Author: Mrs Ferguson

What a brilliant day out the North Rhins P7s enjoyed at Galloway Activity Centre on Friday! This was organised as a special treat as they had missed their last two residentials – and what a fabulous time they had together before they head off to S1 at Stranraer Academy.

Thankfully the high winds and rain of Thursday had abated and Friday dawned dry and reasonably bright. We met at Port Rodie and clambered upon the minibus to head down the road to Loch Ken.

Once there, we got kitted up with our laser guns and headsets for our first activity. Diving in and out of the wooden hides (and in Mrs F’s case headfirst over a tree trunk!) the teams worked to avoid being ‘killed’ by the opposition. Strategy meetings were held, tactics discussed and rounds of ‘ammo’ were fired… and yes the teachers were shot! All good fun. The teachers went from being quite cool and mature to being VERY into this game! Why had I never played this before? Highly recommended!

Next up, the children donned their wetsuits (many comedy moments were had with Mr Cloy!) and enjoyed a session of kayaking. They were naturals! Once they were kayaked-out, the suggested dare from Instructors Rob and Hannah to jump off the the end of the pontoon was met with great cheers all round. The phrase ‘drowned rats’ comes to mind as they all padded back up towards the centre to get changed into dry clothes.

A quick bite of lunch and it was time for the climbing wall and zipwire with instructors Rob and Ben. What a bunch of adrenaline seekers we have! Superb climbing and ‘zipping’! The offer was then there for those who wanted to have a 2nd,3rd and even 4th shot of the climbing wall.

We thanked Rob, Hannah and Ben for a great activity day and climbed aboard the bus to head to Castle Douglas for a bite to eat. Chip-shop dinners in hand, we stopped the bus by Carlingwark Loch and munched our tasty suppers, before heading back along the A75 towards home.

The kids were an absolute pleasure to be with, the activities were fantastic fun and the chip-shop tea rounded off a perfect day out! Just check out our pictures below to see for yourselves….

 

We had a fantastic time exploring our new Kirkcolm surroundings for Outdoor Classroom Day today!

The sun shone as we headed down Fisher’s Lane to the beach. P1-4 investigated symmetry in the natural environment, explored a measuring challenge and enjoyed creating messages using the Viking Rune alphabet.

P5-7 worked on some sand multiplication challenges, measure and writing about settings – and what a fabulous setting we have.

The older pupils had rugby training in the afternoon and then carried on the fun with a school rounders game. Great fun!

Take a look at the fantastic photos to see just how much fun we all  had! What a brilliant day!

It’s been a busy few weeks here at Leswalt as shelves have been cleared, boxes packed and containers filled in preparation for our temporary move to Kirkcolm whilst our wee school has a refresh! Huge thanks to our buddies at Kirkcolm for letting us come and share their building. Leswalt had its last full makeover in 1989 and we’re super excited about the sparkly shiny school which we will return to some months from now!

We’ve made so many happy memories here; but there are so many more to be made. Our location may be changing for a wee while but we’re still Leswalt pupils! It’s not goodbye but see you soon…

Check out the BEFORE pictures! We can not wait to show you the AFTER!

See you next week at Kirkcolm!

Thanks to today’s Leswalt Litter Picking heroes for all their hard work in keeping our school and community looking fabulous! Several bags of rubbish were collected using great teamwork – top job Leswalt!

Many thanks to Active Schools for their recent delivery of the letters of the alphabet for their upcoming initiative Alphabet Street!

Leswalt gladly took delivery of their letters – and promptly put them to good use spelling out their own message! See below…

As we are on the move to share Kirkcolm’s school and playground very soon whilst our exciting refurbishment gets under way, we will store out alphabet letters for the moment and plan some fun with them on our return! Meanwhile, we will enjoy using Kirkcolm’s letters to participate in the Active Schools Challenges. Thanks Active Schools Team!

P5-7 enjoyed Feis Rois with a difference last term – as their weekly lessons were delivered via Microsoft Teams to their own living rooms!

Jamie and Emily, who are multi-instrument musicians with Feis Rois, led our lessons which had us listening to and identifying different musical genres, participating in Scottish and Gaelic action songs and, rather excitingly, working collaboratively to create a sound postcard!

