Month: June 2025

Physiotherapy – a job that keeps us on our feet, literally! Lauren’s careers in the community assembly

This afternoon we were very fortunate indeed to have the lovely Lauren in to visit us at Leswalt to talk to us about her career as a physiotherapist.
Armed with lots of fun things for our wanna-be physio, nurses and doctors to play with Lauren spoke to us about her career as a Physiotherapist in Stranraer and her journey in becoming one. She explained that she went to university to learn how to do the job and during this time enjoyed her placements!
She spoke about how interesting her job is and the many different things she gets up to as no day looks quite the same as another. She said she loves worked with people in their houses and in care homes to make sure everyone keeps active and healthy to make sure their bones and muscles can move the way they are supposed to!💀🏃‍♀️
She was able to tell us how she uses her Meta Skills as part of her job:
 
Creativity Cassidy – As Lauren works with children she has to make sure that she makes their appointments as interesting and fun as she can so often has to make up fun games and activities to convince them to do the exercises she wants them to!
Communicating Cate – Lauren works with lots of different people, especially older people who love to tell stories, this is one of her favourite parts of her job!
Collaborating Cora  – while working with the NHS Lauren explained that there is a lot of overlap and multi agency working to make sure everyone gets the best possible care, she explained that her job requires her to work with various health care workers including doctors, care workers and nurses!
Focussing Fergus – As well as working with people, Lauren also has to to do some paperwork to make sure that everyone has the right information that they need. 📝

A huge thank you to Lauren for her time this afternoon again, the boys and girls thoroughly enjoyed her visit and has plenty of interesting questions!

Looking after the Tracks in his Glenwilly Shack – Rhuri Paton’s Careers in the Community Assembly

On Friday afternoon we were very excited to have Rhuri Paton (Jorgie’s Daddy) join us in school for our careers in the community assembly! At our last assembly we had Lauren, Jorgie’s mummy in so Rhuri had a tough act to follow! 🙂
Rhuri explained that since leaving university he has been through more jobs than he could even count, but this time he thinks he has finally found his forever job as a signaller with Network Rail. He has recently qualified after a lengthy period of training in Glasgow and now works in the Glenwilly box on the Stranraer line. Unfortunately, on our recent jaunt from Ayr to Stranraer we didn’t see him but now understand what goes on in his little box and what’s inside! 🚂🛤🚝🚆
We have been learning all about the 12 meta skills as part of our assembly focus and Rhuri explained the key skills he needs to do his job including:
Adapting Aleksander – He explained that weather can interfere with the tarins, especially in the remote little area we live so you don’t know what problems you will have to deal with  on the railway line so being adaptive is a skill that every signaller needs.
Collaborating Cora – Rhuri told us that usually he works alone, and often on his shifts is  just him inside his little box but he has got to be good at teamwork when working with members of the public to help them to cross the track. He also must work with the train drivers, passing tokens to them during their journey when they pass the Glenwilly box.
Communicating Cate – One of the many interesting things Rhuri told us during his visit was the various ways that signaller and railway workers communicate with each other using bells and radios. Any miscommunications may lead to delays and safety incidents so it is important that he listens well to hear the sounds and be able to reply!🔔
 
The boys and girls also had a great time listening Jorgie’s Daddy explains his job as a signaller – Rhuri is a busy man and also works as a football coach on the weekends as well where he would use lot of different and perhaps some of the same Meta Skills!⚽
RRS Article 13 (freedom of expression) Every child must be free to express their thoughts and opinions and to access all kinds of information

Monday Mornings and Marshmallows!

As a finale to our fabulous Forest School experience, Richard joined us this morning and worked with us all to get a little fire going in the playground for us to toast marshmallows! Lucky us!

Recapping those all important safety rules first, every child had fun toasting at least 2 (some may have munched more!) marshmallows and dipping them in some melted chocolate too if they fancied! Staff felt it would be rude not to join in with such fun…

As Mondays go – this was a pretty fabulous one! Thank you Richard!

UNCRC Articles:

24 Health, Water, Food and Environment

29 Aims of Education

31 Rest, Play, Culture and Arts

Meta-Skills

Curiosity Carlos, Leading Li, Focusing Felix, Sense-making Samira, Integrity Imani, Collaborating Cora, Communicating Cate

Possibly the best day out ever!!

It is not an exaggeration to claim that Leswalt Primary enjoyed possibly the best day ever on their school trip today!

We travelled in style with a return trip to Ayr on the train (thank you to Mr James Neil for organising this for us!); scored SO many strikes whilst ten pin bowling; darted about the Laser Tag like ultraviolet ninjas; munched the tastiest lunches washed down with a welcome refreshment; bounced happily around the park; devoured ice lollies on the beach (HUGE thanks to Beathan’s mum and dad for treating us to these!) and had the MOST fun ever on the beach playing with our friends and splashing in the sea! 🚝🍟🍦☀️🌊🏖️

Thank you must also go to some very kind residents of Church Grove who donated money to the school for all boys and girls to get an ince cream ! 

The weather was perfect, the activities were such fun and the company was the best you could hope for.

