Road Safety - A HUGE Concern!

Following safety concerns raised by a number of parents, staff and governors regarding unsafe stopping of vehicles around school, local police and community officers  will be undertaking targeted visits to deter parking around our school at the beginning and the end of the school day over the next few weeks.

Our major concern is with unsafe (and illegal) stopping on the zig-zag lines and in front of entrances by drivers.

For your information, the School Keep Clear marking, where there is an upright sign in place, provides a mandatory prohibition of stopping during the times shown. You should not stop, not even to pick up or set down children or passengers.

A letter will be coming home with a leaflet which children can colour in.

We will also be holding a ‘design a banner’ competition and have asked the children to think of ideas to make their own banner to remind everyone of the dangers of stopping in these clearly marked areas. The winner of this will have their design made into a banner which will be displayed near the zig-zag lines outside school permanently.

Please have a look at this information and please work with us to ensure our children are safe at all times.

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted. ...

The past couple of weeks have seen real acts of kindness among our children and families…

Year 6 led us in a beautiful act of Remembrance on Friday 9th November and then celebrated World Kindness Day on 13th November (You can still see some of the flowers they made with their kind thoughts and actions around the school!)

Then, on Friday 16th November children and staff brought in lose change to fill up our giant Pudsey. (There are still a few spaces, so any more coins will be gratefully appreciated!) Each year at this time our children usually count up the money and help to ‘bag’ the coins to be taken to the collection points…

At the end of last week, school discovered that a family in school were really suffering due to being given the news of their young child’s life-threatening illness diagnosis. We always use money collected to support ‘Children in Need’ but, would like to ask if there would be any objections to using the money donated for Pudsey this year - to go to support one of our own children in need during a very difficult time.

Please let us know in school if you would prefer your donation to still go to the national organisation rather than to support a family from our own school community who are in great need at this time. Whatever your decision - all our children really need your prayers!

Harvest Celebration!

Our Lady’s has been celebrating Harvest! The children had a special visitor in assembly - Mr Allan; who came to tell us all about the difference our ‘spare’ food could make to local families through ‘FoodBanks’.

Everyone in school has been busy collecting and we are delighted with all the gifts of food which have been donated for this brilliant cause. Thank you to everyone who has sent food items in to school for collection.

We had a lovely assembly led beautifully by the children this morning (we even had the ‘Our Father’ read by Y5 children in Spanish!) The gifts are being gathered and will be taken by Mr Allan to one of the FoodBanks on Tuesday 16th October.

Hot Chocolate Morning!

School Council held a fabulous Hot Chocolate fundraiser on Wednesday 17th October. Well done to them

(Details and pictures on the Pupil Voice area of our website)

Everyone who supported this event raised a wonderful £149. Well done to all involved!

Hot Chocolate success!

Polite Notice - Dogs in playground.

As you will have seen on the gates of school - we ask that families DO NOT bring dogs onto the playground when collecting or bringing children to school.

Some people unfortunately are continuing to bring their dog when collecting after school. I am hoping this is because you haven’t seen our notices and do not know this is school policy. If that is the case then you are politely reminded of this and asked not to bring a dog with you onto school grounds.

Thank you

Shakespeare auditions!

The RSC are coming to Blackpool with their First Encounters performance of Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors and we are very excited that they will also be performing twice in our school hall on the 6th of November. Even more amazing is that a small number of Our Lady’s children will have the opportunity to perform as an ensemble alongside the RSC actors in one scene. This week many of the children expressed their interest in auditioning to be part of the ensemble and took away part of the script to prepare. If your child expressed an interest then please read the attached letter regarding the audition process that will take place next week in school.

Thank you.

Audition letter

Shakespeare success!

It has been a great year for our Shakespeare work! 

Since becoming the lead Associate School for Blackpool, we’ve worked in partnership with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Grand Theatre leading primary and secondary schools across Blackpool.  Across our Associate Schools, we’ve shared good practice in using active approaches and live theatre to engage the children in the works of William Shakespeare to improve attainment in literacy. 

This year all our hub schools have taught Shakespeare’s Macbeth. In our school our KS2 classes have gained understanding of the play and the characters’ motives using the active approaches and they have produced some amazing pieces of writing. 

