Leswalt Primary schoolchildren will be taking centre stage at next week’s Royal Highland Show when they present “Scotland’s Larder Showcase”. Leswalt Primary School has been selected to represent Dumfries and Galloway, and potato farming. The whole school will travel to The Royal Highland Show next Friday to perform in front of a crowd of an estimated 30, 000 visitors.
Organised by the Royal Highland Education Trust, the main ring event – at 2.00 pm on the Friday of the show – sees pupils from schools throughout Scotland featuring a range of Scottish produce including beef, lamb, pigs, eggs, milk, soft fruit, fish, poultry, game, potatoes and vegetables. Each of the school groups was chosen by the local RHET Project Co-ordinator and allocated an item of produce. They were given a brief to prepare in class, interpreting the produce in the context of Scottish food production, branding and the journey from farm gate to plate.
At the show, a pipe band will lead the groups, “colour-coded” in different T-shirts, into the main ring. One pupil from each group will then introduce the school while another recites a rhyme about the produce. Mairi Lammie (p7 ) will take the microphone to introduce Leswalt Primary before Andrew Mc Millan (p7) will recite the verse composed by Mrs Buchanan, p1-4 teacher. All schools will then dance their specially choreographed routine in the ring to the rousing sound of The Proclaimers’ (I’m Gonna Be) 500 miles.
Not only will Leswalt Primary be representing potatoes, they will also be dressed up as potatoes! Pupils will wear customised tattie bunnets which parents have been busy helping create. Pupils will also be strutting their stuff in customised kilts. Local potato producer Fergus Little has supplied the school with potato sacks which have been creatively turned into kilts for the pupils!
Other schools participating are as follows: Fife Countryside Initiative – Pittenweem (vegetables); Lothians CI – Newtongrange (pigs); Borders CI – Broughton (eggs); Perth & Kinross CI – Glendelvine (game/venison); Ayrshire CI – Dreghorn (milk); Clyde CI and Dumbarton, Lomond & Renfrew CI – Bridge of Weir (poultry and lamb); Highland CI – Alvie (fish); Royal Northern CI – Milltimber (beef); and Angus CI – Southmuir (soft fruit).
“Scotland’s Larder Showcase” is one of a number of RHET activities at the show with the main focus at the Dobbies Children’s Discovery Centre where the theme will be “From Past To Present”, encouraging interest in farming, food and rural life through the ages.
RHET Manager Alison Motion said: “The Royal Highland Show is a highlight of our year-round programme of taking children onto farms and estates or having farmer speakers in the classroom. Although it’s all about enjoyment, we want to make sure our visiting children go away with more understanding of farming and food production. We are also thrilled to have a main ring spot as this will demonstrate to show visitors just how RHET connects with schools in Scotland.”
Mrs Sheila Baillie, Headteacher at Leswalt Primary, adds “This will be a fantastic experience for all of our pupils. It will be a day that they will remember for the rest of their life; the day they went to the Highland Show with the school, and danced like a tattie in the main ring in front of thousands of people! We are all very excited!”
The Royal Highland Show takes place on June 23-26 at the Royal Highland Centre, Ingliston, Edinburgh.
Leswalt Primary School have continued their study of “Farming” by a trip to Glenhead poultry unit, near Leswalt.
The whole school set off on a sunny afternoon for a hike up to Glenhead Farm. Pupils passed through Aldouran Wetland Gardens before the scenic and sensory experience of the Glen walk, which was alive with the smell of wild garlic.
On arriving at the top of the Glen pupils were met by Mr James Baxter at his recently purpose built unit. Pupils were just in time to see the hens coming out to play. The unit is home to 32,000 hens – which did get very noisy!
Once inside the shed pupils learned about the conditions “Happy Eggs” are produced in. The children saw the range of egg yolk colours and were fascinated to hear how different countries like Japan and America all had a preference for different coloured yolk.
Pupils saw thousands of hens- both inside and outside before the conveyor belt was started up and thousands of eggs moved along the line. After cleaning and checking all the eggs were stamped with the Baxter’s special code before being placed in trays and sent away.
It was a very interesting visit for all the staff and pupils of Leswalt. The walk back down to school was a time to reflect on what they learned and how they would cook the half dozen eggs that the Baxter’s generously gave everyone. As well as receiving 6 eggs to cook, children also got one hard boiled white egg. This egg is to be decorated with a farmyard theme (it could turn into a pig, cow, Old MacDonald or even a tractor) and be returned to school as a homework challenge. Mrs Baillie is looking forward to seeing the eggs-cellant, imaginative eggs returning to school next week.