The happy photos below speak for themselves…

Quite literally, the best day out with the best people! 🥰

Forest School Week 6 – Cooking!

To round off a very busy Monday, we had our final week of Forest School with Richard and today’s mission was to build, start and cook over a fire!

Both classes banded together this afternoon so it was all hands on deck. Whilst Richard and Mrs Warwick helped children to get the fire going, the rest got to work on our stir fry prep – chopping and peeling vegetables  while we waited for the fire to get hot enough to cook the chicken 🔥🍗🥕🌶 As well as having the stir fry on offer, pupils also had stations where they could strip the bark from the wood and chop wood into kindling!🪓  

We all had the best time – enjoying the outdoors, being with our friends and enjoying food! 

Meta Skills 

Initiative Ivy

Curiosity Carlos

Sense-Making Samira

Communicating Cate

Articles

Article 6 – Life, Survival & Development

Article 17 – Access to Information

Article 24 – Health, Food, Water & Environment

 

Musical Monday with Lighthouse Musicians!

What entertainment we all enjoyed this morning with Lighthouse Musicians superbly talented trio  of John, Helen and Gillian and treating us to a fabulous musical medley! ❤️

Playing well-known tunes such as Disney favourites on the violin and piano plus some weel-kent Scottish tunes on the bagpipes; our Leswalt Primary audience sat enthralled! We were even treated to some Taylor Swift! 🎹🎻 🎶🎼

It was good to chat and ask them questions about how and when they started to play musical instruments and the range of instruments they played too! Some pupils were just itching to get up and dance and sing – feet were tapping away! 

What a lovely start to the week… huge thanks to Lighthouse Musicians for joining us this morning!

UNCRC      Article 31 Rest, Play, Culture, Arts

Meta-Skills    Focusing Fergus, Curiosity Carlos, Integrity Imani, Feeling Felix

From Chills to Pills and Meta Skills; Lauren’s Nursing Careers in the Community Assembly

Today we were very excited to have Lauren, Jorgie’s mummy in to speak to the boys and girls about her job as a nurse! Armed with bandages, syringes and her glamorous assistant Ralphie she arrived to tell us all about her job as a nurse! 👩‍⚕️
Lauren explained how she got into nursing and the skills and qualities needed prior to her training, including compassion, kindness and good communication skills. She explained that there were lots of different types of nurses and she is a community nurse who travels all around Stranraer to look after people in their homes. She explained that changing bandages, administering medication and doing routine check ups on patients were the usual goings on in her everyday life, but said that because of the nature of the job every day is different and you must be prepared to deal with all emergencies! :💉🤕
 
Focussing Fergus – For obvious reasons. for a vet concentration is key! He has lots of technical and high pressure jobs on his hands from the moment he starts work to the moment he finishes so being able to focus and get the job done right is super important! 🐶🐱
Collaborating Cora – Working in the emergency services means that Lauren will work alongside lots of different people including; doctors, police officers, social work, school staff etc and will often make plans for patients to make sure they get better by working alongside others.
 
Communicating Cate – This one is absolutely key to being  a top nurse, she has to make sure to pass on information and record paperwork properly to make sure that the best care is given to patients. She must also communicate with other members of her team, families, hospital staff as well as patients themselves to ensure that everyone knows the information they need.
 
Critical Thinking Chris – Often nurses have unexpected problems that they may not always know the answers or solutions to straight away! Lauren explained that sometimes she has to ask for help from others and take time to make sure she chooses the best option of how to help and the right tools and resources to do it!
Feeling Felix – Nurses are kind, caring people who want to help others through difficult times. To do this Lauren has to be empathetic, supportive and help to calm people down when they are distressed ❤️
A huge thank you to Lauren for coming in to speak to us this morning, the smiles on not just Jorgie’s face but the rest of the class said it all! We specially loved being hands on with all of the different bits and bobs in her nurses bag. Looking forward to having Jorgie’s daddy in at the next Careers Assembly, he’s got big boots to fill!😄
RRS Links
Article 13 (freedom of expression) Every child must be free to express their thoughts and opinions and to access all kinds of information.

Focusing FUR-gus, Sense-Making LAMB-ira and Feeling FeLICKS – Ian McDonalds Careers Assembly

Today we were very excited to have Cameron’s daddy in to speak to us about  his job as  a Vet, especially given the number of aspiring vets we have in the school!🐾
Ian told our about his background and how he first became interested in becoming a vet and his love for animals and very many pets that he has at home! He explained that in order to be a vet you must have a kind and  caring personality as what he does day-to-day is help animals to feel better. To do this he visits farms around the Stranraer area, assisting with calving, lambing, vaccinations and performing surgeries! He said that one of his favourite parts of his job is the fact that everyday is visit and when out on a job or in the surgery he just can’t predict what problems will arise! 🤔🔬💭
Ian spoke about his role and the skills and qualities needed to be a good vet. We have been learning all about the 12 Meta Skills so it was great to hear how these can be used out with school in the world of work
Focussing Fergus – For obvious reasons. for a vet concentration is key! He has lots of technical and high pressure jobs on his hands from the moment he starts work to the moment he finishes so being able to focus and get the job done right is super important! 🐶🐱
Collaborating Cora – As a vet you often need to work alongside other vets/farmers so being able to work as part of a team is crucial. there is absolutely no way vets could do what they do alone! 🐄
 
