During the Summer holidays pupils gave up their time to perform at both Stranraer and Wigtown Shows. Leswalt Primary pupils were part of the main ring entertainment at both events. And, at Wigtown show pupils were able to see Princess Anne, as she toured the show.
On Friday 24th june 2011, the whole of Leswalt Primary travelled to Edinburgh to perform in front of the crowds at The Royal Highland Show. We had an absolute ball!
Oor grateful thanks tae a’ at R.H.E.T
For choosin’ LESWALT tae go
Tae promote oor tatties an’ D.and G.
At this year’s Heilan’ Show.
On Friday morn,twenty fourth o’ June,
At half past seeven or so.
We climbed aboard McCulloch’s bus
For a trip tae The Heilan’ Show.
A guid run up the coast road
One fifty miles tae go.
An’ jist afore eleeven o’clock
We reached The Heilan’ Show.
We had a snack an’a wanner roon
There were umpteen places tae go.
An’ at twelve o’ clock we milked a coo !
That day at The Heilan’ Show.
Then made oor way tae the grandstan’
When “THE TATTIES ” had tae go
Tae don tattie bag kilts and tattie heids
Tae dance at The Heilan’ Show.
We sat an’ cheered an’ clapped oor han’s
Oor faces wi’ pride aglow,
Tae see them “WALK FIVE HUNDRED MILES”
For the folk at The Heilan’ Show.
By then it was the back o’ two
An’ we had time tae go
An see some o’ the ither things
Tae view at The Heilan’ Show.
There’s Countryside an’ Forestry
There’s livestock row on row
There’s Bikes an’ Cairts an’ Tractors
A’ at The Heilan’ Show.
Red Arrows did a flee past
An’ the sun it kept aglow
An’ at half past five the time came roon
Tae lay The Heilan’ Show.
The weans were tired but happy
The teachers were shattered an’so
Once again we boarded the bus
Fareweel Tae The Heilan’ Show.
A smooth run back tae oor south west nest
An’ as daylicht started tae go
Aboot nine o’ clock we reached Leswalt
Hame fae The Heilan’ Show.
Whit a day tae remember for years tae come
Tae tell a’ the folk we know
O’ the day we danced as tatties
When we went tae The Heilan ‘ Show.
Written by Mrs B. …….Mary E J Buchanan
with love and affection for the weans at Leswalt ,
as my teaching career draws to a close.
June 2011
On Sunday 3rd July the PTA of Leswalt Primary held a Summer Fete at school.
This took place in glorious sunshine and saw a wonderful turnout of pupils, past pupils, future pupils, grandparents and members of the community. Attractions included the Coastguard, a bouncy castle, cream teas ,face painting, manicures and glitter tattoos. Pupils in p5-7 all developed their enterprise skills by creating and running their own stalls. All the pupils, parents and staff were delighted when the fundraising total surpassed the £1000 mark.
Despite a small shower of rain in the afternoon, our sports day was well supported and enjoyed by everyone. A fantastic spread of homebaking was on offer for all of the parents to enjoy after the event. The winnning team will be announced on the last day of term.Jumping for joy in the sack race!
Pupils at Leswalt Primary really used their imagination in the latest homework challenge which asked them to decorate a hard boiled egg – with a farm theme. The eggs which arrived in school were wonderful! The “best in breed” eggs were judged by the art speacialist Mr Douglas Mc Clure. The winners were as follows;Chickens – Stewart Kyle p7, Cows – Kieran Dodds p4, Pigs – Millie Renwick P3, Sheep – Aiyanna Wilson p3 and other Tommy Kerslake p4 (tractor)Decorated eggs
Leswalt Primary schoolchildren will be taking centre stage at next week’s Royal Highland Show when they present “Scotland’s Larder Showcase”. Leswalt Primary School has been selected to represent Dumfries and Galloway, and potato farming. The whole school will travel to The Royal Highland Show next Friday to perform in front of a crowd of an estimated 30, 000 visitors.
