Leswalt Primary School

This afternoon PCs McGregor and Walker came to speak to P5-7 about the ‘bairns’ – life-size cardboard cut-outs of children designed to remind drivers to be extra vigilant around schools.

The five ‘bairns’ are spending two weeks in every primary school and remind drivers to think about where they park, watch their speed and to  be careful of where pupils are crossing. The class discussed with the Police Officers where they thought each should be placed, and are taking on the responsibility of putting the ‘bairns’ out in the morning before 9am and taking them in after 3pm.

So, watch out for the ‘bairns’!

The sun shone – yes really! – one morning this week and so we donned our jackets (well, it wasn’t THAT warm!) and headed outside to continue our Length, Perimeter and Area learning outside.

Working in our maths groups, we each took our set activity sheet and a clipboard and set to work. Mrs F took the handy toolkit trolley outside which was equipped with an iPad, rulers, measuring tapes, chalk, metre sticks and trundle wheels – a plethora of measuring devices!

From selecting most suitable equipment to using correct measuring unit; calculating area to working out the perimeter (think we have now cracked the difference between the two!) and converting measurements from metric to imperial measurements – we had an action-packed morning.

Here’s to many more outdoor learning sessions -even better with just a little more heat!

Take a look at the photos of us busy at work….

This week, P5-7 got the chance to explore coding using Spheros. These are small spherical ‘robots’ which can be coded to move in any direction, light up in an array of colours, talk and play music!

Ms Whorlow had introduced these cool gadgets to us at the end of term 2 and we were desperate to get our hands on them again this week and explore some more learning through coding. We enjoy using Microbits; we like investigating Scratch coding and so this was guaranteed to be great fun!

Working in pairs, armed with an iPad and our connected Sphero, we worked through the sessions. Learning to ‘drive’ was the first obstacle to overcome and we soon discovered that capping the speed and distance was a necessity as the coded Spheros zoomed off down the corridor! P1-3 were intrigued as to what we were doing, as several of them popped their heads out to have a look, and so P5 spent some time with them on Monday afternoon leading their learning. They might even have been safer drivers than us!

We soon got the hang of things and moved onwards and upwards; being able to code the Sphero to change colour, ‘draw’ shapes on the ground, ‘speak’ and play music. It has to be said that all pupils were much more adept at this than Mrs F who methodically checked each step (VERY slowly!) and showed very little originality! The pupils, on the other hand, were fabulous – demonstrating superb creativity, applying their initiative, following instructions, problem solving, working with others all whilst developing their newly learnt coding skills at the same time! Winner winner!

One pair even ‘drove’ their Sphero in to Mrs McHarg’s office and programmed it to say “Hello Mrs McHarg!” – love it!

What a great week of learning – the Spheros got a big thumbs up from all at Leswalt Primary.

UNCRC Rights of the Child – Article 29 Aims of Education

 

Hamish, Faye, Kaiden and Katie made a formidable quiz team today representing Leswalt Primary at the Annual Rotary Primary Schools’ Quiz. And, better still, they were placed 3rd receiving a certificate each and a cheque for £40 for the school!
Teamwork was key as they used their general knowledge skills to answer questions which many adults would’ve found challenging! Most importantly, the four of them were superb ambassadors for their school – mannerly, cheery and up for giving the quiz their all.

Well done to our Fab Four!

#confidentindividuals

#responsiblecitizens

UNCRC Article 29 Aims of Education and 13 Sharing Thoughts Freely

Our House Captains and Vice Captains have been busy over the last few weeks, organising an Easter egg-stravaganza for the final day of term!

Firstly, we had our decorate a hard-boiled egg competition. We had lots of wonderful entries which made the judging a tricky decision! So much so that the House Captains ended up awarding 2nd and 3rd place to each class (and Miss Gordon had to run up to the shop to buy extra prizes!!). Our winners were –

P1-4

• 1st = Eilidh Ramsay
• 2nd = Emma Shirley
• 3rd = Jorgie Paton

P5-7

• 1st – Colin McGregor
• 2nd = Isla Kirkpatrick
• 3rd = Amelia McHallum

A huge thank-you to everyone who participated – it was a fab effort from all!

In the afternoon, pupils paired up for an Easter scavenger hunt outside. Each pair were given a sheet of clues to help them find the next egg. They had to write down the colour of each egg that they found to prove that they had indeed completed the hunt! The final egg led them to a gigantic plastic egg full of chocolate!

