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So we may not be physically in the same building, but does that stop the pupils of Leswalt Primary from taking part in their annual Scots Week Celebration? No chance!

The children – with the help of their parents- have been writing out their poems for the handwriting competition and creating their own artistic interpretation of their poem. Massive thanks must go out to all the families who have contributed their efforts to this. It is hugely appreciated.

Below is just a sample of some of the amazing work which has been emailed to teachers. Wow! We’ve very proud of you all.

To take things even one step further, we have our very own North Rhins Inter-School Burns Competition this Friday! Our invited judge for this year, the well-known Burns enthusiast Mr Alec Ross, has the unenviable task of judging the handwriting, artwork and recitations across our partnership. Mr Ross has already shared his Burns recitations, and given the back story to the poems, to help support our Scots week. I’m sure many of you have watched and enjoyed these!

This year pupils are working on:

p1 – Wee rid motor – Sandy Thomas Ross (8 lines)

p2 – Nessie by JK Annand (12 lines)

p3 – The Circus by JK Annand (16 lines)

p4 – Fireworks aff the castle by Matthew Fitt (20 lines)

P5 – Magic Pizza by Alison Fitt (20 longer lines)

P6 – The Whistle – Charles Murray (36 lines)

P7 – Any Robert Burns poem or excerpt of their choice eg To a Moose, Address to a Haggis etc…

Are you working hard on those recitations?

Can’t wait to hear you!

Tune in this Friday at 9.30am via Teams for our very own Scots TV!

 

And just like that the school year 2020 is over!

It has certainly been a roller-coaster – and we have all came out the other side smiling.

All the boys and girls left today with Christmas goodie bags to enjoy.

Wishing all a very merry Christmas and happy and healthy new year, from everyone at Leswalt Primary!

 

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.

What a fantastic week we’ve had at Leswalt Primary!

The P1-4 class enjoyed their party on Wednesday afternoon, with P5-7’s turn on Thursday afternoon. House Captains Andrew and Gregor had organised a fun-filled afternoon of dancing and games with a quick snack refuel as a mid-afternoon break! They played the ever-popular Snowman game, Christmas Corners, Musical Bells and Reindeer Relay  to name just a few. Some fabulous dancing moves were on display too! Happy smiley children made us all feel very Christmassy!

Unfortunately, Covid-19 restrictions meant that Santa wasn’t able to appear in person but he had communicated with the Parent Council who were able to carry out his wishes and have the presents delivered ready for the children to open as they took a quick break from their party fun! They LOVED their gifts and there were some very excited squeals as the paper was ripped off! A delicious party snack and the children were all ready for some more partying!

The Christmas parties were fabulous – full of lots of giggles and cheery faces! Thank you to all those who helped to make it special – including a big thank you to the Leswalt Community Association for supporting our Christmas parties and in-school festivities, by using the funding they received from the D&G Council Christmas grant 2020. Much appreciated!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

 

Normally at this time of year the staff and pupils would be rehearsing getting ready to put on a Christmas show in Leswalt village hall for the community to enjoy.

Unfortunately, COVID  prevented our usual Christmas concert.  However, even a World wide pandemic could not stop the creativity and sense of fun of Leswalt staff and pupils .

Click on the link here to see how Christmas 2020 will always be remember for being special. 

I hope it makes you smile! 

Huge thanks to Laura McClymont from Active Schools for popping by Leswalt and delivering Playmakers session 1 out of 2 to Primary 5-7.

The pupils discussed ‘what it means to be a good leader’ – offering up keywords such as sportsmanship, including everyone, encouragement, clear instructions and planning organised sessions.

Some of the older pupils have worked on some aspects of Playmakers before and are acting as mentors to the younger pupils, with then end result to be a planned activity session with groups of children from P1-4.

Laura will be back with us on Friday of our first week back in 2021 for session 2. The pupils have been tasked with writing up their lesson plan for then – time to get our thinking caps on!

It’s Christmaaaaas!!! Well… it’s definitely getting closer! There’s a definite festive feel  in the air at Leswalt as the staff and pupils wore their cheery Christmas jumpers and headwear to school today AND had the added bonus of tucking in to a tasty turkey lunch – complete with crackers and some Christmas tunes of course! Great fun!

 

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!

It was such a joy to be outside today for Fresh Air Friday, as we learnt about food chains, sustainability, recycling, eco-systems and the planting calendar  – whilst developing our teamwork, communication and listening skills in a real-life context which we can use outwith school too. A win:win situation! It has to be said, this could not be done without us having  Mrs Richardson working with us, as her knowledge about gardening far surpasses ours! We are extremely lucky!

As a group, we got chatting about what we would like to achieve in our playground and, collating the ideas of children and with some top tips of her own, Mrs Richardson was able to come up with an action plan! We’re ready, willing and, even more importantly, now have some guidance about what needs to be done to tidy up and prepare the soil for planting!

The pupils enthusiastically offered some suggestions and, working in a group of 8, set to work. Mrs Richardson will be working with us weekly – and will take groups of 8 pupils (a mix from P1-4 and P5-7) to help realise our plans.

Pupils will be encouraged to bring old clothes to school for their gardening stint – which will be on a Friday afternoon unless the weather forecast suggests another afternoon might be better! We will keep an eye on weather reports to see what suits best each week. We might also be looking for some assistance from the community, as our plans unfurl, in the form of cuttings, seeds, planters and tyres. We’ll be in touch…

This afternoon really had the feel-good factor!