Have a GREAT holiday!

I hope everyone reading this has a great holiday and enjoys the break from school!!
See you all in January!!

Young Voices at the Odyssey

WOW

What an experience our children have had tonight at the Odyssey!! Look at the videos below to see for yourself!!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bh9mzqfcX3U


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDEwL__TPAY

Hillcroft here for a Christmas Special

It was a real pleasure to welcome some young people from Hillcroft School up for a special Carol Service. Our children performed well and the pupils and staff from Hillcroft seemed to enjoy the morning. Well done to all and do look at some photographs on the main photograph page.

Carol Service

Don't you love Christmas?

Last night was a superb evening with every pupil involved in our annual Carol Service. We were really well supported and had nearly 300 people at the service - not bad for a school of 143 children! All the children performed brilliantly and it was a pleasure to be able to hand over cheque to the Scott Osprey Wheelchair Fund from the PTA.
Thanks to everyone for a great night.

Football

Once again the football team played really well at another of the inter-school competitions at the University of Ulster at Jordanstown. We won 2 matches and lost 2 (narrowly!).

The boys represented the school well and I was vey proud of their playing and behaviour. It was great also to have some parents with us to cheer on the team.

Choir Sing at the Mill

I am a really proud Headmaster!

The choir were singing for the Mayor at Mossley Mill for the annual Carol Service. We were asked to take part and we, as usual, did brilliantly!!

Well done to everyone!

Adult Literacy Classes

The Northern Regional College will be starting an adult Essential Skills Literacy class on Mondays, starting on 11th January 2010. This is for parents , but also anyone from the local community who would like to develop their English skills. The class will run from 11am - 1pm. Please phone the school if you are interested in joining as there are a few places left.

Football at UUJ

Once again the Football team played really well at the inter-school competition at the University of Ulster at Jordanstown. They won 2 and lost 2 of their matches and the ones that they lost were very close!!

Well done boys!

Group from the choir sing at Hillcroft

It was a pleasure to be at Hillcroft tonight to take part in the Community Interactive Evening. We had a small group from the choir singing and adding festive spirit to the event and they did really well. Well done to them - see the photographs on the website.

P2/3 Spanish Assembly

It was a pleasure to have about 10 parents of P2/3 children attend our assembly taken by this class. Speaking and singing in both English and Spanish it was really impressive. Thanks to Rhina, our Spanish Assistant, who takes the P1 - P4 classes weekly. Also thanks, of course, to Mrs. Tweed, Mrs Cullen and all the children.

Open Day

Please note that our Open Day is 13th January 2010 - and NOT 14th January 2009 as was published last week in the local paper! They published the advert from last year. However the correct one was inserted in the papers today so spread the word - 13th January 2010. Further details will follow.

Tell the world........

It's the time of year again when we look ahead to next September and the new pupils who will be coming to Earlview. We want to really publicise the school and so if you feel you can help in any way to distribute leaflets or anything else to get our name out there, please let me know!
If you are involved in clubs or societies around the area and could put up a leaflet, let me know and I will give you either an A4 poster or A5 leaflets which could be given out. Please help us to keep the school name high on the agenda!

Corridor Wall Displays

I have taken some photographs of corridor wall displays to let everyone see what the inside of the school looks like - these are only some of the displays on show. See if you can see your child's work?

Tree Planting in the Estate

The P3/4 class will be planting trees with the Housing Executive tomorrow. Read all about it on the Belfast Telegraph website link below.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/community-telegraph/north-belfast/news/treemendous-14573043.html

Football Fun

Well done to the boys who went to the University of Ulster at Jordanstown for an inter-school football fun day. They all played really well, behaved really well and were a credit to the school. There will be another of these days in December when the real competition begins so we look forward with excitement!!

Mrs Scott Leaves us

It was with real sadness that we said goodbye to Mrs Scott on Friday. She has been appointed to another school in Co. Down - closer to her home. We wish her well and thank her for all the Special Needs help she has given over the years. We will miss her chat and lovely manner with all the children.

After School Day Care Rockets!!

The After School Day Care is going from strength to strength! Yesterday we had 20 hours of daycare and today we have 21!!
Long may it continue!!

Recycling in Full Swing

We are now recycling clothes, shoes, towels, blankets and sheets. Please place them in the yellow Clothing Bank in the car park at any stage. These will be collected at regular intervals and the school will get money depending on how much is inside!!

Old mobile phones, Ipods and laptop computers can also be left in school for recycling and again the school will benefit from each one recycled.

Please help us raise funds in this way!

Aluminium Cans for a Wheelchair!

We are delighted to be able to help one of our families to raise funds for the purchase of a new wheelchair for their son. Jessica Osprey's brother, Scott, needs a new special wheelchair to make life a little bit easier for him and we delighted to do our bit to support the family. Please leave all your aluminium drinks cans in the green bin in the entrance hall to be collected by Scott's mother. If you feel you would like to donate money to this worthy cause, please speak to Mr. Smyth who would forward details of how to do so.

Life Education Van in School

W are really pleased to have the Life Education Van in school for three days. Children will learn life skills in structured programmes for different classes - such as "Caring for Myself", "My Wonderful Body", "Great to be Me" and "Meet the Brain"!

The Parent Class is tomorrow - Tuesday - at 9am in the Parent Room. Please come and enjoy some learning!

Have a great holiday

We had a great few days here in school - the Harvest service was a great event and the Fancy Dress Day yesterday was amazing! We raised £100 for the charity Heartbeat - so thanks to all who supported us and gave a donation. Enjoy your week off school and see you all on 2nd November.

