Author: Mrs Ferguson

It was a day of egg-cellent fun for our last day of term – which just so happened to be April Fool’s Day too. Being at school on April 1st doesn’t happen very often so we made the most of it!

Mrs Baillie was on fine form, pranking the pupils not just once but twice! Initially, an email was read out telling them of the unfortunate cancellation of the Easter holidays – there was a shocked silence! Some pupils questioned whether this might be a joke but Mrs McKnight and Mrs Ferguson worked hard to keep their faces sombre and solemn. Thankfully we didn’t need to keep this up for too long as soon there was another email with reassurance that this was just an April Fool’s joke!

But she wasn’t done with them quite yet, as this was closely followed by a request from D&G council for the boys and girls to head outside armed with a ruler and scissors and cut the grass at a height of 5cm! Those poor children…

Not to be outdone, Mrs McKnight and Mrs Ferguson had a couple of tricks up their sleeves too; from the Easter egg hunt (no eggs had been hidden!) to offering the pupils a brownie as a treat (cue a tin of laminated brown letter e’s though we did have some actual brownies too – we’re not that mean!) Thankfully, we have pupils with a sense of humour who wasted no time in trying to get their own back! All such good fun.

To continue the Easter theme, the pupils planned and designed their own decorated egg, listened to the Easter story, discussed Easter traditions, munched yummy chocolate nests made by our P1 Star Bakers Ellie and Bobby and finally, enjoyed rolling their eggs down the hill at the park in the afternoon. Some pupils found their eggs to be not of the hard-boiled variety – what a ‘yolk’!

Miss Broll had the unenviable task of judging both the egg crafts created at home (all pupils who participated in this were awarded a merit)and then the ones done in school. The results are below!

Home competition

P1-4                                                                       P5-7

1st – Rachael Drummond                              1st – Hamish Mcgregor

2nd – Isla Kirkpatrick                                     2nd – Faye Adams

3rd – Ewan Clark                                                3rd – Breagh Kirkpatrick

In-class competition

P1-4 winner                                                         P5-7 winner

Roman Haver                                                      Tristan Millar

We also said goodbye to Oscar who is heading off to a new school after the holidays! We wish him all the very best from everyone at Leswalt Primary.

Happy Easter holidays to you all!

Phew! It’s been a busy few days of sport for some Leswalt Primary pupils.

Friday saw the Primary football tournament held at the 3G pitch. Our fabulous North Rhins Team were placed 3rd in this mini-league! For a team  who rarely gets to play together, this was outstanding! Alexander, Rose, Brandon, Fraser, Murray and Aidan from Leswalt P5-7 joined their Portpatrick and Kirkcolm friends to form the team. Many thanks must also go to Rose’s dad for stepping into the role of coach and guiding and encouraging our football stars.

On Monday it was the return of the Rhins badminton competition after a two year absence. Five pupils from P5-7 entered the competition and all played fantastically well with Murray being placed 3rd in the P7 Boys and Cara 2nd in the P5 Girls. Alfie, Alexander, Aidan, Cara and Murray were excellent representatives for Leswalt Primary. Alison Murray popped out today to present the two medals and told the pupils that there would be a Summer Badminton tournament to look forward to too! They are looking forward to it already.

All of the pupils who have taken part in these sporting activities have been awarded a merit for representing their school. Well done you sporting superstars!

How beautiful have our gorgeous surroundings looked these past few days in the sunshine? It’s given us the motivation to get out and get busy!

As our return to Leswalt Primary gets ever closer, our pupils have been getting their thinking caps on about ways to develop our school grounds once we’re back in residence. And they have LOTS of ideas!

Aided by the super knowledgeable Mrs Richardson, the children have been making plans and have decided to get the ball rolling now!

The plan is to grow some vegetables, herbs and flowers and so, pupils have been asked to bring any egg cartons so that we can start planting seeds in class next week. These can then be transferred straight into the garden area once back at school (and the ‘pots’ will decompose too!)

There are a number of other plans afoot too which the pupils will be busy putting into action over the coming weeks.

In the meantime, Mrs Richardson was ably assisted by Leswalt and Kirkcolm pupils during their lunch break today, and she then took a group from P5-7 to plant some shrubs by the fence of the school grounds. Next week, will be the turn of another group and we hope to involve P1-4 too!  We received a grant of trees and shrubs from the Woodland Trust to help support our Eco Schools targets in supporting biodiversity.

Just look at the beaming smiles on these faces. Hello Spring indeed – it really is good to see you!

 

Leswalt Primary pupils have enjoyed a fun and varied Science Week with a host of hands-on activities and experiences.

