Author: Mrs Ferguson

In preparation for the momentous day in which our country sees the crowning of a new monarch, Leswalt Primary pupils planned a day to remember!

As hard as it was for the children to believe, even the teachers aren’t old enough to have witnessed the last coronation! So, it was felt fitting, that the day should be marked so it should be one for the memory box…

Throughout the week, we had been making Royal bunting to decorate our school for the Coronation weekend (which coincided with our fundraising Cream Tea too). We had also been finding out more about the lineage of the monarchy, the role of a King and the key historical objects which were to be part of the service and their significance.

On Friday, staff and pupils joined together dressed in Union jack colours – we even had a few princesses join us AND, would you believe, ‘King Charles’ was also spotted waving his flag and singing (aka Colin!)

Designing commemorative flags, crowning our own King Tristan (eldest in our Leswalt Primary family!), creating be-jwelled, ‘ermine’ trimmed crowns fit for a King, joining with friends to enjoy a delicious buffet lunch all filled a jam-packed, fun-filled morning!

Our lunch fitted with this year’s One Planet Picnic event which is a fun picnic  that is good for you and good for the planet.   We avoided single use plastic and used reusable cups instead. We used recyclable paper plates to minimise waste too!

It is a fun way to make your food and drink choices environmentally friendly.  Look at the step by step guide below for inspiration and ideas.

In the afternoon, everyone headed outside to participate in a Royal Sports with Monarch Corners, the King’s Horses Relay and Don’t Drop the Crown just a few of the games enjoyed – thanks to Mrs McKnight who tweaked old favourites to give them that Coronation-themed feel!

To round the day off, proudly wearing their crowns and waving their flags, all came together in the playground to entertain waiting parents with a rousing rendition of ‘I Just Can’t Wait to be King’ from the Lion King – King Charles III would have loved it, of that i’m quite sure!

And, as an extra treat, Mrs Kyle had very kindly baked a Coronation cupcake for every pupil to take home 🙂

A day to remember…

Alexander and Ewan Clark brought three of their pet lambs into school this afternoon for a ‘Meet and Greet the Sheep’ session!

The pet lambs are called Diddly Squat, Diddly Dee and Diddly Dum and happily wandered around our cloakroom being fed from the bottle by pupils. Alexander told us all a little about each lamb too. They are just over a fortnight old and weren’t at all fazed by their audience!

Huge thanks to Alison (Alexander and Ewan’s mum for bringing the lambs to school). Another lovely experience for us all!

Article 24 UNCRC – Health, Food, Water and Environment

Leswalt Primary donned their gloves, fetched a litter-picker and carried their rubbish sack as they worked in groups to tidy up their village this morning.

The Spring sunshine shone brightly as the pupils made sure their local area looked beautiful.

Several bags of rubbish were collected meaning the village looks more fabulous than ever!

As a result of the children’s hard work, Leswalt has achieved 2nd place in the Keep Scotland Beautiful Spring Clean Campaign 2023 / Litter League Competition for the Scotland South region (D&G and Scottish Borders).  Well done everyone!

Article 24 – Health, Water, Food, Environment UNCRC

As part of British Science Week celebrations, P5-7 enjoyed a Science afternoon.

Each activity table was set up for either a Biology, Chemistry or Physics investigation and pupils worked in pairs around each task.

From planting seeds and using magnifying glasses to take a closer look at leaves and flowers; to building electrical circuits and exploring the wires inside plugs; to creating irreversible chemical reactions between Bicarbonate of Soda and vinegar – it was a busy and fun afternoon.

Each task had weblinks to BBC Bitesize Learning Guides for the class to investigate to further back up their learning. Just look at the photos of what our budding scientists of the future were up to!

It was an early start for all on Thursday morning as Leswalt Primary boarded a bus headed for the Glasgow Science Centre!

This is British Science Week and so our trip tied in nicely. It was made possible through us receiving a successful grant from the British Science Association, a rural transport support grant from the Glasgow Science Centre and a very generous parental donation. Our grateful thanks goes to all.

