St Elizabeth’s Primary and Nursery School

Head Teacher, Miss Christine MacPheeWilliam Drive, Hamilton, ML3 7RQ, 01698 285080

Learn Together, Laugh Together, Be the Best You Can!23rd August 2016

Our school values and our motto are detailed at the top of our newsletter. Our values are

displayed throughout our school and are a constant reminder of

what we hold dear to us.

Our vision is ... in St Elizabeth’s we strive to excel in all that we do through working hard and having

respectful relationships based on Gospel values in a safe, happy and nurturing environment embracing a love for lifelong learning.

Our classes for this year areP1 Mrs LeamyP1/2 Miss LynchP2/3 Miss WatersP3 Mrs SullivanP4 Mr SwailP5 Mrs McVey and Mrs McGuireP5/6 Mrs McRoberts and Mrs IlesP6 Mrs McCaig and Mrs Iles (Mon)P7 Mrs Campbell and Mrs Iles (Tues)Mrs McGuire CCC TeacherMrs Emmett Acting DHTMrs Campbell Acting PT

Welcome back to school and to our first newsletter! Attached to this newsletter is a Calendar of Events for the coming year. We look forward to another successful year in our school and to a wide range of excellent learning opportunities for all of our children. As always, thank you so much for your continued support of our school and nursery.

We have a school and nursery improvement plan that details our focuses for the coming year.

The key focuses for our school are -*Sharing and building our staff expertise within our school and beyond*Continuing to build opportunities for further parental involvement and family learning*Building on our approaches to literacy and numeracy as directed by the Scottish Government

The key focuses for our nursery are –*Building on our opportunities for parental involvement*Building on our approaches to early literacy skillsWe will also be looking at the ways boys and girls learn and different learning styles.

Enjoyment

Faith

Kindness Love

Persevere

Respect

*** Lots of info on our school website ***

https:blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/sl/stelizabethsprimary/

Mrs Sweeney, our Depute Head has taken up the post of Acting Head Teacher of St Mary’s Primary in Larkhall and whilst we miss her from our school we wish her all the best as she settles in to her new role.

Our school has 254 pupils this year. We have had 32 P1’s joining us.

Our school has been invited to take part in a pilot project of the Literacy Planet program. The pilot project will run from the start of the new term to the October week.

Literacy Planet has a structured learning journey that takes your child through sequenced, comprehensive, quality literacy content.

Your child will receive immediate feedback about their learning at the completion of every exercise. Within each exercise, the learner will be informed if their response is correct or incorrect and they will be shown correct answers. They will receive a score, virtual credits and a ‘trophy’ that equates to gold, silver or bronze level mastery.

All pupils can access this program both in school and at home through Glow and the Literacy Planet app can also be downloaded onto tablets and ipads. All pupils will receive a demonstration of the program at school and will then be encouraged to use it during their ICT time and at home. The ICT suite will also be timetabled during lunch time in order to allow pupils to use the program.

Instructions for accessing this are enclosed at the back of this newsletter and also on our website.

*** School Open Night***

14th Sept, 6-7pm. Come along, meet your child’s teacher, have a look around the classrooms and

our school and see samples of work your child has been doing. We look forward to seeing you.

Jubilee Mass for Fr O’Farrell

On Thurs 25th Aug we will be going to Mass at 9.45am with Our Lady and St Anne’s School to celebrate Father’s 25th Anniversary. Everyone welcome to come along and if you can help us by being a parent helper for this please let our school office know.

Fairtrade Eco Award

Mrs Emmett leads our school in doing fantastic work around Fairtrade. She has submitted evidence for us to receive yet another award...this will be our 7th! We will hear confirmation of our success in September. Thank you to all children, families and staff for supporting our Fairtrade efforts. Our Eco Club begins again on Mon 29th Aug, 3-4pm. Everyone welcome to come along and join in the fun for a Harvest Party using School Garden Produce.

Recycling BinWe have a Rag Bag Recycling Bin at the far end of our car park. Any donations of clothes, shoes, bags, etc would be very welcome at any time.

Recycling LinksWe have also made links with ‘Revolve’ which is a recycling swap shop boutique in Hamilton, just along from the Town House. The boutique is open Wed –Fri until 4pm- well worth popping in for a look. We are hoping to build on our children’s understanding and skills of recycling, making and mending through these links. Please send in used milk bottle tops, batteries and stamps as we aim to fill up used Water Cooler Bottles for our Pathfinders Charity Friends.

We have made contact with Taylor Wimpey who are the Housebuilder for the new estate further up from our school. We are keen to link in with the site to develop our children’s understanding of construction and creativity through building on their skills in maths, literacy, science and technology. During our Sponsored Walk on Friday 2nd Sept we will be escorted by the Site Manager as we walk past his site and give the workers a wave.

