Author: Mrs Ferguson

A huge well done to Alexander and Ewan Clark for representing our wee school at the Burns Federation Scots’ Competition at the Ryan Centre.

 

 

 

 

 

Both boys did us proud; reciting their poems with expression and clarity.

Here they are with their certificates. Merits awarded for being Confident Individuals! Top job Team Clark 👍

Huge thank you to Michael Hogg Senior Public Affairs Manager at the Royal Mail for following up on his promise of a special delivery for every Leswalt pupil.

This was in response to the letters which Malcolm and Breagh wrote requesting a gold postbox for the village to represent Vicky Wright and her team’s Gold medal at the Beijing Winter Olympics. Mr Hogg had replied by saying that this, unfortunately, was not possible as it was only done in the year of the 2012 ‘home’ Olympics. However, he promised to send a special set of commemorative stamps for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee for every Leswalt Primary pupil. And he was as good as his word, as these arrived on Mrs Baillie’s desk today!

Thanks must go to Mr Hogg for going that extra mile and thinking about us all. Thanks also to Malcolm and Breagh for using their initiatives and writing the letter of request in the first place!

Plans are afoot for Leswalt Primary’s own commemoration of Vicky Wright’s Gold and Bobby Lammie’s Silver… more information on that to come!

 

So lovely to see the Spring sunshine today – what a change from last week’s storms!

We took the opportunity to take our learning outside and take on a STEM challenge at the beach.

Buddied up with P1-4, we headed down Fisher’s Lane to the beach looking out for the very welcome signs of Spring. On the beach, we found a starfish and a huge oyster too. Once in small working groups, we were tasked with our STEM challenge. The task set was to build a stone cairn as tall as we possible using natural materials.

The group needed to think about where they would build it, the shape and texture of the stones used, the positioning of the stones and the ‘look’ of the finished tower.

Some groups used their initiative to build upon what was already there – breaking the rules or not?! An interesting discussion was held about this – were they recycling? Were they still using natural materials?! Art came into the finished designs of many of the towers – symmetrical patterns too! A few groups built their stone cairn and then covered them with sand to resemble a desert ‘volcano’! Oh to be inside the minds of the young!

All in all, it was a fun morning on the beach putting some outdoor Maths and Engineering skills into action. And, better still, all done with the hint of some Spring sunshine on our faces!

We may have mentioned before our pride in having the utterly fabulous Vicky Wright (Olympic Gold Medallist) and equally amazing Bobby Lammie (Olympic Silver medallist) as past pupils of our wee village school! And with this in mind, Malcolm (one of our House Captains) approached teachers with a thought…might Leswalt get a Gold postbox in honour of the Ladies’ Curling Team’s success?

Only one way to find out Malcolm, and that’s to ask those in the know! Malcolm and Breagh (both of our House Captains) took on the role of penning a letter which was sent to the Royal Mail and local councillors explaining who they were, their link to Vicky and Bobby and their special request of a lasting memento.

And the responses were super speedy! Within ten minutes, they had replies of support from councillors and one from the Royal Mail who forwarded their email onto the relevant department.

Today (less than 24hours later!) letters arrived for Malcolm and Breagh sent by Special Delivery! These came from Michael Hogg, Senior Public Affairs Manager at the Royal Mail Headquarters in London. He wrote to thank them for their beautifully written request. Unfortunately, the gold postboxes were only done following our ‘home’ Olympics in London 2012 as a ‘one-off’ and so this won’t be happening following Beijing.  He did, however, promise a memento of specially commissioned Royal Mail collector’s stamps for every pupil in the school in this special Platinum year for Queen Elizabeth II as a token of the initiative of Malcolm and Breagh! In fact, Mr Hogg phoned Mrs Baillie today to say just how impressed he was with their letter. He said he doesn’t send many letters to Primary pupils but this particular one was a very special one and so deserved a very special reply!

Top work House Captains – what Responsible Citizens you are!

And, as for the lasting memento of our past pupils’ amazing Olympic successes, well we’re on the case! Due to move back to our newly refurbished school next term, we will ensure the Gold and Silver legacy of Vicky and Bobby will be there for all to see for many years to come. Watch this space…

From February 21st- March 6th is 2022’s Fairtrade Fortnight and so P5-7 Leswalt pupils spent some time finding out more.

Working in Talk Partners, the pupils researched the key questions about this topic:

What is Fairtrade?

When this started?

Why it started?

Where can Fairtrade products be bought?

Who Fairtrade works with?

How we can do our bit to help!

They used reference materials, website links, a video clip and our classroom chat to help them with their fact-finding. This was a top task for those all-important employability skills of negotiating, working within a time-scale, organisation and co-operation. And, most importantly, this task also raised awareness of Fairtrade.

The task was rounded-off by the pupils sharing their work with their classmates and enjoying some Fairtrade chocolate too! Yum! We might go as far to say that this was the highlight of the lesson!

