Primary three to seven took part in a LIVE drawing lesson as part of the BBC’s Big Painting Challenge. Illustrator Nick Sharratt, famous for his illustrations in the Tracy Beaker books, gave us lots of hints and tips for drawing characters with different facial expressions. He showed us how changing a character’s eyebrows and mouth can totally change their expression. Everyone really enjoyed the session, gained lots of new skills and built their confidence with drawing characters.
Cardross Primary 4 – Spanish Assembly
Cardross Primary 4 pupils recently transported us to Spain with their wonderful display of learning! Well done P4!
Bowmore Primary Paints the Town Red!
At Bowmore Primary, we all took up the Big Painting Challenge thanks to the BBC! From Pre 5 to P7, we all followed carefully the live art lesson on Wednesday 25th February. It was a great opportunity and we created some spectacular illustrations alongside Tracey Beaker illustrator, Nick Sharratt.
Scottish Kodu Kup 2015
The Kodu Kup Scotland competition launches today. This competition follows the same format as the UK Kodu competition. The closing date for both competitions is May 29th 2015.
This year students not only have to create a great game, but develop a business plan for a game franchise and create and produce a least one single piece of merchandise that promotes their game. Schools may wish to link this to current entrepreneurial or business projects already taking place.
News from Strone Primary School
Strone Primary enjoy the Marine Education Day
The P5-7 class attended the informative and creative Marine Education Day organised by the GRAB Trust in Dunoon. They enjoyed a variety of activities, having the opportunity to listen to sealife stories, find out about sharks and seabirds and even make their own jellyfish and marine mobiles.
Achaleven’s Choc-tastic trip!
It’s Fairtrade fortnight and Achaleven Primary are celebrating a very important product this year – cocoa. What better way to research than a trip to The Oban Chocolate Company! There was no shortage of staff volunteers for this trip where the pupils were able to learn where chocolate comes from, see what a cocoa pod looks like, as well as getting to sample the different types of chocolate available. They were also able to see the chocolatiers in action in the factory through the viewing window. The pupils then unleashed their decorating talents with their own chocolate designs of lollipops and truffles. The wonderful Chocolate Company staff then helped them box up their wares to take home. Continue reading Achaleven’s Choc-tastic trip!
St. Joseph’s Helps Local Community Foodbank
The SVDP (St. Vincent de Paul) representatives of St. Joseph’s Parish made a visit to St. Joseph’s School last term to ask if we could help advertise the new local Independent Voluntary Foodbank which had opened recently at the Red Cross Hall, 116 East Princes Street, Helensburgh. They informed us that no referral was necessary for anyone to benefit from this new initiative in the town and could we please let parents know of its existence via our next school newsletter.
Continue reading St. Joseph’s Helps Local Community Foodbank
Tackling the Tour
Primary 6 pupils at Rhu took on a mighty challenge as they cycled their way around France, without even leaving the comfort of the classroom.
While Tour de France riders battle it out in the mountains for the much-coveted maillot jaune, the pedal-powered pupils each took a spin on a road bike, firmly secured to a turbo trainer, while scenes from last year’s race played on the whiteboard to bring the atmosphere to life. With a cycle computer attached to the rear wheel, the keen class were able to see how far they had travelled and how fast they were pedalling. Continue reading Tackling the Tour
FREE TWILIGHT CPD (during March): Using film to bring texts to life for primary and secondary
5,4,3,2,1….5 shots, 4 cast/crew, 3 objects, 2 minutes long, 1 area of story focus. These sessions are entertaining and extremely adaptable to ALL curricular areas, levels and needs. Enable your learners to make a film using tablets, flip cameras or smart phones, following a brief and developing their literacy and communication skills. Continue reading FREE TWILIGHT CPD (during March): Using film to bring texts to life for primary and secondary
‘Scottish X Factor’ Competition
Children of John Logie Baird Primary School entered into the spirit of Robert Burn’s Day when they participated in a fun and entertaining ‘Scottish X Factor’ competition. Our talented and very hardworking children learnt the Scots language and produced some extremely entertaining and convincing performances for the whole school to enjoy.
Out of all of our semi-finalists, Carla Gorman was surprised and delighted when she learned she was the best overall. The judges; Mr Foxx, Mrs Graham and Mrs Randall awarded Carla a lovely prize, part of which was a mug which said ‘I’m dead chuffed’ and Carla certainly was! It was a very hard decision and all our semi-finalists were awarded a special certificate.
