Leswalt Primary School

Primary 1-4 have been learning all about their local community this term.  As part of their learning, Richard Arkless MP was invited in to explain more about his role in helping the local community develop.  He was asked lots of very thoughtful questions by the pupils including;

“What is the best/worst part about your job?”

“What would you really like to see changes in Stranraer?”

“Do you ever argue with anyone?” and

“Do you get to sit in David Cameron’s seat?”

The children were really interested in how Parliament worked and learned a lot from their visitor. 

Mr Arkless was impressed with how engaged the children were and said that if they needed any assistance in anything they were just to get in touch.  Logan did raise the point that he thought there should be a Formula One track built in Stranraer.  Mr Arkless also liked that suggestion………..we will need to wait and see if he raises that at Prime Minister’s questions time, in Westminster!

A few weeks ago a visitor to the school asked the children what was the monument on their school jumpers and at the top of the hill.  Answers included “the Queen used to live up there” and “the Nazis landed there”.  Mrs Baillie thought it was important all the boys and girls knew the significance of the monument which has been adopted as the school logo, and felt they should all know more. 

So, this afternoon the whole school walked one mile up to the Leswalt monument.  It tied in well with the p1-4 project on their community and responded to the needs and requests from children for more information.  The children learned it was built in 1850 in memorial to Andrew Agnew, who represented the community in Parliament. 

The school admired the stunning views from the top of the hill, looking at how calm Loch Ryan was, picking out Stranraer, spotting the school and even a few houses they recognised.  They were disappointed to learn you could not go inside the monument as it does not have any windows or doors.

The children all enjoyed the Friday afternoon walk – with Phoebe asking “I love this, can we go a walk every Friday afternoon?”.  It was one mile up to the monument and one mile back down.  Mrs Baillie said she felt like the “Grand Old Duke of York”  marching them all to the top of the hill, and then they marched back down again!

 

Primary 1-4 at Leswalt Primary have been learning all about community development this term.  As part of that work they have been looking at the process of building development.  In class the pupils were asked to design and plan out their dream house.  The tricky part came next – as Mrs Mc Knight, the class teacher, then asked the pupils to take their plans home and actually build the house, with help from parents.  The houses that were built were amazing – as support from parents was phenomenal.  

Design features that were incorporated into pupils’ plans included garages, conservatories, solar panels, flues for log burners, drain pipes and even Santa going down a chimney.A wide range of materials was used by children at home to build their model houses – including clay, wood, card, gravel, gingerbread and even a rough cast of sand, paint and glue. 

The learning of the process of building was reinforced when Ian Mac Fadzean (architect), Tommy Currie and Iona Brooke (planning department) and Ian Marshall (Luce Bay construction) were invited into school to come and tell the children more about their role.  They came in with tools and plans to illustrate to the class how they went about their job.  The pupils asked lots of questions and learned more about the process of building a house and possible careers in the future.

At the end of the question and answer session, Mr Currie, Mr Marshall and Mr Mac Fadzean were set their own challenge – they had to pick their favourite house.  All agreed it was a very difficult job before opting for Aidan (p1) and his gingerbread house which he baked with Mum, Chloe (p2) and her cottage which she rough casted with mum and Auryn (p3) and Breagh (p1) who worked with Mum to make a mansion complete with drain pipes, hanging baskets and window boxes.

The children learned a tremendous amount through this active learning and community involvement and the professionals left Leswalt Primary that day fearing for their jobs, after seeing the skills and knowledge demonstrated by the children!

 

Both classes recently enjoyed a trip to Wigtown Book Festival to hear from authors.

First of all, Renita Boyle led us in a sing-along session to warm us up!  Primary 5-7 heard from Phil Earle and Cathy Mc Phail.  Primary 1-4 saw Shoo Raynor and Emily Dodd.  A great time was had by all!

Phil Earle told hilarious stories and kept the audience laughing with his inventive stories.  We heard all about how he came to write “Demolition Dad”.  Cathy Mc Phail’s books were very different.  They were very dark and almost scary!  We all saw a trailer to advertise “Another me” one of her books which has now been made into a film.

Emily Dodd told us about her book ‘Can’t Dance Cameron’ . This is all about a sad capercaillie called Cameron who believes he is a rubbish dancer. We talked about lots of types of Scottish wildlife when reading the story – a pine-marten, a red squirrel and a wildcat. By the end of a story, Cameron shows he is a great dancer. Some of us bought this story and Emily signed it.

Shoo Rayner is an author and illustrator. His latest book is called Dragon Gold and is about Harri who is set the challenge of ‘making’ a dragon for school! Shoo also has two YouTube channels about drawing. Why not Google these and try out one of his tutorials?

Our very own Euan  was chosen from the audience to try drawing with Shoo. What an excellent job he did! Check out the photos to see for yourself!

Quite a few of us bought Shoo’s book which he signed too.

We had such  lovely days in Wigtown and the children were so well behaved. Smiles all round!

The boys and girls of Leswalt Primary managed to keep a special secret – a goodbye assembly for Mrs Bathgate.   Mrs Bathgate had taught at the school for 8 years, and is now moving away from the area and leaving her post at Leswalt.  All the pupils sang 2 songs which they had been practising in secret – the singing was fantastic and there were more than a few tears shed as emotions ran high.  The staff, pupils, parents and parent council handed over a range of generous gifts to wish Mrs Bathgate well .

Pupils at Leswalt Primary were recently delighted when local resident Stewart Mc Culloch popped into school to hand in a donation of money for the children at school.  Mr Mc Culloch can normally be found down at the Kirkland pond, helping local fishermen of the area.  He held a fishing competition at the Kirland pond recently and a raffle generated £80.  The school has been using Kirkland pond, for the last 2 years as part of it’s “Wider achievement” programme.  This initiative allows different children to go down to the Kirkland pond on a Friday afternoon and learn the skills of fishing. Mr Mc Culloch felt as the school supported the fishing, he would like to give something back to the school.

Mrs Baillie (headteacher) told the pupil council of the donation and they were keen to use the money to buy in some new playground toys.  The following day, Kerr in Primary 7 came in with his Argos book from home, so that they could decide what to spend the money on.  The money was soon spent on new footballs, a swingball set, a parachute and lots more.  The pupil council were happy and shared the good news and new additions to the toy box with their classmates.

Many thanks must go to Mr Mc Culloch for his support of the local village school.  We hope that he will enjoy driving past the school and see all the new toys being enjoyed by the boys and girls

As part of their health and wellbeing learning and teaching, Primary 5-7 have been focussing on “Tobacco” this term.  They have been discussing the legalities surrounding the advertising of tobacco and laws in the sale of tobacco products.

  To help them with their work, they popped across the road to Leswalt Stores.  Gillian was more than happy to explain to the class the laws which are in place.  The children also saw for themselves how products are not allowed to be on display and the signage which is in place.

Many thanks must go to Gillian Murdoch, not only for her useful information and knowledge on the subject, but also for the sweeties which she gave the class as they left!

Primary 5 recently had a lovely time along at Creachmore as part of a golf festival aimed at all Primary 5 pupils.

The sun was shining, as they all learned more about the game and how to improve their golf swing.

The senior class recently went outside to do their maths.  They were learning all about speed, distance and time.  And, to help them with their learning they all went outside and had to run over a specified distance to help them calculate their speed.

The photos show some of p5-7 racing across the playground.

Primary 5-7 had a recent visitor to class who helped develop their Science topic of resources of the Earth, through bringing in a great selection of different rocks for them to examine.

The children learnt a lot about the properties of different rocks, and where they are found.  The afternoon concluded when they got to witness a volcano erupting in their classroom!