The pupils explored the Science mall with its vast array of interactive exhibits to learn about:

• Our physical world of forces, illusions and materials
• The human body – physiology, human health and the senses to develop an understanding of interrelationship between the body’s actions in response to outside conditions.
• Powering the future – making connections between the drive to use more sustainable energies to meet future challenges. We were able to make the link between human activity and protecting the planet.

P1-4 are studying Forces in class and so they enjoyed a workshop on this very topic.

P5-7 are about to start their investigations into Microbes and so they were delighted to experience the Planetarium presentation which looked at our Solar System and the possibilities of life on other planets! This visual display was led by an astronomer who led the pupils on a ‘trip into space!’

It goes without saying that part of the fun of a school trip is being with buddies, spending pennies in the shop, scoffing packed lunches and, in this case, the escalators also proved to be quite a hit! Such a lovely experience for all – both for their learning and socialisation!

Just take a look at the photos below for their beaming smiles!

Pupils and staff rocked up to school today for another fun Friday in aid of Red Nose Day 2023. House Captains Rose and Thomas had been selling official red noses all week and donations were popped into the bucket today as we all wore the things which make us happy!

Red Nose Day is all about raising money to help those in need whilst bringing a smile to everyone’s faces – and we did just that with Leswalt’s Got Talent!

Parents and friends joined us to enjoy a varied entertainment programme; from cheerleading to Scots Poetry; a Tik Tok sketch of acting and singing to little Elsa dancers; a marshmallow and jaffa cake eating competition to singing and musical theatre! Mrs Buchanan and House Captain had the unenviable job of judging – a tough call!

1ST place – Hamish (able assisted by his brother Colin) singing ‘Naughty’ from Matilda the Musical

2nd place – Alexander reciting ‘Address to a Haggis’

3rd place – Keira and Aria-Rose dancing to Let it Go from Disney Frozen

All very worthy winners AND approximately £150 was raised for Red Nose Day through ‘nose sales’, pupils’ non-uniform donations and kind audience members adding to the bucket too!

Thank you all!

     Curling Report by Thomas And Tristan   

At the NWC on Monday the 13th of March there was a big curling competition for all the schools in the Rhins region. We sent two teams – team Leswalt and team Leswalt-Portpatrick. Both teams were in the same section and really enjoyed themselves! It just didn’t go our way on the day as Team Leswalt didn’t do too well, but Team Leswalt-Portpatrick did a bit better! Overall, Team Leswalt came 9th and Team Leswalt-Portpatrick came 8th  

Well done to our buddies at Kirkcolm who came 2nd! Rephad won the competition. Many thanks to Mags Agnew for accompanying us and the coaching. We all enjoyed our day! Curling is Cool! 

Today P5-7 enjoyed a whole day of WW2 activities!

Several pupils dressed up for the occasion and some brought in memorabilia from home too.

The day was action packed : from learning about Dunkirk to using 2D/3D shape knowledge to design a gas mask box; listening to music from that era whilst learning to sew on a button just like the Make Do and Mend campaign; working in pairs on an information treasure hunt about Pearl Harbour and looking at artefacts brought in by Carys, Amelia and Kaiden and planning own Evacuation propaganda poster or designing own WW2 powerpoint or Sway as part of their assessment!

Tomorrow, the pupils will be sharing their WW2 homework research activity – some have shared theirs with me already and they look amazing!

Such a busy day – full of learning and hard-working pupils!

Thank you and well done to Ewan Clark, Thomas Agnew and Daisy Doyle for representing Leswalt Primary at last night’s Scots’ Song and Verse Competition.

All three performed so well and we are all very proud of them.

Thomas was awarded joint 2nd place for his recitation of Burns’ Address to a Haggis, Ewan was awarded joint 3rd place for Harry by Matthew Fitt and Daisy sang Caledonia and was was given joint 3rd place too!

Huge thanks also to Mrs Jane Sloan for accompanying Daisy on the piano.

Top work team 🥈🥉🥉