Author: Ms Whorlow

We are delighted to announce that the North Rhins Partnership of Leswalt, Kirkcolm and Portpatrick Primary schools have been awarded national recognition in Education Scotland’s annual Learning for Sustainability awards.

Having been shortlisted, we achieved a Highly Commended accolade within the Sustainability Learning Community Award category. This is an outstanding achievement, having competed against early learning, childcare, and school settings across the whole of Scotland.

The awards recognise the commitment, professionalism and leadership that underpins Scotland’s success in innovating for Learning for Sustainability within educational settings.  Within Scotland’s curriculum, Learning for Sustainability (LfS) is recognised as an entitlement for all learners and a recent international study showed that our learners are world-leading global citizens.  The award is timely with the upcoming COP26 summit taking place in Glasgow in November.

The aim is to help us all recognise the amazing achievements of Scotland’s people and the settings, schools and communities that have demonstrated passion and commitment to building a socially-just, sustainable and equitable world.

The North Rhins Partnership was required to demonstrate our whole school/partnership approach that encourages individual and collective action to promote Learning for Sustainability.  This incorporated many factors such as supporting Global Goals, the UNCRC Rights of the Child, Rights Respecting Schools, Eco Schools and our strong pupil voice,; both within our school settings and as part of contributing to our wider community.  We are doing our bit to develop independent learners, effective contributors, confident individual and responsible citizens for the future!

The official results will be announced in the Daily Record within the next week.

 

For Maths Week Scotland 2021, P1 – 4 got busy applying their numeracy and maths skills. As well as participating in our Fun Maths Roadshow, the children created portraits using only number shapes.  We are sure you will agree their portraits would grace any art gallery.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was a big day this week as we set about electing our House Captains for the year. This is quite a responsibility as these are the individuals in charge of our two school houses: Soleburn and Lochnaw.

The upper class were over the moon that we could put to use all the skills and knowledge we have learnt studying our new class topic on Democracy and how the Government works. What better way to start that forming the government and choosing the leaders of our own school!

House Captains have the challenge ahead of them of planning the big events throughout the year (especially as we can now have some events in schools!) and promoting good behaviour in their houses. All this adds up to Dojos which turn into Merits which turn into prizes for each house. Exciting stuff!

Our candidates had good time to prepare and were each ready to deliver a speech stating their case on why they felt they were the best person for the job to the rest of the school before our secret ballots were cast! All pupils delivered fantastic speeches and really showed how much they care about the school and everyone in it.  It proved a very tough vote for the pupils. We were very proud of all the P7’s for putting their best foot forward and, regardless what the result, we are sure all of them would make excellent House Captain and leaders.

Congratulations go to:

Soleburn – Breagh Kirkpatrick

Lochnaw – Malcolm McGregor

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This active process of democracy helps support our learning as part of our curriculum and as part of a wider context; helping develop the Skills for Life, Learning and Work.  It also drives forwards our Rights Respecting Schools & applies UNICEF’s Rights of The Child (articles 4, 12, 15, & 25)

Leswalt Primary has yet again been successful in achieving Eco School Status!

 

 

 

 

 

 

In order to achieve our eco-flag renewal, the boys and girls had to demonstrate ecology and sustainability on the elements of Litter, Water and Food & The Environment. Even prolonged periods of remote learning couldn’t hold our pupils back, as they continued to work on these targets with home challenge projects set by Mrs McHarg.

Eco Schools Scotland were particularly impressed with the evidence presented by the children and praised their initiative.  We are very proud of our Eco Heroes.

See below to read extracts from a copy of the letter we received from Eco Schools Scotland:

Congratulations to everyone at Kirkcolm Primary School for achieving your 2nd Eco Schools Scotland Green Flag. I really enjoyed reading your application this morning and it was great to see the fantastic range of evidence that you submitted to support your application – I really liked the fact that you had planned your actions to ensure that they had a clear link to not only your chosen Sustainable Development Goal but also, many others. You have really thought about this and your evidence clearly demonstrates what you have achieved. Your evidence is something that we would be keen to share with other schools as an example of good practice.