Amazing

I think it is amazing that there have now been over 10000 hits on the school website! It is great to see it being well used and I love it!! Any ideas as to how we could improve it??

Website messages

Just realised that six messages to the website had been sent to the wrong email account for moderating and I didn't see them - until today!!
That is the reason that they took so long to appear on the site!
Sorry about that!

Harvest Celebration

Don't forget to put our Harvest Celebration in your diary - Thursday 22 October at 9.15am.
We would love the hall to be filled with parents and friends of the pupils to come and enjoy our thanksgiving service. At this service we will be handing over our shoe boxes to Blythswood - I wonder will we get 100 boxes??!!
It's always a great service so please try and come.

Anti- bacterial Gel

We have recently put up an anti-bacterial gel dispenser at the front door. Feel free to use this as part of our on-going drive for a healthy school. Remember that the Government insist that the best way to avoid catching swine flu is thorough washing of the hands in soap and warm water. All our toilets have this and we encourage our children to do this frequently throughout the day. Please reinforce this with your children at home also.

Mr. McQuillan comes back!

It was a great pleasure to welcome back our former Principal, Mr. John McQuillan, to speak with the P5/6 class. They had asked that he come to help them with some of their class work. It was great to see him.

It's a Boy!!

Many congratulations to Mrs McKeown on the birth of their first child - Jude Jonathan McKeown. We wish them all well and hope that they all get lots of sleep and rest!!

Margaret Johnston Retires

We had a great morning today when we welcomed back Margaret Johnston into the school. She had been a major part of Earlview for eight years while she worked as a Lunchtime Supervisor and a cleaner. Unfortunately, as she has been off for over a year now on ill health, she has had to retire from her posts. We miss her sense of fun and her infectious laugh about the school and it was lovely to hear it today!!

We wish her well in her retirement and hope she has many long and happy years - and we also hope she calls in from time to time to see us............

Computer tests next week!

All the P4 - P7 children will be sitting INCAS Computer testing next week. These Maths and English tests are completed by all children of this age throughout N. Ireland and will give each child a Reading Age and a General Maths age. Parents will be told the results of these tests at the Parent/ Teacher interviews in October.

RAIN in Earlview

During this year all the Primary School teachers will all be involved in a R.A.I.N. Project (Raising Attainment in Numeracy). This will involve training in maths teaching and also getting time out of class to work with groups of their children with the aim of pushing the children to a higher level of attainment. This should be a great help to many children. We''ll see in June 2010!!

Adult ICT Classes up and Running

It was great to see the two adult Essential Skills ICT classes up and running in school yesterday. There was a great buzz around the ICT Suite and all the adults seemed to enjoy it! It is great to see the school being so widely used by the community.

Still on their best behaviour!

I am giving out more awards for great behaviour and working hard than I have done for some time. It is great to see such a good attitude to work about the school throughout all classes.

Adult Computer Class starts

There will be a meeting of all who put their names down for any of the adult classes in the school on Wednesday 16th September at 9.30am. This will be to sort out who goes to which class.

The adult Computer Class will then start on Thursday of next week - 17th September - at 9am. However since 39 people have registered I'm not quite sure where everyone is going to go! We will get something sorted though. There will be at least two classes 9 - 11 and 11 - 1pm so we'll see what happens!!
Great to see such an interest.

Class Newsletters

Hope you like the new class newsletters. The idea is to keep you informed about what is going on in your child's class so you can help them with the topics they are covering in school. Sometimes it is hard to get information from your child about what is actually happening in the classroom!!

Toilets

If you have been in school leaving your child to the After School Day Care, you will have noticed work going on in the toilets in that area. We are putting in disabled facilities and eventually hope to re-new all the toilets throughout the school.

What a day..........

What a day today was - the canteen staff told me that everyone in the dinner hall had said "please" and "thank you" for their meal!
I also gave out two awards to older children for excellent work in class and the children have been exceptionally well behaved around the school!
On walking throughout the day I sensed a great attitude of work by all the pupils (and teachers!!) - well done to everyone!

Day one over

It was a great day - lovely to see all the new P1 children, some new pupils throughout the school and some of the Nursery ones also. They all seemed happy once they got settled in. School was looking well and there was a great buzz of excitement around the place.

Ready to go......

That's us......
We are now ready to go.
Looking forward now to the new term - hope you are??!!

Nuts

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE SCHOOL AND NURSERY ARE NOW NUT FREE ZONES AS WE HAVE A CHILD WHO IS SEVERELY ALLERGIC TO NUTS

The Parent Room

Remember that the Parent Room is for you - the parents!!

It is open 9am - 3pm and has free internet access, a large screen tv and free tea and coffee on tap!

Come in and get a bit of space and even read this blog when you are there!!!

Enter the school through the main front door, let the secretary or Principal know you are going to the room, turn right and it is through the double doors at the end of the corridor. ENJOY AND USE AS OFTEN AS YOU LIKE.

Don't get left behind!

Want to keep on learning? The Northern Regional College could be running classes in Earlview in English, Maths and Computers. Speak to Mrs Carson or Mr Smyth for details as soon as possible. Lots of people have already signed up so join in the fun!! This is for anyone - even if they have no connection with the school, so spread the word!

Numbers going up!

Looks like the numbers in school will have gone up by 7 since June - very encouraging!!

Gone forever?

Some postings seem to have disappeared??!!

I love computers!!

Calendar

Put a new calendar on the website - should keep everyone up to date with what is happening.

Over half way

Over half way through the summer and already the school is getting ready for September.

Can't wait..........