Monday began with excitement and tears when we waved goodbye to our Primary 7 pupils along with Mr Rimmer, Mrs Cluckie, Mrs Phillips, Miss Graham and Miss Tierney as they began their journey to Kingswood for their residential trip.  They had an absolutely amazing week taking part in lots of exciting activities such as abseiling, ‘Leap of Faith’, archery, blind trust walk, den building, camp fire, Jacob’s ladder and of course the end of the week disco!  Parents could see their happy faces and be kept up to date with regular texts and tweets showing them how their children were getting on.  Photographs of the week will be uploaded to our website for all to see.  A huge thank you to our school staff who looked after our pupils during the week and brought them back to us safe and sound on Friday!

Not only did we wave goodbye to our Primary 7s, we also said farewell to the trout Rooms 8 and 9 have been looking after for the past month.  Under the supervision of Clyde in the Classroom staff, the trout were carefully released back into the River Clyde by our pupils on Monday morning.

Our school was very quiet on Monday as Primary 1 also left us to go on an educational outing to Summerlee Museum, Coatbridge, to enhance their topic on ‘Grandparents’.  They looked at various items from many years ago and compared how they have changed over time such as cameras, school satchels and toys.  Thank you to our parent helpers who accompanied the children on their trip.

Our 8.30am Wednesday morning service continues to be very busy each week.   We are very grateful to our parents and pupils for making that extra effort to attend the weekly service at St. Mary’s Church during Lent.

Mrs Seenan and our ECO committee delivered an assembly to inform pupils about World Earth Hour on Saturday 19th March.  Over 100 of our families signed up to take part in Earth Hour and show their commitment to taking care of our planet.  Next week our ECO committee will be focusing on changing lives around the world by giving the gift of clean water, by raising money for CAFOD in a very fun and exciting way!

We are constantly amazed at the generosity and commitment of our families, especially during Lent when we raise money for the various charities we support.  Room 9a focused their energy this week on the charity ‘Let The Children Live’, who help street children in Colombia.  Each day their bakery was a sell out thanks to parents donating delicious home baking to be sold.  George McAleenan from the charity came to talk to Room 9a and have a question and answer session with them about the work the charity does.  George will visit the school again in May to speak to all of our pupils at assembly and be presented with a cheque from money raised during Lent.

Next week our Lenten Fundraising comes to a head with Charities Week and we complete the fundraising with our Easter Coffee Morning and  Easter Bonnet Parade on Thursday.  St. Mary’s closes at 3pm on Thursday for the Easter weekend.

We would like to wish all of our families a happy and holy Easter.

God bless,

Mrs. Fitzpatrick

Exciting news – we now have 100 followers on our Twitter account!  This ‘parents only’ account allows our them to find out all about their children’s learning and immediately be kept up to date with school events.

Our Fair-trade tuckshop and raffle continued this week.  Our Fair-trade committee organised the raffle draw.  Congratulations to Lewis who became the proud owner of a Fair-trade football and to Beth who won the delicious Fair-trade hamper.  Thanks to the Fair trade committee for organising the events and to all those who supported the tuck shop and raffle.

Our Masterclass sessions continued this week, with all of our children advancing their skills in their chosen subject.  Our mini chefs made delicious tomato pasta and some of our knitting group have completed their fantastic scarves!  Our musicians are rehearsing to entertain parents at our Easter Coffee Morning.  Details of the morning will be given out this week.

Primary 2 had an amazing trip to Glasgow Science Centre this week.  All of our educational outings enhance children’s learning and allow them to take skills that they have learned in the class outside and apply them in various situations.  The Science Centre was no exception, our Primary 2 pupils had fun taking part in various workshops and activities.  Thank you to our parent volunteers who accompanied them on the trip.

We finished our week on a sporting high with our Cross Country competitors and girls 5-a-side football team.  Mr. Russell coached our Cross Country team each week with great success.  Aidan came first place in the P7 boys race and continued the winning streak with the P7 boys coming 3rd place in the group race.  P7 girls and P6 boys also won bronze in the their team races!  Congratulations to all of our runners who tried their very best and proudly represented St. Mary’s.  Thanks to Mr Russell and our volunteers for training our runners each week and accompanying them to the competition on Friday.  Our girls’ football team were also the proud winners of the Hamilton District five-a-side champions!   Thanks to Mr McManus for faithfully coaching them each week.  Photographs of all of our winners can be seen in our celebrating success photo gallery.

As I type this blog our Primary 7 pupils will be waiting impatiently for tomorrow morning to come when they will board the bus to Kingswood for a week of sporting and team building activities!  Read our tweets to find out all about their adventures.

As always, thanks for reading,

Elaine Fitzpatrick