Month: May 2016

Primary 1-4 went another wander to the Wetlands this week as part of their science learning and teaching.  The visit today focussed on a treasure hunt to help them learn more about life cycles, as well as a sound safari, up through the glen.

Yet again they had another wonderful afternoon of outdoor learning, led by the great team of volunteers at our local gardens

Have a look at all the fun they had while learning!

Ten of our pupils were lucky enough to have a fantastic all expenses day out at Hampden football stadium in Glasgow.  The Primary 1-4 class have been getting weekly football training with Garry Mc Knight an SFA coach.  This input is funded by Tesco.  Garry was asked to select one school which he had been visiting and take  5 boys and 5 girls with him to the National stadium in Glasgow.  Leswalt Primary were delighted to be selected as the only school in Dumfries and Galloway.  

On Monday 23rd May, Jenna Calderwood, Millie Smith, Iona Rickard, Kirstie Mac Donald, Charlotte Gaw, Logan Wilson, Boyd Sloan, Euan Mc Credie, Cameron Mc Cutcheon and Gregor Reid met at school at 7.30am.  They headed off to Hampden accompanied by Garry Mc Knight (SFA Coach), Ewan Dodds (Leswalt Primary school football coach) and Mrs Smith from the school.

At Hampden the children had a tour of the stadium, watched the freestylers performing football tricks, trained in the indoor facility, met some premier league footballers, got their photograph taken with the Scottish cup and even got to play football on the pitch at Hampden.  The children had lunch provided to them at Hampden before leaving for home with a goodie bag packed with items such as t-shirt, water bottle and football for each of them. 

Logan Wilson in Primary 4 said his favourite part was “when we got to run out the tunnel and onto the pitch at Hampden with everyone cheering for us”.  Euan Mc Credie and Boyd Sloan were delighted to tell the class the next day that they had scored 10 goals between them – and as Mrs Baillie the Headteacher pointed out, that will be a good story to tell their grand children when they are older …..all about the day they played football at Hampden and scored so many goals!

This afternoon P1-4 were due to head up to the wetlands again in Leswalt.  Unfortunately the weather took a turn for the worse as it became wet and windy.  So instead of the children going to the wetlands, the wetlands came to the school!  Jean Sheppard popped into school and spent the afternoon with the younger pupils.  She brought with her some visitors in the form of minibeasts found in Aldouran wetlands.  The children had a fascinating afternoon as she showed them a variety of bugs and beasties which were all found in the local environment.

As part of their continuing work on developing the school grounds, Primary 1-4 have been busy outside painting.  With their old clothes on once more,  they had a wonderful afternoon of fun in the sun.  The tyres were given a base coat of paint before they are transformed and the mural round the back of the school was brightened up.

Have a look at the happy little gang hard at work!

As part of their work on the solar system, Primary 5-7 have been busy creating scale size paper mache planets for the classroom – it looks like it was a lot of fun…..and a lot of mess!

On Sunday 8th May the Parent council Fundraising group organised a fun afternoon and Cream Teas event at Leswalt Primary.  In preparation for this the group had been baking lots of tasty treats as well as organising a bouncy castle, generous prize raffle, bottle stall, face painting, candy floss, nail bar and lots more of attractions.

This Cream teas was well supported by the local community in Leswalt as well as numerous businesses- Stena Line, Henry’s Bayhouse, Auto links, Academy vets, Central Café, Pap Rab’s pizzas, Tesco, Frasers the butchers, Simpsons the bakers, Glenhead happy eggs, Glenapp Castle to name but a few.

The combination of glorious weather and influx of visitors to the school enabled the final total of £1073 to be raised – much to the delight of all involved at Leswalt Primary.

This afternoon all of P1-4 went along to Leswalt Wetlands to learn a bit more about caring for the local environment.  They were met by the team of excellent volunteers there who guided the pupils though various activities such as pond dipping and a scavenger hunt.   The boys and girls even got to see a family of little ducklings which happened to be born the day before!

All the boys and girls had an excellent afternoon, and learned a lot more about the lovely local environment of Aldouran Wetlands – which is right on their doorstep.

Primary 1-4 Garden Gang have started their work round the back of the school.  Thanks to kind donations from parents and friends of the school the class were able to design and build their own bug hotel – which they have creatively named “Buggingham Palace”.  ATS also donated a van load of tyres – watch this space to see what they will be used for!

Primary 1-4 had a visit from Generation Science this week.  This touring company are based in the Glasgor Science centre and came to Leswalt Primary to lead a workshop based on programming.  By the end of the afternoon all pupils were aware of how programming works and had experience of programming a lego goal keeper to move and try to save balls from scoring goals.  Some of the children even went onto add motion sensors to their programme which meant that the goal keeper moved in anticipation of the penalty being scored.  Pupils used touch screen laptops to programme their goalies.

It was definitely very high tech stuff for such little people – but the thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon and really got a lot out of the experience.