CLEAN SWEEP AT DUNOON GRAMMAR SCHOOL

Local residents of Kirn witnessed a welcoming sight last Friday afternoon (30 May 2014) as an army of school litter pickers took to the streets with one mission – to clean up the town.
Over 100 S1 pupils and staff – equipped with grippers and high visibility jackets supplied by the school’s facilities management providers Mitie – worked tirelessly scooping up and bagging litter from the school’s surrounding neighbourhood.

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Park Primary gains SportScotland Gold School Award

After a lot of hard work from both staff and children, Park School have just been awarded Gold in the School Sport Awards. We are the first school in Scotland to achieve this status.

This was a pilot award which was open to schools in Argyll and Bute and East Renfrewshire. As Park has a very strong record of promoting and encouraging Health and Wellbeing, and participation in a wide range of sports, we are delighted to have this work recognised.

Blythswood Enterprise Challenge

Primary 7 at Park School recently took part in the Blythswood Enterprise competition. For this, they were given £20 to start a business in order to raise money to provide fire engines in Eastern Europe. The class had 4 weeks to make this money grow so they decided to create a moustache themed stationery shop.

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Family Day at St Joseph’s Pre-5 Unit

What a great day was had by all on Thursday 29 May as St. Joseph’s Pre-5 Unit opened its doors not only to parents but, this time, also to other members of each child’s family too! We were delighted to see grannies and grandas as well as aunties and uncles join in.

After registration the reticent newcomers to the Pre-5 Unit got their sleeves rolled up and joined in with gusto! There were grannies at the sand pit and grandas at the reading corner – a really magical ‘buzz’ of learning and fun was palpable!
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Lismore’s mountain adventure

May has been Mountain Month at Lismore Primary School. The children began the project by comparing the highest mountain on each continent with Ben Nevis and Lismore’s own highest point of Barr Mor. They made scale pictures of each mountain to compare the range of heights. They then went on to look at how mountains are actually formed and travelled to Glencoe to look at the volcanic and ice age activity that shaped the landscape. They also looked at the basalt, slate and quartzite layering in the Ballachulish Quarry.

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Art Exhibition by Furnace and Minard Primaries

The children in Furnace and Minard primaries held an Art Exhibition in Furnace Primary on Wednesday night to raise money to help pay the education fees of children in Pelandaba orphanage in Zimbabwe. Ex Head Teacher, Mrs Cindy MacDonald, had visited the schools to talk to the children about the work she does for the charity and everyone agreed they wanted to help. The idea of holding an art exhibition was made and everyone has been very busy preparing for it. The exhibition will remain open to visitors on Thursday and Friday. The money raised so far is close to £300.

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Commonwealth Breakfast at Parklands

School The social in-reach group at Parklands School had an interesting morning in the kitchen cooking and tasting two very different breakfasts. The pupils followed a recipe to create a potato and lentil curry, a traditional Indian breakfast and compared it to a traditional Scottish breakfast of porridge. The boys said they much prefered the curry and would have it everyday for breakfast if they could!

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Busy Bees at Luss

The children at Luss Primary have been learning all about the ways in which bumblebees are very important to us.

P5-7 are taking part in the Big Bumblebee Discovery science adventure and received a free experiment pack and lavender plant. They have also been learning about habitats of bees, how to create a nesting site or bee box and how to rescue a bee that has run out of energy due to cold or wet weather.
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Proud Kodu Competition Winner!

Aidan, a P6 pupil of Dunoon Primary School was delighted last week to hear that he had come joint first in a Kodu Competition for primary schools across Argyll & Bute. Using Kodu, Aidan designed an online game with the Commonwealth Games theme. He was thrilled to receive a prize of a Raspberry Pi donated by local businessman and entrepreneur Sam Coley of Samteq. Aidan now intends to submit his game into the national Scottish Kodu Competition.

Dalintober PS Pupils Encourage MOKRUNNERS

P2, P4 and P6 pupils from Dalintober PS designed posters to motivate and inspire participants in Campbeltown’s MOKRUN 10k route. MOKRUN – a 10k and half marathon – is an annual highlight in the town, and was voted the world’s number one event by ‘Running World’. All at Dalintober PS wish the competitors all the best in their endeavours, with a special mention for the staff members, parents and family members who are participating. Good Luck!

Kilmartin P7-4 Take the Bear Grylls Challenge!

To test how good our children’s survival skills are, the P7-4 children were set a task to organise an emergency camp, find dry tinder, for a fire and forage for some food. They received no help from adults and had to agree as a team who would be responsible for each task.They had to revisit what they had already learned to help them and give their best effort to achieve the outcome.

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Shared Learning Training

This week Dunoon Primary and the P6 pupils of St Muns Primary have been busy working together in a Shared Learning Initiative. This was led by 5 pupils from our Sal Team and assisted by Mr Gary Clark, Mrs Mary Peek, and Mr Steven Simpson (DGS Student). The pupils from St Muns were very enthusiastic and keen to learn all the new technology skills that were on offer.

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Art in the Outdoor Environment at Rhunahaorine

Children in Rhunahaorine Pre 5 Unit were interested to see the daffodils blooming in the garden. This could only mean…Spring had arrived! They wondered about all the flowers that grow in Spring and looked closely at some daffodils and other flowers. Then they decided to paint some daffodil pictures- outdoors of course!

Now all the daffodils have gone we are learning more about summer flowers growing around us and how the bees help the plants to grow fruit.

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Parklands School and John Logie Baird Primary School Storyteller Event

Primary 3 pupils from John Logie Baird Primary were invited to join their classmates who attend The Sunshine Room Nurture Group at Hermitage Park for a special storyteller event. Bea Ferguson a professional storyteller was able to share some of her wonderful stories after The Sunshine Room received funding from Creative Scotland’s Live Literature Programme. The programme is set up to inspire and enthuse the primary pupils to engage and enjoy literature. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed Bea’s visit, especially her interactive story about Mary and her Granny.

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Minard’s Mystery Balloons

The pupils of Minard Primary have a mystery to solve. As they arrived at school on Wednesday morning they discovered a host of red balloons attached to their willow den! This resulted in much excitement and laughter but also a need to know their origin. Each balloon is emblazoned with the message ‘new menu now available’. Can anyone assist us in discovering their true owner?

Food Revolution Day at Luss

On Friday the children at Luss Primary tuned into a cooking live event with Jamie Oliver. They all worked together and each made a rainbow wrap .They all brought in graters and spent 20 minutes grating carrots, cabbage, radishes, pears and beetroot. They then made a yoghurt dressing with mint and parsley. Finally the wrap was ready to be topped with feta before being rolled up and eaten.

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Strone Primary gets adventurous with PGL.

The P5-P7 class at Strone Primary School have recently returned from a fantastic weekend residential at the PGL Adventure Centre in Dalguise. A variety of activities were on offer for the pupils including go-karting, archery, team problem solving, forest hikes and the biggest challenge, the high ropes course. A great time was had by everyone.