St. Mary s Primary School Newsletter Cadzow Street, Hamilton, ML3 6JT Tel: 01698 282850 E-mail: gw14stmaryshamoffice@glow.sch.uk http://www.st-marys-hamilton-pri.s-lanark.sch.uk @saintmarysps January 2017 Dear Parents and Carers, Welcome to the first newsletter of 2017! I trust you all enjoyed a happy and holy Christmas and a joyous New Year. We have had an excellent start to the new year in St. Mary s. It was lovely to see all of our children return to school after the Christmas holidays eager and ready to learn. We look forward to sharing their learning activities with you and encourage all parents to continue to take an active part in the life of our school. Our school website has proven to be successful in sharing learning and events with the wider community. We are also updating our class pages and school pages weekly, with further information and photographs of what our children are learning. Our website can be viewed in different languages, when viewing the site on a computer. As you know, we tweet all updates and events for parents through our Twitter account that now has over 200 followers! To follow @saintmarysps simply click on the Twitter follow button in the top right hand corner of our website. All of our tweets are protected, therefore parents have to request to follow us. This will give parents instant information of what is happening at St. Mary s Primary School. We are only granting access to known parents, therefore, if you request to follow us, it may be unclear who you are from your Twitter name. If this is the case, please give your child a letter addressed to Mr Rimmer stating your Twitter name so that we can grant approval. Yours sincerely, Mrs. Elaine Fitzpatrick, Head Teacher St. Mary s clubs: There are many extra curricular clubs at St. Mary s that pupils at different stages are able to take part in. These will change throughout the year to ensure that all of our pupils have the opportunity to become involved. Not all clubs last throughout the year, in order to vary the experiences on offer to pupils we may offer clubs for blocks at a time. Due to adverse weather clubs may have to be cancelled. In the event of this we will contact parents to inform them. Can you please ensure that we have up to date contact details for your child to help us with this? Monday: Cross Country club Dance Club Choir will resume on 20 th Feb Tuesday: Chess club P4 lunchtime club Wednesday: Boys football club/girls football club (alternate weeks) Rainbows Recorder Thursday: Netball club P3 lunchtime club Friday: Hockey club Many thanks to all of the staff and volunteers who give up their time each week to help develop skills for life, learning and work in our children. Our Holy Father Pope Francis' prayer intentions for the month of January are... Christian Unity That all Christians may be faithful to the Lord s teaching by striving with prayer and fraternal charity to restore ecclesial communion and by collaborating to meet the challenges facing humanity.
Welcoming new pupils South Lanarkshire s primary 1 enrolment process began last week, although the process takes a lot longer than one week! At regular intervals all schools must submit their pupil numbers to SLC in order to be informed of how many classes they will have next session. Between now and June we will be looking at our class configuration and how to best accommodate all of the pupils in our care to ensure their success. Although we will endevour to inform parents of their child s class and teacher for next session before the summer holidays, this may not be possible as we need to receive confirmation from SLC on classes and staffing. Success in Sport We are always very proud of our pupils and our school and seek every opportunity to have the achievements of our pupils recognised in a number of ways. Parents received a letter last week informing them that in November, we were awarded the SportScotland Gold Award for Schools, working alongside our Sports Committee and Active School Coordinator, Mr. McManus coordinated the award application. We owe a huge thanks to all involved, a real team effort! We will be presented with the award on Tuesday 31 st January. To celebrate all of the sporting activities our children are involved in, pupils are asked to bring to school any uniforms or outfits they wear to any sporting club outwith school or to P.E. at St. Mary s. The children will change into these for the afternoon s presentation. Rabbie Burns Celebration Primary 6 and 7 didn t get long to settle back into the school routine after the Christmas holidays when they received vocal tuition on the first morning from Scottish Opera to prepare them for their performance of Tam O Shanter later on in the week! A team from Scottish Opera came to school to work with our senior pupils. They spent the morning working on an operatic production of Tam O Shanter which resulted in an amazing performance for Primary 4 and 5 to watch in the afternoon. We even made the local press! Photographs and a short video can be seen on our Twitter feed and website. A huge thank you to Scottish Opera for sharing their time and expertise with our pupils and staff. New faces At the start of the new term we welcomed Mrs Claudia Duncan to St. Mary s, a new member of teaching staff, who will be working with Rm 9a and Rm10. I am sure she will be made very welcome at St. Mary s and has already commented on the impeccable behaviour and work ethic of our pupils, encouraged by our school values each day. Pizza Pizza! In December, some of our Primary 6 pupils decorated a Christmas Postbox for Frankie and Benny s and as a reward were given a Pizza Party. The pupils visited the shop during last week and created their own pizzas, taking into consideration the necessary ingredients and how to cook their creations. As a thank you the pupils were also given a free kid s meal for a year pass to Frankie and Benny s! Safe and Sound: Can I remind parents that our car park operates a ONE WAY SYSTEM, by which cars must enter and exit via the allocated gates? Our pupils regularly cross through the carpark and will not expect a car to be travelling in the wrong direction, therefore putting themselves in danger if a driver decides to take a short cut the wrong way or is driving at high speed. Many of our parents are extremely courteous drivers and take care in the car park by driving at a slow speed, keeping their distance between cars and parking in the appropriate spaces. The pedestrian gate from Auchingramont Road, will continue to be locked after 9am and after 3pm. The safety of our pupils is our priority, therefore this ensures that no one can enter our playground unofficially, as all visitors to our school, between these hours, must report to the main entrance.
