Author: Mrs McHarg

As part of our Eco Schools work learning about food and being responsible citizens, this Christmas we decided to run a ‘Reverse advent calendar’ – rather than the boys and girls getting a chocolate each day (they weren’t too impressed with this idea initially, I think many wanted the chocolate!!), they were asked to bring in a donation for the local food bank.

We spoke all about why it’s good to help charities, particularly people in need our local area, and learned about the work of the food bank. By the end, we were overwhelmed with our families’ generosity – we had pupils bringing in bags of donations as they realised how important it is to support the charity (despite only 1 item being requested per family!).

We are delighted to be able to deliver such a huge donation from our little school to the Wigtownshire food bank this Christmas – and we hope that it manages to help lots of families in the area.

Primary 5-7 pupils have transformed themselves into the next Steven Spielbergs! They have been working extremely hard with Mrs Copeland to produce short stop motion animations of our Learning Superheroes. The 5 learning superheroes tell us how to be a better learner and each one has a motto which spells out the word REACH – hence our school vision, values and aims statement is to ‘REACH for the Stars!’ There are 5 superheroes in total:

• Tough Tina – “Resilience and perseverance are key”
• Mike the Mistake Maker – “Every mistake is an opportunity to learn”
• Learning Lola – “Always try your best”
• Colin Concentration – “Concentrate, concentrate, concentrate!”
• Tim the Team Player – “Help others and be a team player”

Pupils worked in small groups to write and produce a short stop motion animation for one of the superheroes. All of the animations were then put together to produce 1 class film. Click on the link below to see their masterpiece for your self – enjoy!

https://glowscotland-my.sharepoint.com/:v:/g/personal/gw12mchargshona_glow_sch_uk/EYWXjR2F7K1BvQbpBeDXENoBMoTVl5cceJmlVxsBcTqzbQ?e=82F7gB

Every year to help celebrate Book Week Scotland, P1-3 pupils are gifted with a Book Bug (P1) / Read, Write, Count (P2/3) bag as part of a government initiative to promote literacy and numeracy at home. And despite Covid ruining most things this year, thankfully it didn’t ruin this (albeit it was a bit late since Book Week was technically 2 weeks ago!!!).

This morning, pupils were presented with their gift bags and got the opportunity to explore the contents. They enjoyed reading the books and playing some of the games contained inside the bags. There was much hilarity with the ‘This is Dog’ book – if you have a P1 Bookbug bag, have a keek for yourself!!  Although this year we were missing the parents (who usually pop in to share in this wonderful event), the pupils were thrilled with their bags.

Please look out for your child bringing these bags home for you to enjoy together. If you’d like any further information or suggestions on how to use the bags at home, check out the Scottish Book Trust website:

P3 bag – https://www.scottishbooktrust.com/learning-resources/read-write-count-for-p3

P2 bag – https://www.scottishbooktrust.com/learning-resources/read-write-count-for-p2

P1 bag – https://www.scottishbooktrust.com/learning-resources/bookbug-picture-book-prize-2021-learning-activities

We hope you have fun using these with your child!

Lots of pupils having been busy filling in applications and/or interviewing for various positions of responsibility in school over the last week. Today, all of the positions were announced – much to the delight of pupils who were desperate to find out!!

In our Pupil Council for this session, we have: Rachael, Ellie, Carys, Alexander, Aidan and Joshua.

 

Yesterday, we said a socially distanced fond farewell to our Primary 7 pupils – Auryn, Erin, Finlay and Phoebe. It wasn’t quite the normal end of year ceremony we were expecting, but we couldn’t let them disappear from Leswalt Primary without one last hurrah!

The fab 4 popped into school each with a small family bubble to reminisce and celebrate their achievements over the past 7 years. Mrs Ferguson read out a beautiful tribute for each of the pupils and they were presented with a yearbook and personalised hoodie as a momentum of their primary school years.

