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What a day to come back on Term 2 – Halloween! 

As you can imagine, it was all go with the start of Term 2 ahead of us and Halloween festivities taking place .

Pupils came with scary costumes bagged and ready to go for a quick change at lunchtime. Afterwards we had our Halloween costume judging competition! We did this altogether with Kirkcolm combined and had both a Leswalt and Kirkcolm winner in each primary. What a super effort all the boys and girls made today, with some truly spook-tacular costume ideas and some that showed real hard work at home. Both House Captains and teachers were so impressed. 

A cheery bunch lined up to join us at Leswalt Primary this morning – but it seems lots of pupils forgot to get dressed for school! Pjs, cuddly dressing gowns, snuggly hoodies and cosy slippers seemed to be the dress code – and that was just the teachers! There were also some fabulous storybook characters joining us too and all in the name of Children in Need.

To add to the Friday fun, everyone enjoyed some Tri-Golf with Stuart Fisher. At breaktime, Ms Stevenson and Rose (House Captain) painted Pudsey faces for a donation and Mrs Kyle and Thomas (House Captain) supervised the Pudsey biscuit decorating table.

To round-off Book Week Scotland, the pupils held a book swap so they’re all home with a new book to cuddle up with this weekend.

We raised over £140 for Children in Need – what a fabulous amount for a little school!

As part of our Book Week Scotland celebrations, parents/grandparents were invited into school today to see P1-3 pupils being presented with their Bookbug (P1) and Read, Write, Count (P2-3) bags.

This initiative, ran by the Scottish Book Trust and Scottish Government, sees every P1-3 child receive a free bag which contains beautiful books, educational games and writing materials. The bags are designed to help build parents’ confidence and encourage families to include easy and fun reading, writing and counting activities into their everyday lives.

After being gifted with their bags, pupils then spent some time in class exploring the contents with parents, grandparents and P4 buddies: P1s curled up to listen to some stories; some pupils played snap using their card games; and P2s had fun trying to create various tangram shapes – although it seemed to be more of a challenge to get the tangram pieces back into the holder at the end than it was to create the shapes!!

We hope you all enjoy exploring the contents of the bag with your child at home!

P5-7 have been enjoying the Glasgow Science Centre Powering the Future workshops over the last two terms and today we were delighted to welcome Megan and Aileen from GSC in person!

We enjoyed a busy morning of active learning finding out more about renewable energy sources and the ways in which Scotland is working towards a greener future.

Megan and Aileen were on hand to offer guidance, demonstrate some very cool experiments and answer questions.

P5-7 literally had a blast participating in this workshop this morning! HUGE thanks to the GSC for taking the time to come and visit us – greatly appreciated!

Take a look at the photos below…

The rain dried up and the sun was shining so Leswalt pupils donned their Winter cosies and wellies and headed to Aldouran Wetlands to meet members of Stranraer Rotary Club. They had invited us along to plant purple crocus bulbs as part of Rotary International’s Purple for Polio awareness campaign.

Polio is a disease which can cause paralysis. Fortunately there is a vaccination which is given to children and so it has akmost been eradicated worldwide. Almost – but not quite. The Purple 4 Polio campaign was introduced by Rotary International in 1985 as a way to remind us all of this awful disease and to help raise awareness towards fundraising. A life-changing vaccine for a child costs just 20p! But, in some countries, this isn’t readily available.

Our Leswalt pupils were welcomed by a team of Rotary volunteers led by Mr Gordon Wemyss. The helpers dug the holes, whilst the willing children followed behind planting the bulbs into the holes. A whopping 3000 crocus bulbs were planted!

So, keep your eyes peeled next Spring for a beautiful array of crocuses – and remember Purple 4 Polio!

After a break of quite sometime, during which we were ‘living’ at Kirkcolm whilst refurbishments took place, we have returned to school!

We took the opportunity to get out and about in the community as we headed up to Leswalt’s war memorial today to observe the 11am silence.

The last couple of days have involved in pupils learning about the significance of the poppy, how it came to be the Remembrance symbol, how charity money is used to help veterans and their families and the importance of showing respect to those who have served their countries.

The children enjoyed finding out more by watching and discussing a short animation from Poppyscotland, making their own poppy wreaths and designing posters, leaflets, PowerPoints to explain more about the story behind the poppy. Some pupils even made iMovies.

It is great to be back in our wee village and to be able to observe Remembrance Day in our community.

We are delighted to announce that the North Rhins Partnership primary schools in the Rhins has achieved a Silver Rights Respecting School Award by UNICEF UK. Leswalt, Kirkcolm and Portpatrick primaries have worked collaboratively to meet the standards for this UNICEF prestigious accreditation.

UNICEF is the world’s leading organisation working for children and their rights. The Rights Respecting Schools Award is granted to schools that show commitment to promoting and realising children’s rights and encouraging adults, children and young people to respect the rights of others in school. Silver is given to schools that make excellent progress towards embedding the principles of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child into its ethos and curriculum.

Mrs Baillie, said, “Having achieved our Bronze award in 2021, we are all very proud to have now to celebrate achieving our Silver award.  Our school community has worked very hard to embed children’s rights in everything we do.  We can see the positive impact of the Award on pupils and the school as a whole. Thank you to our responsible pupils, staff and families for working together to make this achievement possible.”

The Award recognises achievement in putting the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child at the heart of a school’s planning, policies and practice. A Rights Respecting School is a community where children’s rights are learned, taught, practised, respected, protected and promoted.

The UNICEF UK Rights Respecting Schools initiative is aimed at schools across the UK. Schools have reported a positive impact on pupil behaviour, relationships and well-being by enhancing pupils’ self-esteem, leading to less truancy and bullying, better learning and improved academic standards.

Have a read of our assessment report:Kirkcolm-Leswalt-Portpatrick_RRS Report

We can now proudly display our Rights Respecting Schools Silver Logo!

Primary 7 have recently completed a block of swimming at the Ryan Centre, over 3 weeks.

Many thanks to Mrs Agnew and staff at school for supervising them at this.

They all enjoyed learning new skills and splashing about!