Author: Mrs McHarg

Primary 5-7 headed off to the Ryan Centre this afternoon for a musical extravaganza, provided by the Stranraer Music for All team. House Captains Hamish and Carys provided a report of their time away –

This afternoon we went to the Music for All workshop at the Ryan Centre. When we got off the bus, we went into the theatre and sat down. There were two people playing instruments: Ron playing the guitar and Rachael playing the clarsach (a small harp).

They started with a few tunes then Rachael told us about her clarsach – she told us that it was made of Canadian wood and that the strings were made from cows guts. Then Ron and Rachael played some traditional Scottish songs while we played air harps along with them!

They finished off with some questions from the audience then a final song. We had a great afternoon!

UNCRC Article 31 – Right to take part in cultural and creative activities.

Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to take any photos during the performance, but here is a photo of Rachael with her clarsach on the way out!

Our new school community police officer, PC Amy McGregor, visited Leswalt Primary on Friday to introduce herself and discuss internet safety with the pupils.

First, she visited P1-4 and shared the book ‘Digi Duck.’ This told the story of a duck who shared a mean picture of his friend, the pig, online and everyone laughed at the pig. The Wise Owl helps the duck to realise that what he did was wrong. Pupils learned important things about friendship and being responsible online through this.

PC McGregor then headed into P5-7 to have a discussion about how pupils use the internet; which social media platforms they use; and how to stay safe and be responsible online. Pupils enjoyed a questions and answer session with her, all about her role as a police officer, helping us to learn more about the world of work.

Thank-you to PC McGregor for taking the time to visit us!

UNCRC Article 13 – Share what you think, unless it harms others; and Article 29 – Aims of education.

We’ve been very lucky to have Stuart Fisher in school over the last 4 Fridays, delivering tri-golf lessons to each class. This was funded through the ‘Children’s Golf Trust.’ We learned about drivers and irons, and used these the hit the ball a distance. We also learned how to putt. Stuart had lots of fun activities and games set up for us to practise our new skills.

Thanks to Stuart for taking the time to come into school to deliver the session, we had great fun! Have a keek below at us in action!

UNCRC

Article 31 – we have the right to play

Article 15 – we have the right to join groups

Pupils took to the stage not once but twice on Wednesday to perform their Christmas show ‘Santa’s on Strike.’ Everyone has been working extremely hard over the last few months learning their lines and practising the songs – and boy did it pay off!!

The production is set on Christmas Eve and Santa is in a mood! He has watched too many episodes of Supernanny and feels that children don’t deserve presents anymore, so he goes on strike! Mrs Santa and the elves show him snapshots of family life in the hope that he will realise that Christmas is still a time of giving, caring and sharing. And he does! Then it’s blast off to get all of the presents delivered in time before Christmas morning.

The audience were thoroughly entertained – between the elf union rep ensuring that Santa knows his rights, to Santa nearly getting a snowball thrown at him by Mrs Santa for not paying attention, and Mum launching her yellow washing-up gloves at Dad for not helping her around the house!

Every single pupil was a star and we are very proud of them! Check out our superstars in action below!

The boys and girls at Leswalt enjoyed a festive feast on Wednesday for their annual school Christmas lunch. After pulling their Christmas crackers, telling each other the cheesy jokes and donning their colourful paper hats, pupils tucked into a yummy Turkey dinner with all the trimmings followed by a delicious chocolate pudding, kindly served by Patricia. The Christmas tunes helped to get everyone into the festive spirit too!

As part of our Book Week Scotland celebrations, P1-3 pupils all received a Bookbug (P1) or a Read, Write, Count (P2-3) bag this afternoon, as part of the Scottish Government and Scottish Book Trust initiative. Parents/carers popped into school to learn how to use the bags at home to make the most of the learning opportunities that they offer.

After pupils were gifted with their bags, everyone then spent the final 20-minutes of the day exploring and enjoying the contents of the bags. Pupils cosied up and read their new books, some played the dominoes card game, P1 pupils practised writing words on their new whiteboards, and others got their thinking caps on to have a go at the tricky tangram puzzles!

Please check school bags tonight for the wonderful resources that P1-3 pupils have brought home with them. And thank-you to everyone who took the time to come into school today. Have a keek at the photos below to see the fun that everyone had!

Mrs Dinsmore popped into school on Wednesday to say a fond farewell to her time as Clerical Assistant at Leswalt Primary – a post which she has been in for 23 years!

Staff celebrated Mrs Dinsmore’s well-deserved retirement with some tea and cake (kindly made by Michelle, Daisy’s mum) and presented her with some gifts and cards from all in the school community.

Thank you for all of your hard work at Leswalt Primary – we’ll miss you and hope you’ll pop back into school from time to time to visit!

Blog Post by Hamish & Isla –

Yesterday morning the P1-4 class made some delicious salsa using their home-grown tomatoes! 

In the middle of June, pupils planted some tomato plants and when we came back from the summer holidays, they were fully grown and had lots of tomatoes on them! So, Mrs Warwick decided to make some yummy salsa with the class! Everyone helped to make it and most of them enjoyed it when they tried some. They even gave some to the big class to taste test. If you’d like to make some salsa of your own here’s the link to the website they used – How to make salsa | BBC Good Food 

See below for some photos of p1-4 with the salsa!

At our most recent Pupil Council meeting, it was highlighted that we don’t have many non-fiction books in the school library. So our responsible pupils wrote to the Community Reuse Shop to enquire about donations of books. They very kindly invited us to pop into the shop to look through the books and pick a selection for our school.

Olivia from Kirkcolm, Alexander from Leswalt and Jack from Portpatrick all went on Wednesday morning to browse the huge range of books available. After an hour of hunting (some were hunting more than others – there were times where pupils were lounging on the floor engrossed in a book they found!!), they each left with a bag of books for their school.

Thank-you to the Community Reuse Shop for your generosity. We are looking forward to getting our new books into our school library for pupils to enjoy.