Author: Mrs Ferguson

On Sunday the 7/5/17 it was Leswalt Primary’s Cream Tea .So many people came to enjoy a fun afternoon in the glorious sunshine! There were many fun stalls to browse around: Guess how many sweeties in the jar, guess the teddy bear’s birthday, a book stall, bottle stall, fabulous face painting , gorgeous hairstyles , BBQ,  a delicious baking stall , the raffle with lots of great prizes , a 50-50 lottery, the ever-popular lollipop game and glitter tattoos. The winner of the teddy bear’s birthday was Jenna Calderwood – she got the right date- and Jamie Drennan successfully guessed the number of sweeties in the jar.

A fantastic £985 was raised! HUGE thanks to all the hard-working parents and pupils involved in the organisation of this very successful fund-raiser. Brilliant teamwork.

Report by Alistair Brown and Millie Smith

 

On Thursday 4th May, Leswalt Primary P5-7 headed off on the service bus to Soleburn to meet with Michael to get some expert advice about plants.

Firstly, we headed into the park and let off some steam playing on the slide, swings and roundabout – very cool fun even when you are 9-12 year olds! Michael popped out to get us and our tour of the Garden Centre started!

He told us about perennials, annuals, evergreens, shrubs and trees and so much more. We got some advice about which plants to put in our new planters for the front door and which compost type to use. This is a job for Friday afternoon! It was interesting to learn about the debate around using peat within compost – something we didn’t know anything about. Inside Soleburn, Michael pointed out the cacti, vegetable plants and lots of indoor plants. It really is amazing just how many different species of plant there are. In class, we have a large 3D display of the parts of a flower and some of us were able to spot these on the plants we saw.

After selecting our plants for the tubs, we paid and headed back over to the park to enjoy the glorious sunshine.

Finally we headed back along the road to wait for the bus. An elderly lady stopped to speak to us; her name is Janet Loch and she told us that she taught at Leswalt Primary for 6 years from 1959! She was delighted to see Leswalt pupils out and about in their local area!

All in all, it was a perfect way to spend a Thursday morning. Hope you like our new front door planters!

P1-4 enjoyed an excellent visit from Kathryn Purchase with her History Alive presentation! A whole morning was spent finding out all about Vikings and the children gained a real insight into what life was really like back then.  We found out who the Vikings actually were (the good and the bad ones!), where they came from and where they travelled to.  The children found out about what they wore, the types of food they ate, what their homes were like, how they travelled and the hierarchy within the Viking community.  This was a real hands-on experience for the children.  They got to try on costumes, weave on a loom and even re-enact a Viking battle.  A fun day was had by all!

“This was a really fun visit and I enjoyed acting out our battle scene!” Finlay P4

“My day at school was exciting and I liked getting the chance to dress as a Viking and hold all the weapons!” Jack P3

“It was really cool getting to see all the Viking stuff like the swords!” Breagh P2

Wow wow wow! Once in a lifetime opportunity just happened to come our way this morning (ok there had been a great deal of groundwork done in preparing for this by Ms Whorlow, and Mrs Henry had used some of her Easter holidays and an evening to make this happen). Four members of the filming crew of ‘Keepers’ agreed to come into Portpatrick Primary and meet with them and Leswalt for an extra-special, ‘never experienced before’ Careers in the Community chat! Unfortunately, cast members were busy filming on set in Stranraer (but we were presented with original posters signed by the main stars!)

Joe and Kel are screenwriters and actors, Andy and Ade are both producers and they shared with the pupils some of their experiences in the very interesting hour long chat. The pupils asked some fabulous questions, keen to know more. You never know; perhaps the next generations of screenwriters, producers, makeup artists and actors are to be found in our pupils!

 

The sun shone for Leswalt Primary’s trip to Logan Botanic Gardens this morning. Every year the Gardens hold an open week for schools and two of their Rangers, who are based in Edinburgh usually, come down to lead some nature-based activities. We were excited at the prospect of meeting Kath and Kate again and enjoying the Gardens.

P1-4 headed off with Kath. First of all they enjoyed a mini nature walk. They then needed to do a Texture Hunt, working in small groups to look for 3 things which were spongy, firm, shiny, dull, hard etc.

They then used microscope slides to take a closer look at the leaves of the giant rhubarb plants. The underneath of those leaves are so spiky! We think that’s to put off any little creatures who fancy snacking on them!

Next they worked to make a 3D map of Logan Gardens in little groups using twigs, leaves, ribbon provided by Kath and lots of other bits and pieces which they found. Some of the groups got very arty with this!

