Day: October 2, 2015

A few weeks ago a visitor to the school asked the children what was the monument on their school jumpers and at the top of the hill.  Answers included “the Queen used to live up there” and “the Nazis landed there”.  Mrs Baillie thought it was important all the boys and girls knew the significance of the monument which has been adopted as the school logo, and felt they should all know more. 

So, this afternoon the whole school walked one mile up to the Leswalt monument.  It tied in well with the p1-4 project on their community and responded to the needs and requests from children for more information.  The children learned it was built in 1850 in memorial to Andrew Agnew, who represented the community in Parliament. 

The school admired the stunning views from the top of the hill, looking at how calm Loch Ryan was, picking out Stranraer, spotting the school and even a few houses they recognised.  They were disappointed to learn you could not go inside the monument as it does not have any windows or doors.

The children all enjoyed the Friday afternoon walk – with Phoebe asking “I love this, can we go a walk every Friday afternoon?”.  It was one mile up to the monument and one mile back down.  Mrs Baillie said she felt like the “Grand Old Duke of York”  marching them all to the top of the hill, and then they marched back down again!

 

Primary 1-4 at Leswalt Primary have been learning all about community development this term.  As part of that work they have been looking at the process of building development.  In class the pupils were asked to design and plan out their dream house.  The tricky part came next – as Mrs Mc Knight, the class teacher, then asked the pupils to take their plans home and actually build the house, with help from parents.  The houses that were built were amazing – as support from parents was phenomenal.  

Design features that were incorporated into pupils’ plans included garages, conservatories, solar panels, flues for log burners, drain pipes and even Santa going down a chimney.A wide range of materials was used by children at home to build their model houses – including clay, wood, card, gravel, gingerbread and even a rough cast of sand, paint and glue. 

The learning of the process of building was reinforced when Ian Mac Fadzean (architect), Tommy Currie and Iona Brooke (planning department) and Ian Marshall (Luce Bay construction) were invited into school to come and tell the children more about their role.  They came in with tools and plans to illustrate to the class how they went about their job.  The pupils asked lots of questions and learned more about the process of building a house and possible careers in the future.

At the end of the question and answer session, Mr Currie, Mr Marshall and Mr Mac Fadzean were set their own challenge – they had to pick their favourite house.  All agreed it was a very difficult job before opting for Aidan (p1) and his gingerbread house which he baked with Mum, Chloe (p2) and her cottage which she rough casted with mum and Auryn (p3) and Breagh (p1) who worked with Mum to make a mansion complete with drain pipes, hanging baskets and window boxes.

The children learned a tremendous amount through this active learning and community involvement and the professionals left Leswalt Primary that day fearing for their jobs, after seeing the skills and knowledge demonstrated by the children!