Author: Mrs McHarg

Tuesday saw all 3 of our North Rhins partnership schools come together for a morning of exploration and an afternoon of inter-school sports fun. Pupils from Portpatrick and Kirkcolm travelled to Leswalt, who hosted the event for the first time. After arriving, the boys and girls made their way up to the Aldouran Wetlands for some fun in the gardens.

They then made their way back to school for a picnic lunch outside, and enjoyed getting to know and play with pupils from the other schools. Just as we were ready to head to the village park to begin our sports, the rain started – but it didn’t damped our spirits! Thankfully, the shower passed and it was a lovely warm afternoon for the boys and girls to cheer on their own schools – they were all getting very competitive and were keen for their school to be the overall winner of the afternoon!

There were various races for pupils to participate in, including sprint, skipping, sack, egg & spoon, distance and a relay. After counting up the points and working out the scores proportionately given the differing numbers of pupils in the 3 school, Portpatrick were the overall winners of the afternoon, with Leswalt in 2^nd place and Kirkcolm in 3^rd.

A huge thank-you must go to Lidl who supported the event for the 2^nd year running, by providing water and fruit for the pupils to enjoy – they were well in need of this after the distance race! Also to the Brown family, who transported the equipment from the school to the park for us. The pupils had a wonderful afternoon mixing with other boys and girls in their year group across the 3 schools and are looking forward to our next get together already!

We had some visitors pop into school today to meet the pupils of Leswalt Primary. Rev Clare Burl and Steve Flowers brought along some people who are over visiting from the Czech Republic who have ‘twinned’ with Leswalt Church. The boys and girls entertained the visitors with some beautiful singing which the audience clapped along to, and Gregor and Phoebe recited their Scots poems in an attempt to teach them some traditional Scots language – although I’m pretty sure they couldn’t understand much, so we took some time to explain what all the Scots words meant, such as ‘sterving’, ‘I’m gey wee’ and ‘gae us the boak’!!

In an attempt to find out more about them, the pupils then asked the visitors some questions about their life and schools in the Czech Republic. Mr Flowers introduced all the visitors to us and told us their names in Czech – we had to guess what this could translate into in English. One of the visitors (who is a teacher!) then taught us some word in Czech such as please, thank-you, hello, goodbye and (randomly!) ice-cream.

The visitors stayed for another 15 minutes to have a look around and ask questions, with some pupils acting as tour guides.  Everyone commented on how well the children performed and how wonderful their behaviour was – what a credit to our school they all are!

P1-3 had a lovely sunny morning with Mr Drennan at Balgracie Farm, who was assisted by Isabel Milroy from RHET.  Our topic this term is Farming so it was lovely to escape the classroom and find out more in a real life setting.  The highlight of the trip was most definitely seeing all the young calves and getting to sit inside the tractor!

We then boarded the bus and made a visit to Stranraer Museum where we looked at all the old farm machinery and tools.  This really helped us to see how farming has changed over the years.

Finally, we made a sneaky little trip along to Agnew Park for a quick play before heading back to school for lunch.

The perfect way to spend Outdoor Learning Day!

To kick start their new French Foods topic, P1-3 spent the afternoon sampling some typical French food. There was a wide range of treats on offer, including croissants, pain au chocolat, macaroons, eclairs and brioche. They even had the chance to taste some snails! Some were delighted about this, others – not so much!! Have a keek at the photos below to see the fun they had, and their reactions upon tasting snails for the first time!

A huge well done to Phoebe and Gregor who represented the school at the Burns Club Competition last night at the Ryan Centre. Both performed their poems with great gusto and did the school proud. Gregor was awarded 1st place in his category!! What confident individuals we have at Leswalt!

The Pupil Council and Eco Committee would like to say a huge thank-you to Leswalt Community Association for the funding they gave the school to purchase new playground toys and gardening equipment. The pupils are looking forward to getting all of the new equipment outside! Thank-you again!

Today at assembly, all pupils will receive a small cardboard battery box as part of the Big Battery Hunt. This is a recycling scheme which we have signed up to as part of our Eco Schools work. Pupils should fill the boxes at home with used batteries, before bringing them into school and emptying them into the large plastic containers in the hall. These will then be sent away to be recycled. As long as we arrange for a tub of batteries to be collected before June, our school will be entered into a prize draw to win various goodies including: iPads, £2000 worth of school equipment vouchers, a 2-night trip to a sustainability centre, or a 3-year subscription to ‘MyMaths’ worth £1000.

Please pass on the message that your batteries can be recycled at Leswalt School! Thank-you in advance for your support in this initiative.

Primary 5-7 pupils from Leswalt, Kirkcolm and Portpatrick Primary Schools headed to Lockerbie Manor on Wednesday for a 3-day outdoor residential trip.

After stopping at Springholm Primary for some lunch and to stretch our legs, we reached Lockerbie Manor early in the afternoon. Everyone was given a tour of the building and grounds by the instructors and got shown to their rooms. After a quickly unpacking, we split into 4 groups and headed to our first activity. Activities included archery, rifle shooting, obstacle course, climbing wall, abseiling, orienteering, fencing, canoeing and kayaking. After activity one, some pupils required a shower as they were caked in mud after army-crawling on their bellies underneath netting! By this time we had worked up quite an appetite, and were served with the most delicious dinner – what a selection on offer! At night time, we had an evening activity before getting all cosy in our jammies and spending time getting to know pupils from the other partnership schools.

Day 2 saw an early morning wake-up call at 7.20am. We had 5 activities spread out over the day, with some pupils getting an early afternoon bath after falling into the lake whilst kayaking! That night, having been exhausted from all the physical activity, pupils were sound asleep before 11pm – much to the staff’s delight!!

On Friday morning, we were up early to get our rooms packed and emptied. Some rooms looked like a bomb had hit them, there were clothes everywhere! We then headed out for our final 2 activities before the bus arrived at 1.30pm to return us to Stranraer. It was a very quiet journey back, with lots of pupils catching some shut-eye!

Everyone had a brilliant time away, making new friends across the partnership and trying new activities.

Photos below from day 3:

As part of our bid to achieve national accreditation for the Digital Schools Award, we have selected 4 Digital Leaders to help drive our work forward. They are responsible for supporting staff and pupils in the use of ICT by sharing their skills; helping to maintain ICT equipment; leading lunch time ICT clubs; and organising parent sessions to develop their skills and knowledge.

All the Digital Leaders from Portpatrick, Leswalt and Kirkcolm came together on Tuesday for a Digital Leaders training day. They were all so enthusiastic and keen to get going! Pupils were taught how to upload, print and laminate photographs, and how to access Glow and send an email attachment to a teacher for the blog. They worked in pairs to come up with activities for Safer Internet Day on 5th February, and shared their suggestions for lunchtime ICT clubs that they could run back at school.

Everyone had a thoroughly enjoyable morning mixing with other pupils from the different schools and are all away back to their own school ready and raring to go as our Digital Leaders!