Month: April 2024

This morning, Mrs Patterson from Stranraer Academy came to visit the P7 pupils. She brought with her three well-known faces;  Katie Kirkbride from Portpatrick, James Turtle from Kirkcolm and Alexander Clark from Leswalt – all of whom are S1 pupils at Stranraer Academy and past pupils of our primary school.

P7 enjoyed a question and answer session with the S1 pupils; getting a chance to find out more about life as a secondary pupil. Alexander, Katie and James were really helpful!

The next transition event will be on  Friday 17th May when P7 will be heading to Stranraer Academy for the day.

This afternoon PCs McGregor and Walker came to speak to P5-7 about the ‘bairns’ – life-size cardboard cut-outs of children designed to remind drivers to be extra vigilant around schools.

The five ‘bairns’ are spending two weeks in every primary school and remind drivers to think about where they park, watch their speed and to  be careful of where pupils are crossing. The class discussed with the Police Officers where they thought each should be placed, and are taking on the responsibility of putting the ‘bairns’ out in the morning before 9am and taking them in after 3pm.

So, watch out for the ‘bairns’!

The sun shone – yes really! – one morning this week and so we donned our jackets (well, it wasn’t THAT warm!) and headed outside to continue our Length, Perimeter and Area learning outside.

Working in our maths groups, we each took our set activity sheet and a clipboard and set to work. Mrs F took the handy toolkit trolley outside which was equipped with an iPad, rulers, measuring tapes, chalk, metre sticks and trundle wheels – a plethora of measuring devices!

From selecting most suitable equipment to using correct measuring unit; calculating area to working out the perimeter (think we have now cracked the difference between the two!) and converting measurements from metric to imperial measurements – we had an action-packed morning.

Here’s to many more outdoor learning sessions -even better with just a little more heat!

Take a look at the photos of us busy at work….

This week, P5-7 got the chance to explore coding using Spheros. These are small spherical ‘robots’ which can be coded to move in any direction, light up in an array of colours, talk and play music!

Ms Whorlow had introduced these cool gadgets to us at the end of term 2 and we were desperate to get our hands on them again this week and explore some more learning through coding. We enjoy using Microbits; we like investigating Scratch coding and so this was guaranteed to be great fun!

Working in pairs, armed with an iPad and our connected Sphero, we worked through the sessions. Learning to ‘drive’ was the first obstacle to overcome and we soon discovered that capping the speed and distance was a necessity as the coded Spheros zoomed off down the corridor! P1-3 were intrigued as to what we were doing, as several of them popped their heads out to have a look, and so P5 spent some time with them on Monday afternoon leading their learning. They might even have been safer drivers than us!

We soon got the hang of things and moved onwards and upwards; being able to code the Sphero to change colour, ‘draw’ shapes on the ground, ‘speak’ and play music. It has to be said that all pupils were much more adept at this than Mrs F who methodically checked each step (VERY slowly!) and showed very little originality! The pupils, on the other hand, were fabulous – demonstrating superb creativity, applying their initiative, following instructions, problem solving, working with others all whilst developing their newly learnt coding skills at the same time! Winner winner!

One pair even ‘drove’ their Sphero in to Mrs McHarg’s office and programmed it to say “Hello Mrs McHarg!” – love it!

What a great week of learning – the Spheros got a big thumbs up from all at Leswalt Primary.

UNCRC Rights of the Child – Article 29 Aims of Education

 

Hamish, Faye, Kaiden and Katie made a formidable quiz team today representing Leswalt Primary at the Annual Rotary Primary Schools’ Quiz. And, better still, they were placed 3rd receiving a certificate each and a cheque for £40 for the school!
Teamwork was key as they used their general knowledge skills to answer questions which many adults would’ve found challenging! Most importantly, the four of them were superb ambassadors for their school – mannerly, cheery and up for giving the quiz their all.

Well done to our Fab Four!

#confidentindividuals

#responsiblecitizens

UNCRC Article 29 Aims of Education and 13 Sharing Thoughts Freely