Best Budding Business Winners in National Competition!

The pupils of St. Fillan's Primary school scooped first place in Scottish Power's "Best Budding Business" award. The school nominated their Enterprise Team for the sheer hard work and determination they have shown in their "Fairtrade Cafe" enterprise project. They were presented with a framed certificate and cheque for £1000 by Anne Munro-Easton from Scottish Power. They planned their project then sought funding from the "dragons" as part of Renfrewshire Council's Dragon's Den initiative. The cafe will open to the public tomorrow and the pupils have been honing their business skills on the pupils and staff. The cafe now runs smoothly and will be a sustainable business within the school which will benefit the many charities the children have chosen, as well as offering a choice of fairtrade goods to the school and local community.

Be Bright Day!

Slideshow design customized with Smilebox

Our team of Junior Road Safety Officers helped organise "Be Bright" day for us. As the clocks are due to go back very shortly we'll notice it is much darker in the morning when we get up and after school too. To help keep us safe they wanted to make us more aware about wearing bright colours or reflectors in the winter months. We had lots of fun as well as being reminded of a very important message. Our thanks go to Mrs Kelly from our school and also Jamie who works with our JRSOs. Jamie travelled all the way up from a course in England to join us at assembly on Friday afternoon. Take a look at our photos and see what we got up to.

New Technology Arrives At St. Fillan's Primary!

Photo slideshow made with Smilebox

We are delighted to have purchased a set of 33 Promethean Active Expression handsets for use in our learning and teaching.  Many of our classes throughout the school organised enterprising activities last session and these were purchased with the proceeds of these activities.  So far they have gone down well with the pupils as they are all able to contribute and have their say at the same time.  So far we have used them to gather thoughts and ideas from our Pupil Council, as well as using them in a few Spanish classes as a form of assessment.

As technology becomes more and more embedded in our culture, we must provide our learners with relevant and contemporary experiences that allow them to successfully engage with technology and prepare them for life after school.  We hope to update our computer stock shortly so watch this space for more information.  More information on using technology within education can be found on the Learning Teaching Scotland website.

Pupil Council 2010/2011

We have formed a new Pupil Council for this year.  Here they are during our recent "Go Bright"day, organised by our Junior Road Safety Officers.  We have 4 members from last year's Council and 4 new members who have just joined us.  They meet with Mrs Nicholson on a regular basis and represent the pupils in all matters in the school.  They suggest areas where they feel improvement could be made, give updates on events which they have particularly enjoyed and feel the school should maintain, they help around the school with various items and they report back to their classes on our meetings.  They are an invaluable group to the school as they support the Senior Management Team in gathering and providing the pupils' views and ideas across the whole school.

Last session, among many other things, they requested some form of goal posts for the playground and gave their valuable input on the annual School Improvement Plan.  Our Travel Plan group hope to purchase the goal posts with the money they received when they won Renfrewshire's Top Travel Plan group. 

This year the Pupil Council have recorded the areas they wished to focus on.  They recorded their ideas using the new Active Expression handsets.  This year they will be taking on the wall display to the left as you enter the gym hall.  They intend to decorate and maintain a new Citizenship display for the whole school.  Ideas for the wall design were sought from the pupils and the winning design was done by the "Bionic Beanz" group from our P7 class.  Have a look at our wall display when you're next in the school as it should be finished soon.

Papal Visit

Recently Pope Benedict came to Scotland and celebrated mass in Bellahouston Park, Glasgow. Many of our pupils, family members, friends and members of our parish attended. After days of heavy rain the weather cleared and a great day was had by all who attended. For those of us unable to attend we celebrated the day in school. The upper school went to a service given by Fr. Danny in the morning with the infants attending their own short service together in school (as the church was being painted inside and we couldn't all fit in). We then watched the Pope's plane touch down on Scottish soil. We made flags and carried out research on Pope Benedict, Scottish Saints and his trip to the UK. We went outdoors to wave off members of our local parish as their buses left for the mass. Next day we heard all about events from our friends.

Football Awards 2010

Mrs Nicholson attended the annual Football Presentations on 10th June and thoroughly enjoyed the night. She was particularly impressed by the hard work and dedication of all the players. Medals were awarded to all for a strong performance this season which ended with St. Fillan's finishing third place in the league. The squad is in good form for next season and should continue to do well. Thanks also go to the great team of volunteers who train and support our young players. The players were recognised at today's assembly and we hope to post future match dates online to allow the whole school community to go along and support our school team.

Mask Making in Primary 6

<>The boys and girls of Primary 6 showed their flair for design when they designed their own masks. They each had a unique design, chose their materials, worked together to support each other and persevered when the going got tough! Have a look at their slideshow to see them hard at work.

P2/1 Show and Tell

Some of the boys and girls from Primary 2/1 recently entertained their classmates with some great presentations. They took turns to show and tell each other about items which they thought were of interest to their friends. They were very confident speakers and we asked lots of questions too which they were more than able to answer. Gladigator heard how good we were and even popped in to visit us next day. He almost didn't recognise us as we were in our pyjamas for Pyjama Day! We were raising money for SCIAF.  Have a look at our photos.

Potatoes for Schools Project

Primary 1 are taking part in the Potatoes for Schools project. They have been chitting potatoes on their class window sill for 2 weeks and planted them out today. They are growing 2 different types of potatoes, Rocket potatoes and Vales Emerald. Here are a few of the photos we took.

Crazy Hair Day 2010

The boys and girls of St. Fillan's recently took part in a Crazy Hair day to raise funds for SCIAF.  We had coloured hair, spiky hair, pleated hair, frizzy hair and many more amazing styles.  We held an assembly in the morning where we all had a chance to show off our fancy hair styles to the rest of the school.  A panel of judges (pupils from other classes) chose their favourite from each class.  Have a look at the photos to see the fun we had.

New blog started

We will shortly be uploading images to our new blog space.  This will provide the latest information on the work being done in school by our pupils.  Keep checking back for an update.