This week saw the beginning of Fair-trade Fortnight where each of our classes will discuss and take part in various activities, raising awareness of Fair-trade. As we are a Fair-trade school, our Easter Coffee morning at the end of term will obviously be a Fair-trade one!
On Monday, I attended a Head Teacher’s conference at Celtic Park to discuss the Government’s Pupil Equity Funding. The Pupil Equity Fund has been introduced to schools to close the attainment gap between the lowest and highest achieving pupils. Schools have received funding dependent on how many pupils are entitled to free school meals within their establishment. With our Parent Council, pupils and staff we will create an Equity Group to discuss the best use of this funding for St. Mary’s. Exciting times ahead!
Mrs Phillips continued to visit nurseries this week as part of our Early Years Transition programme. We take pupils from 17 nurseries across South Lanarkshire in Primary 1, therefore in order to make sure that we know the strengths of each child we talk to key workers and observe the pupils during play. This helps create a smooth transition for pupils from Early Years establishments to Primary School.
The whole school attended mass this week to celebrate Ash Wednesday, beautifully led by our Pope Francis Faith Award pupils. This marks the beginning of Lent for us. Parents received information on the various Lenten activities we will have as part of our charity work, culminating with our Easter Bonnet parade at the end of term.
On Wednesday evening, we were very proud to watch Michael, Owen, Justin and Eilidh represent St. Mary’s at the Hamilton Burns competition. Michael and Owen recited ‘Scots Wha Hae’, whilst Justin and Eilidh delivered ‘Tam O’Shanter’. The competition was very tough with St. Elizabeth’s Primary, Townhill Primary , Woodside Primary and Hamilton College all involved. Congratulations to Justin, who came Second place and will proceed to the next round of the Lanarkshire Burns Competition at the end of March!
A smile was on everyone’s lips on Thursday as we watched our pupils come to school dressed as their favourite book character for World Book Day 2017! A huge effort was put into creating the costumes and we are extremely grateful to our parents for their help with this. Dressing up as a book character lets children explore novels and encourages discussion of favourite books!
As always, thanks for reading,
Mrs. Elaine Fitzpatrick
