Leswalt Primary School

This afternoon, we were delighted to welcome back Jack and Linnea from the Children’s Parliament with another interesting session about caring for our environment.

Each session so far we have focused on a different element – curriculum (how our learning helps us to explore and find out more about our area), campus (when we made models about what we would view as part of our environment), community (an online session when we talked about all the different people and organisations who are involved in the wellbeing of our school) and  today’s focus which was on culture.

We are always encouraged to share our views and opinions and got the chance to do this today again in lots of different ways; creating a podcast with Linnea about the environment and climate change, working as a group on a Scavenger Hunt finding evidence that our school showing that the environment and climate are important, using our creativity to make models of the ways in which people show they care for each other and their surroundings, chatting about ways in which we can share our ideas and suggestions for and taking the time to write and draw about things which make us happy at school. All of these activities offered us a chance to explore our school environment’s culture. Each activity was given a different environmental name – Vegetables of Voice, Cauliflowers of Care, Fruits of Feeling and Onions of Importance and ensured that we were looking at all the different aspects which ‘feed’ into caring about our climate.

Our pupil voices will be taken back to the Scottish Government to help shape the ways in which we learn about and look after our environment in years to come – and for younger children too.

Jack and Linnea always make these learning sessions fun! We are really grateful to them for coming to work with us

Meta Skills

Focusing Fergus, Adapting Aleksander, Integrity Imani and Initiative Ivy.

UNCRC Charter of Children’s Rights

Article 24 – Health, Water, Food and Environment

Article 29 – Aims of Education

Article 13 – Sharing Thoughts Freely

Have a look at some of the activities we have done today!

The troops arrived safely at their destination at Lockerbie Manor and got stuck straight in to axe throwing, fencing and the climbing wall.  They were having that much fun, not one pupil wanted to phone home!

Tea was either roast chicken or sausages with roast potatoes, and Yorkshire puddings, followed by ice cream.  Yum!

Lots of  fun was had in the bedrooms  with pyjama parties involving lots of toiletries for the girls and lots of snacks (and sugar!) for all.

It may be a long day though – some pupils were up and dressed today at 5am! 

The cooked breakfast and excitement for our two birthday boys, Murray and Ben, may keep them going!

Today, we participated in Safer Internet Day 2025 – an annual event which explores all the ways in which we can use the amazing source that is the internet in the safest  way possible!

This year’s theme is ‘Too Good to be True’ and gave us all a chance to consider all the offers which we might see online and how to keep ourselves protected from scams.

Our learning this morning was led by our Digital Leaders Rachael and Murray. They presented the whole school with an information powerpoint, held a quiz to check everyone had been listening and set a ‘Design an Cyber Superhero’ competition for all to get to involved in! Working as buddies, older and younger pupils worked together to create their best designs and what wonderful superheroes they all produced!

The Digital Leaders then had the unenviable task of judging the Cyber Superheroes!

And the winners are…

P1 – Gregor                                     Runner-up – Erin

P2 – Jorgie                                      Runner-up – Cameron

P3/4 – Hannah                             Runner-up – Keira

P6 – Rebecca                                 Runner-up – Roman

P7 – Ellie                                         Runner-up – Ela

We all joined the BBC Live lesson at 11am which was a fun 30 minutes of interactive games and top tips about how to stay safe online. P6/7 followed this up by using this theme for their Literacy Comprehension lesson.

A busy Safer Internet Day!

UNCRC

Article 17  – Access to Information

Article 29 – Aims of Education

Meta Skills

Initiative Ivy

Integrity Imani

As winners of our in-school K’Nex Challenge before Christmas, Rachael and Rebecca were chosen to represent Leswalt Primary at the Rhins Cluster Creating Engineers Challenge held yesterday at St Joseph’s Primary Stranraer. This exciting K’Nex Challenge is run annually by the Glasgow Science Festival.

The girls were set the task of designing an exercise bike using K’Nex. They needed to sketch their plan, work together and have a finished product ready to be judged – all within a one hour time-scale!

Rachael and Rebecca were super role-models for our school – they were polite and mannerly, listened well and worked together co-operatively. Mrs Kyle, who had accompanied them, was very proud of them.

Two judges took the time to look at all the K’Nex models before leaving the room to discuss their findings.

They then returned to tell the waiting competitors who had won and…drum roll please… Rachael and Rebecca WON!

Next stop…the regional K’Nex finals in Dumfries! Well done girls – you have done our wee school proud!

