Miss Douglas – Leswalt Primary School

Socks, Smiles & Standing Up

This Monday marked the beginning of Anti-Bullying Week at our school—a special time to celebrate kindness, friendship, and standing up for one another. To start the week, pupils wore odd socks to school! 🧦This fun tradition helps us show that being different is something to be proud of—our unique qualities make us who we are. ❤️👬

We also joined in with the BBC’s Live Lesson, all about how we can ‘Power Up!’ to stop bullying with this year’s theme “The Power of Good” and we shared ideas of how we can continue to make our wee school the kind, caring place that it is!

Remembrance Day

Today, Leswalt Primary pupils took a walk to the village memorial to remember all the brave people who helped keep us safe in the past. Since it’s meant to be very rainy tomorrow, we went a day early .

Everyone stood quietly as P7 pupil James read the famous poem In Flanders Fields. He did a brilliant job! His voice was clear and calm, and the words helped us think about the soldiers who fought in wars long ago.

After the poem, we all stood still for two minutes before laying our hand-made wreath in front of the memorial, this was done by our oldest pupil James and youngest pupil Leo.

Communicating Cate
Critical Thinking Chris

Bright Lights and Safe Nights: Firework Safety in P4-7

Our upper class were delighted to welcome Robert McCrorie, a Community Safety Advocate from the Fire and Rescue Community Safety Team. He spoke to the pupils about staying safe around fireworks and Bonfire Night celebrations. 🎇

Robert covered important safety topics including fireworks, sparklers, and bonfires, highlighting potential hazards. Hannah gave a great demonstration on how to hold a sparkler safely—at arm’s length and without waving it around—unfortunately nobody offered to do a demo of the vital Stop, Drop and Roll technique in case clothing catches fire. 👩‍🚒🔥

The session also explored what should never be added to a bonfire and the reasons why, along with key rules and regulations for purchasing and using fireworks responsibly. 🎇🎆

Collaborating Cora
Critical Thinking Chris
Initiate Ivy

Article 19 – Protection from violence, abuse, and neglect: Children have the right to be protected from all forms of harm. Learning how to stay safe around fireworks and bonfires supports this right.
Article 6 – Right to life, survival, and development: Teaching children how to prevent accidents and respond to emergencies (like Stop, Drop and Roll) helps safeguard their well-being and development.

Breakfast Club Begins!

This morning Leswalt opened our doors a little earlier to welcome our first crew of breakfast clubbers! On the menu this morning Mrs Kyle whipped up a delightful array of continental options – yogurt, cereal, toast and fruit. Just like the toaster, the first day of the breakfast was popping off with lots of happy, smiley faces enjoying their breakfasts, with some sampling many of the choices on offer – I think its fair to say the first day was a big success and we hope it continues to make everyone smile! I for one would love Mrs Kyle to serve me my breakfast each morning 🍌👩‍🍳🍽🍞

After breakfast some of the girls had a little play of the games on offer, including hungry hippos – but luckily there is no chance of any of them in the building now! 🤤 This breakfast club is funded by a successful grant application to Bright Start breakfast club to give our little people exactly that – a bright start to their day!

Meta Skills – Collaborating Cora, Communicating Cate
Article 27 – The right for children and young people should be able to have the food and housing they need to reach their full potential.

Our Pupil Voice Reps

At the beginning of the school year all pupils were given the opportunity to take on a bit more responsibility around our school by applying for various positions including; Pupil Council, Eco Committee, House Captains, Digital Leaders and Monitor jobs. These jobs ensure that pupils’ voices are heard in everything that we do and allow them to take ownership over our fab wee school! ❤️💬

Having looked through the applications , we have now selected our reps for the current session – these effective contributors will be working together to help our school continue to be the happy place it is and make it shine even more🌟

Pupil Council
Jack (P1), Betty (P2), Cameron and James H(p3), Eilidh (P4), Olivia (P6) James McD (p7)

Eco Committee
Leo (P1),Gregor (P2), Jorgie (p3), Emma (p4), Murray and Rebecca (P7)