A new year reminder of our school procedures... Nut Allergies - as a matter of health and safety, could we remind all parents/carers that we are a nut free school. No child should bring any product to school which contains nuts, or may contain nut based ingredients. Fizz Free School fizzy drinks are not permitted in school. These sugary drinks have a negative effect on children s health and attention and therefore should not be brought to school. Head Lice we would ask all parents/carers to be vigilant in checking their child s head for head lice. Please check your child s hair regularly. Latecoming please note, all school pupils should be in the yard prior to the bell ringing at 9.00am each morning. The main door is not a pupil entrance, but a number of children are arriving late. All latecoming and absences are recorded and in serious cases, an attendance officer may be asked to investigate. Absences if your child is absent from school please inform the school office asap. If we have not heard from parents by 10am, our school office will contact you. Homework please continue to support your child s learning by ensuring that their homework is completed and brought into school when it is due. This especially important during Sacramental preparation. School Uniform please note training shoes are not part of our school uniform. Polo shirts should only be worn on PE days. You may wish to include joggers in the event of PE taking place on the pitch. Due to health and safety, earrings are not permitted to be worn during P.E. and should be removed. Full school uniform must be worn smartly on all non gym days. Our pupils look extremely smart in their uniform, therefore I also ask that all accessories, for example large hairbows, be worn outside of school. Parental Contacts - please keep us up to date with new phone numbers, particularly new mobile numbers. If you have a new number, please contact a member of the office staff to ensure we have accurate emergency contacts for our pupils. Inclement Weather - in the event of inclement weather, please use link on the school website and South Lanarkshire Website for up to date information. School gates can I please ask parents who bring their children into the yard in the morning, not to stand at the school gates as some children find it difficult to walk through. School Lunches pupils who pay for their lunch must ensure they have sufficient funds with them each day. If children do forget their lunch money, every effort should be made to bring it into the cook in charge the next day as these monies are recorded by our Facilities staff. School Information we would also ask that parents/carers take care to note important information regarding school events etc, provided in letters, newsletters, on our website and on Twitter. On a daily basis, we receive significant numbers of phonecalls regarding information which has already been provided. This has an impact on the smooth running of our school office. We appreciate your help and consideration in this matter. Thank you to all of our parents for your continued support in these areas. Sacramental Preparation Our Primary 3, 4, 6 and 7 classes are busy preparing for their upcoming Sacraments in February, March and May. Through lessons in class, home sessions and church practices our pupils will be fully prepared to receive their Sacraments and become fuller members of our church. Primary 3 and 4 will celebrate their Enrolment Mass on Sunday, 5 th February at 11.30am. All children receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation and Communion should attend this Mass along with their families. Pupils should wear full school uniform to the enrolment mass and Sacrament mass.
Important dates for your diary: 2 nd February 2017 P6 Confirmation Retreat 3 rd February 2017 P7 Confirmation Retreat 3 rd February 2016 P6 Library visit 5 th February 2017 Reconciliation and First Communion Enrolment Mass & Mass to celebrate Catholic Education. 6 th February 2017 Rm3 Library visit 9 th February 2017 P7 trip to Kelvingrove & People s Palace 13 th & 14 th February 2017 February weekend school closed 15 th February 2017 Staff development day SCHOOL CLOSED TO PUPILS 15 th February 2017 Parent Council meeting 17 th February 2017 P1/2 Childsmile 25 th February 2017 Sacrament of Confirmation, 11am 1 st March 2017 10am Mass for Ash Wednesday 2 nd March 2017 World Book Day 7 th & 15 th March 2017 6.30pm, Sacrament of Reconciliation You said, we listened: As part of our ongoing consultation with parents, we would like to find out your views and opinions that you, as parents, may have with regards to our ongoing improvement. Simply tear off the slip below and give it to your child to hand in to the school office. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I suggest