Leswalt Primary pupils left the school with huge smiles on their faces today, after each being gifted a chocolate advent calendar from the Leswalt Community Association. They are all super excited to be allowed to have chocolate as part of their breakfast every day in December! A huge thank-you to LCA for their generosity!
P6-7 were joined by Rebecca from the NHS Tobacco team this morning, to learn all about the dangers of smoking and vaping. Rebecca’s job is to work with people who are ill from the effects of smoking/vaping, but also to try and prevent people from starting smoking/vaping to begin with.
We learned that the legal age to buy cigarettes/vapes will rise to 19 years old next year, 20 years old the following year, and so on so that it will eventually be illegal for everyone to smoke. We discussed the physical effects of smoking, as well as the effects on your bank balance! We learned that nicotine is more addictive than some drugs and how it affects the brain. We did an activity where we had to run/jump on the spot for 20 seconds, we then repeated this but had to doing it breathing through a small straw to show how hard it is for smokers to breath doing anything active.
Finally, we learned about the environmental impact of smoking – on average, there are 50 bin lorries of cigarette ends disposed of each year. In 2022, there was the equivalent of 22 football pitches worth of vapes disposed of.
Rebecca encouraged pupils to share her team’s information with anyone at home who smokes and is keen to quit – they can email dg.quityourway@nhs.scot
Thank-you to Rebecca for travelling to Leswalt for a very informative morning!
As we had the chance to meet up with our Kirkcolm buddies today for the Ross MacKenzie or Chae Strathie visits – we decided to make the absolute most of this opportunity by enjoying some STEM/topic learning fun with our friends!
P1-4 had fun together at Leswalt looking at Victorian toys from their Toys topic and playing with them in and outside. They also learnt how to play Hopscotch – a forgotten art!
P5-7 tried their hand at some STEM activities with Microbit Coding, Spheros Coding and tackling some Engineering challenges using K’Nex. Such fun to do this together – and particularly good when we have Lockerbie Manor and transition activities coming up soon and the P7s can get to know just a few more faces!
A fun morning learning together with our buddies from around the coast. Hopefully we get to work together again soon!
We had the BEST morning! Not only were we visited by two award-winning authors – the fabulous Chae Strathie and amazing Ross MacKenzie – but we also got to buddy up with our good friends from Kirkcolm Primary to enjoy the experience!
P6/7 Leswalt hopped on the bus and travelled round the coast – whereby P1-4 Kirkcolm jumped aboard and headed back to Leswalt. It was a switchover!
The older class enjoyed listening to Ross Mackenzie talk about his journey to becoming an author – from being a young P5 pupil with not much interest in reading to having his world opened up by his class teacher reading the classic ‘The Witches’ by Roald Dahl! Young Ross decided then and there he wanted to be a writer – and safe to say, he’s never looked back!
As a class, we had enjoyed The Nowhere Emporium as a class novel last session. It was a fantastic read of mystery and magic and one which was developed into a trilogy of Emporium books. Some of us pre-ordered copies for Ross to sign. Ross has 9 published books and has just completed his 10th book – he encouraged us all to dream big!
P1-4 from both primaries had a morning of fun and giggles with Chae Strathie) author of Dear Dinosaur and Gorilla Loves Vanilla to name just two). Listening to stories, chatting and drawing some fabulously funny ice-cream and dinosaur illustrations were the order of their day.
These visits were secured by Mrs McHarg and Mrs McKnight which was no mean feat as these authors are in high demand! How lucky are we that they agreed to visit our wee schools?!
John Cooper, Conservative MP for Dumfries and Galloway, visited Leswalt P6-7 this afternoon as part of their Democracy and Government topic. John explained to the pupils about his role as an MP – representing all 78,000 citizens in D&G at the Parliament in London.
He explained that he works in the House of Commons and gets to ask the Prime Minister questions. The House of Commons is controlled by the Speaker and he isn’t allowed to speak until he’s been invited to do so.
He told the pupils how he became an MP, starting off as a journalist for the local Free Press, before becoming a Special Advisor to Conservative MP at the time, Alistair Jack. He then spent the last year canvassing D&G constituents before being elected on 4th July this year. He very kindly left a copy of his Maiden Speech, which all MPs have to do after being elected, otherwise they can be kicked out of parliament.
John also takes part in votes to introduce new bills and laws. He showed pupils his parliamentary pass which he uses to enter the House of Commons and either the Aye Lobby or No Lobby, depending on how he is going to vote.
Pupils got the opportunity to ask him some questions to help them learn a little more. They learned what he was interest in when he was at school; what his favourite and least favourite aspect of the job is; and how long he is elected for.
A huge thank-you to John for giving up his afternoon to visit us (especially given that he was in London at the parliament yesterday!).
Primary 7 pupils travelled to the Stranraer Campus of Dumfries & Galloway College this morning, as part of Scottish Careers Week. The event was organised by Skills Development Scotland and we were joined by Castle Kennedy, Glenluce and Sheuchan Primaries. After an introduction from Kathryn and Lucy (SDS), we had 3 activities that we worked our way around throughout the morning.