Organised by the Royal Highland Education Trust, the main ring event – at 2.00 pm on the Friday of the show – sees pupils from schools throughout Scotland featuring a range of Scottish produce including beef, lamb, pigs, eggs, milk, soft fruit, fish, poultry, game, potatoes and vegetables. Each of the school groups was chosen by the local RHET Project Co-ordinator and allocated an item of produce. They were given a brief to prepare in class, interpreting the produce in the context of Scottish food production, branding and the journey from farm gate to plate.
At the show, a pipe band will lead the groups, “colour-coded” in different T-shirts, into the main ring. One pupil from each group will then introduce the school while another recites a rhyme about the produce. Mairi Lammie (p7 ) will take the microphone to introduce Leswalt Primary before Andrew Mc Millan (p7) will recite the verse composed by Mrs Buchanan, p1-4 teacher. All schools will then dance their specially choreographed routine in the ring to the rousing sound of The Proclaimers’ (I’m Gonna Be) 500 miles.
Not only will Leswalt Primary be representing potatoes, they will also be dressed up as potatoes! Pupils will wear customised tattie bunnets which parents have been busy helping create. Pupils will also be strutting their stuff in customised kilts. Local potato producer Fergus Little has supplied the school with potato sacks which have been creatively turned into kilts for the pupils!
Other schools participating are as follows: Fife Countryside Initiative – Pittenweem (vegetables); Lothians CI – Newtongrange (pigs); Borders CI – Broughton (eggs); Perth & Kinross CI – Glendelvine (game/venison); Ayrshire CI – Dreghorn (milk); Clyde CI and Dumbarton, Lomond & Renfrew CI – Bridge of Weir (poultry and lamb); Highland CI – Alvie (fish); Royal Northern CI – Milltimber (beef); and Angus CI – Southmuir (soft fruit).
“Scotland’s Larder Showcase” is one of a number of RHET activities at the show with the main focus at the Dobbies Children’s Discovery Centre where the theme will be “From Past To Present”, encouraging interest in farming, food and rural life through the ages.
RHET Manager Alison Motion said: “The Royal Highland Show is a highlight of our year-round programme of taking children onto farms and estates or having farmer speakers in the classroom. Although it’s all about enjoyment, we want to make sure our visiting children go away with more understanding of farming and food production. We are also thrilled to have a main ring spot as this will demonstrate to show visitors just how RHET connects with schools in Scotland.”
Mrs Sheila Baillie, Headteacher at Leswalt Primary, adds “This will be a fantastic experience for all of our pupils. It will be a day that they will remember for the rest of their life; the day they went to the Highland Show with the school, and danced like a tattie in the main ring in front of thousands of people! We are all very excited!”
The Royal Highland Show takes place on June 23-26 at the Royal Highland Centre, Ingliston, Edinburgh.
Leswalt Primary School have continued their study of “Farming” by a trip to Glenhead poultry unit, near Leswalt.
The whole school set off on a sunny afternoon for a hike up to Glenhead Farm. Pupils passed through Aldouran Wetland Gardens before the scenic and sensory experience of the Glen walk, which was alive with the smell of wild garlic.
On arriving at the top of the Glen pupils were met by Mr James Baxter at his recently purpose built unit. Pupils were just in time to see the hens coming out to play. The unit is home to 32,000 hens – which did get very noisy!
Once inside the shed pupils learned about the conditions “Happy Eggs” are produced in. The children saw the range of egg yolk colours and were fascinated to hear how different countries like Japan and America all had a preference for different coloured yolk.
Pupils saw thousands of hens- both inside and outside before the conveyor belt was started up and thousands of eggs moved along the line. After cleaning and checking all the eggs were stamped with the Baxter’s special code before being placed in trays and sent away.
