After 25 years of association with Hardgate School, Rev. Norman Hutcheson, minister of Dalbeattie and Urr Parishes, has decided to retire. He has been coming here on vitually a weekly basis to our school assemblies and over time has become known as ‘Story Man’.  He has counted up and reckons he must have told about 900 stories to the children over these 25 years. Today was no exception, and he told us his last story at a special leaving assembly where the children had some special songs and poems to include.

He was presented with an engraved bowl with a picture of the school on one side and the school logo and his name on the other. Mrs Hutcheson recieved a lovely basket of flowers in the school colours and then both cut the sponge cake which was baked by our school cook and served along with tea for the adults and juice for the children. Not only did he come to school assemblies, but he assisted with school trips, both day trips and overnight ones with all stages throughout the school, as well as being a serving member on our Parent Council at various stages over the years.

Mr and Mrs Hutcheson are now going to spend a year in Sri Lanka, working with a Church out there, and we all send them our best wishes for a long and happy retirement.

The children in P.6,7 are studying Europe and the European Union this term. One of the artists they are looking at is Vincent Van Gogh. They have done their own version of his famous sunflower paintings. They used their maths skills of measuring angles with protractors and based their desingns on a clock face format initially before using their artistic skills to complete with colour.

On Tuesday morning the children in Hardgate had a few small visitors to the school.  Ian from ZooLab brought along a selection of his little creatures and gave a talk about their importance in the eco-systems in our land. He showed the children a millipede, tarantula, toad, snake and a white rat. The children were allowed to handle all except the tarantula. Below are some pictures of these fascinating and clever little creatures.

The children from Mrs Martin’s class and Mrs Courten’s class joined forces and had their school trip together this year. The younger pupils have been studying weather and the older ones have been looking at climate and the world’s rainforest regions. They all travelled together to Edinburgh where they visited the Dynamic Earth exhibition. They took a tour through ‘time’ exploring some of the effects of nature on our planet earth. Each class then had a workshop activity to do before we had our ‘Showdome’ experience with the ‘aliens’. a good day was had by all. Below is the web address of Dynamic Earth which you can click on and find out more about what the attraction has to offer.

http://www.dynamicearth.co.uk/

Alice was one of 2 children from Hardgate to be picked to take part in a swimming gala in Dumfries recently. Children from throughout the area took part and Alice came home with 3 medals, 2 bronze and a silver. In the picture she is proudly showing these medals. Well done Alice !

All the P.6 children have been trained by Darren from Active Schools, with a programme to give them the confidence to help the younger children to make the most of games time outside in the school grounds at break times. Here we see them on a very sunny day ( rare occasion !) with their certificates. Next term we will be starting a rota of games with these young leaders for some of our outdoor playtimes.

All pupils in P7,  today (28th May) had a talk from Constable Ian Bradley who is the police officer assigned to all the schools in the Stewartry district. He talked to the pupils about the safe and correct way in which to use the internet. There are many ways in which some people can be bullied by others over the internet, and unsuitable material displayed. Constable Bradley talked to the children and discussed with them how they should treat the internet and other people in a safe and responsible way. It is also very important that parents and carers are aware of these problems and take an active role in ensuring they know what their children are doing on the internet and taking any necessary steps required if problems arise. CEOP is the police site where all the relevant information can be found. You can access it with the web link below.

http://ceop.police.uk/

Mrs Martin and her class opened up their classroom to parents and other pupils to share the work they had completed on the topic of ‘Fairyland’ In the pictures  below you can see the boys and girls showing the older children some of the things they have done and reading out some of their stories they have written. We wonder if the schools’ resident dragon in the attic will keep paying us a visit and leaving his footprints around the build

ing, or if he has decided to hibernate now ???