Leswalt Primary School

Leswalt & Kircolm Primaries held a combined One Planet Picnic in the fresh air today as part of our last day fun.  The theme is ‘Good For You, Good For The Planet‘. This year, we worked very hard on reducing our single use plastic waste and snacking in a more environmentally way.

The initiatives we undertook were:

• We packaged our lunches in recyclable paper bags
• Our healthy fresh fruit offering was unwrapped to reduce waste
• Our milk was supplied with paper straws instead of plastic
• Children bought their reusable water bottles
• Our take-away burger rolls were packed into recyclable paper bags.

Everyone enjoyed the alfresco social time as part of our last day.  There was lots of chatter and smiles from the boys and girls.

The children sorted our waste into three recycling tubs: food, paper and plastic, making sure there was no litter left behind.

Look at the different amounts.

 

 

 

 

 

The first, smallest bag on the left is food waste to be put on our compost heap, the second largest bag is paper waste to recycle and the third, smaller bag is plastic waste which we can also recycle. You can see from the photographs how little plastic and food waste there was compared to recyclable paper material.

We then placed the waste into the correct bins to be processed by Dumfries and Galloway Council.

 

 

 

 

 

# Responsible Citizens

It didn’t rain!! To be honest, expectations for a dry day were pretty low as we headed off to the east of the region and the fabulous Mabie farm Park. Not that the weather really bothers children! But our luck was in – we had the most perfect day! No rain, no wind; just smiling children pedalling boats, laughing on trampolines and bouncy pillows, scooting downhill on grass sledges, hopping on-board the quad bike ‘Choo Choo train’, petting the farm animals, jumping in the hay barn, clambering on the adventure play area and eating ice cream! Sounds like a pretty perfect school trip to me.

The North Rhins trio schools were the only schools there and the staff at Mabie were on-hand to ensure they had the best day out possible. Take a look at the fun photos below. Wish you had been there too? It comes highly recommended by us all!

Last week, the Clark family headed up to the Royal Highland Showcase to show sheep – with great success!
Alexander showed and got 1st with a ewe lamb; then he, mum and Ewan achieved 1st again with a ewe and two lambs. Alexander was then awarded with a 1st and a Reserve Champion in the Young Handlers with the ewe lamb – and Ewan got 2nd!!
Well done Team Clark 😀

 

 

It was sports fun in the sun today for Leswalt pupils at their new temporary home at Kirkcolm Primary! To make things even more exciting, the Leswalt and Kirkcolm pupils got together and enjoyed a joint sports day (our lone P1 pupil got to run with buddies her age from Kirkcolm!) This was made possible as we are all operating in a bubble together – with pupils lunching and playing together at break times. Unfortunately, Covid-19 restrictions meant we weren’t able to invite parents to cheer along but our classmates and staff made lots of encouraging noise from the sidelines!

Pupils participated in everything from traditional egg and spoon races to the bean bag throw; sprints to the sack race; skipping to a challenging distance race! All done with good fun as a priority and top sportsmanship skills on display. Full sports results to follow later, but in the meantime please enjoy these happy snaps!

Our children were treated to an open air musical concert performed by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra today.

Everyone sat outdoors in the fresh air whilst six musicians played new and familiar tunes for the children on a range of instruments.  The boys and girls were asked to identify and name the instruments and tunes whilst learning more about the instruments themselves. There was an oboe, a bassoon, a clarinet, a bass, a violin and a range of percussion instruments used in the recital.

There were tunes ranging from The Teddy Bear’s Picnic to The Hall of the Mountain King.  Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the performance and  agreed it was a such lovely experience.  Our thanks go to RSNO for travelling all this way to share their music with us.  It certainly made us all smile on a Thursday afternoon.

 

 

We had a fantastic turnout for this year’s Kirkcolm 51st annual fundraising mini walk on Saturday.

Pupils and families from all three schools were invited to participate to help support their schools. There were entrants from nursery age to adults walking the 7.37km route together; some competitively and some just for fun.

First, second and third places are awarded for the boys and girls completing the course in the quickest time.  The results are as follows:

Boys:

1. George Keith – Kirkcolm P6
2. Danny Dougan – Kirkcolm P4
3. Ivan Turtle – Kirkcolm P3

Girls:

1. Ruth Turtle – Kirkcolm P7
2. Olivia Turtle – Kirkcolm P6
3. Izzy White – Portpatrick P6

The route followed along the Corsewall Estate Coastal Path. A very well done to everyone who walked or ran the course!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There has been a fantastic response to the fundraising effort; with each school hitting their target! The money will be put to very good use for each school to give children enjoyable experiences after a difficult year.