 

 

 

 

This morning’s outdoor maths fun, led by Miss Lammie, was somewhat hampered by the after-effects of the weekend’s stormy weather! Shooting and shining could be the descriptive phrase used. Still, it didn’t dampen the spirits and efforts of P5-7 in their Time Detectives clock faces task! Even if they did need to do most of their task indoors as they ducked from the heavy showers.

Miss Lammie shared the session Learning Intentions with the class; they needed to use their knowledge of clock faces (analogue/digital/minute intervals/Roman Numerals etc) to create a clock face using natural materials with their talk partner on which they could display times. The range of designs created by the pupils was fabulous. Pupils set their peers a challenge of setting a time whether it be in 24hr clock, am or pm,minutes past/to etc and explain how and why they displayed it as such. They assessed the accuracy of one another’s.

Buddy work, creating and applying skills, sharing learning, peer and self-assessment – all fabulous employability skills put to the test today! No excuses for ever being late…!

As the sun decided to make a late appearance, the lesson’s fun was brought to a close by a competitive game of times tables Splat  – Thomas was crowned today’s champion 🙂

A fun morning of active maths with all pupils busy and learning! Thanks Miss Lammie 🙂

As part of the RSPB Big Birdwatch campaign which is held annually in January, we layered up with our winter jackets and headed out together for some data collecting!

Our House Captains, Malcolm and Breagh took control of the recording sheets – whilst we were paired up and given a bird identification sheet to help us with our task.

We headed off down Fisher’s Lane, reminding each other that it was super important to keep nice and quiet so that the birds weren’t frightened off! This was a challenge in itself!

We spotted lots of crows, some pigeons, a few robins and some birds from the tit families too. Once at the shore, we saw some seagulls and an oyster catcher! One of the fields had a huge puddle in it, which some ducks were happily swimming in.

We had a chat once back and decided that binoculars would have been a huge help to identify birds more accurately! We also wondered whether we might have seen even more if we weren’t such a large group.

Looking up and around us is something we don’t always do. It’s amazing what is living around us! Can you get bird spotting in your gardens too?

Everyone rocked up this morning looking rather sporty all for Children in Need.  From Highland dancing to rugby; horse riding to gymnastics; footballers to cheerleaders (even sheep shearers!) – we had loads of sporting activities covered. Pupils popped their donations into our fundraising bucket and then headed off to class where they took part in 5 x 5minute Joe Wicks workouts throughout the day. We had fun while exercising with onscreen sessions from Children in Need’s Schools’ Ambassador as well as raising money for a charity which does tremendous work for the young.

We had all been bringing in Bring and Buy bits and bobs all week as well as Children in Need merchandise being on sale. This afternoon, House Captains rolled up their sleeves and organised the goods for selling. Pennies spent and schoolbags bulging – the happy Leswalt folks headed home adorned with Pudsey stickers!

The final total for Leswalt’s Children in Need fundraising effort is a fabulous £155.05! Well done to all for their fundraising efforts today – top teamwork for a worthy cause.

Leswalt Primary pupils have taken some time this week to learn about, reflect on and pay their respects for Remembrance Day.

P1-4 learnt about why people wear poppy to remember – and indeed what they are remembering. They also created beautiful poppy pictures which they took along to the War Memorial.

P5-7 recapped on what they knew about Remembrance Day and took their learning further by finding out about the history of the poppy; who initiated this, when was Remembrance Day first held and what money raised by Poppy Scotland is used to support. They had designed and produced ‘In Flanders Fields’ pictures with Mrs Copeland and added to these with some of the information learnt.

Along with Kirkcolm Primary pupils, the school headed up to Kirkcolm’s War Memorial for 11am to observe the silence and take a moment to think. Oliver (P7 Kirkcolm) and Breagh (P7 Leswalt) read a poem to us all and we took a look at the many names inscribed and thought about the bravery of those involved and sadness felt by their friends and families.

 

So COP26 is taking place just 2hours up the road from us and Glasgow is on the centre-stage for this high profile Climate Change conference. Leswalt Primary pupils have been keeping up-to-date with the latest from COP 26 in school this week. They talked about how their recent Learning for Sustainability work, and the plans of the Eco-Committee, links to the subjects being discussed by world leaders and eco campaigners this week  at COP 26. But, as one P5 rightly pointed out, it is actually an area in which we can , and should, all be involved in trying to do our bit!

Mrs McKnight signed us all up to be part of the Old Vic staging of The Lorax – a Dr Seuss story which highlights the need to look after our planet. We were super lucky to be one of the schools who were able to access this live! It was a fabulous and thought-provoking production which the pupils really enjoyed.

P5-7 pupils tuned into daily COP 26 updates and wrote open letters to COP 26 persuading leaders to act now for the benefit of future generations.

Pupils then put their technology and eco knowledge into action by working in groups to plan and produce short iMovies with the title ‘A Minute of Us’. The remit of this task was to work as a team to offer an insight into what eco work we are doing as a school, what our beautiful area means to us and what action we can all take to help in this worldwide campaign. The children loved putting their videos together! I hope you enjoy the children’s work – they certainly made us smile! Can you spot any budding TV presenters in there….?!