In March our Associate Schools each performed three scenes from Macbeth at the Grand Theatre. Twenty-four children in Our Lady’s Shakespeare club rehearsed for months to get ready for their performance. The children were amazing and spoke Shakespeare’s words with such clarity and understanding. DVDs are now on sale for £5 from Our Lady’s school. See the promotional video from the Grand Theatre…

At the beginning of July, our Associate Schools’ hub took part in the RSC’s Playmaking Festival in Stratford-Upon-Avon. Our hub performed four scenes from Macbeth in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre alongside other Associate School hubs from around the country. We chose three outstanding performers from our school - Oliver Fallon, Gracie Frost and Archie Allan-Ford – along with twelve other talented performers from schools in our hub. The children came together to rehearse with such enthusiasm and commitment and were fantastic in their performance. The RSC have given these children the experience of a lifetime - one that they all embraced and one that I’m sure will live with them forever! 

Pop Idol

Congratulations to Eva in Year 5 who represented our school in the Blackpool Music Service Pop Idol competition on Tuesday night at Montgomery High School. Eva auditioned against a number of children in school over the last month and then went on to win our in school semi-final, performing in front of the whole school. The competition at Montgomery on Tuesday was fierce with lots of talented performers across Blackpool. Eva gave the most beautiful and confident performance, singing "Hallelujah", and we're so very proud of her achievements. Eva was presented with a medal from the judges, Radio presenters Ged Mills and Scott Gallagher.  Watch out for Eva in the future, she's going to be a star!

It was so lovely to see so many of Eva's friends and their families who came to support her - Eva certainly had the biggest fan club! Thank you to all of you who came and a special thank you to Jessica for the wonderful banners.

Halfway through....

We can hardly believe we are now halfway through Lent! The children have been trying very hard with their Lenten Promises - and I wonder if those of you who have given something up are managing to stick to it? I know I'm finding it hard! Well let's hope we can all stick at it for a wonderful celebration at Easter.  To prepare us, KS1 will be presenting their Palm Liturgy on Friday 23rd March at 2.30pm and KS2 classes will be leading a special reflection each morning of Holy Week from 26th - 29th March at 9.15am. We hope some of our parents might be able to join us for these.

We also begin our Lent Challenge Masses each Friday - starting tomorrow at 8.10am in the school hall. Then we will have 2 more masses on Friday 16th and Friday 23rd March. We hope you can all come along to these and are welcome to join us for tea and toast in the hall afterwards.

We are still working hard at our "100 Million Minutes of Reading Challenge" and are encouraging the children to 'read, read, read' as much as they possibly can and record how long they have read - don't forget that being read to, also counts towards the amount.  On Friday 16th March we are encouraging the children to bring in their favourite books to read throughout the day to try to build up those minutes and we have suggested (although it is only a suggestion) that if children want to dress up as their book character - or come in their PJs/onesies for a 'day of reading' then they are more than welcome to! NB: please note - it is enough just to bring in your favourite book - you do not have to wear anything different if you do not want to!

Just a quick reminder that we break up at 2pm on Thursday 29th March for Easter.

Many thanks for all of your support

Half Term 2 at Our Lady's

The children have been incredibly busy in this first week back following half term. We have all been thinking about Lent and classes have been making their Lent Promises; considering what special things they will do during this season. 

Some children will be participating in a Lent Service at St John Vianney Catholic Church on Tuesday evening at 6pm. This is a celebration of all the Blackpool Catholic Schools and all families are welcome to join us for this reflective service.

We have also participated in the Blackpool 'Young Seasiders' exhibition for 2018 and our children's art work will be on display in Blackpool and the Fylde College; Gateway Campus, Park Road Blackpool from Monday 28th February until 20th March. Again families are welcome to come and view all of this and artwork from other Blackpool Schools.

A very successful internet safety talk was held in our school hall on Thursday evening. 2 police officers came along to deliver a short presentation regarding the dangers to look out for if allowing your children access to the internet and also some essential safeguarding controls which can be put in place to protect your children. One of the officers will be returning on Wednesday to deliver a talk to Year 6 children and their parents. We hope to hold more of these information sessions in the future.

As you will be aware, it is World Book Day on Thursday 1st March. This year we will be really focusing on the children's reading diet and ways that we can support and encourage them to read more engaging texts. We will not be dressing up this year, but will have lots of events and activities for the children to participate in. You will also be given book vouchers as usual and the children will also have the opportunity to buy nearly new books (for very small amounts) at the end of the school day.

We have also just heard that we will be receiving a Diocesan Religious Education Inspection on Thursday 15th March. As part of these inspections, the Diocese asks for parents views about Religious Education in each school; therefore questionnaires will be sent out next week to each family which can be completed anonymously and returned either directly to the Diocese or in an envelope posted in a box in our school office. We thank you all for your support with this.