I appreciate that it will have been a very challenging year and it was great to see how you adapted your plans to be able to keep working towards renewing your Green Flag.

We also noticed aspects of your work as being examples of good practice. We may use these on our website and social media as case studies to support other schools with their EcoSchools Scotland work. While reviewing your action plan and supporting evidence there are lots of things that have gone very well and that you should be very proud of.

I like the examples you provided of how you carried out your environmental review and then selected you action points, this was a great way to let us see that everyone was involved. I enjoyed the work that the p4-7 class did while they were studying water, the work that the pupils produced looks fantastic and I’m sure will have a very positive impact. I love your rainwater collection system and what a great idea to have pupils keep a water diary. I bet a few people were surprised by their results.

Like many schools you made the decision to add Eco Schools tasks to your home learning activities during lockdown, this is a really great way to keep everyone involved and to have an impact out with the school grounds.

The work that you have taken forward in your food and environment topic is very impressive. Your school garden development looks fantastic and It was great to see that you were also thinking about where the food we consume comes from and the food miles associated with this and then exploring how food could be produced more sustainably. Also, great to see you enjoying your One Planet Picnic.

Our team may use aspects of your work as examples of good practice on our website and social media to support other schools during their applications.

Congratulations once again, on behalf of the whole of the Education and Learning Team, we wish you every success as you move on to your next application.

Daniel Barrie
Keep Scotland Beautiful
Education and Learning Manager
Keep Scotland Beautiful
ecoschools@keepscotlandbeautiful.org

Our pupils will now continue our eco journey by selecting new elements to work on for the next two years.  As part of our commitment to articles 12, 13, 15 & 29 of the Rights of the Child and Global Goals, our newly elected Eco Committee will help steer the way forward.

# Effective Contributors & Responsible Citizens

The boys and girls of Leswalt Primary used and applied a democratic process to elect our new House Captains yesterday.  Fitting with our Social Studies topic of Democracy in Scotland, our candidates wrote their own manifesto speech to present to their audience.

Each applicant demonstrated a very high standard of professionalism and confidence as they outlined their personal skills and attributes.  Everyone spoke with clarity about the ideas and initiatives they had for the role of House Captain. We were all very impressed with the standard of each candidate’s talk, be it in person or as a virtual presentation.

The whole school then carried out an electorate voting process by selecting the candidate they felt would best represent them for the year ahead.  Everyone filled out a voting slip and posted it in our ballet box to be counted privately.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was a VERY closely run campaign with the results as follows:

Lochnaw – Malcolm

Soleburn – Breagh

 

I am sure both House Captains will represent their houses well in the coming year.  Our thanks to all of our candidates who really did themselves proud.  We can’t commend the quality of each candidate’s presentation highly enough!  Each of them has earned a merit for their house team.

The activity helps support our learning as part of our curriculum and as part of a wider context; helping develop the Skills for Life, Learning and Work.  It also supports our drive towards our Rights Respecting Schools award and applies UNICEF’s Rights of The Child (articles 4, 12, 15, & 25)

# Effective Contributors/Responsible Citizens/Confident Individuals/Successful Learners

 

Leswalt Primary are delighted to welcome our new additions to the Leswalt school team.  We are joined by two little ladies and and a young gentleman : Emma, Ellie & Bobby who had their very first day in Primary 1 today.

They  looked very smart in their school uniform, as you can see from the photographs:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our P1’s enjoyed getting to know their new teacher, Mrs McKnight, and they had plenty of opportunities to make lots of new friends.

 

Emma, Ellie and Bobby have a had a busy time enjoying stories, art, P.E., yoga and more.  We think they may be tired tonight!

Leswalt & Kircolm Primaries held a combined One Planet Picnic in the fresh air today as part of our last day fun.  The theme is ‘Good For You, Good For The Planet‘. This year, we worked very hard on reducing our single use plastic waste and snacking in a more environmentally way.

