Last year Emma Shirley was diagnosed with Leukaemia, and was unable to start Primary 1 at Leswalt Primary school with all her wee friends. Emma has subsequently missed lots of school and had months of treatment at Glasgow Children’s Hospital.
In December, all the boys and girls from Leswalt Primary decided when they moved back to their newly refurbished school they would hold an open afternoon , with donations to support Emma. £320 was raised in just over 2 hours at Leswalt Primary with visitors all donating generously.
Emma is now feeling a lot better and has been in school for a few mornings. All her friends from Leswalt Primary school handed over the money raised. £200 was given to the hospital for helping Emma and £120 was given to her parents to help with the costs of them having to go back up and down to Glasgow. Emma still has to attend Glasgow Children’s hospital on a weekly basis.
The photograph shows Leswalt Primary pupils handing over the money to Emma and mummy, Joanna Shirley.
P1-4 kicked off our French Food topic today and what better way to do that than try some French cuisine!
Macarons, croissants and pains au chocolat were a universal hit. So too were the pate and quiche. Our last course gave us some mixed taste test results…escargot! Hannah and Eilidh loved the snails, Ben and Murray less so!
Up next, we will be setting up our French role play cafe in class and using some popular French phrases to order food.
Bon Appetite!
Ready to eat the French cuisine
French picnic
Murray was not keen on the snails
The girls enjoyed escargot
Mrs Kyle and Thea taste snails
Mrs Baillie and Mrs F even had a go of the snails!
Leswalt Primary was delighted to welcome 2 very special guests to see the news and improved Leswalt Primary school.
Dawn Roberts the new Chief Executive for Dumfries and Galloway council was accompanied by Dr Gillian Brydson, Director of skills Education and Learning to see how all the money has been spent on the refurbishment of Leswalt Primary school. They arrived at Leswalt Primary school with the Scrapbook the Pupil council made many years ago to request some work on Leswalt Primary. Hamish Mc Gregor recalls he was in Primary 1 when this was compiled. Hamish is now in Primary 6 and delighted to see the huge change from the photographs in the scrapbook!
While at the school, our visitors had a tour from Alexander and Faye, our most senior pupil council members now. The school also sang to them and Mrs Ferguson was also surprised when they handed over a certificate to her for working with Dumfries and Galloway council for over 25 years!
Earlier this year, our P5-7 pupils were set the challenge of designing their own app for a mobile phone, by the company “Make it Happen”. There were lots of wonderful suggestions. Runners up at Leswalt were all give certificates –
Murray Reid – car game
Daisy Doyle – book reader for dyslexics
Hamish Mc Gregor – Cooking app
Rose Santangeli – Dog training app.
Five overall winners were chosen for the whole of Dumfries and Galloway. The lucky winners all received a Coding book, water bottle and brand new Kindle Fire tablet! The winners also get their app made for real!
At Leswalt we are delighted and excited to have one winner. Drum roll please……
Alexander Clark has created “Name your stock” – an app that is designed to allow you to identify different breeds of sheep and cows you may spot in the fields. Alexander will work in conjunction with the company to add further breeds and information to this app. One key breed he will be adding soon is his beloved Texel sheep!
You can download the app on to your own phone – Mrs Baillie already has it on her phone and was able to show the school this morning 🙂
Click on this link – https://name-your-stock.glideapp.io/dl/6471c6 and you too can download the app made by Alexander
As you can imagine, it was all go with the start of Term 2 ahead of us and Halloween festivities taking place .
Pupils came with scary costumes bagged and ready to go for a quick change at lunchtime. Afterwards we had our Halloween costume judging competition! We did this altogether with Kirkcolm combined and had both a Leswalt and Kirkcolm winner in each primary. What a super effort all the boys and girls made today, with some truly spook-tacular costume ideas and some that showed real hard work at home. Both House Captains and teachers were so impressed.
Leswalt P1-4 were joined with Kirkcolm and Portpatrick infants class on for a trip to “Kitchen Coos and Ewes” owned by the Neale and Janet McQuistin at New Luce . Over 50 pupils and staff bundled onto the trailer and headed to the hills where we quickly caught the eye of 30 Highland ‘coos’ 🐮. This trip allowed the children to experience a different type of farming, as part of their learning and teaching in class.
The friendly bunch of coos followed us up through the hillside while Janet explained to us how the coos are fed, how their coats and horns grow and how she managed to remember all of their names – including Madonna, Rihanna and Britney. 🎤
Thje 3 schools couldn’t take a trip to New Luce without a visit to their amazing village park, so all enjoyed a little snack and a play before heading back to school on the bus after a fun-filled and well enjoyed farming trip 🙂
After almost 25 years working at Leswalt Primary school, Mrs Smith our fabulous learning assistant has called it a day.
Leswalt pupils were sad to see her go, but all were happy to have had that special Mrs Smith sparkle in their life. She has worked so hard, for so many over the years.
Sadly, she was off unwell on what should have been her final day on Friday – but the pupils did not forget about her! A special delivery of flowers was sent out to her house from the staff. And, on Friday we were all treated to a huge Simpsons sponge cake, thanks to a generous donation from Lorna Drummond. All the boys and girls were treated to a piece, before Mrs Baillie took the cake to Mrs Smith after school.
The Parent council and staff have all got generous gifts ready and waiting to hand over to Mrs Smith. It has been decided to hand these over when we all get into the new and improved Leswalt Primary school. Mrs Smith has suggested she would like a wee tea party there and we look forward to welcoming her back to pass on our appreciation.
‘Farm to Fork’ is the title for this term’s topic in P1-4, and what better way to learn than meeting some local farmers and finding out more about what they do.
We were lucky to have a nice sunny afternoon to welcome our visitors to Kirkcolm, and by kind permission of Jack Milroy, were able to use a field next to the school.
First up was Grant Hurcomb, aka The Sheep Shearing Expert! We got to watch him shear some sheep, discussed why he does this and then we got feel the wool and find out ways it is used. Grant was ably assisted by Jack who was able to give us an idea of the value of the wool. Turns out, not a lot!
Next was the turn of Stuart McCrindle and his sheepdog Zak. This winning partnership were last year’s Scottish Champions so we knew we had the best team to demonstate a sheepdog working with some sheep. Zak was a true professional and guided the sheep around the field with ease. Some of us even got the chance to give Zak some commands too. Stuart had also brought along the newest member of his team, an 8 week old collie pup. The children all got the chance to name the puppy, and the winning name chosen at the end of the day was ‘Jem’. The perfect choice!
The children then had the chance to meet local contractors Angus Brown and Steven Adams. Despite their busy schedule and the dry weather, they took time out from silage making to visit us with a chopper, tractor, mower and a rowing up machine. It was a chance to see these machines up close, find out what they do and have a seat inside…and toot the horn! Being a contractor also means you have to be a mechanic and engineer, fixing problems as you go. It’s a tough job!
We also had a local sheep farmer there, Ian McKnight, who talked us through rearing and caring for animals. We learned about the farming calendar, saw some tools and medicines he uses and got to see different feeds for the animals. He also had the quad bike he uses on the farm too with him.
Finally, we had our very own Alexander Clark (budding auctioneer) on hand to finish proceedings with an auction. He stood in at the last minute after a cancellation and he did an awesome job. We got to see him in action with groups competing to buy some calves and win an extra 5 minutes of breaktime!
What a lovely way to spend a sunny Friday afternoon. A big thank you to all of our visitors who have perhaps inspired a few young people towards a career in agriculture!
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