The pupils of Leswalt Primary went ‘all things Scots’ in celebration of  the Bard’s Birthday!

We were delighted to welcome Mrs Mary Buchanan (Mrs B – formally a teacher at Leswalt Primary) to do the official judging of the pupils’ handwriting, artwork and recitations of their Scots poems. Goodness, what a hard job she had!

Following this, everyone gathered in the hall to enjoy their Burns Lunch together. Ably compered through proceedings by Brandon Millar, we began with Mark Drummond leading us with the Selkirk Grace and the haggis being proudly carried in by Jorgie Paton P1 and accompanied by Katie Gill P7. Hamish McGregor P7 gave a rousing Address to the Haggis and we all tucked into our haggis, neeps and tatties!

Then it was time for the after-lunch entertainment with recitations from Ellie Bennewith P6, Roman Haver P5, Lily Bennewith P3, Hannah Drummond P2 and Cameron McDonald P1. Both classes sang their wee hearts out with P1-3 performing ‘Broon Coo’ and P5-7 singing ‘500 Miles’ by The Proclaimers Leswalt-style as ‘I’m a Wean Fae Leswalt Schule’. Then whole school got together to sing a Scots version of ‘Let it Go’ from Frozen – renamed ‘Stuff ’em Aw’!

Interspersed with the pupils’ performances, the P7s continued with their Burns Lunch traditions with Kaiden Giblin giving the Toast tae the Lassies, Cara Jamieson offering the Reply to the Lads, Faye Adams with her Toast tea the Schule and Carys McHallum rounding off the afternoon with a vote of thanks. All done with confidence  – they were braw!

After a  rousing sing-song of Auld Lang Syne, the pupils dashed outside for a quick break, and staff got the hall ready for the afternoon’s Scots Showcase with friends and family invited in to enjoy!

Faye Adams danced a Highland Fling to welcome the audience, the Scots songs were sung once again and all were treated to the judge’s results! Great excitement as pupils sat on the edge of their seats to find out who had won each category in each year-group, with the winners being invited up to show off their handwriting or artwork and to perform their poem in front of everyone.

The results are as below:

P1

Handwriting – Beathan Wright

Artwork – Cameron Mcdonald

Recitation ‘Mince and Tatties’

1. Jorgie Paton

2. James Hunter

3. Cameron McDonald

P2

Handwriting – Keira Richardson

Artwork –  Aria-Rose Williamson

Recitation ‘Twa-Legged Mice’

1. Hannah Drummond

2. Eilidh Ramsay

3. Emma Shirley

P3

Handwriting – Lily Bennewith

Artwork – Lily Bennewith

Recitation ‘The Sair Finger’

1. Lily Bennewith

2. Ellie Burton

P5

Handwriting – Murray Reid

Artwork – Roman Haver

Recitation ‘ Wee Kirk Moose’

1. Colin McGregor

2. Roman Haver

3. Murray Reid

P6

Handwriting – Holly Santangeli

Artwork – Isla Kirkpatrick

Recitation ‘Wille Wastle’

1. Ela Chang

2. Daisy Doyle

3. Ewan Clark

P7

Handwriting – Faye Adams

Artwork – Hamish McGregor

Recitation  ‘Address to a Haggis’

1. Cara Jamieson

2. Hamish McGregor

3. Mark Drummond

Huge congratulations to everyone for their efforts! Rabbie would be proud!

This morning, Leswalt Primary hopped on a bus to make the quick journey round the coast to our friends at Kirkcolm Primary.

The purpose of our visit? Well, there was a visit from the pop-up planetarium and the Galloway Forest Astronomical Society there to talk to us! Not an opportunity we wanted to pass up…..

We joined our buddies once we arrived at school and enjoyed some time together first for a quick catch-up. The younger class went into the Planetarium first whilst the older bunch worked together on their Rights Respecting Schools activities – and created some fabulous quizzes to test us all on the UNCRC. Some questions created to really make you think…

Then it was time for a break outside and a chance to enjoy the company and playground of our friends on this beautiful January morning!

Swap over time….and the older group got the chance to enjoy the wonders of the Planetarium whilst the younger pupils created their own aliens – wonder if any of their designs might be spotted in Outer Space?

Inside the Planetarium, Doug (the computer expert) and Andy (the lead presenter) took us all on a tour of the night sky exploring the moon, Mars and Jupiter. We talked about the hugely varied temperatures on planets in Space, gravity, signs of life,  moon controlling tides and the individual features of planets. Such an interesting session!

Many thanks to the Galloway Forest Astronomical Society (and Kirkcolm) for a morning of inter-galactic fun!

Happy New Year to you all!

It’s so good to see our Leswalt team back together for the start of a fabulous year!

We decided to kick things off with a traditional Scottish toast – with sparkling flavoured water and some delicious shortbread- raising our glasses to wish one another a very happy 2024!