Communicating Cate –Ian explained that working with animals was always something he was very comfortable with and by the sounds of it something he is naturally very talented in! Of course the does not speak the language of ‘dog’ or ‘cat’ but managed to work well with animals all the same! What people maybe don’t realise as much is that vets always need to be good at communicating with human-beings as every pet has an owner! 🐇🦔
 
Critical Thinking Chris – Often vets have  big problems that they may not always know the answers or solutions to straight away! Ian explained that he once had a horse whose skin had been ripped on a barbed wire fence (yes we did see the photos to prove it!) and this means that they have to take time to consider all of the different options and possibilities before deciding to proceed with the best one! 🏇
A huge thank you to Ian for his time, the boys and girls really enjoyed his visit – they were well and truly captivated with every words Ian spoke as well as the cute but equally as interesting pictures he shared – and I have no doubt we will have a few keen to follow in his footsteps after this afternoon!
RRS Links
Article 13 (freedom of expression) Every child must be free to express their thoughts and opinions and to access all kinds of information.

Our Amazing Brains

This morning we welcomed the lovely Kelsey McWhirter from Alzheimer’s Scotland in to speak to the P6/7s about brain health!

She showed us a programme called STARS; each letter representing a way to keep our brains performing to the best of their ability ⭐🧠
Spend time with friends and family – having conversations and making connections about different parts of your day and learning helps the brain to develop
 
Tuck In – Our brain uses 1/5th of energy from the food that we eat. It is so important to make sure we are earing a healthy, balanced diet to ensure our brain has all of the nutrients it needs! 🍌🍉
Active and Healthy – Moving our bodies helps the blood pump to our brain, giving it a boost!🏃‍♀️
 
Rest and Relax – It is so important tat children get 10 hours of sleep per night! While we are sleeping our brains are processing all of the important information learned throughout the day!😴💤🌙
 
Safety – try to keep our heads and brains safe by keeping away from danger, especially head injuries!
We learned a lot of useful information to help us to keep our brains working hard and some fun facts that I am sure you might be amazed by over the dinner table tonight!

Thanks again to Kelsey from Alzheimer’s Scotland for her session today, we thoroughly enjoyed her visit!

Meta Skills
Feeling Felix
Focusing Fergus
Sense Making Samira
RRS
Article 24 – Access to Health Care
Article 28 – The right to an Education

Ewan and Fallon speak to the Government!

As part of both schools ongoing work with The Children’s Parliament – Both Fallon (Kirkcolm) and Ewan (Leswalt) were selected to represent children’s voices and views at  the Scottish Government base at Atlantic Quay in Glasgow.  Fallon and Ewan and have been doing ongoing work with The Children’s Human Right Defenders. This has meant many video calls and a whole lot of information for them both to absorb and contribute to before presenting their hard work. This culminated in a Residential Trip last week, escorted up by Mrs Baillie herself.  They stayed near Edinburgh, and went from the Sunday morning until Tuesday evening.  There were 7 children representing the whole of Scotland at this residential – and two of them were ours!  Fallon and Ewan did us very proud – they were impeccably behaved, confident and articulate individuals.

Ewan had customised his glasses with some pipe cleaners, left over from his artwork.  He even managed to persuade some of the government to do the same – see if you can spot this in the photographs!

Here is Fallon’s account of their days away –

We left Stranraer at 11 am on Sunday morning with Mrs Baillie driving. We stopped for something to eat at Ayr.  When we arrived we got straight in to work.  We finished off making our butterfly and bat – our “pollinators for change”. I finished in a few minutes so I could go on to the next activity.    We made bees and flowers too.   I made my quite quickly . Before we had a little break I helped Hamza with his butterfly and Ewan put the final touches on his bat.  He added pompoms and pipe cleaners!
We had a half an hour break and we went back to work. Then we decorated our rails.  Ewan and I used mainly green and blue ribbon and some fake leaves but we also added a touch of pink bows and  the flowers. Then we made our dinner  – it was pizza! We went to bed.   I shared a room with Kati and Ella, Ewan shared a room with Hamza. 
On the second day, we had breakfast as got straight back to work. We worked on our  speeches. Ewan and I presented all about climate change.   One other group spoke about mental health and another spoke about vapes. We organized who was saying what and practiced for a few hours till we could say our speech with no help and no notes. We said our speeches in front of everyone and Cara said her introduction speech – everyone was very good. Then we did a few more practises until dinner , which was chicken wraps. 
On the third and final day we packed up, had breakfast and headed off to Atantic Quay in Glasgow.
When we arrived in Glasgow we got our garden set up  (the place where we would be talking to everyone).  We organised our rails and plants. We went into a big fancy room and we heard Joe Griffin say his speech. Then we all said our speeches.  It went very well and you could  tell they where listening as they asked lots of questions.
I really enjoyed my time away. 
Fallon 
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