The pupils and staff returned after the long weekend, full of enthusiasm and looking forward to the week ahead and it was a very busy week as usual!

Tracking and Monitoring

This week we reviewed the progress of our pupils and identified pupils who need additional support to achieve. I spoke to individual teachers and we explored a wide range of barriers to learning including  specific learning difficulties and difficulty settling to learn in class. If required, individual educational plans will be put in place within the class and school to ensure that all pupils get the support they need to achieve. Maria Mulgrew (Specialist Support Teacher), Annie Smith (Senior Educational Psychologist), Kasia Meinicke (English as Additional Language  Teacher) and Joanne Faulkner (Senior Manager Pupil Support) make up the wider team that support our school to meet the needs of all our learners.

Partnership Group AGM

We held the Partnership Group AGM on Wednesday. We reviewed the constitution (a copy can be seen on the Parents Area page of the school website) and elected new office bearers. I am delighted to announce that our new Chairperson is Victoria Kerr, the Secretary is Gaynor Grant and our Treasurer is Yvonne Todd. I look forward to working closely with them. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the outgoing office bearers, Jennifer Cairney, Gayle and Dennis Tops for their unstinting support and hard work and for everything they have contributed to supporting the whole school community of St. John’s Primary. A well deserved rest for them now!

Conversations On Growing our School (COGS)

Our first COGS session of the new school year took place on Friday morning. Pupils assembled in their Houses and explored what our new school rules of Ready, Responsible and Safe look like in our school. The children’s ideas were recorded and their responses will be used to form our new promoting positive behaviour policy. Thank you to Mrs Kelly for organising our first COGS session. The results of the consultation with pupils and staff will be available at the forthcoming Parents Evening, when we will seek  the views of parents and carers on our new school rules.

Project Gambia

On Friday afternoon we welcomed representatives from Project Gambia who spoke to all the classes about the work they do at St. John’s School for the Deaf. As you will be aware we are taking part in a backpack appeal for the project. Information on when the backpacks have to be handed into us and the items they should contain, can be found on a letter in the news page of the school App. If you wish more information, please contact the school office for a leaflet about the appeal.

Quality Link Officer (QLO)

I look forward to welcoming our QLO, Anne Jessimer, to the school on Monday 1st October who will visit to discuss pupil progress and  the school improvement plan for 2018-2019 and our Standards & Quality Report for 2017-2018. There will also be an opportunity for her to visit the classrooms and chat to pupils and staff.

Football/Netball Festival 

Our football and netball teams will take part in their first festival this week. We have quite young teams but I am sure the pupils will represent the school well, showing good team spirit and sportsmanship. Thank you to  Mrs Quadrelli and Mr Hall for leading our netball and  football team.

The classes have been very busy this week:

Primary 1

The children are thoroughly enjoying learning about the different animals in the jungle as part of their Interdisciplinary topic. They are having great fun in the jungle explorers’ role play area. The children to make good progress in learning their initial sounds and are beginning to build simple words.

Primary 2/3

The children have been listening to the Chinese Zodiac story as part of their topic . In Art & Design the children made a Terracotta Army using clay. P2 have been working hard in Numeracy learning about numbers to 100 and P3 have been exploring Connectives and using these to add more detail to their writing.

Primary 4/5

The children  continue to learn about Ireland as part of their Social Studies topic. They have been learning about the Potato Famine and the impact this has had on the country from that time through to the current day. In Numeracy the children have been developing their mental agility by practising mental strategies to  add up to 10, 000. In Literacy the children have completed their first 4 week block of spelling and Mrs Quadrelli says that everyone has worked very well.

Primary 5/6/7

The pupils continue their investigation of major capital cities around the world through their Interdisciplinary topic. In Numeracy the children are studying Estimating & Rounding with a focus this week on  rounding numbers to the nearest 10, 100 and 1000. In Reading the children are developing their reading strategies through the class novels. The focus has been on Metalinguistics and Visualisation.