It was a very interesting visit for all the staff and pupils of Leswalt. The walk back down to school was a time to reflect on what they learned and how they would cook the half dozen eggs that the Baxter’s generously gave everyone. As well as receiving 6 eggs to cook, children also got one hard boiled white egg. This egg is to be decorated with a farmyard theme (it could turn into a pig, cow, Old MacDonald or even a tractor) and be returned to school as a homework challenge. Mrs Baillie is looking forward to seeing the eggs-cellant, imaginative eggs returning to school next week.
On Friday 27th May a choreographer travelled all the way from Fife to teach the pupils of Leswalt Primary school a very special dance. The school will be travelling to The Royal Highland Show on Friday 24th June, to represent Dumfries and Galloway in unique main ring event.
Nine schools from different regions in Scotland will perform in the main ring and represent 9 different types of Farming. Leswalt Primary will represent potato farming.
At 2pm, after taking the microphone to say a few words the boys and girls will strut their stuff to The Proclaimers “500 Miles”, dressed like tatties! It is a fast paced routine, but hopefully the boys and girls can pull it off with pride!
This term the whole school topic focus at Leswalt Primary is “Farming”. The school has linked up with RHET, The Royal Highland Education Trust, to further develop this work. As part of this partnership all the pupils at Leswalt Primary went a trip to West Galdenoch Farm to learn more about Dairy Farming. Garry Mitchell is a RHET linked farmer and he spent an afternoon with the boys and girls from Leswalt. Fiona Jamieson the RHEt co-ordinator for Dumfries and Galloway was also on hand to meet the pupils and explain more.The pupils learned how the milk from West Galdenoch helps make Kit Kats, as milk is sold to Nestle. Pupils helped feed the calves, learned more about stock welfare and paid a visit into the state of the art Rotary milking parlour.This visit to West Galdenoch really brought alive prior learning in the classroom. Mr Mitchell said he would welcom back Leswalt Primary pupils in a few years time to help him milk his cows and gave everyone a Kit Kat biscuit to reinforce where the milk went once it left the farm.“I enjoyed feeding his calves” said James Murray in P4“It was funny when the wee calf was trying to lick me” Craig Anderson p4“I liked seeing all the cows going round and round in the parlour. I enjoyed my Kit Kat!” Rhona Baillie p3“It was interesting learning about the difference between a heifer and a cow – I could tell by the size of their bags. A heifer has not had any calves” Mark Mc Colm p7
Leswalt Primary School has entered the Rhins Primary School netball league and played their first games on Monday 9th May 2011. The team comprised of pupils from p4-p7 . In their first evening playing competitively the young team gelled well and demonstrated a great sporting attitude. The final scores resulted in Leswalt Primary winning against Belmont A and Sandhead, they drew against Rephad and lost against Belmont B, 2:1
This term the whole school topic focus at Leswalt Primary is “Farming”. The school has linked up with RHET, The Royal Highland Education Trust, to further develop this work. As part of this partnership all the pupils at Leswalt Primary went a trip to West Galdenoch Farm to learn more about Dairy Farming. Garry Mitchell is a RHET linked farmer and he spent an afternoon with the boys and girls from Leswalt. Fiona Jamieson the RHEt co-ordinator for Dumfries and Galloway was also on hand to meet the pupils and explain more.
The pupils learned how the milk from West Galdenoch helps make Kit Kats, as milk is sold to Nestle. Pupils helped feed the calves, learned more about stock welfare and paid a visit into the state of the art Rotary milking parlour.
This visit to West Galdenoch really brought alive prior learning in the classroom. Mr Mitchell said he would welcom back Leswalt Primary pupils in a few years time to help him milk his cows and gave everyone a Kit Kat biscuit to reinforce where the milk went once it left the farm.
“I enjoyed feeding his calves” said James Murray in P4
“It was funny when the wee calf was trying to lick me” Craig Anderson p4
“I liked seeing all the cows going round and round in the parlour. I enjoyed my Kit Kat!” Rhona Baillie p3
“It was interesting learning about the difference between a heifer and a cow – I could tell by the size of their bags. A heifer has not had any calves” Mark Mc Colm p7