Our Primary 1 children have completed their first week of school and they have done so well. Thank you to all families and staff for helping to make this such a loely week for the children. Thank you too to our buddies who have just been terrific!Our Primary 1’s are with us full time from today and class teachers will send home a note of important info such as homework, word tins, when gym kit is needed, etc. If there are any questions you have, please don’t hesitate to speak to any member of our team.

Thank you to Janet and our catering team for the delicious taster lunches provided for our new children and families. They all enjoyed and lots of clear plates were evident!

I am holding a Drop-In session each term this session. The purpose of this is to be available for anyone who would like to drop in and ask me anything about our school, your child’s learning, make suggestions or just have a chat with some coffee and biscuits!

I will vary the times of these sessions each term, the first one will be held on Thurs 1st Sept from 2-3.30pm.

I am aiming to be in our playground every Mon, Wed and Fri morning from 8.40am to welcome our children and yourselves. Please feel free to have a chat with me. Anyone wishing an appointment with me can arrange this too either by phoning the school office, emailing or speaking to myself. I will be available for appointments from 9.30am each morning.

Head Teacher’s e-mail address is

gw14stlizpsht@glow.sch.uk

Office e-mail address is

office@st-elizabeths-pri.s-lnark.sch.uk

Mrs Emmett is our Acting Depute Head and Mrs Campbell is our Acting Principal Teacher. Mrs Campbell’s day to carry out her remit is a Tuesday.

We are delighted to welcome Mrs Redmond back from her secondment to Holy Cross. Mrs Redmond will continue to work in our school office. Welcome home!

Are you free on Wednesday 31st August at 7pm? Why not pop along to our school and join our Community Partnership meeting? This is a group of our parents who meet once a month to discuss best ways and ideas to support our school through fundraising and sharing of information. You would be very welcome to come along and we would be delighted to see you. It is a great way of finding out more about our school and how we can best work together to provide excellent learning opportunities for our children. Please join us if you can.

As you know, budgets are very tight and this year we are looking for any support from yourselves for the following-Support with swimming costs for P5 & P7 £600Class Novels for our middle school £600Alphabet boards and letters for our infants £400Reading Comprehension resources £400Literacy Plant or Education City Subscription £500Class supplies £450ICT Resources £600Thank you all so very much for all support you give to our fundraising on an on-going basis.

The food was delicious and so tasty. We loved it and my child who is usually a fussy eater ate everything. Thank you!

We operate a House System in our school. Every child and member of staff is a member of one of our 5 Houses. Each house has its own name, colour, and even its own rap! We also have P7 Captains and P6 Vice Captains and their names are listed below. Every child will have a sticker on their diary to let you know what house they are in.

Livingstone-Blue Muir-Green Murray- Purple McIntosh-Red Stevenson- Yellow

Hannah Kearney Torin Nicholls Lucy Mackay Carash Fraser Holly Dougan

Evie Cornfield Jamie McKean Mia Dickinson Chloe Mason Luke Martin

I am proud of my house and like it when we get lots of points (P5 child)

It’s great because it helps you work as part of a team and that’s an important skill. (P6 child)

As of today, we are opening our dining hall for the children to use at playtime to either read or play chess. If we have any adults who would like to help the children with their chess skills we would be delighted to welcome you.

Our 50/50 club begins again this Friday. Put a £1 in an envelope with your name on it and we’ll pop it into our box. The lucky winner will receive half of the takings. We have a supply of small envelopes in school for your child to use for this purpose. Good luck if you choose to take part!

Congratulations to Leah Burns for winning a Competition to design a logo for the Dioceses around the theme of St Andrew’s Way.

Congratulations also to Laura Summers and Leah Burns for being nominated to represent our school at the Council Award Ceremony in June. Well done girls.

The Scottish Government has announced a Reading Challenge for all children from P4-7 and have provided a list of 100 books they hope every child of that age will read. Can you donate any books or comics for us to use? Any donations would be greatly appreciated. More info on this challenge will follow.

We welcome to our school DK and JC from the Philippines and Kristi from Hungary. None of the children speak English and we are all working hard to help support them as they settle in to our school. Well done boys and girls.

Pope Francis’ Monthly Intentions for Aug -Universal : Sports That sports may be an opportunity for friendly encounters between peoples and may contribute to peace in the world.

Evangelization : Living the GospelThat Christians may live the Gospel, giving witness to faith, honesty and love of neighbour.

Our P7 children are attending a Year of Mercy Mass at Carfin Grotto this coming Friday, 26th Aug.. The Mass will be streamed live at 11.30am.

In order to share successes and achievements out of school and for us to keep building up our knowledge of your child, please find a sheet attached that we ask you to complete and return for your child. We will keep these in a folder and celebrate your child’s success at a special Assembly each month. Any time your child or family are celebrating something and you would like us to know, please either drop us a note, or an e-mail or pop in to let our office staff know. We are delighted to hear any good news and will proudly celebrate too. Next Newsletter - Mon 5th September