The first activity was learning where the Careers Advisers are located at Stranraer Academy and what their role is. We then played a ‘would you rather…?’ game considering different aspect of various jobs, e.g. would you rather have a job that involved people or animals? We then split into 3 small groups and were given items to look at and had to list any job linked to those items – the careers advisers were impressed that 1 group got over 20 jobs and said that was the most that any school had thought of! Finally, we looked at the My World of Work website and learned about the job profiles sections which helps us to learn about different career options.
Next, we were given a tour of the college. We explored the various college courses that are on offer, including childcare, cookery, carpentry and construction, mechanic, hairdressing and beauty.
Finally, we went into the Skills Development Scotland office in the college. We worked in teams to complete a problem solving challenge – we had to imagine we were stuck on a deserted island surrounded by sharks. There were 5 people on the island with us – a scientist, bodybuilder, banker, doctor and pensioner. The rowing boat that we had could only hold us and 3 others so we had to decide which 3 people we’d take on the boat with us. We used lots of skills throughout this challenge – communicating, listening, compromising, team work and problem solving.
To finish off the morning, we all gathered together and participated in a little competition to win a £10 Greggs voucher – we had 1 questions to answer regarding the careers management skills we had learned about and all slips were put into a box and the winner drawn. Unfortunately, our schools didn’t win, but we had a brilliant morning learning all about the various jobs and careers on offer to us, what options exist locally and how to get advice.
World Children’s Day was on Wednesday 20th November and to celebrate this, both classes at Leswalt came together yesterday morning to take part in a live assembly.
This linked well with our work on Rights Respecting School work we have been doing over the past few years and continue to work on. The focus of World Children’s Day this year was looking at climate change and how we need to address issues with it in order to secure a safe future for the children of today.
We learned about initiatives that other schools have been implementing where pupils identified an issue that was causing environmental impact and how they made changes to address it, such as decorating the drains around the school to show that the ‘sea starts here.’ Hopefully this keeps our pupils inspired to continue being the sustainability superstars they have always been!
As part of Book Week Scotland, P1-3 parents and family members were invited into school yesterday to find out about the Bookbug (P1) and Read, Write, Count (P2-3) bags that are provided to children by the Scottish Government and Scottish Book Trust. We looked through the contents of the bags – each child received between 2 and 4 books, an activity booklet, and either a card game and maths resource, or a magnetic whiteboard and magnetic numbers to take home and keep. We also looked at all of the online resources that are available to support children’s learning at home using the bags.
We then went into the classroom and gifted the children with their bags – they were very excited to get everything out and have a go at some of the games. We had P2 pupils putting their problem solving skills to the test with a Tangram; P1 pupils practising their numbers and sums on the magnetic whiteboard; and P3 pupils enjoying the ‘act it out’ charades game using the pack of cards. And to top it off, there were biscuits on offer for everyone to enjoy while they looked through their bags. I’m, not sure what the pupils enjoyed more though – the bags or the biscuits!!
Thank-you to all of the parents and family members who were able to make yesterday’s session. If you were unable to make it, please look in your child’s school bag for their Bookbug/Read, Write, Count bag – there are lots of beautiful resources for you to enjoy together to support literacy and numeracy at home.
As part of our Democracy and Government topic, we enjoyed a chat with MSP Finlay Carson to find out more about his role in representing us in Dumfries and Galloway!
He joined us via Microsoft Teams from the car as he travelled through to Castle Douglas. He’d had a busy morning of meetings in Stranraer at the Millennium Centre about a proposed new site for the railway station, a visit to the Riverside Centre in Newton Stewart and was heading home to deal with about 70 emails before heading up to Edinburgh where he is based midweek!
Mr Carson told us about the teamwork involved in his job – he works with 4 others who help him with speeches, research and organisation of his week. He meets with people in his local area on a Monday and a Friday and works at the Scottish Parliament Tuesday to Thursday working on committees, discussing issues in the Debating Chamber and meeting with cross party groups. He is the Convener of the Rural Affairs Committee which ties in well with his farming background and they discuss agriculture, wildlife, the countryside and , more recently, have been involved in looking at dog welfare in relation to the puppy smuggling and puppy farm news reports. These committees are set up to make a difference – and they really do!
Ben G, Ben T, Roman and Ewan were our Confident Individuals who asked questions which were sensible and well thought-out. We learned lots about the life of an MSP. Perhaps one day, it might be one of us representing our area!
UNCRC Article 13 Sharing Thoughts Freely
Article 24 – Health, Water, Food, Environment
Article 29 – Aims of Education
Pupils arrived at school today looking as if they had just rolled out of bed! However that was not the case – today was Children in Need so we dressed in our PJs for Pudsey to help raise some money! The Pupil Council also organised some other activities to help raise fund for this very worthwhile cause, including: selling Children in Need merchandise, face painting and pancakes for Pudsey – baked by our Pupil Council reps and Mrs Kyle – where pupils got the opportunity to buy a pancake and decorate it with toppings.
P1-4 pupils also held a toy sale as part of their toys topic. The boys and girls brought in a selection of used books and toys from home that they no longer play with and sold them for a small donation.
We are delighted to reveal that we made a grand total of £232.19 for Children in Need! Thank-you to everyone who contributed and donated.