 

Finally, we have our Parents Evening coming up on Thursday 4th of October. Appointment times were issued on Friday. If you are unable to make your appointment, please contact the school to make alternative arrangements. I look forward to seeing you on Thursday.

Thank you for your continued support.

 

Yvonne McCart

 

 

 

 

As we enter Autumn, it has been a busy time in school. We have elected our new Primary 7 House and Vice-Captains for the forthcoming year. The elections were overseen by Mr Hall and I am sure our new representatives will do a sterling job in supporting their House.  Craignethan’s new captain is Erin  and the vice-captain is Chloe. Harrison is captain of de Vere with Brodie taking on the role of vice-captain. In Heathfield the children elected Alexis as captain and Bianca as vice- captain. Finally in Lancaster Noah is captain and Tia is vice -captain.

Thank you to all the boys and girls who completed the Head Teacher’s homework to create a design for our new House Shields and in particular a huge effort from our younger pupils. There were some super ideas and sometimes it was very difficult to pick just one! Jack (P4) and Michaela’s (P4) designs were chosen for Heathfield, Corey’s (P3) was chosen for Craignethan, De Vere’s winning design came from Lexie in P5 and Lancaster’s design came from Michael in P3 and Siena in P4. These will be incorporated on the shields and displayed on the House Wall.

We also celebrated the new school year and welcomed our new Primary 1 pupils to the school with a celebration of Mass in the church on Tuesday. It was a lovely way to ask for God’s blessings on the forthcoming school year. Thank you to Father Stephen for celebrating Mass, Mrs Macneil for the music accompaniment and the parishioners and families who managed to join us.

The classes have been very busy with everyone getting back into the swing of hard work. I visited the classes this week and had a chance to chat to some of the children about their learning. I was delighted to hear how enthusiastic they are and to see the children so focussed and engaged.

In Primary 1 the children have begun their interdisciplinary topic, ‘Down in the Jungle’, where they have been learning about the animals who live there and their habitat. In numeracy the children have been learning to read, write and count numbers to 5. In literacy the children have been working on rhyming words and syllables.

In Primary 2/3, the children are hard at work on their topic on China. They have learned a new song in Mandarin, and I was treated to a lovely rendition as the children were leaving the classroom last week. In Numeracy the whole class has been learning about place value, with P2 looking at numbers up to 100 and P3 focussing on numbers to 1000.

The children in P4/5 have a focus on Ireland for their social studies topic and have linked this to literacy, through exploring Irish folk tales. In numeracy the children have been looking at mental strategies in doubling and halving 2 and 3 digit numbers. The children have also been developing their reading skills with a focus on inference.

Primary 5/6/7 pupils have begun personal research projects on a country of their choice as part of their social studies topic. In numeracy the children have also been studying place value of whole numbers and decimals to thousandths. Their reading skills are being developed through the class novels, with the children looking at inference and metalinguistics, where they explore the meaning of words in the context of the text being read.

Although we are only in to September, our Primary 7 pupils have already begun the transition process for Holy Cross High School, with the Welcome Mass taking place on Monday evening. The children will also begin a new initiative this week called Holy Cross Online. Pupils from all primary schools in the learning community have been put into groups, with each group being named after a Scottish island. The children will study four novels throughout the year and will be set questions/tasks by P7 teachers from each school over the course of each book. Children will record their answers, opinions and thoughts on the books through a blog. This blog will be moderated by the Primary 7 teachers to ensure the content is appropriate. This is an exciting new project, which allows the pupils to develop friendships and enhance their literacy and technology skills.

Some of our afterschool clubs begin next week. Can I ask that children are picked up from the church car park and if your child signs up for a club, then they make all efforts to attend each week. If your child is unable to attend a club, we would be grateful if you could inform the school office so that we can advise the teacher/coach taking the club. Many thanks.

Finally, CM Photography are in the school this Friday for our class photographs. Children should wear full school uniform, including shirt and tie.

Thank you for reading the school blog.

 

Mrs Yvonne McCart

Head Teacher