As part of their RME topic learning about the Hindu festival of Holi, P6-7 pupils donned some very old clothing and headed outside on Friday afternoon to take part in paint throwing! Pupils learned all about the origins of the festival and how Hindus celebrate this by lighting bonfires and throwing colourful paint powder at each other, so we thought we’d have a go ourselves! Have a keek below at the fun in action! Apologies if any children still have bright red or blue faces and hands tomorrow!
P6-7 pupils visited Leswalt Church on Friday morning as part of their RME topic, learning about Christian artefacts, worship and rites of passage. Rev. Marlane Cash kindly met us at the church and was on hand to explain to everyone about the significance of various artefacts, including the font, pulpit, lecturn, chalice, communion wafer, organ, Bible and cross. Pupils even got the opportunity to try one of the communion wafers – but emphasised that this hadn’t been blessed! Pupils were all of a sudden keen to attend church for Communion after learning that even children get offered the red wine!
Marlane then explained how Sunday worship usually looks and spoke about hymns, Bible readings, the sermon that she leads, the Lord’s Prayer and the benediction. Pupils asked lots of questions to further their learning.
We had a great afternoon learning about Christianity in an interactive way – thanks to Marlane for giving up her time to speak to us.
UNCRC Article 14 – freedom of thought & religion
A huge well done to our four Primary 7 pupils who represented the school at the recent Rotary Club quiz, which was held at Belmont Primary School. Ben, Ewan, Isla and Amelia faced some tough questions and opposition from other local primary schools. Although they weren’t placed on the day, we are very proud of their efforts and team work! 🤩
Pupils headed into school today dressed in non-uniform and wearing as much red as they could, to help raise funds for Comic Relief. We started the morning off by learning a little bit about where our money goes and how it helps people all around the world, thinking about how we are essentially helping other children to get their rights. We then sold the last few remaining Red Noses – everyone was desperate to find the rare ruby nose, but unfortunately we didn’t seem to have one in our box!
Over the last few weeks, our House Captains (Isla & Daisy) have been working incredibly hard to organise ‘Leswalt’s Got Talent’ to help raise further money for this very worthwhile cause. Parents and families were invited in to watch all of the wonderful talent on display. We had dancing, singing, jokes, rugby ball skills, gymnastics and cheerleading all being performed to entertain our audience.
Mrs Sloan and Mr Baillie kindly gave up their own time to be our judges for the afternoon – and what a tricky job they had in deciding who should be awarded 1st, 2nd and 3rd places.
3rd went to Gregor with his jokes; 2nd went to Ela and Daisy for singing ‘Skye Boat Song’; and 1st went to Hannah, Lily and Eilidh “The Stars” for their very well practised and in-sync gymnastics performance.
A huge well done to everyone for putting themselves forward and performing in front of the audience today – we are very proud of you all! Leswalt raised a fantastic £143.58 for Comic Relief.
UNCRC Articles 23 (children with disabilities), 24 (healthcare, food and water) and 27 (a safe home).
P6-7 pupils headed off to the Ryan Centre this afternoon for a musical extravaganza. We were entertained by Andrea and Georgie of Ad Libitum, who were a violin and accordion duo. After explaining a bit about the different sounds that each of their instruments could make, we were treated to some of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons concerto, and pieces by composers Bach and Brahms.
Afterwards, we got the opportunity to ask the musicians some questions, learning that they had played in over 50 different countries, what the violin bow is made from and where in the world the horse hair originates from.
Thank-you to the organisers of ‘Music for All’ for a wonderful afternoon.
Over the last 4 week, we’ve had the pleasure of Stuart Fisher’s company who has taken each class on a weekly basis for 30 minutes of tri-golf. We’ve covered things from hitting long range shots using drivers and irons (in our PJs as it was Children in Need!), target practise with the large sticky target, and putting. We put all of our new skills into practise through lots of fun games and activities that Stuart setup.
Thanks to Stuart for taking the time to come in to Leswalt Primary – we’ve had a fab few weeks!
UNCRC article 31 – we have the right to play.
Leswalt Primary pupils left the school with huge smiles on their faces today, after each being gifted a chocolate advent calendar from the Leswalt Community Association. They are all super excited to be allowed to have chocolate as part of their breakfast every day in December! A huge thank-you to LCA for their generosity!
P6-7 were joined by Rebecca from the NHS Tobacco team this morning, to learn all about the dangers of smoking and vaping. Rebecca’s job is to work with people who are ill from the effects of smoking/vaping, but also to try and prevent people from starting smoking/vaping to begin with.
We learned that the legal age to buy cigarettes/vapes will rise to 19 years old next year, 20 years old the following year, and so on so that it will eventually be illegal for everyone to smoke. We discussed the physical effects of smoking, as well as the effects on your bank balance! We learned that nicotine is more addictive than some drugs and how it affects the brain. We did an activity where we had to run/jump on the spot for 20 seconds, we then repeated this but had to doing it breathing through a small straw to show how hard it is for smokers to breath doing anything active.
Finally, we learned about the environmental impact of smoking – on average, there are 50 bin lorries of cigarette ends disposed of each year. In 2022, there was the equivalent of 22 football pitches worth of vapes disposed of.
Rebecca encouraged pupils to share her team’s information with anyone at home who smokes and is keen to quit – they can email dg.quityourway@nhs.scot
Thank-you to Rebecca for travelling to Leswalt for a very informative morning!
