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

Some of our Primary 6 and 7 pupils had a very late night on Tuesday night, when 70 pupils and 10 adults visited the Emirates Stadium to watch the Sirens Netball Team play in the new netball Super League!  Bethan Goodwin, an S6 pupil at Holy Cross, has visited our school to talk to senior pupils and work with our netball team.  The children were keen to watch her in action and show their support.  A huge thank you to Mr McPartlane who arranged the tickets for our pupils.  A great experience!

Primary 4 – 7 this week had their first session of ‘Golden Time’. ‘Golden Time’ is part of our Promoting Positive Behaviour Policy where pupils earn time each day to choose a skill they would like to develop on a Friday.  ‘Golden Time’ choices include subjects such as percussion, mindfulness, football and curling.  This form of personalisation and choice increases pupil voice and allows them to be more involved in their own learning.  The success of Golden Time will be evaluated by pupils through our COGS meetings.

Our footballers took part in the James Nesbitt Cup on Friday and made it all the way to the finals to be played in March.  I am very proud of our footballers who worked well together as a team but praise also goes to Mr McManus who coaches our team.  Mr McManus is always very fair, taking into consideration each player’s skills, talents and attitudes, encouraging them to reach their full potential.

On Friday afternoon, we waved adieu to Mrs Campbell, who has now started her Maternity Leave.  We wish her all the best and can’t wait to meet her new bundle of joy when they arrive!

The highlight of our week was on Saturday morning when 85 of our senior pupils received the Sacrament of Confirmation in St. Mary’s Church from Bishop Toal.  I was extremely proud of each and every one of our Confirmandi who participated fully in the service, demonstrating their readiness to receive the Sacrament to become full members of the Catholic Church.  This preparation is thanks to class teachers, Mrs Cluckie and parents who have worked with the children over the last few months to ensure their understanding of the Sacrament.  We are very grateful to Bishop Toal and Fr. O’Brien, who celebrated the mass, delivering some very important messages to the congregation about the importance of our faith.  Thanks also to the staff of St. Mary’s who attended the mass to support our pupils.   The staff received some lovely comments recognising their continuous commitment and care to all our pupils. We continue to pray for the newly confirmed boys and girls, that filled with the Holy Spirit, they may continue to live their lives following the example of Jesus.

Best wishes,

Mrs. Elaine Fitzpatrick

We all enjoyed a lovely long February weekend this week when staff and pupils were off school on Monday and Tuesday.  Our pupils also enjoyed an extra day on Wednesday when staff had an inservice day.  Staff Development Days are invaluable to develop abilities and knowledge to ensure that we are delivering the best education possible for our children.  On Wednesday morning, the teaching staff of St. Mary’s worked on ‘Big Writing’.  Through professional dialogue, we shared various teaching strategies and the stage we expect pupils to be writing at in order to achieve a level.  This moderation of work is essential to ensure the consistent high expectations we have of our pupils.  In the afternoon we discussed the new Staged Intervention process that schools must adhere to in order to meet pupil needs.  In St. Mary’s, interventions are put in place as soon as we feel a child is struggling in some way in an area of the curriculum, this may be through the use of resources, a different teaching style or the use of support staff.  Through careful tracking and monitoring we can then measure the success of these interventions or if we need to progress on to the next stage by including our specialist support teacher or other partners such as our educational psychologist.  Throughout this whole process the school, pupil and parents all work in partnership to ensure the pupil finds success.

It was a short 2 day week for our pupils but they have worked hard nonetheless.  Primary 1 continue to have parents visit them in the afternoon to enhance their interdisciplinary topic of ‘Children Around the World’.  The parents have been telling them about how life was growing up in countries such as Poland, Ireland, Italy and Spain.  The children have learned so much from these parents and we are very grateful that they gave up some of their time to talk to us and bring the topic to life.

On Friday, our senior pupils took part in Burns Auditions for the ‘Hamilton District Burns Recital’ to be held in March.  The children have worked very hard to memorise and beautifully recite Tam O’ Shanter.  Unfortunately, not all pupils can represent St. Mary’s at the competition but we are extremely proud of every single child who auditioned.

Next week our Confirmandi will receive the Sacrament of Confirmation.  It will be a very special time for them.  Please keep them in your prayers.

Best wishes,

Mrs. Elaine Fitzpatrick

This week we welcomed Mrs Benson to Room 9, a Post Graduate student who is with us until Easter.  She will be mentored by Mrs Devine and I am sure that she will learn many things and develop her teaching style during her time here at St. Mary’s.  By agreeing to students working in our school we are creating future teachers for our children.  In a time where there is a national shortage of teachers, especially denominational ones, it is essential to encourage and support those learning this vocation.

Tuesday this week was ‘Safer Internet Day’, therefore throughout the week our classes have been researching the theme on how to make the internet a safer place by making sure they know how to keep themselves safe whilst surfing the ‘net.

Our Girls Football team had their first outing this week in a Hamilton schools tournament.  They played very well, started to bond as a team and look forward to many more matches in the future.

Rooms 11 and 12 had a fabulous day on Thursday when they visited Kelvingrove Museum and People’s Palace to enhance their interdisciplinary study of World War II.  The pupils had the opportunity to look at life on the Home Front, propaganda used during the war and the life of a soldier.  Our Chess Team also enjoyed an outing on Thursday to Milton Primary School where they took part in an inter schools chess tournament.  Many thanks to the parents who helped on both trips.

Our pupils and staff are looking forward to the February weekend, where they will have an extra couple of days off school, with our pupils also having Wednesday off for a Staff Development Day.

Enjoy the break!

Mrs. Elaine Fitzpatrick