Month: October 2013

Playmakers

Thirteen senior pupils at Leswalt Primary have successfully completed the Play Maker course led by Laura McClymont, the Active Schools Coordinator. This was a four week course created by Sports Leaders UK with the aim of teaching older children how to deliver a games programme to younger children. As part of the course they had to think about what makes a good leader, plan activities and evaluate their performance. They had the opportunity to carry out their activities as warm ups for PE lessons.

The children all passed their final assessment and achieved the following levels:

Gold – Emma Drennan and Craig Anderson, Silver- Freya Bathgate, Rhona Baillie, Abbie McQuillan, Mackenzie Keith, Tommy Kerslake, James Murray, Kieran Dodds, Gordon Johnstone and Kathryn Topping. Bronze- Finlay Cowan and Erin Topping.

Some of the pupils have already put their skills to good use by setting up lunchtime clubs for the younger members of the school.

P5-7 visit to St Josephs

As part of their RME topic of ‘Christianity in our Community’, Leswalt Primary School’s P5-7 visited St.Joseph’s Church in Stranraer  and met with the Priest, Father Neil O’Donnell and Deacon Peter Marks.
 
The pupils came along with lots of questions about what the job of a priest entails, and about the churches role in the community.
 
They learnt about the clothing the priest wears for different services and at different times of the year. They found out about the artefacts in the church and what they were used for. They were able to compare St.Joseph’s to Leswalt Parish Church, which they visited earlier in the term.
 
It was both a very informative and enjoyable experience for the pupils.  As Rhona Baillie in P6 said “ St Josephs is beautiful inside.  I love all the marble.  I learned a lot, as I had never been there before”

Wigtown Book Festival

The Wigtown Book Festival is always looked forward to with anticipation. This year’s event was a huge hit with the Leswalt Primary pupils who were lucky enough to attend on both the Friday and Tuesday.
 
There were already a number of Philip Ardagh fans in the P5-7 class, so they were delighted to go to Wigtown to meet the man himself.  Before going, they  looked up some information on ‘The Grunts’, the central characters in Philip Ardagh’s book ‘The Grunts in Trouble, and decided that they sounded like characters they would  like to read about. The pupils dreamed up some new characters and invented some transport to rival the Grunt’s caravan made from an old ice-cream van and a motor bike sidecar pulled by Clip and Clop the donkeys. The class handed over their ideas to Philip Ardagh who was delighted to receive them and promised to let us know which ideas he liked.
 
Stuart Reid had an equally appealing character called ‘Gorgeous George’ who is appearing in his third novel which was launched on the very day P5-7 were there, and was quite literally hot off the press.
 
If the aim of the Book Festival is to inspire reading and writing in children, it certainly achieved its aim. Noses were firmly in new books all the way home to Leswalt.

Macmillan Coffee afternoon event

Leswalt Primary School held an open afternoon on Friday 27th September and set about transforming their school. The hall became a music

performance venue, the P5-7 classroom a French café, and the P 1-4 classroom a cinema.  Parents and friends were invited along to sample the delights on offer.

 
Mrs Parker had prepared a varied selection of harvest themed songs with the children and they were greatly enjoyed by the audience and choirs alike, as they performed to the guests in school.
 
P 5-7 were very enterprising and arranged a café in aid of the Macmillan ‘World’s Biggest Coffee Morning’ event. Croissants, pain au chocolat, brioche and tarte au citron were washed down with tea, coffee, hot chocolate and Orangina. The class had prepared menus in French and practiced their conversational French on the customers. Approximately £150 was donated for the charity.
 
The grand finale was the world premiere of Primary 1-4’s film ‘A Holiday Guide to Leswalt’. As part of their local study topic, the children had researched, scripted and starred in the production which was filmed on location at various tourist hot-spots in the village, including Leswalt park, Aldouran Wetland Gardens, Leswalt Stores, Kirkland Tearoom and farm shop and Drumlochart caravan site. Orders were taken for copies of the DVD which proved very popular, as the class plan to sell their mini movie from school.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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