Our thanks to Mr Foxx for his expertise and his recital of ‘To a Haggis’ at our wonderful event.
P3 The Big Bake Off at Dunoon Primary!
On Friday 20th February P3 held a Bake Sale in Dunoon Primary’s GP room. Having decided a few weeks previously that they wanted the opportunity to see a production of ”The Boy and the Bunnet’- a musical story they had studied last term, being held at the Queen’s Hall, funding the visit was a problem. £160 was needed to pay for the tickets. Hannah suggested we hold a Bake Sale and so the plan was hatched.
Better Eating Better Learning at Kirn
The Primary 6 class at Kirn Primary School have this term participated in the Better Eating Better Learning” project in partnership with Children in Scotland ( www.childreninscotland.org.uk)
Adventures in Space
P1/2 at Port Ellen Primary School have been learning all about Space. They have found out about the Sun, Earth and Moon, taking turns at being a Moon Monitor. They watched video clips of Apollo 11 and Neil Armstrong’s moon landing and built their own rockets, complete with different stages. They have looked at the lunar landscape and have investigated how craters were formed using marbles and a tray of moon soil!
Developing business skills at Strone Primary
P5-7 pupils have been developing their entrepreneurial skills this term. They organised a Bring and Buy Sale at school to recycle unwanted toys, games and books and raised £90.00 towards the transport costs of their residential trip to the PGL Centre at Dalguise in April. Pupils have also been running their own mini enterprises in school as part of the Micro-Tyco initiative. The idea of the initiative is to start a business with £1.00 and make as big a profit as possible in six weeks, which then gets donated to charity. The P5-7 businesses include selling soft drinks at breaktime, selling used books, and selling sweets at afternoon break.
We are GLOWing at Rothesay Primary!
Several classes at RPS are working on blogging in connection with John Johnston of GLOW. We are working through tutorials with the classes through GLOW Meet and having lots of fun getting involved! The pupils will learn more about GLOW during the process and work on their communication skills!
Food for Thought: Education Fund
Applications can now be made to the Food for Thought: Education Fund. The fund aims to support practitioners to improve learning and teaching within food education in Curriculum for Excellence. Awards of up to £3000 per project are available. Apply HERE Background: Education Scotland is committed to building the confidence and capacity of practitioners to improve learning and teaching within food education in Curriculum for Excellence using national initiatives such as the Year of Food and Drink Scotland 2015 and Commonwealth Games Legacy Continue reading Food for Thought: Education Fund
Park Primary is awarded 6th Green Flag
Park Primary, Oban has recently gained a 6th Green Flag award for it’s work over the last two years on the topics of litter, health and wellbeing and waste minimisation. The school was commended for integrating the Eco Schools programme thoroughly into the curriculum and calendar through events such as One Planet Picnic, Earth Hour and our Apple Days and Green Days. Regular beach cleans and promotion of Fairtrade were also mentioned as was our support of charities such as WWF, MCS and Send my Friend to School. The pupils were described as “truly responsible, global citizens” and we are very proud of this.
Shake up your wake up
Primary 5/4 at St. Mun’s Primary School helped the whole school and Clyde Cottage nursery to ‘Shake Up Their Wake Up’ by taking part in The Big Farmhouse Breakfast week from 26th to 30th of January.
Pupils developed their organisational and communication skills by creating menus for each class; cooking different healthy breakfast options; carrying out surveys and devising a breakfast race to help everyone stay fit and healthy!
Continue reading Shake up your wake up
p7 Beetle Drive at Dunoon Primary
Dunoon Primary School P7 pupils organised a Beetle Drive to raise funds for their Benmore Transitional Weekend.
The children organised everything from collecting raffle prizes, selling tickets, costing and making smoothies which involved the pupils visiting local shops to price local produce. They took a great pride in organising this event themselves.
Scottish Literacy Week at Dalintober PS
Pupils and staff of Dalintober PS worked together to plan and evaluate a whole-school Interdisciplinary Learning Task centring on the Significant Aspects of Learning relating to Scottish Literacy. Pupils were engaged in a range of activities focussing on the four organisers of Reading, Writing, Talking & Listening, whilst making links to other curricular areas such as Social Studies, Expressive Arts and Technologies.