Digital Leaders
Rachael and Ben (p7)

House Captains
Rachael (Corsewall) and Colin (Lochnaw)

Monitors:
Playground – Jorgie (p2) and Lily (P5)
Meta Manager – Eilidh (P4) James McD (P7)
Dinner Hall – Beathan (p3)
Cloakroom – – Erin (P2) Keira (p4)
Library – Hannah (P4) Jessica (P2)

Live, Laugh, Love

This afternoon we had Rev Marlene in to join us during our assembly. In keeping with the infant classes’ RME topic she came to spoke about the creation story and how God created life and love. She firstly spoke about how inventions have changed the way we live and how our lives have changed as a result of them over time. She asked us what we think the most important invention of all time was and we spent a while discussing how important some materialistic objects are to us and how we simply couldn’t do without them! She then went on to explain that without God creating the world none of us would have life or love – two of the most important things that make the rest of the inventions well and truly worthless! ❤️🌎🧔

A very important and thought-provoking message indeed! Thanks again to Rev Marlene for her wise words and her time. ⛪✝

Meta Skills – Curiosity Carlos, Focussing Fergus

Article 14 – The right o have my own thoughts and beliefs and to choose my religion, with help from my parents

No Flaggin’ for us on Day 2!

What a fabulous Fri-YAY we had! This morning our super Primary 7’s buddied up with our new Primary 1’s to create their ‘all about me’ flags. We loved hearing about your hobbies, pets and families. We look forward to decorating our school hallway with these!🖍🚩

In keeping with this flag theme, we buddied back up and toddled along to the park for a fun in the sunshine and play a new game; ‘Capture the Flag.’ 🏴🏳We split into two teams, hid our flags, marked out a jails and enjoyed running around as attackers and defenders with the aim of capturing the opposing team’s flag. We finished off our FRESH AIR FRIDAY afternoon with an obligatory swing on the swings, slide on the slide and whirl on the roundabout. 😄

We hope that everyone comes home tonight having had a great first couple of days back at school – albeit a little tired and dishevelled – and that’s just the teachers!😏

Meta Skills – Creativity Carols, Collaborating Cate, Feeling Felix, Curiosity Carlos

UNCRC – Articles 13 The Right to Share Thoughts Freely

31 The Right to Rest, Play, Culture and Arts

8 The Right to have an Identity

Physiotherapy – a job that keeps us on our feet, literally! Lauren’s careers in the community assembly

This afternoon we were very fortunate indeed to have the lovely Lauren in to visit us at Leswalt to talk to us about her career as a physiotherapist.

Armed with lots of fun things for our wanna-be physio, nurses and doctors to play with Lauren spoke to us about her career as a Physiotherapist in Stranraer and her journey in becoming one. She explained that she went to university to learn how to do the job and during this time enjoyed her placements!

She spoke about how interesting her job is and the many different things she gets up to as no day looks quite the same as another. She said she loves worked with people in their houses and in care homes to make sure everyone keeps active and healthy to make sure their bones and muscles can move the way they are supposed to!💀🏃‍♀️

She was able to tell us how she uses her Meta Skills as part of her job:

Creativity Cassidy – As Lauren works with children she has to make sure that she makes their appointments as interesting and fun as she can so often has to make up fun games and activities to convince them to do the exercises she wants them to!

Communicating Cate – Lauren works with lots of different people, especially older people who love to tell stories, this is one of her favourite parts of her job!

Collaborating Cora – while working with the NHS Lauren explained that there is a lot of overlap and multi agency working to make sure everyone gets the best possible care, she explained that her job requires her to work with various health care workers including doctors, care workers and nurses!

Focussing Fergus – As well as working with people, Lauren also has to to do some paperwork to make sure that everyone has the right information that they need. 📝

A huge thank you to Lauren for her time this afternoon again, the boys and girls thoroughly enjoyed her visit and has plenty of interesting questions!