We finished the afternoon off with the traditional photo story, showing a montage of cute and funny pictures from their time at Leswalt Primary. If you’d like to have a look for yourself, this is the link to view it here

Have a keek below at the photos of our special gathering. Best of luck to our P7s for the Academy – I know you’ll all go onto wonderful things in the future!

As part of our British Science Week celebrations, the whole school headed out this morning into the glorious spring sunshine to the Aldouran Wetlands. The pupils worked in pairs to find, name and record various woodland mini beasts, aided by an identification key. We also had a peek at the bulbs we planted a few weeks ago to see if they had grown – and we were delighted to see some beautiful purple flowers blossoming!

In class, P4-7 pupils used our new iPads to explore different scientific stories currently in the news, and completed some experiments that they have been doing all week (including making eggs bounce!). P1-3 pupils started a very topical science experiment using bread to see how germs spread and whether hand-washing really is effective. They will continue to compare the bread over the next week to see how quickly the germs multiply.

In the afternoon, several parents joined us for some STEM activities. Pupils worked in mixed ability groups and rotated around a range of challenges and experiments on offer, including: creating soap bubble prints, invisible writing, rainbow paper towels, a challenge to build the tallest tower, designing a marble run, and coding.

Everyone had a super school day doing all things science!

Our Library monitors, Noah and Ellie, ran a competition for World Book Day, where pupils had to design a new front cover for their favourite book. Today, they had the difficult task of judging the entries and selecting 2 winners – one from P1-3 and one from P4-7. Ela was chosen as the winner in P1-3 with her eye-catching design for ‘The Enchanted Forest,’ and Auryn was the winner in P4-7 with her colourful ‘Billionaire Boy’ entry. Both girls had a selection of books to choose from and took 1 home each as their prize. Well done to all the boys and girls who entered the competition – it was great to see so many pupils having a go and sharing their favourite books.

Pupils headed up to the village hall on Thursday afternoon to entertain the members of the Thursday Club. They recited their Scots poems and sang some Scots songs – the audience loved Leswalt’s version of ‘Ye Cannae Shove yer Grannie off a Bus,’ there was great laughter at the ‘slevery kisses’ and ‘cheeky wee gin’ verses!! They also enjoyed Daphne Cochrane and joined in with some of the actions describing her ‘reekin’ oxters’ and ‘badly heed’!!!

The Eco committee went on to explain what we have done to gain our first green flag, and our plans for hopefully achieving our next one. Finally, P4-7 took to the stage to perform 2 songs on the tin whistle that they have been learning with Feis Ros.

The Thursday Club thoroughly enjoyed our entertainment and commended the pupils and the school on their work.

Two of our Primary 7 pupils were selected to represent the school at the annual Rotary Lunch. Phoebe and Erin, accompanied by Mrs Gaw, headed to the North West Castle for a delicious lunch. They were entertained by speaker Mrs Isobel Milroy from RHET, who also held a group quiz for the pupils – the girls (along with Finlay from Portpatrick) competed against approximately 12 teams and won!! They returned to Leswalt triumphant after a great day out.

Owen from Scripture Union came into school on Monday afternoon to deliver a fun workshop called ‘Christmas Unwrapped’ to P4-7. The pupils explored the Christmas Story as it is detailed in the Bible, and challenged their assumptions. For example, did you know that the Bible does not state that there were 3 Kings/Wise men at the birth of Jesus?! Through assumptions/stories, we all think there were 3 of them, but this isn’t said.

Pupils participated in various activities, such as a Christmas quiz in the form of a corners games to help work out misconceptions that pupils have about the Christmas story; a video called ‘Christmas Unravelled’ which explains that it was definitely not a ‘Silent Night’ as the well-known songs says due to all the people and noisy animals (the boys and girls were in stitches at this!!!); and a craft activity where pupils were able to express what Christmas means to them. They also did a present experiment which led them to the conclusion that you shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover – i.e. the biggest present isn’t always the best!

The pupils had a great afternoon learning about what Christmas means for Christians. Many thanks to Owen for spending the afternoon at Leswalt!