of this session. I hope you all had a fantastic break and the sun has certainly helped many of our pupils grow over the two weeks.

As always this week was very busy with all classes making the most of the sunshine and taking their learning out and about.

The school newsletter was issued at the end of the week. Please check the school bags and school website to ensure you are kept up to date with all that is happening in this final busy term.

Primary 4 have been working hard preparing for their First Holy Communion celebration on Saturday 2^nd May. A letter was issued this week and a further letter confirming details will be issued next week.

Primary 7 have been organising rooms for Ardentinny and a further letter will be issued next week with final arrangements for the annual residential trip.

 

We welcomed three new pupils to our school this week. All settled extremely well and I wish them every success for their time as St. Cuthbert’s pupils.

 

Great excitement on Wednesday morning as Primary 1 headed off to Almond Valley for their educational excursion. The sun was shining and their little faces were a picture as they all boarded the bus. They returned absolutely exhausted after a fantastic and very busy day on the farm.

Primary 6 headed out on Thursday to Summerlee to further their learning about World War I. Again a super day was had by all.

My thanks to the staff who accompanied our children along with the many helpers but most of all the pupils who displayed exemplary behavior and manners on both days.

 

On a sad note, Mrs Berryman one of our grandparent helpers, sadly passed away during the Spring break. Mrs Berryman faithfully helped out in many ways over the past few years enabling our pupils to visit exciting places and develop their learning. We will remember Mrs Berryman and her family at this difficult time.

 

In the nursery the children have been outdoors checking on their newly established vegetable plot. The Flower Shop in the playroom continues to be popular for role play. Staff have been evaluating children’s progress and

this week staff will be meeting with parents to discuss progress and targets for the final term.

 

Letters will be issued on Monday about Parents’ Evening appointments. Please complete and return promptly.

We wish our 17 Primary 4 pupils well for their First Communion on Saturday and hope the sun shines!

 

Thank you for reading my blog.

Mrs Hendry

 

 

 

Our Lenten Fundraising efforts have a raised a fantastic £2306.30! This is a superb amount that everyone involved with St. Cuthbert’s should be very proud to have achieved. Many thanks to our pupils, families and staff for supporting the efforts over the past 6 weeks.

More details in the next edition of the newsletter.

 

Happy Easter!

Mrs Hendry

We started the week with 22 of our young children making their First Reconciliation in St. Cuthbert’s Church. Once again this was a wonderful celebration of faith with our children making a special step on their faith journey supported by family, school and parish. Our thanks go to Father Bogan for supporting our school and our pupils so well. Thank you also to Father Joseph and Canon O’Mahoney who joined us on Monday evening. Fathers Bogan and Joseph visited the school on Wednesday to hear confessions from pupils in primaries 4-7 in preparation for the great feast of Easter.

 

On Wednesday evening our senior dancing girls performed at Hamilton Town House Festival of Dance. Under the direction of Miss McLaughlin, our girls were fantastic! The girls have worked very hard and their efforts certainly paid off. Well done girls and many thanks to Miss McLaughlin.

 

In the classes lots of exciting learning happening as we come to the end of a very busy term.

 

Primary 1 have written recipes for the bread they made last week in our cook room. They have also been caring for their sunflower plants. Great excitement this week as they have booked their educational excursion to Almond Valley Farm for Wednesday 22^nd April. Something to look forward to after the holidays!

Primary 2 were in the cooking room on Monday making polar bear biscuits for their showcase on Tuesday. The hall was very busy on Tuesday afternoon as we welcomed primaries 1 and 6 and many family and friends to share the learning about Polar Lands from Primary 2. This topic was an example of excellent practice in developing the curriculum. Primary 2 have developed skills and knowledge across many areas and this was highlighted as they shared their learning. They spoke about their enterprise activity to raise money to sponsor two polar bears and delivered the message about caring for our world through song and word. Well done Primary 2 and Miss Prentice!

Primary 3 have been learning about fractions in maths and took their learning outside to carry out a traffic survey in Burnbank.

Primary 4 have also been in the cooking room making honey biscuits at the end of their Roman topic. They have been using the parachute in PE having great fun.

Primary 5/6 have participated in the Stations of the Cross this week, recalling the final journey of Jesus. In science, they have been learning about food chains.

In Primary 6 the theme of Holy Week continued and they have been looking at customs in Spain. They know how to say Happy Easter in Spanish – Feliz Pascua.