This involved the pupils who participated in the weekly meetings recording sound effects and an extract each of the spooky local story ‘The Phantom Piper of Dunskey’. Rose designed the artwork for the postcard which was then produced into a final piece incorporating the drawing plus a QR code which can be scanned to hear the story production! Very clever stuff.

Thanks to Malcolm, Aidan, Rose, Noah, Breagh, Murray, Thomas, Tristan and Struan for the story recordings.

Check us out below with the finished articles and our class ipads which we used to scan the QR codes and listen to our work.

Well done to Rose and Holly from completing the D&G Active Schools Miles for Smiles challenge! This was set during Lockdown to encourage people to stay active and the girls had great fun doing this! As a thank you, Laura McClymont popped out today with a water bottle for each of them.

Just look at those smiles! Well done girls.

This morning, P5-7 enjoyed their second and final session with Laura McClymont from Active Schools, which resulted in them all being awarded with their Young Sports Leader ‘Playleader’ awards!

Their introductory session was just before the Christmas break and the class took some planning time this week to refresh their memories and organise a game which they could then deliver to their schoolmates.

They needed to think about organisation, safety, groupings and rules. An extra challenge was to go ‘equipment-free’ if possible!

What a range of games were played! The pupils had created a wide choice of games including: Rome Tig, RaRa Relays, Spire Tig, Minecraft Mayhem, Warmongers, Cat and Mouse, Hide n’ Tig, Catch the Villager and Rounders Catch! Laura was most impressed!

Certificates to follow. These are recognised national awards at level 2 – go P5-7!

Well done all!

We’ve had a fantastic week being all back together and today topped it all off with our Share a Smile for Red Nose Day celebrations!

Pupils and staff came to school dressed casually or as superheroes for a small donation. Red noses had literally being flying off the shelves all week, superhero masks were designed, pupils enjoyed Red Nose Day activities and found out more about this charitable event; what it does and the many who benefit from the generous fund-raising!

In the afternoon, we all enjoyed watching the many Talent videos which had been sent in from entrants across the North Rhins Trio. From drumming to dancing; horse-riding to golf; impressions to table tennis and scootering to gymnastics – the wealth of talent across all three of our schools was clear to see!

Every pupil had one vote and, once these had been cast, we headed outside to enjoy the Spring sunshine. Some helped Mrs Richardson with some gardening whilst the rest played octopus tig with Mrs McKnight and Mrs F.

Just before 3pm, Mrs Baillie popped out to reveal the results! Leswalt’s runner-up was Breagh with her horse-riding and the winner was Murray with his scooter skills!

We had a great day whilst raising money for a very good cause (the total to follow).

Many smiles were shared at Leswalt!

 

 

So we may not be physically in the same building, but does that stop the pupils of Leswalt Primary from taking part in their annual Scots Week Celebration? No chance!

The children – with the help of their parents- have been writing out their poems for the handwriting competition and creating their own artistic interpretation of their poem. Massive thanks must go out to all the families who have contributed their efforts to this. It is hugely appreciated.

Below is just a sample of some of the amazing work which has been emailed to teachers. Wow! We’ve very proud of you all.

To take things even one step further, we have our very own North Rhins Inter-School Burns Competition this Friday! Our invited judge for this year, the well-known Burns enthusiast Mr Alec Ross, has the unenviable task of judging the handwriting, artwork and recitations across our partnership. Mr Ross has already shared his Burns recitations, and given the back story to the poems, to help support our Scots week. I’m sure many of you have watched and enjoyed these!

This year pupils are working on:

p1 – Wee rid motor – Sandy Thomas Ross (8 lines)

p2 – Nessie by JK Annand (12 lines)

p3 – The Circus by JK Annand (16 lines)

p4 – Fireworks aff the castle by Matthew Fitt (20 lines)

P5 – Magic Pizza by Alison Fitt (20 longer lines)

P6 – The Whistle – Charles Murray (36 lines)

P7 – Any Robert Burns poem or excerpt of their choice eg To a Moose, Address to a Haggis etc…

Are you working hard on those recitations?

Can’t wait to hear you!

Tune in this Friday at 9.30am via Teams for our very own Scots TV!