As part of both schools ongoing work with The Children’s Parliament – Both Fallon (Kirkcolm) and Ewan (Leswalt) were selected to represent children’s voices and views at the Scottish Government base at Atlantic Quay in Glasgow. Fallon and Ewan and have been doing ongoing work with The Children’s Human Right Defenders. This has meant many video calls and a whole lot of information for them both to absorb and contribute to before presenting their hard work. This culminated in a Residential Trip last week, escorted up by Mrs Baillie herself. They stayed near Edinburgh, and went from the Sunday morning until Tuesday evening. There were 7 children representing the whole of Scotland at this residential – and two of them were ours! Fallon and Ewan did us very proud – they were impeccably behaved, confident and articulate individuals.
Ewan had customised his glasses with some pipe cleaners, left over from his artwork. He even managed to persuade some of the government to do the same – see if you can spot this in the photographs!
Here is Fallon’s account of their days away –
We left Stranraer at 11 am on Sunday morning with Mrs Baillie driving. We stopped for something to eat at Ayr. When we arrived we got straight in to work. We finished off making our butterfly and bat – our “pollinators for change”. I finished in a few minutes so I could go on to the next activity. We made bees and flowers too. I made my quite quickly . Before we had a little break I helped Hamza with his butterfly and Ewan put the final touches on his bat. He added pompoms and pipe cleaners!
We had a half an hour break and we went back to work. Then we decorated our rails. Ewan and I used mainly green and blue ribbon and some fake leaves but we also added a touch of pink bows and the flowers. Then we made our dinner – it was pizza! We went to bed. I shared a room with Kati and Ella, Ewan shared a room with Hamza.
On the second day, we had breakfast as got straight back to work. We worked on our speeches. Ewan and I presented all about climate change. One other group spoke about mental health and another spoke about vapes. We organized who was saying what and practiced for a few hours till we could say our speech with no help and no notes. We said our speeches in front of everyone and Cara said her introduction speech – everyone was very good. Then we did a few more practises until dinner , which was chicken wraps.
On the third and final day we packed up, had breakfast and headed off to Atantic Quay in Glasgow.
When we arrived in Glasgow we got our garden set up (the place where we would be talking to everyone). We organised our rails and plants. We went into a big fancy room and we heard Joe Griffin say his speech. Then we all said our speeches. It went very well and you could tell they where listening as they asked lots of questions.
Leswalt Primary is delighted to announce they have just received an Eco Schools Scotland Green flag award! This is in recognition of all the hard work and efforts of the school to protect the environment,
This is the 4th Green flag the school has achieved. Previous awards were in 2019, 2021 and 2023 – demonstrating our ongoing commitment to this.
Please click here to see the feedback we received.
The photograph below shows our Eco committee under their Eco flag and proud of another award
We were thrilled to welcome back Kathryn from History Alive into P1-4 to help make their Viking topic come to life this term! And as added bonus, Primary 7 got to join in too, while P6 were away at Operation Safety.
Kathryn, is a history expert with all the props that helps to really get the pupils to understand what life was like for Vikings in that time.
Kathryn told the boys and girls all about how life was like when the Vikings were about and they learned about long houses and their diet and the pillaging activities they got up to.
They all enjoyed getting their hands on all the props. The children learned about the helmets and (thankfully fake) weapons as they got to grips and they really enjoy this session of roleplay! Putting their new found mindsets to use, they went outside and engaged in a little Viking war cry! ⚔🪓🗡🏹🛡
Today, as is the yearly custom, our P6 across both schools dotted off to Operation Safety at Stair Park today for some safety input! This linked in really well with our Risk Taking behaviour focus in class for these pupils so they had a fair idea of how to manage some of these situations! ⛑🆘
Pupils moved around 8 stations, each with their own focus:
A CPR and emergency response input which taught them the basics of emergency response first aid! How to tell if your casualty is breathing or not and how to perform chest compressions… 🚑
Fire safety – can they spot the fire hazards in a home and how to manage these! 🧯🔥🚒
The Coastguard! (very important for this time of year in this area…) what to do if they spot somebody drowning and how to keep themselves safe in water. 🥽🚣♀️
Electricity with Scottish Power – spotting electrical hazards in the home and how to prevent these ⚡💡🔌
Youth Work came and did an input on Internet Safety – teaching pupils how to stay safe online and what they should or shouldn’t share online. 👍
Drugs and Alcohol – what are the harmful effects of drugs and alcohol 👎
Community, Council & Criminal – looking at certain acts and who is responsible for preventing and managing these! Is it a criminal problem for the police? A problem for the community to manage themselves? Or something we should turn to the council to help prevent? 🧐🤔
Finally – looking at vandalism in the community! Pupils built giant Jenga Towers (with a promise of a prize for the tallest?!) Before someone stormed in and destroyed them all! (He was supposed to – promise!) This taught pupils how it feels to have something of value that others can take upon themselves to deface! 🖌🎨
After a whopping 8 inputs over the course of the day – safe to say our P6 pupils are pretty clued up now! Thank you to all the organisations in the community for making this happen every year.
P1-4 have been getting into bowling as part of their P.E focus this term.
Dan, Colin, Bobby and and co. from Kirkcolm Bowling club were happy to bring some of their bowling gear to the school and this gave the pupils some hands on expert experience in developing their skills in bowling and learn more about the game.
They had an excellent time and we are very grateful to the gentlemen at Kirkcolm Bowling Club to make the time and effort to come into the school and take time out of their own personal lives for us. It is much appreciated and another example in how our local community continues to support us!
⚽️ Our partnership football team kicked off their debut in style , in the Primary league on Friday. Despite the two schools never having played together as one, they did us proud on the pitch .
Our top team won two games ( and lost two) on their very first outing. ⚽️ Well done ! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Today, armed with litter-pickers and bin bags the pupils of Leswalt Primary decided to give their community a spring clean!
In groups they headed round the village to see what they could spot and tidy up. The had some fun finds! Erin found 50p, which she said she was later going to buy a mixture from the shop with. Ben found what he thought was an orange rag – only to discover that it was actually his own jumper – which had blown off the washing line some time ago! James asked his group to do a litter pick in his garden – which they did ( and then proceeded to think they could go into every garden in Leswalt)🤣
All and all, it was a successful morning out and about doing their bit for the community and environment – look at how much litter they found!
Teamwork
Ben found his own jumper which had blown off the line!
Today was the last day at Leswalt Primary for Roman and Ellie, as they are moving out of the area. This week staff at school have ensured they have had fun times to remember with their friends at Leswalt Primary. There has been gifts, cards and even a specially created video by Mrs Ferguson Roman and Ellie 😀
Today, it was the turn of Roman and Ellie to hand over gifts – in the form of some beautiful cupcakes which spelled out ” Goodbye Leswalt Primary – Ellie and Roman x”
