Leswalt Primary School

Well done to the four pupils from Leswalt school who went to the Academy last week to represent their school at a fun Maths Transition challenge. The team consisted of Charlotte Gaw, Euan McCredie, Ethan Smith and Megan McIntyre. The challenge began with an Activity Pack full of Christmas themed maths puzzles and problem solving, as well as a complex cube building challenge and a ‘Tarsia’ hexagon challenge.

Following this, the teams were given a pack of spaghetti, tape and one sheet of paper and tasked with creating the tallest tower. This was very entertaining! Unfortunately, Leswalt’s tower collapsed near the end of the time but this did not knock their confidence… the bounced back and had another attempt – that’s what we like to see! 🙂
The event was a great success and we look forward to participating in the challenge again next Christmas. Kirkcolm and Portpatrick School joined in the fun as well.

The boys, girls and staff wore their festive knits to school on Friday 15th December for the annual Save the Children ‘Christmas Jumper Day’. Everyone brought along a donation for this very worthwhile charity. Look at all those Christmassy tops! Doesn’t everyone look fabulous?

This team of super bag packers and their adult helpers raised £628.66 in Morrisons on Saturday! I bet the festive food shoppers were delighted to be helped by these cheery faces.

What fabulous teamwork!

#effective contributors

Erin and Kayleigh offered to read at a Christmas Church service.  The girls read their pieces with fluency and confidence, giving up their own time for their community. Well done!

 

Pupils all enjoyed a delicious Christmas Lunch at school today. P7s helped to set up and serve lunch to their classmates, before sitting down to enjoy a plate piled high with turkey, chipolatas, potatoes and brussel sprouts with their Christmas hats on! Christmas music in the background helped to set the festive scene. Lunch was absolutely delicious and the children munched up every bit before heading outside to enjoy the last of the sprinkling of snow before it melted in the early afternoon sunshine.

This week, all the p5/6/7’s took part in a Christmas Numeracy and Maths Challenge based on the 12 Days of Christmas.  They had to work out how many gifts were received altogether in the song and try to look for creative ways to work this out.  Some pupils used visual methods, written calculations, tables etc.

They then had to work out how many ‘legs’ were in the song… things got a little tricky at Day 8 when there were maids milking cows with milking stools  (which all have their own legs!).

Megan, Charlotte, Ethan and Euan were chosen as the final 4 who will go to Stranraer Academy on Thursday 14th December to represent the school in another transition Xmas challenge with the S1’s and the maths department.

This week saw the return of the annual Rhins Primary Badminton Competition. Monday was girls’ day and Tuesday the turn of the boys!

We were super proud of the young ladies and gentlemen from P5-7 who put themselves forward for this event held at Stranraer Academy. Alistair, Ethan, Millie, Megan, Erin, Kayleigh and Jenna are great ambassadors for the school.

As if that wasn’t impressive enough, Kayleigh went on to win silver in the singles competition and she and Jenna won silver in the doubles competition too! Just fabulous!

The future is bright for local badminton. Well done all!

The girls’ singles and doubles winners are pictured below.

 

Continue reading “Badminton Brilliance!”

As part of our ‘People who help us’ topic, P1-4 enjoyed a fun filled trip to Stranraer Police and Fire Stations. At the Police Station, we got to try on the uniform, book in some criminals and spent some time behind bars in an actual police cell!  At the Fire Station we had a tour of the fire engine and found out what all of the equipment is used for.  We also got to try on the firefighting uniform and even got to use the fire hose!

 

“I loved getting to use the fire hose. It was really funny!”  Jack P4

“The siren was so loud and I loved the colours it made.” Maisie P3

“I really liked getting to hold the police equipment like the shields and batons. It is all really heavy!”  Robin P4

“Getting locked in a police cell was fun but it really stank!” Alexander P2

Many thanks to Anne and Susan from Feis Rois for their 12 week input on Gaelic music-making, singing and the tin whistle. This was brought to a fabulous conclusion this morning with a concert to P1-4 and parents!

The children learnt many songs in English and Gaelic, counted in French and Gaelic, as well as playing the tin whistle in three musical parts, in descant, using drums to add to the rhythmic pattern of the tune and memorising simple tunes to be able to play their whistle by heart, copying complex clapping patterns and a very fun Penguin song which involved audience participation!

The pupils all responded so positively to this experience and gained so much musical awareness and confidence from this. I hope everyone who came along to their mini-concert enjoyed this as much as the children enjoyed performing it!