Our grateful thanks go out to so many people who helped organise and support the event:

• Our parents and families who planned and organised the mini-walk
• The Carrick-Buchanan  and Milroy family for their kind  permission to walk on their land
• The volunteer  marshals
• Lidl  and Tesco for the donation of refreshments
• The Free Press who covered the event
• and to ALL the children and families who fundraised and participated to raise money for our three fantastic wee schools!  We applaud each and every one of you who took part.

Have a look at the fabulous photos courtesy of Jemima Johnstone.  See you next year! 🙂

Here are some action shots with our very enthusiastic participants

 

 

Mrs Ferguson planned an interesting STEM challenge for her class today as part of their Social Studies topic on the Titanic.  The children were given just one resource with which to make a vessel capable of holding an increasing load of coins afloat.

The boys and girls were required to measure and cut a tin foil rectangle 13cm by 15cm with which to make their lifeboat – that’s it, nothing else!

We popped out into the sunshine to test our vessels in buckets of water.  Some sank without a trace, and some floated victoriously.  The maximum load was an impressive 23 pennies!

Everyone concluded that the designs that allowed the weight to be distributed as widely as possible, with the largest surface area, were more capable of holding coin weight.  We all agreed that this was the lifeboat we would like to be on.

The boys and girls then experimented with a larger quantity of tin foil to give more design flexibility.  Murray’s team constructed a very high sided vessel that was able to hold all the coins.  Even though it got weighed down by the all of the coins, the water didn’t breach the sides of the craft.

Leswalt Primary had safety input from our local police yesterday.  Primary 4-7 pupils learned about how to keep themselves safe online whilst Primary 1 to 4 had a road safety talk in the sunshine.

The boys and girls had the opportunity to practice how to cross the road in the safety of our outdoor area.  There was lots of discussion on what we should to when want to cross a road.

Have a look at the children practicing.

If you would like to continue to practice at home, here is a checklist to help remind children of what to do.

road-safety-checklist

Did you know that May is National Share a Story  month?

This is an annual celebration of the power and magic of storytelling. Organised by the Federation of Children’s Book Groups, it is a wonderful opportunity for families to share stories and books.

Spending just 10 minutes a day reading and sharing stories with children can make a crucial difference to their future plus it’s a lovely thing to do!

World Book Day are offering free Share A Story resources to help you join in including a Share A Story Reading Stars game, top tips for sharing stories, book review templates.

 

This year’s theme is Myths, Magic and Mayhem.

Here are some suggested reading titles for you:

• Mythical Book Suggestions
• Magic Book Suggestions 
• Mayhem Book Suggestions

Why not encourage your child to create their own mythical beast for this year’s competition! Click here for competition details.  The closing dates is the 1st of June, 2021.

The Pupil Council Members thought it would be a good idea to  upload a digital library of books you might like to read and share at home.

WBD-whole school digital-library

After a suggestion from Pupil Council members, Luke B and Calder, we enjoyed a session of story sharing together to read for pleasure. Have a look at the lovely time the children had reading together in the beautiful weather.

What a brilliant day out the North Rhins P7s enjoyed at Galloway Activity Centre on Friday! This was organised as a special treat as they had missed their last two residentials – and what a fabulous time they had together before they head off to S1 at Stranraer Academy.

Thankfully the high winds and rain of Thursday had abated and Friday dawned dry and reasonably bright. We met at Port Rodie and clambered upon the minibus to head down the road to Loch Ken.

Once there, we got kitted up with our laser guns and headsets for our first activity. Diving in and out of the wooden hides (and in Mrs F’s case headfirst over a tree trunk!) the teams worked to avoid being ‘killed’ by the opposition. Strategy meetings were held, tactics discussed and rounds of ‘ammo’ were fired… and yes the teachers were shot! All good fun. The teachers went from being quite cool and mature to being VERY into this game! Why had I never played this before? Highly recommended!

Next up, the children donned their wetsuits (many comedy moments were had with Mr Cloy!) and enjoyed a session of kayaking. They were naturals! Once they were kayaked-out, the suggested dare from Instructors Rob and Hannah to jump off the the end of the pontoon was met with great cheers all round. The phrase ‘drowned rats’ comes to mind as they all padded back up towards the centre to get changed into dry clothes.

A quick bite of lunch and it was time for the climbing wall and zipwire with instructors Rob and Ben. What a bunch of adrenaline seekers we have! Superb climbing and ‘zipping’! The offer was then there for those who wanted to have a 2nd,3rd and even 4th shot of the climbing wall.

We thanked Rob, Hannah and Ben for a great activity day and climbed aboard the bus to head to Castle Douglas for a bite to eat. Chip-shop dinners in hand, we stopped the bus by Carlingwark Loch and munched our tasty suppers, before heading back along the A75 towards home.

The kids were an absolute pleasure to be with, the activities were fantastic fun and the chip-shop tea rounded off a perfect day out! Just check out our pictures below to see for yourselves….