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On Tuesday 14th March, 12 pupils from Primary 6 and 7 travelled to Glasgow to take part in the Scottish Bridge Union Minibridge competition. All 3 teams played extremely well and came a respectable 7th and joint 11th out of 18 teams. This was no easy task playing against well established teams while only learning the game themselves since last November. All pupils were a credit to the school. A fun day was had by all.

 

Our talented pupil Leah has been busy competing over recent weeks in the Active Schools Super 5s Cross Country competition.   Leah thoroughly enjoyed competing and finished first in her section gaining a gold medal.  Wow well done Leah what an achievement!

On Saturday two teams from St Andrew’s P3/P4 took part in the Dumfries Country Dancing Festival following on from their Jigs and Reels training. They performed their dances superbly,  and have received a Silver accreditation badge from The Royal Scottish Dance Society which will be presented at assembly on Friday. Thank you to all the parents who came and supported the children. They are a credit to you and the school. The feedback from the head judge confirms this – have a read at his comments below!

    

On Thursday 9th and Friday 10th March Primary 6 visited Mrs Chalk in the HE department at St. Joseph’s College. Mrs Chalk spoke to the children about what they had learned in their topic on Food including what we use our senses for when cooking and eating. They discussed safety and hygiene in the kitchen from preparation to clearing away. The children then made fruit kebabs and pancakes while thinking about the appearance, texture and taste of the food. Mrs Chalk, Mrs Barnett and the children thoroughly enjoyed the experience and are keen to arrange the next visit.

P3 had a fantastic day trip to New Lanark yesterday were they found out about life in Victorian times.

They started off with a lesson in the Victorian schoolroom. Mr Gough rang the bell and the P3’s were transported back in time to 1825. After dressing like Victorian children; writing on slates, number work, geography and nature work were all undertaken under Mr Gough’s strict rules. Luckily his class finished off with some lively dancing. After a vote, unsurprisingly, the majority of the class said they preferred school now!

A cinema film and a time travelling ride came next, and a visit round the mill houses and village store concluded our visit. What a busy day!

The children were complimented on their fantastic manners by many of the staff at New Lanark. Well done to all in P3 and many thanks to Mrs Seton and Mrs Woods for joining us on our trip.

As part of our building topic we are visiting the forest on a Friday for the next couple of weeks to have a go at building our own dens. The children had great fun using natural resources and materials to build their dens. We hope the weather stays dry for next week….

 

Donations to SCIAF as part of World Book Day and the start of our Lenten appeal raised £154:94. We would like to thank everyone for their generosity. All money raised goes directly towards supporting families in Africa to learn how to effectively grow and manage crops against a background of a changing climate.

On Thursday afternoon P7’s from St Columba’s, St Teresa’s and St Andrew’s Primaries all competed in the St Joseph’s Science Fair.  It was a fantastic afternoon.  We had all sorts of experiments from testing the affect of different types of vinegar with bicarbonate of soda, testing the longest lasting lipstick, measuring the size of explosion when mentos are dropped in different fizzy juices to measuring the affects of storing popcorn in different temperatures on the number of kernels that pop.  It was all very fun and interesting.  The children presented their work really well!

P7 joined their nursery buddies on World Book Day to make puppets of the characters from their favourite books.  They have been enjoying O.S.C.A.R. (Our School Cares About Reading) on Mondays and Thursdays when they spend time reading with their buddies and helping them with their reading homework.  There are some lovely expressive readers and they take on their new responsibilities so well.  The nursery children look forward to them coming.

Here are some of the spoon puppets, it was a fabulous morning!

Today Primary 1 went on a trip to the Ewart Library.  In our language work we have been looking at the difference between fiction and non-fiction books so we thought it would be a good idea to go to the library and ask questions about how the library organised the books.  The lady was very impressed with our knowledge  and explained to us that the fiction books are organised in alphabetical order and the non-fiction by topic.

We listened to a great story and then got to choose books to read ourselves.

After the library, we got a lovely treat of juice and cake at the Doonhamer which set us up nicely for our long walk home!