I was glad to see Primary 7 taking their science learning to the yard this week as they were creating mini rockets in science learning about chemical reactions. As part of their WWII topic they have been learning about the Blitz and making air raid shelters.

Friday was our final fundraising day. The Bring and Buy sale was very busy all morning and then the highlight of the week was the Talent Show in the afternoon. Many thanks to Mrs Kinnie for her excellent organisation of this event, assisted by Mrs Clark. The standard of acts was very high and the audience were fantastic. Congratulations to all our performers.

 

We are now entering Holy Week in the life of the Church. On Thursday this week we will have a special service in school to mark the events of Holy Week and learn a little more about what this means. Everyone has worked hard during the season of Lent in many ways. We will have a total for our Lenten Fundraising this week and I will update the blog before the Spring Break with this information.

 

Many thanks for reading our blog,

Mrs Hendry

There have been a variety of learning experiences across all the stages this week in St. Cuthbert’s Primary.

On Friday St. Cuthbert’s Primary School Pupil Council welcomed Julie Cummings from the Trussell Trust Food Bank to their school. As part of their Lenten fundraising efforts they collected 145 Easter Eggs for the local community.

Julie said, “We are delighted to be able to collect so many eggs. We will be able to distribute these to families in the local area. We would like to thank the children, their families and the school for their generosity.’

 

Primary 1 have been learning about the Easter Story. They also had a visit from a giant have been writing imaginative stories to help him. Little Red hen also paid a visit and helped Primary 1 to make their very own bread and butter.

Primary 4 watched the live link to the Nasa Space Station prior to the eclipse on Friday. The watched the live footage of the eclipse as it happened. Primary 4 also visited Tesco in Uddingston this week as part of their learning about being healthy. They had great fun going on fruit and vegetable hunts and very mach enjoyed the fresh pancakes for their snack!

Primary 6 participated in the annual rugby festival at Hamilton Rugby Club. In numeracy the focus has been fractions and in writing the pupils wrote a report all about the solar eclipse.

Primary 7 have been identifying 3D objects and describing their properties. As part of their World War II study they have investigated various shelters.

Primary 3 have been making the final preparations for their Sacrament of Reconciliation on Monday evening. We wish all our pupils well as the make this important step on their journey of faith.

In the nursery…

Spring has sprung and the children have been discussing what they want to find out in our new topic. Top of the list being Spring animals and plants. This week new Spring action songs were introduced and children enjoyed acting them out. A shopping list has been made up to develop our garden area and the discovery pit will be changing into a vegetable pit/garden. We look forward to trying all our grown vegetables for snack.

Some time was spent this week talking to the children about the eclipse. What it was, how it happen and the children enjoyed watching the eclipse take place from the safety of the nursery on Friday morning.

We have been talking to the children about the new lending library which we are hoping to start after the Easter Holidays – further information to follow.

 

Many thanks for reading our blog,

Mrs Hendry

 

 

 

I must start with some exciting news omitted from last week’s blog. Last Friday over 30 senior pupils from P6 and 7 participated in the Hamilton Cross Country competition. Some very tired and muddy children returned to the school but I am delighted to say that all children successfully completed the course and for the first time we had a P7 pupil, Matthew Anderson, who gained 3^rd place. Matthew will now compete in the regional finals. Congratulations to Miss McKendry, Matthew and all the children who participated. Many thanks to staff and helpers who also accompanied our pupils during the day.

 

The focus this week was clearly on science in all classes as part of National Science Week.

The chicks continued to grow and develop in Primary 7 and all children in the school visited and learned from the experience.

We were delighted to welcome Laura Thomas, an astrophysicist, to our school on Tuesday. Laura led the children in a variety of activities linked to their class learning.

Some children had the opportunity to handle a meteorite!

BMW then arrived on Wednesday with their renewable energy cars. The pupils listened attentively to the theory behind the electric cars. Many pupils also got the opportunity to sit in the cars as well. (Photos to follow this week – I promise!)

Primary 7 also visited the science labs at the secondary school. They took part in experiments within the labs and were complemented about their knowledge of science.

Many thanks to Miss McKendry, our very own scientist, who coordinated this week of exciting learning opportunities.

 

On Wednesday evening, Miss Prentice and myself were accompanied by 8 pupils to a very special mass to mark the 400^th anniversary of the martyrdom of St. John Ogilvie. It was a wonderful celebration of faith celebrated by His Lordship Bishop Toal and many priests from the associated parishes. The occasion marked the official renaming of the school to St. John Ogilvie High School. Congratulations to Mr Morrison and all associated with the school.

