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
