November Newsletter 2021

ST ANTHONY’S PRIMARY
SCHOOL NOVEMBER 2021

NEWSLETTER

Dear Parents and Carers,

Our second term continues to be busy with lots happening within our school community. November has seen us
commemorate two special days; Remembrance Day and St Andrew’s Day. We also had a very successful Hallowe’en
celebration and a Non-Uniform Day that helped provide resources for our Parent Council Christmas Fayre.
Christmas is on the horizon and December promises to be as busy and enjoyable as this month was.

As ever, let us all keep Working Together for Excellence.

Kind regards
Shirley May Carr

Catholic Education Week Class Masses

Catholic Education Week takes place annually from the Feast of All of the classes from P4-P7 have
Saint Margaret of Scotland, 16th November until the Feast of been blessed to have celebrated a
Saint Andrew, 30th November. This year’s theme is Celebration
class mass this month. Canon Martin
and Worship which is such a huge part of who we are and what has kindly celebrated these in school
we do at Saint Anthony’s. For all of us, some of our happiest, with each class preparing the Liturgy
most poignant and most beautiful memories are linked to times of the Word. A huge well done to
when we are joined with others in celebration and worship. As we all the pupils who took the time to
progress on our faith journey, we hope to make many more prepare and read so well at each
memories founded in Celebration and Worship.
mass.

Outdoor Learning

As part of our commitment to Outdoor Learning all pupils have been very busy in our
PolyTunnel
We are delighted with the response to the Morrison's It's Good to Grow voucher
scheme. With the help of Saint Anthony's community we have a whopping 2286 grow
vouchers to spend. The Outdoor Learning council have chosen to spend these on some gar-
dening technology to help with STEM learning and some really interesting heritage vegetables
to grow in our garden.

The garden plots are filling up nicely and all classes have been working hard to get seeds
and bulbs into the ground. We are looking forward to a spring harvest of onions, cabbages
and garlic along with some nice leafy salad crops and herbs.

Our good friend Pete from Community Windpower visited us last month with a hedgehog
house for us to keep in the grounds. We're not sure if we've had any visitors yet, but we
have made a nice cosy bed of straw with some tasty leftover pumpkins for a snack.

Finally, the Parent Council have been successful in their bid for a Participatory Budgeting
grant of £1000 towards helping to develop the outdoor learning curriculum. This will be
used to purchase some bird houses, feeders and a bird hide. Our RSPB council is delighted
and the pupils will be involved in choosing the new resources.

Remembrance Assembly

On Thursday 11th November our P7 pupils broad-
cast their Remembrance Assembly to the whole

school. This assembly was very poignant and beauti-
fully presented. The pupils from both classes

worked very hard to prepare for this and should
feel very proud of their achievements.

Outdoor Learning Day

As you all will know, Outdoor Learning is a focus on our School Improvement Plan. To this
end, we celebrated Outdoor Learning Day on Thursday 4th November. This was a day
where we tried to take much of the learning outdoors. Luckily we were blessed with
lovely weather on that day. Classes took part in lots of activities ranging from Scavenger
Hunts, teamwork activities, labelling parts of our PolyTunnel to outdoor Maths and
Language games.

COP26 Family Challenge

We were overwhelmed with the fabulous responses to our recent COP26 Family Challenge. It
is clear to see from what the children have brought in that families spent a lot of time and

effort working on sharing a very important message. Our Dining Hall wall is now
beautifully decorated with a large sample of the finished products. Many thanks to all those

who took part.

Christmas Fayre

As many of you will know, our school Christmas Fayre returns this year! This will take
place on Friday 10th December in St Peter’s Church Hall from 1515. Our Parent Coun-

cil have been working very hard to organise this event. There will be lots of stalls for
families to buy things from as well as opportunities to win prizes in the Bottle Stall and
Chocolate Tombola. We must say a huge thank you to all our school community for the
amazing response to our recent Non-uniform Day which helped to provide lots of bottles

and chocolates for the two stalls.

Councils Read Write Count Bags

We are delighted to have our pupil councils up and We had a lot of very happy P1-P3
running again. Due to restrictions, these will take place pupils this month as they received
within classes. The councils areas are as follows: their Bookbug and Read, Write
P1H Intergenerational Council Count Bags! All Primary 1–3 pupils
received a free book bag as part of
P1B and P2/3 Fairtrade Council the Scottish Government gifting
campaign. The aim of Read, Write,
P2 RSPB Council Count is to encourage families to

P3 Sports Council include reading, writing and
P4 Health Council counting activities in their everyday

P4/5 Give Back to the Community Council lives.

P5 Outdoor Learning Council

P6 Eco Council
P7H Equalities Council

P7R Digital Leaders Council

Mrs Carr Pupil Voice Council
Mrs Kerr/Miss Cruickshank Rights Respecting School
Council