Looking after the Tracks in his Glenwilly Shack – Rhuri Paton’s Careers in the Community Assembly

On Friday afternoon we were very excited to have Rhuri Paton (Jorgie’s Daddy) join us in school for our careers in the community assembly! At our last assembly we had Lauren, Jorgie’s mummy in so Rhuri had a tough act to follow! 🙂

Rhuri explained that since leaving university he has been through more jobs than he could even count, but this time he thinks he has finally found his forever job as a signaller with Network Rail. He has recently qualified after a lengthy period of training in Glasgow and now works in the Glenwilly box on the Stranraer line. Unfortunately, on our recent jaunt from Ayr to Stranraer we didn’t see him but now understand what goes on in his little box and what’s inside! 🚂🛤🚝🚆

We have been learning all about the 12 meta skills as part of our assembly focus and Rhuri explained the key skills he needs to do his job including:

Adapting Aleksander – He explained that weather can interfere with the tarins, especially in the remote little area we live so you don’t know what problems you will have to deal with on the railway line so being adaptive is a skill that every signaller needs.

Collaborating Cora – Rhuri told us that usually he works alone, and often on his shifts is just him inside his little box but he has got to be good at teamwork when working with members of the public to help them to cross the track. He also must work with the train drivers, passing tokens to them during their journey when they pass the Glenwilly box.

Communicating Cate – One of the many interesting things Rhuri told us during his visit was the various ways that signaller and railway workers communicate with each other using bells and radios. Any miscommunications may lead to delays and safety incidents so it is important that he listens well to hear the sounds and be able to reply!🔔

The boys and girls also had a great time listening Jorgie’s Daddy explains his job as a signaller – Rhuri is a busy man and also works as a football coach on the weekends as well where he would use lot of different and perhaps some of the same Meta Skills!⚽

RRS Article 13 (freedom of expression) Every child must be free to express their thoughts and opinions and to access all kinds of information

From Chills to Pills and Meta Skills; Lauren’s Nursing Careers in the Community Assembly

Today we were very excited to have Lauren, Jorgie’s mummy in to speak to the boys and girls about her job as a nurse! Armed with bandages, syringes and her glamorous assistant Ralphie she arrived to tell us all about her job as a nurse! 👩‍⚕️

Lauren explained how she got into nursing and the skills and qualities needed prior to her training, including compassion, kindness and good communication skills. She explained that there were lots of different types of nurses and she is a community nurse who travels all around Stranraer to look after people in their homes. She explained that changing bandages, administering medication and doing routine check ups on patients were the usual goings on in her everyday life, but said that because of the nature of the job every day is different and you must be prepared to deal with all emergencies! :💉🤕

Focussing Fergus – For obvious reasons. for a vet concentration is key! He has lots of technical and high pressure jobs on his hands from the moment he starts work to the moment he finishes so being able to focus and get the job done right is super important! 🐶🐱

Collaborating Cora – Working in the emergency services means that Lauren will work alongside lots of different people including; doctors, police officers, social work, school staff etc and will often make plans for patients to make sure they get better by working alongside others.

Communicating Cate – This one is absolutely key to being a top nurse, she has to make sure to pass on information and record paperwork properly to make sure that the best care is given to patients. She must also communicate with other members of her team, families, hospital staff as well as patients themselves to ensure that everyone knows the information they need.

Critical Thinking Chris – Often nurses have unexpected problems that they may not always know the answers or solutions to straight away! Lauren explained that sometimes she has to ask for help from others and take time to make sure she chooses the best option of how to help and the right tools and resources to do it!

Feeling Felix – Nurses are kind, caring people who want to help others through difficult times. To do this Lauren has to be empathetic, supportive and help to calm people down when they are distressed ❤️

A huge thank you to Lauren for coming in to speak to us this morning, the smiles on not just Jorgie’s face but the rest of the class said it all! We specially loved being hands on with all of the different bits and bobs in her nurses bag. Looking forward to having Jorgie’s daddy in at the next Careers Assembly, he’s got big boots to fill!😄

RRS Links

Article 13 (freedom of expression) Every child must be free to express their thoughts and opinions and to access all kinds of information.