Last night (3rd June) at the Keswick Centre in Dumfries, Cameron Muffett in P6 managed to beat off  his opposition and come away with the gold medal for the age 11 and under 80m sprint for Dumfries and Galloway.  He now goes forward to compete in Kilmarnock on Sunday for the next stage of the competition. Not only did he get gold in the sprint, but also a silver medal in the long jump competition. This is a fantastic achievement and we all wish Cameron well in the next round of the sprinting. Below you can see him proudly showing us his medals.

On Friday 16th May the pupils in P6 and 7  paid a visit to our local radio station West Sound. They have been looking at various methods of communication and its development through the centuries. Each pupil compiled a list of questions and we then collated them  to create a set of interview questions to put to Tommy Jardine. Each pupil asked a question and we found out a lot about Tommy and his work and life in general. After the interview session another of the stations presenters, Stewart McCafferty gave us a guided tour of the recording studios and showed us how a day on air is planned out.  Stewart then recorded the whole class doing an introduction for a song, and programmed it into his computer for using later in the day. At 4.20pm Hardgate pupils were heard across the region introducing Adele and Rumour Has It !  We would all like to thank both Tommy and Stewart for taking the time out , during a busy schedule to show us the nuts and bolts of live radio. We all thoroughly enjoyed our visit .

Today (Tuesday 6th April) we took delivery of our new picnic benches. A few weeks ago, Natasha, Emily and Jude went with Mrs Courten to visit nearby Solway Recycling, which is a company that has grown over the last few years, making use of waste plastic from a variety of sources nationwide. They use this waste to produce items for resale to the public. The 3 pupils were given a tour of the plant to see how the process worked. Negotiations round the table were then led by Emily and an agreed price was reached with George Cloy, and hands were shaken to seal the deal. The children then discussed the colour combinations to be used in their picnic benches and the order was submitted. This activity all goes towards our aim for a green flag award. Hopefully we will be able to make good use of these benches in the summer weather.

The children in P.4 and 5 have been learning all about water this term and as part of this project they decided to organise a fund raising event in school to help WaterAids effort in bringing safe drinking water to children in areas where this does not happen automatically. They organised an afternoon which included cake sales and jumble and also games and a raffle.  Their efforts raised the very credible total of £214.66 which will be sent to WaterAid and below you can see some pictures of the afternoon’s activities.

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This time it was the turn of P.6 pupils to show their curling skills in their tournament, at The Ice Bowl in Dumfries.  Georgia, Alice, Jack and Cameron took to the ice with great enthusiasm and had a great day even though they didn’t rank in the top places. Their attitude of taking part being most important is to be commended. Below is a picture of them having a half time break.

Children in the senior classes from primary schools across The Stewartry, have today (Wed 26th March) taken part in the CROSS COUNTRY FESTIVAL, at the Stewartry rugby club grounds. The sun shone and conditions were excellent for the 1500m course, which was run in class groupings. In the P6 girls race,  Alice came in third, and in the P6 boys, Jack came fourth. This is a tremendous achievement for both pupils as the field of runners was huge. Below are some pictures showing the determination of the children in this event.

Two special visitors came to the P7 Curling Tournament at the Ice Bowl in Dumfries. Bruce Mouat and Gina Aitken came and talked to and supported the children throughout the day. They had played for Scotland in the World Mixed Doubles in Canada in 2013. You can see them here along with the ‘Beltie’ mascot for the day, who was wandering around and meeting the children as well as giving them encouragement on the ice.

These frolicking lambs  and their mums were created by the children in P1,2,3.  They are having great fun going up hill and down dale. The children were working in pairs and had to co-operate with each other to achieve these well planned pictures. There were lots of instructions to follow and different methods to achieve different aspects of the completed pictures.

This year we had several entries in numerous categories at the Dumfries Music Festival. Here you can see two of our lucky winners proudly showing off their silver ware. Jack is holding his trophy and medal for brass instrument playing (trumpet), and Matilda had entered the solo violinist competition, and has her medal and trophy on display. Both are smiling happily and we are all very proud of their achievements.

This term we are continuing our theme of traditional Scottish music with an input from 2 new presenters from Feis Rois, a group based in Dingwall in the Highlands who have presenters covering a wide variety of traditional Scottish music and instruments. Grant MacFarlane and Claire Mann are here for an eight week block to bring to us music which includes the use of accordian, fiddle and tin whistle amongst others. Here they are having introduced themselves and some of their instruments to P.6 and 7, before moving through to P.4 and 5. Their music is gauranteed to set our toes tapping in time to the beat!