Author: Mrs Baillie

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

Well done Alexander!

What a day to come back on Term 2 – Halloween! 

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. 

Primary 7 have recently completed a block of swimming at the Ryan Centre, over 3 weeks.

Many thanks to Mrs Agnew and staff at school for supervising them at this.

They all enjoyed learning new skills and splashing about!

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.

Thank you Mrs Smith!

‘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!

Leswalt Primary school welcomed some new pupils today.

Thea, Aria Rose, Keira, Hannah and Eilidh all started p1 today.  They will soon be joined by Noah and Emma.

Evan and Daisy also joined the upper class in p7 and p5.

The photographs below show our happy p1 girls today , and what they aspire to be in  later life.  We hope to help you achieve your dreams girls!

On Friday, P1-4 enjoyed a fun filled day at Dumfries House, enjoying 2 interesting workshops, then a play in the Woodland Adventure Playground.

The first workshop was all about weather and we had the chance to show off our knowledge picked up in last term’s weather topic. The focus was Wind and we used bubbles and compasses to measure wind direction, and also give it a value on the Beaufort Scale. Our final challenge was to ‘outrun’ the wind at various stages on the Beaufort scale using a measuring tape and stopwatch. We struggled to get past a moderate breeze! J

The second workshop was called Energy Engineering and we had great fun exploring energy generation using wind turbines, a hydro system and solar panels. We also had to search in the play area for natural sources of energy and made our own wind socks.

A stop off at the adventure playground was enjoyed before setting off home on the bus. A super trip in beautiful surroundings and we would all happily make a return trip to explore the grounds more!

As part of younger pupils learning all about caring for babies, our younger pupils enjoyed the company of Miss Maeva Mc Harg.  Mrs Mc Harg brought in her baby daughter, who has just turned one, to allow all to appreciate all the more, what caring for a baby involves.  This is part of the health and well being teaching planned for p1-4 this term.

There was lots of questions for Mummy Mc Harg and lots of happy little faces enthralled by the cute Miss Maeva who enjoyed crawling about the gym hall.

Many thanks to Mrs Mc Harg and Maeva for coming in – the cute little visitor brightened up the day for all in school!

After a long delay due to Covid, the annual Primary 7 Rotary Lunch event recommenced today.

Breagh and Aidan represented Leswalt Primary  at this year’s event where the guest speakers were Bejing Olympic Gold and Silver Curling Medallists Vicky Wright (Gold), Bobby Lammie (Silver) and Hammy McMillan (Silver).

They enjoyed a tasty lunch of Tomato soup or fruit juice, followed by fish and chips.  This was followed by a Q & A session with our Olympians.  They talked about practicing for about 7 hours a day, five days a week and travelling a lot for competitions. The curling sports heroes said that they were first introduced to curling by attending the curling club at the North West Castle in Primary 7. So, now is about the time for anyone interested in curling as a sport to think about joining.

Our Leswalt team rocked up at the North West Castle wearing Scotland tops that once belonged to Vicky Wright, who also went to our school.

 Both represented our school well, chatting easily with a member of the Rotary Club, who joined us at our table throughout the event.

#confident individuals