Finally, and very excitingly, Kath had a sponge which had a ‘Magic Potion’ on it! Each pupil used a little piece of sponge to dab some of this potion on their nose, which Kath said would help them to smell much easier! The boys and girls then went on a Smell Hunt finding lavender, eucalyptus

and something very peppery. The potion worked its magic!

P5-7 were led by Kate. Initially we headed to a clearing and discussed different types of maps. Kate used a compass to set North on the grass and we filled in the other compass points. We were then set the task of re-creating a visual 3D map of the quadrant we were standing in using sticks, leaves, flowers from the ground. The finished article was very creative.

To head to our next activity base, we used a compass in pairs to set our bearings. We needed to locate North with the compass, then set the bezel to the bearing given and follow the direction shown by the arrow and no one got lost!

Finally, we talked about scale using maps and ways in which we could recreate our own maps of the area using our artistic and scientific skills. Kate let us choose whether we wanted to use the Art or Science resources. We then needed to stick our recording on the correct position on the scale. Some of did bark and leaf rubbings, leaf prints, used bug viewers to take a closer look at snake and flat-backed millipedes, tested the PH of soil and took a weather recording – a varied response!

We all had such a lovely morning together. Looking forward to April 2018 already!

What a wonderful morning Euan, Alistair, Ethan, Jack and Jamie had! Accompanied by Mrs Smith, the boys travelled into Stranraer Academy to take part in a mini tournament organised by  Stranraer FC  organiser Allan Jenkins. The Leswalt boys joined forces with Rowan, Rhian and Lachlan (their Portpatrick team-mates) and played 3 games; winning 3-0 against Sandhead and drawing 1-1 with St Josephs and 0-0 with Glenluce/Castle Kennedy. The boys then got to have a closer look at the SPL trophies and read the inscriptions and everyone there was awarded with a commemorative medal. A great morning out! There was an official photographer there too so keep your eyes peeled for the next Free Press!

 

On Friday the 21st of April, p5-7 went on a service bus to Stranraer Museum. They had planned this trip by themselves using a bus timetable and museum exhibition information poster. Once we got there we went to St John’s Castle first – it was very interesting. Did you know that St John’s Castle was once a house, prison, a World War 2 look out and was also used for storage! After we’d had a good look around and asked lots of questions, we went up a steep, stone flight of stairs to the roof where we took lots of photos. We could even see the Agnew Monument! There was a great view. After that, we went to the museum. There, Jaime our tour guide took us round all the exhibitions- it was awesome!  Then we headed to the bus stop and took the service bus back to school! What a great morning!

On Thursday the 30^th of March P5-7 went to Green Valley. P5 had to run half of a mile and P6 and 7 had to run a mile. We ran around Green Valley golf course and flags guided us on where to go. It was very tiring but everybody did exceptionally well.

 

What a great day Leswalt Primary had on Red Nose Day (Friday 24^th March). Pupils came to school dressed in all manners of fabulously silly outfits; think inside-out, back-to-front, pyjamas, crazy combinations… and you’ll get the idea! The boys and girls took some time to find out about the great work that Comic Relief does all over the world and consider the importance of digging deep and going the extra mile to help others when and where we can.

In the afternoon, we welcomed our esteemed judging panel of Gillian Murdoch from Leswalt Stores, Mr Harold McCracken and Mrs Mary Buchanan who had the unenviable job of trying to find a winner of our ‘Leswalt’s Got Talent Show’. An amazing thirteen acts performed – ranging from p1-p7, individual entries to group ones. The assembled pupils, parents and friends enjoyed an afternoon of songs, jokes, poetry, dance, comedy sketches, story-telling and piano playing and lots and lots of laughter!

Each act listened to their ‘Britain’s Got Talent-esque’ judges feedback and, after all had performed, the judges took a little time to confer. Unanimously, they had agreed upon the Gaw family as worthy winners with their original poem about the meaning behind Red Nose Day and the most fabulous prop of a mega-sized tin of beans from which Noah (dressed as a chicken) appeared! The judges agreed that every act had been absolutely fabulous and really shown of their talents well. Well done to those Confident Individuals!

All in all, we all had a fun afternoon and raised well over £132 in the process!

 

 

 

 

P5-7 have had many great weeks with Feis Rois teaching us how to play the ukulele. Some of us even bought our own instruments! Eilidh and Jessica were our teachers for this and they were very kind, patient and fun! Today we got the chance to round off our ukulele sessions, by performing to the P1-4 class. We sang some Gaelic and African songs and played along to these using different chords on the ukulele too. We had a blast and we think our audience enjoyed the session too! Check out our photos to get a taste of what we were doing!