We have had an action-packed week of healthy activities in school. Many thanks to all who came in and shared their expertise and enthusiasm with our school community: Terry from Solway Spartans Boxing; Mark from Annan Tennis Club; Nicole from Ankle Biters; Gary from Annan Rugby Club; Yvonne McGregor from the Health Improvement Team; Jacqueline Bell,  Dental Health Office; Edith from Tesco; Katie Robinson, i-bike officer; Zoe from Compass; Maureen Smith’s dancing club; Andy and Eric from Annan Athletic; Alistair from Borders Shotokan karate club; Liam from Little Tigers Taekwando; our own Mrs Menzies teaching Zumba;  P5/6 and P7 and their teachers Mr Stevenson and Miss Dennis.  Thanks also to Aldi for donating bottles of water.  The week was a great success and we hope to see progression for some of our children in to a new sport or club and in some of the healthy choices that they make.

As you can see we had a great week:

We started off with a Big Pedal breakfast.  Our JRSOs, Miss Tulloch, Mrs Alexander and Mrs Wright helped us get to school safely on our bikes and scooters.

All the classes had great fun in our playground with fun cycling and scooting challenges.  Thanks to Annan Cycling Club, Sandra, Katie and Gary for all their guidance and help in making it such an enjoyable day.

We had an average of 26% of our pupils cycling to school over the two weeks and 562 journeys on our bikes and scooters.  We had the 315th highest percentage of our school cycling/scooting in Great Britain and 41st in Scotland.  Well done everyone and keep cycling!

Well done everyone.  I counted over 50 bikes and scooters in our playground today.  Keep it up for the rest of the week.

Well done to Rhys O’Hara.  The names of the school footballers went into a hat and Rhys’ name was drawn out to win free tickets for the Scotland V Wales U18 International Football Match at Palmerston Park on Thursday 19th April.  Enjoy the game with your Dad Rhys!

Well done to our lacrosse team who took part in a competition at Dumfries College on Monday.  The team played well and enjoyed the experience.  Mrs Foster will continue the club after the holidays in preparation for the next tournament in the 4th term.

Well done to Ellie Smith who won the P7 girls regional badminton competition.  She played 8 matches, finally winning in the final and will now represent the school at a national competition in Perth during May.  Super effort, well done Ellie!

The Hecklegirth Stingrays and Hecklegirth Harriers took part in a basketball competition last Tuesday at Lockerbie.  All teams competed well and the Harriers ended up getting all the way to the final and winning the competition beating Newington 2 baskets to 1 in the final.  Well done everyone.

Each class chose one child to recite a poem using old Scot’s language during assembly recently.  The P1-3 winner was Willow Jones and the P4-7 winner was Eva Coupland.  Well done girls and to all those who represented their class in the assembly.  Willow and Eva will represent the school at the cluster competition on the 15th February at St Columbas Primary.

Well done to the boys who took part in an Annandale and Eskdale football tournament on Friday.  The boys were unbeaten in their group drawing with Moffat and beating Elmvale and Langholm.  They beat Lockerbie in the Quarter Finals but were beaten in the Semi Finals by Newington and finished fourth overall.  Well done boys!

On the last day before the Easter holidays Hecklegirth Primary School won the Large School Sports Initiative Award for 2016 at the Annandale and Eskdale Sports Awards.  This was for our focus in giving opportunity for as many children as possible to access different activities by offering a range of clubs from different sports and also trying to cater for all ages from P1-7.  We have also ensured that we entered all available competitions/ events in the Annandale and Eskdale Primary PEPAS calendar.  In entering these events we had a very successful year with our swimming and gymnastics teams.  We had the  girls Annandale and Eskdale cross country championship winner 2016 – Isla Cooper.  We were the A & E Basketball competition runners up in Feb 2016.  Ellie Smith was the  Primary 5 A & E badminton competition winner in Feb 2016.  We won the rugby comp in Oct/ Nov 2016.  The girls won the A & E Netball competition in May.  Two teams of P5/6 girls took part in a girls’ football festival in Dumfries in Sept 2016 and the boys football team also took part in many competitions being runners up at the Riding of the Marches comp in June 2016.   The football team played regular league matches against other local schools as well as entering all available competitions.

We were nominated alongside Newington, Moffat Primary, Langholm Academy and Lockerbie Academy.

This award is a great achievement and wouldn’t be possible without the support from our parents, teachers, Active Schools and of course all of the children who have taken part in clubs and competitions during 2016.  Well done everyone, a great team effort.

Our successful swimming team were also nominated for an individual achievement award.  Well done Mrs Kirkpatrick and all the Hecklegirth Primary swimmers.