We then joined together in a rousing rendition of Auld Lang Syne and worked with our buddies to create our New Year’s resolutions.

Here’s to a very happy, healthy and busy 2024 😊

It’s a busy busy week – fresh from their superb show performances yesterday, Leswalt pupils enjoyed a fabulous party afternoon today!

House Captains Hamish and Carys and Vice House Captains Cara and Faye had been the organising elves and Mrs McKnight and Mrs F followed their plans so that everyone enjoyed an afternoon of festive fun.

The tunes were pumping as they played Christmas Corners, Musical Baubles and Pass the Present before taking a break for some crisps, juice and sweet treats prepared by P5-7 and Mrs Kyle. It was then back to the hall for a rousing rendition of Jingle Bells – just in case this might be the favourite song of a certain mystery guest….

Sure enough, we soon heard the sound of bells and who should join us in our school hall but Santa Claus!!

He was so cheery and chatty with all the boys and girls who, thankfully, had all made the good list! Phew!

Everyone had lovely time and headed home wearing their new personalised hats with pride and munching their chocolate Santas!

Merry Christmas to you all!

Pupils took to the stage not once but twice on Wednesday to perform their Christmas show ‘Santa’s on Strike.’ Everyone has been working extremely hard over the last few months learning their lines and practising the songs – and boy did it pay off!!

The production is set on Christmas Eve and Santa is in a mood! He has watched too many episodes of Supernanny and feels that children don’t deserve presents anymore, so he goes on strike! Mrs Santa and the elves show him snapshots of family life in the hope that he will realise that Christmas is still a time of giving, caring and sharing. And he does! Then it’s blast off to get all of the presents delivered in time before Christmas morning.

The audience were thoroughly entertained – between the elf union rep ensuring that Santa knows his rights, to Santa nearly getting a snowball thrown at him by Mrs Santa for not paying attention, and Mum launching her yellow washing-up gloves at Dad for not helping her around the house!

Every single pupil was a star and we are very proud of them! Check out our superstars in action below!

The boys and girls at Leswalt enjoyed a festive feast on Wednesday for their annual school Christmas lunch. After pulling their Christmas crackers, telling each other the cheesy jokes and donning their colourful paper hats, pupils tucked into a yummy Turkey dinner with all the trimmings followed by a delicious chocolate pudding, kindly served by Patricia. The Christmas tunes helped to get everyone into the festive spirit too!

As part of our work learning about the UNCRC and Rights of the Child, we  participated in a campaign to allow pupils to see that they can put their rights into action and make a difference in our local community. At our most recent Pupil Council meeting, we decided on 4 different campaigns that we’d like to run and then each school took a vote on their favourite. The campaign that had the most votes was the Police Scotland Youth Volunteer’s (PSYV) Christmas Shoebox Appeal. This campaign collects food and warm clothing for elderly residents in and around the Stranraer area.

We are asked our families if they could send in some donations to go towards the appeal. Items sent in included: tinned food , jars or jam,  sweets, biscuits , tea, coffee ,  gloves and hats .  Our families were very generous!

The photograph shows Erin Topping from the Police Young Scotland Volunteers uplifting boxes which had been collected by Kirkcolm, Leswalt and Portpatrick Primary schools.

After the disappointment of the Gaiety cancelling the pantomime performance for today late last night (due to cast illness) , Mrs Mc Knight made sure her class had a fun festive day at school today instead.  

Instead of being sad at missing out on Cinderella, the boys and girls had some fun making some mini “gingerbread” houses, doing some Christmas arts, crafts and puzzles and watching some  of Cinderella on the big screen in the classroom.

And thankfully Cinderella and Buttons hope to be better by next week so all can look forward to going to Ayr on Tuesday to enjoy the show!

P5 – 7 enjoyed  the first of a series of Sphero Bolt workshops today.

What is a Sphero, you ask? Well, Sphero robots have many different internal parts that make them work such as motors, LEDs, encoders, processors, a CPU and Bluetooth communication module for connecting to phones, and a gyroscope that keeps it oriented. A small, wheeled robot inside the shell climbs up the walls and pushes them forward, causing the ball to roll.

Sphero programmable robots help kids learn fundamental STEM concepts through play-based learning and educational STEAM activities. You can use Sphero robots to play games, create programs, or complete challenges.

Our first club activities focussed on using Bluetooth to pair our devices, orientating our Spheros and using direction and speed to control the travel of our devices.  The children quickly mastered the balance between speed and control and were then able to navigate obstacles with increasing accuracy.  There was some fun racing the Spheros in figures of eight round cones, and people too.  We had a play with adapting the colours of the led array so we could more easily identify our Sphero robot amongst everyone else’s.

Our next activity will bring in the skills of using a graphics Draw function to control the sphero’s travel path.  We will ‘draw’ 2D shapes.   As we are in the middle of Christmas mayhem, this will most likely be in the New Year.

UNCRC Rights of the Child – Article 29 Aims of Education