New minister

Today we welcomed our new Minister, Rev Marlene Cash into school to take her first ever assembly with all the boys and girls of Leswalt Primary.

Marlene is the new minister for Leswalt and Kirkcolm and hopes to link up a lot with us in school.

Today we learned why geese are not really that silly, and the importance of all working together.

We also learned that before she was a Minister, Marlene worked in Asda. 

We will look forward to having her in school again.

 

Logan Gardens Trip

This afternoon, Leswalt Primary pupils hopped on the bus and headed down to Logan Botanical Gardens as part of their annual schools’ week event.

The sun was shining, the air was warm – if perhaps the sky looked a little threatening as the afternoon wore on. But it takes more than a shower of rain to dampen the spirits of Leswalt pupils!

After a quick picnic lunch, the P1-3 pupils headed off to their workshop led by Kate on the Secrets of Trees whilst P5-7 joined Harry who taught them about Mapping our World using the gardens and natural materials as resources.

After exploring the bamboo maze, P1-4 pupils learned how trees work and worked together to make human representation of a tree! Pupils got to taste some tree sap in the form of maple syrup, which comes from a maple tree. On route round the gardens, we learned that a tree’s roots underground are as wide as the furthest outer branches.  We were amazed to learn that certain types of bark can be weaved to make items such as shoes and a handbag! After finding our own unique leaves and playing a game, we finished the workshop by working in small groups to design our own tree using natural materials, featuring all of the things we learned.

P5-7 talked about different kinds of maps; globe, Google maps, OS maps and those of places of interest. We then headed off to explore the gardens and used sticks to create a 4pt compass. Looking carefully at the surroundings within each quadrant of the compass, pupils used leaves, sticks and other flora and fauna lying on the ground (never taken from a plant!) to recreate a visual map of their surroundings. This led to a chat about the 8pt compass and Harry then gave each a compass to use. He taught them how to use it and each pupil got a chance to do so.

We then headed to another area of the garden to consider how the gardens might be viewed by minibeasts – HUGE! Mapping out a small area, they worked together to recreate what the minibeasts might be seeing.

Such a beautiful place which sits right on our doorstep – we all thoroughly enjoyed our afternoon at Logan Botanical Gardens.

Huge thanks to Kate and Harry for their expertise.

Leswalt Primary’s Sunny Cream Tea Afternoon!

What a glorious day! Sunshine, friends and delicious scones and traybakes – what’s not to love?!

Thanks to the hard work of the fabulous Parent Council and friends – many visitors, family and friends were treated to a tasty afternoon tea and the chance to browse some stalls being run by the pupils and parents.

A magnificent total of over £1200 was raised! This is a superb amount which will be used to offer the pupils even more fun experiences and a super end of term trip.

Huge thanks to everyone who helped in any way today. Your kindness doesn’t go unnoticed!

Just take a look at the photos below to get a flavour of the fun that was had.

See you next year…!

P1-3, Feis Rois and a Grand Tour of Scotland!

Primary 1-4 have been on a musical tour around Scotland over the past 10 weeks with Paul and Becky from Feis Rois.  We started our tour in Glasgow where we learned a song called ‘Jeelie Piece’.
We then hopped over to South Uist and learned a  Gaelic waulking song called ‘Hey Man Do’.  This song would have been sang whilst people made tweed.
 After South Uist we headed to Islay and learned ‘Sann An Ile’, another Gaelic song about how beautiful Islay is.  The last stop on our tour was Galashiels where we learned ‘Coulter’s Candy’.
After lots of practice we took to the stage this morning and sang our hearts out.  We loved showing of our beautiful voices and impressing the audience with all the Gaelic words we have learned.

 

P7 Transition – a visit from Alexander and co!

This morning, Mrs Patterson from Stranraer Academy came to visit the P7 pupils. She brought with her three well-known faces;  Katie Kirkbride from Portpatrick, James Turtle from Kirkcolm and Alexander Clark from Leswalt – all of whom are S1 pupils at Stranraer Academy and past pupils of our primary school.

P7 enjoyed a question and answer session with the S1 pupils; getting a chance to find out more about life as a secondary pupil. Alexander, Katie and James were really helpful!

The next transition event will be on  Friday 17th May when P7 will be heading to Stranraer Academy for the day.

Watch Out For The ‘Bairns’! – Road Safety Initiative at Leswalt Primary

This afternoon PCs McGregor and Walker came to speak to P5-7 about the ‘bairns’ – life-size cardboard cut-outs of children designed to remind drivers to be extra vigilant around schools.