The initiatives we undertook were:

• We packaged our lunches in recyclable paper bags
• Our healthy fresh fruit offering was unwrapped to reduce waste
• Our milk was supplied with paper straws instead of plastic
• Children bought their reusable water bottles
• Our take-away burger rolls were packed into recyclable paper bags.

Everyone enjoyed the alfresco social time as part of our last day.  There was lots of chatter and smiles from the boys and girls.

The children sorted our waste into three recycling tubs: food, paper and plastic, making sure there was no litter left behind.

Look at the different amounts.

 

 

 

 

 

The first, smallest bag on the left is food waste to be put on our compost heap, the second largest bag is paper waste to recycle and the third, smaller bag is plastic waste which we can also recycle. You can see from the photographs how little plastic and food waste there was compared to recyclable paper material.

We then placed the waste into the correct bins to be processed by Dumfries and Galloway Council.

 

 

 

 

 

# Responsible Citizens

Our children were treated to an open air musical concert performed by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra today.

Everyone sat outdoors in the fresh air whilst six musicians played new and familiar tunes for the children on a range of instruments.  The boys and girls were asked to identify and name the instruments and tunes whilst learning more about the instruments themselves. There was an oboe, a bassoon, a clarinet, a bass, a violin and a range of percussion instruments used in the recital.

There were tunes ranging from The Teddy Bear’s Picnic to The Hall of the Mountain King.  Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the performance and  agreed it was a such lovely experience.  Our thanks go to RSNO for travelling all this way to share their music with us.  It certainly made us all smile on a Thursday afternoon.

 

 

We had a fantastic turnout for this year’s Kirkcolm 51st annual fundraising mini walk on Saturday.

Pupils and families from all three schools were invited to participate to help support their schools. There were entrants from nursery age to adults walking the 7.37km route together; some competitively and some just for fun.

First, second and third places are awarded for the boys and girls completing the course in the quickest time.  The results are as follows:

Boys:

1. George Keith – Kirkcolm P6
2. Danny Dougan – Kirkcolm P4
3. Ivan Turtle – Kirkcolm P3

Girls:

1. Ruth Turtle – Kirkcolm P7
2. Olivia Turtle – Kirkcolm P6
3. Izzy White – Portpatrick P6

The route followed along the Corsewall Estate Coastal Path. A very well done to everyone who walked or ran the course!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There has been a fantastic response to the fundraising effort; with each school hitting their target! The money will be put to very good use for each school to give children enjoyable experiences after a difficult year.

Our grateful thanks go out to so many people who helped organise and support the event:

• Our parents and families who planned and organised the mini-walk
• The Carrick-Buchanan  and Milroy family for their kind  permission to walk on their land
• The volunteer  marshals
• Lidl  and Tesco for the donation of refreshments
• The Free Press who covered the event
• and to ALL the children and families who fundraised and participated to raise money for our three fantastic wee schools!  We applaud each and every one of you who took part.

Have a look at the fabulous photos courtesy of Jemima Johnstone.  See you next year! 🙂

Here are some action shots with our very enthusiastic participants

 

 

Mrs Ferguson planned an interesting STEM challenge for her class today as part of their Social Studies topic on the Titanic.  The children were given just one resource with which to make a vessel capable of holding an increasing load of coins afloat.

The boys and girls were required to measure and cut a tin foil rectangle 13cm by 15cm with which to make their lifeboat – that’s it, nothing else!

We popped out into the sunshine to test our vessels in buckets of water.  Some sank without a trace, and some floated victoriously.  The maximum load was an impressive 23 pennies!

Everyone concluded that the designs that allowed the weight to be distributed as widely as possible, with the largest surface area, were more capable of holding coin weight.  We all agreed that this was the lifeboat we would like to be on.

The boys and girls then experimented with a larger quantity of tin foil to give more design flexibility.  Murray’s team constructed a very high sided vessel that was able to hold all the coins.  Even though it got weighed down by the all of the coins, the water didn’t breach the sides of the craft.