The boys and girls of Leswalt Primary managed to keep a special secret – a goodbye assembly for Mrs Bathgate. Mrs Bathgate had taught at the school for 8 years, and is now moving away from the area and leaving her post at Leswalt. All the pupils sang 2 songs which they had been practising in secret – the singing was fantastic and there were more than a few tears shed as emotions ran high. The staff, pupils, parents and parent council handed over a range of generous gifts to wish Mrs Bathgate well .
Month: September 2015
New playground toys!
Pupils at Leswalt Primary were recently delighted when local resident Stewart Mc Culloch popped into school to hand in a donation of money for the children at school. Mr Mc Culloch can normally be found down at the Kirkland pond, helping local fishermen of the area. He held a fishing competition at the Kirland pond recently and a raffle generated £80. The school has been using Kirkland pond, for the last 2 years as part of it’s “Wider achievement” programme. This initiative allows different children to go down to the Kirkland pond on a Friday afternoon and learn the skills of fishing. Mr Mc Culloch felt as the school supported the fishing, he would like to give something back to the school.
Mrs Baillie (headteacher) told the pupil council of the donation and they were keen to use the money to buy in some new playground toys. The following day, Kerr in Primary 7 came in with his Argos book from home, so that they could decide what to spend the money on. The money was soon spent on new footballs, a swingball set, a parachute and lots more. The pupil council were happy and shared the good news and new additions to the toy box with their classmates.
Many thanks must go to Mr Mc Culloch for his support of the local village school. We hope that he will enjoy driving past the school and see all the new toys being enjoyed by the boys and girls
Tobacco advertising
As part of their health and wellbeing learning and teaching, Primary 5-7 have been focussing on “Tobacco” this term. They have been discussing the legalities surrounding the advertising of tobacco and laws in the sale of tobacco products.
To help them with their work, they popped across the road to Leswalt Stores. Gillian was more than happy to explain to the class the laws which are in place. The children also saw for themselves how products are not allowed to be on display and the signage which is in place.
Many thanks must go to Gillian Murdoch, not only for her useful information and knowledge on the subject, but also for the sweeties which she gave the class as they left!
Golf festival
Primary 5 recently had a lovely time along at Creachmore as part of a golf festival aimed at all Primary 5 pupils.
The sun was shining, as they all learned more about the game and how to improve their golf swing.
P5-7 Speed distance and time
The senior class recently went outside to do their maths. They were learning all about speed, distance and time. And, to help them with their learning they all went outside and had to run over a specified distance to help them calculate their speed.
The photos show some of p5-7 racing across the playground.
Geology workshop
Primary 5-7 had a recent visitor to class who helped develop their Science topic of resources of the Earth, through bringing in a great selection of different rocks for them to examine.
The children learnt a lot about the properties of different rocks, and where they are found. The afternoon concluded when they got to witness a volcano erupting in their classroom!
Teddy Bear Maths
P2-4 had a busy maths session today! They brought their teddies to school to do some measuring!
Here’s what they had to say about it…
We needed to work in pairs and use a measuring tape.
We measured in centimetres (cm)
We tried using a metre stick and a ruler but they just weren’t flexible enough!
We worked out which end of the measuring tape to start at and which side to use – some of the measuring tapes used inches on one side.
We filled all of our teddy measurements in on our data files.
It was good fun!
Visit from Munro Madnezz Bhoys
We had the pleasure of a visit from Gerald from the Munro Madnezz Bhoys Challenge this morning.
He told us all about the 282 Munros in Scotland (there used to be 283 but one shrunk (!) and is no longer counted as a Munro!). They are named after Sir Hugh Munro who discovered and categorised them all – though he didn’t climb them all.
Gerald has climbed many of these and told us of his love for doing this. He has raised lots of money for Macmillan Cancer charity through his climbs.
He showed us all some of the equipment that he uses and explained how to keep safe when climbing. It is something which he adores doing.
Laura and Alison from Active Schools were with Gerald. They have set primary school pupils the challenge of doing sports activities to equal the time it would take to climb a Munro. Who is keen to take up this challenge?
Recording sheets are available in school. How many Munros do you think you could ‘climb’? Come on, give it a go!
Triathlon Fun!
On Monday 7th September, P5-7 joined lots of other pupils from local schools to participate in an event run by Triathlon Scotland. The children had lots of fun swimming, cycling and running. It was a great taster session to get a feel of what a triathlon involves – but on a mini scale! Well done to everyone involved – the pupils had a great time!
Outside Maths!
Today P2-4 had great fun measuring outside. They worked in small groups and recorded their results on their clipboard.
Each group worked out how many giant steps, fairy steps and how long a people chain they needed to measure from one part of the playground to the other. But everybody was ending up with different answers!
There had to be a solution… Then we came up with the answer – a metre stick! This was a standard size and so our measurements were the same.
We also had a go at using a trundle wheel too. We really enjoyed measuring using metres.