Thank-you to our House Captains and Vice Captains for a final day full of fun!

UNCRC Article 14 (freedom of belief and religion) and article 31 (right to play and participate in art activities). 

As part of our Eco Schools work, the whole school headed out on Friday morning fully armed with gloves, biodegradable bags and litter pickers for our annual village Spring Clean!

We split into 5 groups and each group went to a different area of the village – Monument View, Church Grove, the main street up to the cemetery, the park and the Wetlands. We collected a whole array of things, including a golf club and ball, and 4 mini-wine bottles from the park!!

Our responsible citizens gathered 5 bags of litter in total, helping to make our village sparkly clean!

This week is Sign Language week and so Leswalt P5-7, always up for a challenge, signed up for a live lesson after Faye’s mum tipped us off about ti.

What a valuable session this was. In the first instance, the entire live lesson was presented without any speaking or sound – this got a discussion going within the class as to what daily life must be like if you suffer from hearing impairment. At times, the lady leading the lesson signed but we didn’t know what she was saying – the result? Frustration – and again this sparked discussion about situations in which the hearing impaired must often find themselves.

Following the BSL teacher’s lead, we learnt how to sign hello, how are you, Good Morning, Good Afternoon, Good Evening, please, thank you, lots of colours AND animals! It was an information-packed session. We also learnt to finger-spell the alphabet and each one of us managed to finger spell our name using this! What an achievement!

We really enjoyed this opportunity today. It is so important to have that awareness and be able to communicate with all.

UNCRC Article 2, 12, 13, 23 and 29.

No Discrimination, Respect for Children’s Views, Sharing Thoughts Freely, Children with Disabilities and Aims of Education.

 

 

UNCRC Article 29 AND 31 Aims of Education and Rest, Play, Culture and Arts

Today P5-7 headed to the Ryan Centre to join Kirkcolm, Sandhead, Drummore and Portpatrick Primaries to stage a performance of Vikings The Quest for the Dragon’s Treasure with the support of Scottish Opera!

What an amazing experience! For the last few weeks, we have been working on the songs and moves in class, using the fabulous online materials created by Scottish Opera, in readiness to come together this morning and pull the whole show together and present it to our audience of friends ad family this afternoon. The story told of the Quest for the Dragon’s Treasure with the villagers (Kirkcolm and Drummore pupils) and Vikings (Sandhead pupils) needing to show the sneaky sorcerors (us!) the right way to behave! To look after one another and the planet – no over-farming, ensuring animals are kept in their natural habitat and showing respect for Earth.

We LOVED being the evil sorcerors – you should have heard our spine-chilling chuckles! As a cast, we listened to the Scottish Opera members and followed their lead to sing and dance the story for all.

We even got to wear costumes which really helped us get into character!

What a fantastic experience. Huge thanks to the Scottish Opera staff, Creative Scotland and Dumfries and Galloway Council for supporting this venture for us all to enjoy!

The pupils dressed up in as much red clothing as they possibly could today, in return for a small donation towards Comic Relief. Our House Captains have been busy selling official merchandise all week and some of our families made a donation towards the worthy cause when they came in for our science afternoon.

We also held our assembly on Friday, where we explored how Comic Relief helps children to get their rights. We listened to how the charity helps homeless people, those with disabilities and those living in poverty. Everyone realised how much of a difference their pennies will make to people around the world.

We raised a fantastic grand total of £73.64! Thank-you to everyone who donated!

UNCRC article 26 – social and economic help

To celebrate British Science Week, we held an open afternoon today where several family members joined us for some science fun!

We had lots of science stations on offer to put our STEM skills to the test, including: making a hovercraft; building spaghetti bridge; designing a parachute to get the Lego man to safety; creating fireworks in a glass; growing a rainbow; and by far the 2 most popular/messiest experiments – making a volcano and cornflour slime! Mrs McKnight was having heart palpitations due to the mess on her carpet and was seen several times throughout the afternoon walking up and down the corridor with various cleaning supplies!!!

Pupils worked in small groups, accompanied by an adult or two, to work their way around the stations and enjoy the various challenges on offer. We had a brilliant afternoon, and thank you to all the adults who joined us!

UNCRC Articles 5 (family guidance as children develop) and 29 (aims of education).

Have a keek at the photos below, including one of a very young visitor for whom it was all too much for!!