P1-4

P1-4 enjoyed a live interactive session with ‘The 3engineers’. They met Matt (Systems Engineer) and Nick (Electrical Engineer) who talked about sustainability and the use of fossil fuels, extreme weather and global warming. Their job as engineers is to invent, design and build new inventions to help reduce our impact on the environment. Our favourite invention was the ‘Interceptor’ which when used in rivers, catches all of the litter and stops it entering our oceans. This was a great link to our water cycle topic as we have just been learning about the ‘Collection Stage’ and ‘Run-off’.

We then listened to a story they have written called ‘The Adventures of Scout’, and we have decided to organise a litter pick in the summer term. We will have to sort and weigh the waste we find and join in with their campaign to remove 100 tonnes of plastic from the ocean.

Weather & Water Topic

We have also been conducting lots of science experiments in class for our topics this term. These include making clouds in jars, creating our own rain clouds, evaporation experiments and also using ice to create some really cool art work!

P5-7

The upper class have been investigating electricity: again, another super Science topic.

They  used super Electricity kits from Stranraer Academy to build electrical circuits and investigate parallel and series circuits and adding extra components to circuits.

From marble runs to water bombs; electrical circuits to water fun; engineering skills with stick structures to investigating air pressure – the children have had a blast!

Take a look at the photos below to see for yourselves…

All for a good cause, the pupils of Leswalt Primary rocked up in cheery red clothes and handed in their donations for our Red Nose Day fun today!

P1-4 and P5-7 joined together for a Fresh Air Friday with a difference today when they took part in the Great Welly Throw!

Each primary had their own competition with the winners of Primary 5 (Brandon), Primary 6 (Tristan) and Primary 7 (joint winners Alfie and Murray) chucking the welly again in the final for the play-off! And the winning Easter Egg was presented to… Alfie!

It was then over to the P1-4 class for their well throwing fun!

The Primary 1 winner (Bobby), Primary 3 winner (Roman) and Primary 4 winner (Ewan) – our only Primary 2 was absent today – took part in the ‘Wee class play-off’. And their winning egg was presented to… Ewan!

Alexander then came up with the great idea (!) of the staff having their own competition. But we have no spare prizes, the staff exclaimed. Only to be reminded by pupils that it was all about the taking part that counted. Needless to say, the staff had no argument for that one! Mrs McCallum was crowned Staff Welly-Throwing Champion and she took the honour of presenting the prizes to Alfie and Ewan. A morning of fun and giggles!

The afternoon brought more fun with the North Rhins’ Got Talent Show! The staff judging panel and pupil audience enjoyed a variety of acts. After some discussion amongst judges, the prizes were awarded as follows:

1st – Ross Warwick (telling jokes) Kirkcolm

2nd – Alexander Clark (reciting Scots poem) Leswalt

3rd – Rory Calvert ( counting to 50 in French) Kirkcolm

Well deserved boys! A certificate will be presented next week to all those who participated. A huge well done to you all.

Happy Red Nose Day! Our fundraising total will be announced next week.

As part of British Science Week 2022, primary 5-7  became engineers for the afternoon and took part in their very own engineering challenge!

Before the challenge began, we watched a short video clip about Isambard Kingdom Brunel, helping us to understand what engineering is and how his work shaped the way we live today.

For the challenge, pupils were put into groups of 3 and tasked with creating their own structure using only sticks, string and rubber bands. They were given 2 minutes to decide what it was they were going to create and then we headed outside to get to work. The groups were set a time limit of 20 minutes and within this they had to create a stable structure and also decide on a creative name for it.

Once the 20 minutes were up, there were an array of structures to view. They ranged from the ‘leaning tower of pizza’, to a take on the Brooklyn Bridge, and even a bug hotel and an army den.

All groups used their imagination and problem solving skills to create their unique structures, and they clearly enjoyed being out in the fresh air!

Now to tomorrow where we will see what their next science challenge of the week will be….

 

This morning, Leswalt and Kirkcolm upper classes were lucky enough to enjoy a hands-on session with the marvellous Kathryn Purchase of History Alive!

Both classes have covered the Scottish Wars of Independence as their Social Studies topic for this term – and Kathryn was the very person to help bring this historical period to life for them with her fact-busting whizz through the years in question, answering any questions pupils had about the events of the time (clue – lots of unfortunate deaths, power struggles, scheming nobles and some ghastly treatment from both sides of their enemies!

The pupils were enthralled. Kathryn has a wonderful knack of really bringing the history to life for them. Needless to say, her huge collection of artefacts (some bought and some made by herself) helped too. The classes listened to her retelling of the life and times of King Alexander III, William Wallace, Robert the Bruce and those momentous battles of Stirling Bridge and Bannockburn and , after a quick break, Kathryn let them explore the helmets, shields and swords  (safe replicas!) and ask questions. Such fun – just take a look at the photos below!

This was a wonderful way to bring the children’s learning to a conclusion. It was a morning to remember – thanks Kathryn!

 

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!