UNCRC

Article 29 Aims of Education

Article 31 Rest, Play, Culture, Arts

Meta-skills

Initiative Ivy,  Adapting Aleksander,  Focusing Fergus

Our Primary 7 pupils enjoyed a taster coaching session in curling today.  Under the expert guidance of Gail Munro MBE and all the coaching staff at Stranraer Ice rink our senior pupils were brushing and curling their way to victory!

All pupils have arrived back at school with certificates for their participation and details of how they can enjoy more curling at an after school club – please look school bags for details.

We could have the next Bobby Lammie or Vicky Wright ( Olympic gold medallists) in our schools again!

Today we enjoyed our annual Burns’ Lunch – a little later than we had initially planned due to the storms but it was worth the wait!

Daisy led the celebrations in her role as chairperson inviting Betty in P1 to carry in the haggis, our ‘Address to a Haggis’ P7s to recite the poem with gusto (thanks Ben G, Ela, Sean, Holly and Ewan!) and Sean to say the Selkirk Grace before we all tucked into our tasty lunch!

Following this we enjoyed listening to the toasts. Ben G and Ewan gave the Toast to the Lassies – with a little bit of teasing thrown in! Holly and Amelia gave the Reply to the Lads with an equal measure of joking. Isla and Ellie were invited to give their Toast to the School which celebrated all things good about our wee school. Ela rounded up our lunch with a Vote of Thanks before we all joined in with a rousing rendition of Auld Lang Syne.

A braw wee afternoon with the weans!

Today we had the pleasure of welcoming Kathryn Purchase from History Alive to the P6/7 classroom! The pupils have been investigating Scotland at the time of Wallace and Bruce and Kathryn’s presentation brought this history period alive and visual – and what an amazing morning we all had!

Kathryn took us on a whistle-stop tour of Scotland (and England and France!) at the time of the 1280s onwards. We learnt about the influence of the French Normans, the rule of Edward I, the importance of the Church and the power struggle which was taking place in Scotland caused by the death of King Alexander III. We enjoyed sharing what we had already learnt about this – we have researched as far as Wiliam Wallace so far – and Kathryn told us about the battles and key figures which followed next culminating in the reign of Robert the Bruce.

My goodness but the battles were gruesome! Kathryn had some replicas and explained about the Scottish victories and defeats and how important weaponry was.

The class enjoyed exploring the replicas and costumes – it was such a great way to learn!

Just  take a look at the photos below…

The pupils of Leswalt Primary have had a super busy month with all things Scots! Each pupil was set the challenge of learning a Scots poem, writing it out in the very best handwriting and creating some fabulous artwork to go with it. These formed January’s homework tasks.

On Monday, Mrs Buchanan had the unenviable job of judging this  – she was ably assisted by Mrs Cash Leswalt Church’s minister. Phew! They had a very tricky job on their hands!

But, to keep the excitement going…. the pupils only found out who were the winners today at our annual Scots’ Showcase Afternoon to which friends and family were warmly invited to attend!

The audience were treated to Scots’ songs, wonderfully expressive recitations and a display of fantastic artwork and handwriting. Well done to all the weans!

Leswalt Primary School Burns Results 2025

Class 1

Poem – Wee Red Motor

Recitation winners:

1. Erin

2. Ada

3. Jessica

Illustration winners:

1. Erin

2. Betty

3. Jessica

Handwriting winners:

1. Gregor

2. Jessica

3. Erin

Class 2

Poem – The Elephant

Recitation winners:

1. Cameron

2. Jorgie

3. Beathan

Illustration winners:

1. James

2. Cameron

3. Beathan

Handwriting winners:

1. James

2. Jorgie

3. Cameron

Class 3

Poem – The Circus

Recitation winners:

1. Hannah

2. Kiera

3. Emma

Illustration winners:

1. Kiera

2. Thea

3. Emma

Handwriting winners:

1. Hannah

2. Eilidh

3. Aira-Rose

Class 4

Poem – Magic Pizza

Recitation winners:

1. Ellie Burton

Illustration winners:

1. Lily Bennewith

Handwriting winners:

1. Lily Bennewith

Class 6

Poem – A Dug a Dug

Recitation winners:

1. Colin

2. Roman

3. Murray/ Rachael

Illustration winners:

1. Murray

2. Roman

3. Rebecca

Handwriting winners:

1. Rachael

2. Rebecca

3. Ben

Class 7

Poem – Anything by Burns

Recitation winners:

1. Ela

2. Daisy

3. Holly/Isla/Ben

Illustration winners:

1. Ellie

2. Sean

3. Ela

Handwriting winners:

1. Holly

2. Amelia

3. Ewan/Ela

UNCRC Article 31 Rest, Play, Culture, Arts