The five ‘bairns’ are spending two weeks in every primary school and remind drivers to think about where they park, watch their speed and to  be careful of where pupils are crossing. The class discussed with the Police Officers where they thought each should be placed, and are taking on the responsibility of putting the ‘bairns’ out in the morning before 9am and taking them in after 3pm.

So, watch out for the ‘bairns’!

Taking the maths learning outside…

The sun shone – yes really! – one morning this week and so we donned our jackets (well, it wasn’t THAT warm!) and headed outside to continue our Length, Perimeter and Area learning outside.

Working in our maths groups, we each took our set activity sheet and a clipboard and set to work. Mrs F took the handy toolkit trolley outside which was equipped with an iPad, rulers, measuring tapes, chalk, metre sticks and trundle wheels – a plethora of measuring devices!

From selecting most suitable equipment to using correct measuring unit; calculating area to working out the perimeter (think we have now cracked the difference between the two!) and converting measurements from metric to imperial measurements – we had an action-packed morning.

Here’s to many more outdoor learning sessions -even better with just a little more heat!

Take a look at the photos of us busy at work….

Super Sphero Sessions!

This week, P5-7 got the chance to explore coding using Spheros. These are small spherical ‘robots’ which can be coded to move in any direction, light up in an array of colours, talk and play music!

Ms Whorlow had introduced these cool gadgets to us at the end of term 2 and we were desperate to get our hands on them again this week and explore some more learning through coding. We enjoy using Microbits; we like investigating Scratch coding and so this was guaranteed to be great fun!

Working in pairs, armed with an iPad and our connected Sphero, we worked through the sessions. Learning to ‘drive’ was the first obstacle to overcome and we soon discovered that capping the speed and distance was a necessity as the coded Spheros zoomed off down the corridor! P1-3 were intrigued as to what we were doing, as several of them popped their heads out to have a look, and so P5 spent some time with them on Monday afternoon leading their learning. They might even have been safer drivers than us!

We soon got the hang of things and moved onwards and upwards; being able to code the Sphero to change colour, ‘draw’ shapes on the ground, ‘speak’ and play music. It has to be said that all pupils were much more adept at this than Mrs F who methodically checked each step (VERY slowly!) and showed very little originality! The pupils, on the other hand, were fabulous – demonstrating superb creativity, applying their initiative, following instructions, problem solving, working with others all whilst developing their newly learnt coding skills at the same time! Winner winner!

One pair even ‘drove’ their Sphero in to Mrs McHarg’s office and programmed it to say “Hello Mrs McHarg!” – love it!

What a great week of learning – the Spheros got a big thumbs up from all at Leswalt Primary.

UNCRC Rights of the Child – Article 29 Aims of Education

 

Rotary Quizzers Bag 3rd Place!

Hamish, Faye, Kaiden and Katie made a formidable quiz team today representing Leswalt Primary at the Annual Rotary Primary Schools’ Quiz. And, better still, they were placed 3rd receiving a certificate each and a cheque for £40 for the school!
Teamwork was key as they used their general knowledge skills to answer questions which many adults would’ve found challenging! Most importantly, the four of them were superb ambassadors for their school – mannerly, cheery and up for giving the quiz their all.

Well done to our Fab Four!

#confidentindividuals

#responsiblecitizens

UNCRC Article 29 Aims of Education and 13 Sharing Thoughts Freely

Easter Egg-Stravaganza!

Our House Captains and Vice Captains have been busy over the last few weeks, organising an Easter egg-stravaganza for the final day of term!

Firstly, we had our decorate a hard-boiled egg competition. We had lots of wonderful entries which made the judging a tricky decision! So much so that the House Captains ended up awarding 2nd and 3rd place to each class (and Miss Gordon had to run up to the shop to buy extra prizes!!). Our winners were –

P1-4

  • 1st = Eilidh Ramsay
  • 2nd = Emma Shirley
  • 3rd = Jorgie Paton

P5-7

  • 1st – Colin McGregor
  • 2nd = Isla Kirkpatrick
  • 3rd = Amelia McHallum

A huge thank-you to everyone who participated – it was a fab effort from all!

In the afternoon, pupils paired up for an Easter scavenger hunt outside. Each pair were given a sheet of clues to help them find the next egg. They had to write down the colour of each egg that they found to prove that they had indeed completed the hunt! The final egg led them to a gigantic plastic egg full of chocolate!

Thank-you to our House Captains and Vice Captains for a final day full of fun!

UNCRC Article 14 (freedom of belief and religion) and article 31 (right to play and participate in art activities). 

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