 

In the nursery…

 

All our new starts have started and settled in very well.

This week at group time the children have been evaluating the transport topic telling their keyworkers what they now know.

 

Snack area: Both am and pm have decided on the snack menu for next week they have chosen Toast, cereal melba toast and the old favourite cheese and pickles.

 

Outdoors the children have enjoyed painting in the puddles.

 

We are continuing to promote independence by encouraging the children to put on their own coats and shoes. This is an activity that could be encouraged at home.

To promote numeracy this week the children went on a number hunt in the big school. The children enjoyed this activity and had their eyes peeled everywhere to see how many numbers they could find.

In the Art area children have been busy making a special keepsake for a very special day coming up.

All the children had a few opportunities over the last fortnight to visit the chicks. Some of the children were brave enough to hold them and all had their own wee stories to tell about them.

 

We are now moving on to our new topic Spring/Growing and would encourage you to talk about the change of weather(hopefully) and look out for signs of Spring with your children.

 

Finally on Friday we had our Egg Eggstravaganza as part of our Lenten Fundraising programme. We collected 144 chocolate eggs which we will donate to a local food bank to enable those less fortunate than ourselves to celebrate Easter with a little chocolate treat. Many thanks to our children and families for their generosity.

 

Many thanks for reading our blog,

Mrs Hendry

The Living Egg project arrived in school on Tuesday of this week. As always, Primary 7 have responsibility for this project. By Thursday we had ten healthy chicks – five girls and five boys!

Primary 7 will be busy this week continuing to care for their new arrivals and welcoming visitors from throughout the school to see them.

This week I had the opportunity to visit all classes in the school to discuss learning with our pupils. The focus, in line with our school improvement plan, was on reading skills.

Pupils spoke confidently about their ability to skim, scan and identify important aspects of text. Some children were identifying unknown words and using context clues and prior knowledge to work out their meaning. When they checked their ‘clever guess’ in the dictionaries they were delighted with how accurate they had been. The pupils in Primary 1 loved using their mirror ball to predict the story from the title. The upper school worked collaboratively in their circles taking responsibility for their own activities. Great debate was evident in some groups as they discussed their understanding of the text read.

It was fantastic to see how we are developing skills in reading throughout the school.

The Food Technologies Room officially opened this week. Another aspect of our improvement plan, this has been led by Mrs McCart, out Principal Teacher. The Parent Council had a preview of this fabulous resource on Monday evening and were most impressed. Mrs McCart brought together all resources from the Food Bus visit, equipment sourced using Sainsbury’s and Morrison’s vouchers and money donated by fundraising from Parent Council. The staff will now have opportunity to further training to enable all pupils to have access to this area in the future.

 

On Thursday our Masterclass initiative began for pupils in primaries 5,6 and 7. Unfortunately, due to staffing two classes have had a delayed start. However, the other nine classes had a super start. Pupils thoroughly enjoyed their first session and are looking forward to further developing their knowledge and skills next week.

On Thursday evening Miss Speirs, Mrs Kinnie and myself attended the Artsnet production in Hamilton Townhouse. Eight of our senior pupils were performing this year with three having principal parts. The performance of our children, and the other schools in South Lanarkshire, was outstanding. The pupils used art, drama and music to convey very important messages about being Safe and Sound while using the internet and in particular social media. I was immensely proud of the pupils from St. Cuthbert’s who committed themselves fully to this project attending rehearsals, learning lines, developing new friendships and performing superbly well for two shows. Well done!

 

Finally, World Book Day was celebrated on Friday as part of our Lenten Fundraising programme. We had a whole array of characters from princesses to Mary Queen of Scots, Horrid Henrys to Katie Morags!

 

In the nursery this week Mrs Collins tells us about the highlight of the week.

What a way to finish our transport theme – a fabulous trip to the Transport Museum. On Thursday morning, 87 adults, children and staff left the nursery at 9.30am between two buses and arrived just after 10 at the Riverside Museum. Children and their parents all had a great time with the tall ship being a firm favourite. The children spoke about the experience enthusiastically on Friday and drew fantastic pictures . The bus journey also provided lots of fun with some great singing taking place. A great experience for everyone involved.

 

Please remember our input for parents tomorrow evening on internet safety at 6.30pm in the school hall.

 

Many thanks for reading our blog,

Mrs Hendry