Category Archives: Early Years

St Andrew’s Day Celebrations at St Joseph’s!

Communities and Culture, Early Years, Events, Expressive arts, Fundraising, Gaelic, History, Hospitality, Interdisciplinary, Music, Primary schools, Social Enterprise, Topics

A great day was had by all at St. Joseph’s School as St. Andrew’s Day was celebrated in style. Everyone had been invited to come to school wearing some tartan at a charge of £1 per person – an initiative which helped raise funds for the school. Then everyone packed into the assembly hall to watch each class perform a Scottish song or dance. There was quite a genre of singing on offer from ‘Ali Babi’ by the pre-5 children to ‘The Song of the Clyde’ by P6.

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BUILDING THE AMBITION IN ARGYLL AND BUTE

Communities, Conferences, Early Years, Events, Expressive arts, Literacy, Presentations, Workshops

Managers and Head teachers from Early Learning and Childcare settings across Argyll & Bute welcomed a recent conference on ‘Building the Ambition’*. The document’s writer, Liz Paterson, an adviser with the Scottish Government, delivered presentations and workshops on this new National Practice Guidance. The conference was held in the Three Villages Hall, Arrochar. Parents with their children joined the conference for a short period as Bookbug made an appearance, all attendees and visitors joined in with the singing.

‘Colgrain’s Cosmic Landing’

Early Years, Events, Health and Wellbeing, Interdisciplinary, Outdoor Learning, Primary schools, Training

Colgrain P1 and nursery pupils have been learning all about how to be safe when crossing the road. We have learned all about the importance of looking, listening and holding hands. We have also learned about the safest places to cross. Ziggy heard about all our hard work and he flew down in his rocket to visit us. We shared our learning with him and asked him lots of questions. What a cosmic time we had!

Breakthrough Bake Off at Port Charlotte!

Communities, Early Years, Events, Fundraising, Home Economics, Hospitality, Interdisciplinary, Primary schools, Topics

Pictured are children at Port Charlotte school dressed in pink for our recent Breakthrough Breast Cancer Bake Sale. All the children in the school and pre5 unit had spent the week baking a variety of delicious goodies and on the Friday members of the local community were invited into the school for tea and a cake sale. Over forty visitors came and enjoyed our cakes and a display of individual project work by P3/4/5. We were delighted with the fantastic amount of £349 which we raised for Breakthrough and we’d like to thank everyone who helped with baking and donations

Porridge Day in the Woods @ Kilmartin

Communities and Culture, Early Years, environment, Events, Forest Schools, Fundraising, Global Citizenship, Home Economics, Interdisciplinary, Outdoor Learning, Primary schools, RME

Friday 10th October is National Porridge Day and to celebrate this, the children cooked and ate their own porridge in the woods during Forest School.

They kept a close look-out for that rascal Goldilocks so she couldn’t creep up and eat all of their porridge while they weren’t looking so to help, the children all brought their favourite bears to act as lookouts!

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Stand Up To Cancer

Communities, Early Years, Events, Fundraising, Health and Wellbeing, Interdisciplinary, Primary schools, Social Enterprise

At a request from our local Charity shop Cancer Research UK, we agreed to take part in ‘Stand Up To Cancer’ National Fundraiser. The children paid a donation in exchange for wearing clothes other than school uniform.

We raised a incredible £130.00

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Would you like mud with that sir?

Communities and Culture, Early Years, Eco Schools, environment, Interdisciplinary, Outdoor Learning, Primary schools, Topics

Achaleven Primary have taken mud to a whole new level with a new addition to their outdoor learning space.

To co-incide with International Mud Day at the end of June, the school had a grand opening of our mud kitchen which Mrs MacPherson designed and Mr MacPherson very kindly built for us. The toddler group came along and shared in the mud-themed ceremony (which also included some very delicious edible goodies). Continue reading Would you like mud with that sir? →

St. Joseph’s children always happy to help!

