January 2014 – Leswalt Primary School

On Friday 24thJanuary 2014, Leswalt Primary held its fifth annual Burns Supper.
The whole school sat down together to enjoy this tradition. Abbie Mc Quillan , P7, was a very able and organised chairperson who ensured the proceedings ran smoothly.
Arden Mc Intyre, said the ‘Selkirk Grace’ before Mr Andy Ross piped in the haggis. Erin Jamieson, P1, proudly carried the haggis into the company. The haggis was presented toTommy Kerslake, P7, who confidently addressed it with great gusto. Mr Douglas McClure educated the company about the life of Robert Burns, in saying ‘The Immortal Memory’.
Recitations were also delivered from pupils in primary 1 to primary 7.
Tommy Kerslake, proposed an amusing toast to the lassies before Erin Topping in p7 gave him an appropriate reply.
Kieran Dodds in Primary 7 provided an articulate and amusing toast , which was in the form of a poem, to Leswalt School
The Burns Supper concluded with Rhona Baillie in p6 giving an appreciative vote of thanks.
The company sang ‘Auld Lang Syne’ at the end of a highly successful and entertaining Burns Supper at Leswalt Primary.

Leswalt and Portpatrick Primary schools have recently been involved in Partnership schools implementation, which is currently being phased in across Dumfries and Galloway. Practically, this means that both schools now have Mrs Sheila Baillie as Headteacher.
As part of this new partnership arrangement, learning, sporting and social events are being planned to bring pupils and staff of both schools together. At the weekend, pupils from Portpatrick Primary joined up with Leswalt pupils to play in a football tournament. Neither school has enough pupils available to enter independently, so it was of benefit to both schools that the pupils could combine as “Leswalt/Portpatrick United” and allow them to participate.

Primary 1-4 pupils at both Leswalt and Portpatrick Primary School have been learning all about Chinese New Year, as part of their RME, with Miss Nicola Baillie, Principal teacher. As part of their learning, the pupils wrote letters to the Hong Kong City Restaurant to ask if they could visit to find out more about how they celebrate the special occasion. The letters were a great success and both schools were invited to the restaurant together. Pupils were served a selection of tasty Chinese snacks which were enjoyed by all – it was not long before the plates were empty! The children were then told about the Chinese calendar and the importance of the colour red in Chinese culture. They were also shown a variety of traditional Chinese decorations and artwork as well as learning some simple Chinese phrases. The restaurant very kindly donated some resources for the classes to use in their role play area at school, where they will be running their own Chinese Restaurant to develop literacy and numeracy skills in a fun, motivating context. All the staff and pupils would like to say many thanks to all the Hong Kong City staff for providing the children with a fantastic afternoon.
Both Leswalt and Portpatrick schools are now looking forward to future joint projects, and developing their partnership in a variety of different contexts.