Author: Mrs McHarg

We celebrated the end of Book Week Scotland on Friday afternoon by working in small ‘Book Buddy’ groups for a bit of paired reading. P5-7 pupils had been practising their fluency and expression when reading aloud throughout the week in preparation for today, and were prepared with some reading prompts to try and engage the younger pupils in the story and encourage discussion about the book they chose to read.

P1-4 pupils were engrossed (with some even cuddling in to their older buddy!) while they listened to  some very entertaining stories (if you haven’t read “There’s a Bear on my Chair” – look it up!!).

Afterwards, we all watched the Author’s Live event on the Scottish Book Trust website, where we were entertained by James Robertson and Catriona Lexy Campbell who brought ‘The Gruffalo in Scots’ to life.

We had a fab afternoon (and week!) enjoying and sharing books, and developing our love of reading!

To launch the start of book Week Scotland (which runs from 18^th-24^th November), P1-3 parents were invited into school this afternoon as part of the Bookbug (P1) / Read, Write, Count (P2-3) initiatives. Parents spent time exploring the contents of the bags and discussing ways in which the resources could be used to develop pupils’ literacy and numeracy at home. We also had a look at the ‘Parent Club’ website which gives further examples of activities to do at home using the resources.

An excited bunch of P1-3 pupils then joined us and were gifted with their bags. Pupils were desperate to get into their bag and see what it contained! Having sat patiently, we then headed to the classroom where pupils explored the goodies they were given – some were reading books; others were playing games of rockets & meteors or top trumps; and some were using story cubes to create imaginative silly stories!

Later in the week to continue the Book Week Scotland celebrations, P4-7 pupils will be doing some paired reading with P1-3, as suggested by the Pupil Council. We are all looking forward to getting together to enjoy some stories and share in our love of reading!

Our P7s wrapped up warm and headed off to the ice-rink at the North West Castle this morning, to participate in a taster session of Curling’s Cool. They learned how to glide and sweep on the ice and participated in some fun games. At the end of the morning, all of the schools took part in a competition. Leswalt made it to the final, playing against a mixed team of Glenluce and Kirkcolm pupils – and they won!! All 4 pupils had a great morning learning to play curling. Thanks to Finlay’s mum for the photos of the curlers in action!

 

Tesco have kindly donated lots of stationery to the school, after having a clear out in their shop. All of those pencils, Pritt sticks, folders and pads of paper will certainly be put to good use! A huge thanks must go to Tesco for their generosity. Have a keek at the photo below to see some of the goodies we were given!

On Monday, we welcomed families and parents into school to join in on some Maths fun! The whole school was split into 6 mixed ability groups and worked their way around different stations, which incorporated a range of Maths skills. Each station was led by a P6/7 pupil who explained the task and helped the pupils.

The 6 different stations included: bingo where we practised addition/multiplication; Code ‘n’ Go Mouse, putting our coding skills to use to navigate the mouse to the block of cheese; ‘Shut the Box’ game which focused on addition; Sumdog where we got the chance to explore our new subscription; indoor games such as dominoes and Snakes & Ladders to practise counting; and Big Maths Learn-its to give parents a chance to compete against their child as well as the clock!

Thanks to everyone who came along and to the class teachers for setting this up. Everyone had a great afternoon joining in on some Maths fun – have a look at our pictures below!

 

Pupils have had a busy start to the year, applying for various jobs in the school and demonstrating they are keen to take on positions of responsibility. We received lots of applications for Pupil Council and monitor jobs; several pupils were keen to be interviewed for the Eco committee; lots of boys and girls in the senior class applied via the online application for Digital Leaders; and P7 pupils said their House Captain election speeches at assembly.

This year, we have decided that pupils will earn a ‘salary’ (in the form of merits – not cash!) for undertaking their job to give them further experience of the world of work.

After a difficult decision, we have selected our new committees for the year.

Our new Pupil Council members are:

Our new House Captains are:

Our new Eco Committee, hoping to work towards achieving our 2nd Green Flag in 2 years’ time are:

And finally, our new Digital Leaders who will help to develop ICT in classes and provide technical support in the school are:

Finlay, Chloe, Joshua and Erin (photo to follow)

We are delighted to announce that we have been awarded our first Eco-Schools Green Flag! Pupils in the Eco committee have been the driving force behind all of the environmentally friendly work that we have undertaken throughout the year, with all pupils in the school joining in on activities and taking responsibility for making the school and community a greener and more sustainable place.

Over the last year, pupils have participated in various Eco-friendly activities, organised and led by the Eco committee. They have carried out a local litter pick, inviting parents and the local community to join in; joined various recycling projects including crisp packets and batteries; worked with the local community group ‘Wetland Watchers’; and held litter assemblies to raise awareness of the impact to the whole school.

Our Eco-Schools assessor stated, “Congratulations on successfully achieving your Eco-Schools Green Flag award! I thoroughly enjoyed reading your application and am very excited about the work being done at Leswalt Primary School. I was very encouraged to read about the successes you’ve had and how you’ve gotten the whole school involved in the effort.” The assessor also stated that aspects of our work were noted as examples of good practice and may be used on the website/social media as case studies to support other schools with their Eco-Schools work.

Work is already underway to select our new Eco committee and continue the good work to ensure we are able to renew our Eco Schools green flag in 2 years’ time.

Have a keek below to see photos of the pupils with our Green Flag, which we will be displaying in the school corridor. The Eco Committee members were particularly proud as punch of their achievement – well done to you all!!

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!