Appeals, Communities, Early Years, Events, Fundraising, Geography, Global Citizenship, Interdisciplinary, Primary schools, Requests, RME, Topics

The children and parents of St Joseph’s were delighted to lend a hand to Helensburgh Rotary Club’s Aquabox Appeal last term. This year the children were not asked to bring in small toiletry items etc. as in previous years but to collect money to assist in buying an Aquabox which was already full of essential items for those people in third world countries. St Joseph’s gladly embraced the request and held a non-uniform day solely for the purpose of raising funds for the appeal.

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Achaleven Primary sponsored walk

Communities, Early Years, environment, Events, Fundraising, Interdisciplinary, Outdoor Learning, Primary schools, Transition

Achaleven Primary raised a fantastic £198.95 at their recent sponsored walk from Dunbeg to Ganavan and back. Some of the incoming primary one pupils also joined them for the event to help raise funds for the school garden. The sun shone and they had a wonderful picnic with the toddler group at Ganavan beach to rejuvenate them for the journey back.

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News from Cardross Primary School

Active Schools, Commonwealth, Communities and Culture, Competitions, Early Years, environment, Events, Expressive arts, Health and Wellbeing, Interdisciplinary, Outdoor Learning, PE, Primary schools, Sport, Topics, Training, Transition,

Commonhealth games
Cardross Primary had a visit from Hopscotch theatre company. They performed ‘The Commonhealth Games’, it was a super production enjoyed by everyone!

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Oban Musical Success for Rockfield Pupils

Communities and Culture, Competitions, Early Years, Events, Expressive arts, Interdisciplinary, Literacy, Primary schools

Children from Oban’s Rockfield Primary had a fantastic time at the recent Highlands and Islands Music and Dance Festival, taking part in a range of competitions involving over 100 children from pre-school to P7.

The Festival’s Action Song class is an event in itself. Rockfield’s Gaelic pre-school and P2/1 Gaelic class performed Seo a’ Chroit aig Calum Ruadh, a Gaelic version of ‘Old MacDonald Had a Farm’, while the P2 classes performed The Fireman.
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Family Day at St Joseph’s Pre-5 Unit

Communities, Early Years, Events, Primary schools

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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Art in the Outdoor Environment at Rhunahaorine

Early Years, environment, Interdisciplinary, Outdoor Learning, Science, Topics

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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Owl Magic

Early Years, environment, Events, Gaelic, Interdisciplinary, Literacy, Outdoor Learning, Primary schools, Topics

On Wednesday the 7th May Sandbank Primary School, Nursery, Gaelic Medium Unit and Sgoil Araich were visited by Owl Magic from Kilmarnock. Nine different owls from all over the world spent the day with us, as each class learned about birds of prey and how to handle them carefully and safely. The owls ranged from a large eagle owl from Afghanistan called Bailey down to a pygmy owl called Titch.

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DGS pupil Shannon Brings Sunshine to Kirn Nursery

Communities, Curriculum for Excellence, Early Years, Interdisciplinary, Learning Centres, Outdoor Learning, Personal Development, Secondary schools, Topics, Work Experience, ,

One of the four focuses (or capacities) of The Curriculum for Excellence is to encourage pupils to become effective contributors to their communities. What better way to do this than to volunteer some time to help out at a local nursery school. This is what Shannon Lyon, S5 pupil at Dunoon Grammar School and full time pupil in the learning centre, has been doing since August 2013.

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First Fun Friday at St. Joseph’s Pre-5 Unit

Communities, Early Years, Events, Interdisciplinary, Topics

St. Joseph’s Pre-5 Unit has been up and running now since August 2013. Following a recent parent survey, the staff were delighted to learn that parents were very happy with the provision, staff and curriculum. One suggestion from parents was to have a regular open afternoon which the staff readily developed. Friday 04 April, 2014 was the first of such events and parents attended in their droves.

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Mud, Glorious Mud!

Early Years, Interdisciplinary, Outdoor Learning, Primary schools, Science, Topics

Early Level children and staff at Rhunahaorine have embraced the wet weather this spring and created a marvellous mud kitchen.
Children have been making mud cakes, pies and ice cream… exploring volume, capacity, texture and much more in a multi sensory way.
When they have finished they have to do the washing up of course- outside!

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