The children enjoyed their non uniform day on Friday 24th March when they came to school wearing bright clothes. Many children also had their red noses to wear. Children were told they could bring in a voluntary donation, which many did. We raised £215.44 which is tremendous amount. Nursery had a separate fundraiser.
Our school Eco Group enjoyed a trip to Shirmers Burn to release our alevins today. Mrs Dyson’s Primary 5 and the Eco group have been involved in looking after salmon eggs in school. Rowan Armstrong from Galloway Fisheries brought us a tray of 100 eggs together with a water cooler, just over two weeks ago. They hatched a week later and so were ready to be released, today, into the water so that they can continue feeding once their yolk sacs are all used up. We will revisit the burn in June to take part in some electro fishing when we will be able to see how much our salmon have grown. By then, they will be ‘fry’ before becoming ‘parr’ when they are one year old. We were also very interested to see frogspawn in one pond and toads in another. Afterwards we enjoyed eating our snacks while enjoying the pleasant weather and the lovely views of the Loch Ken countryside.
We have had a fantastic day in school celebrating World Book Day. A great number of our pupils came dressed as a character from a favourite book and brought along a copy to share with their classmates. The costumes were terrific, as you will see from the pictures. We are also very grateful, this year, to Dalbeattie Book Shop whose donation of many books has meant that we could allow each pupil to select a free book from previous years of World Book Day publications. The children have also been given their World Book Day 2017 tokens which can be exchanged either for a free 2017 World Book Day or can be used as £1 towards any book or audio book over £2.99.
Recently, pupils have been taking part in a consultation about possible future uses of our current school site. School Pupil Councillors collated the information from written questionnaire sheets, which were filled in by children of all ages though-out the school. The School Pupil Council then met with Michelle McRobert of Dalbeattie Community Initiative to discuss some of the issues in more detail. Lots of ideas were taken aware from the meeting…… 
Dalbeattie Primary is delighted to have been awarded its fifth green flag as part of the two year Eco Schools Scotland renewal scheme. The school eco group has been working closely with teacher Mrs Dyson, over the last two years , on topics such as litter, energy and school grounds. The school received a letter congratulating the pupils on their outstanding work; work on calculating the school’s carbon footprint and links with local community groups and organisations, such as Galloway Fisheries and Fairtrade, were specifically highlighted. The school is looking forward to continuing its eco work as it moves to a new school site In October 2017 when we will finally have a flag pole to display our fifth flag! We will also be able to compare the carbon foot print of the new building with the old one and investigate ways to encourage wildlife habitats as well as growing more of our own produce in new raised beds! Our photo shows current Schools Eco Committee together with the two committees of the previous two years who worked so hard towards the fifth flag.
Well that was our last Christmas in this school…. We thought you might like to see our hall decorations (photographed kindly by Mrs Blackwood.) They were fantastic this year and we are very grateful to the staff and pupils who put so much effort into making our hall look so special for its last Christmas as a Primary School. We haven’t decided yet about what we will do with all the beautiful nativity pictures so watch this space….
Our Nativity this year, for 2016, was ‘A Timeless Nativity’ and was written specially for our last Christmas in this school before we move to our new school in 2017. The story starts with a present day child ‘Johnny’ who is bored with all the singing practice because he just wants it to be Christmas and get all his presents. The teacher has words with him and says he needs to see the Doctor as he is not in the true spirit of Christmas. Cue the Doctor who arrives in his Tardis. He then takes Johnny back to 1876, the year Dalbeattie Primary School first opened so that he can learn something from the boys and girls back then. He then takes Johnny even further back in time to Bethlehem, over 2000 years ago. By the time the play ends, Johnny now appreciates the true meaning of Christmas and he apologises to his classmates for his lack of enthusiasm earlier on!
More photos will follow soon….
On Friday 18th November, we had a non uniform day to raise money for Children In Need and for the Janice Jamieson Memorial Fund to sponsor our young person in Malawi. Throughout the week, the School Pupil Council also ran a competition to turn Pudsey all spotty in ‘Spottiland’ for a ‘spotacular’ fundraiser with Children In Need prizes for five lucky winners. Altogether an amazing £410 was raised and the money will be split between the two charities. Thank you to everyone who supported this.
We are delighted to receive a donation of £250 from Dalbeattie Museum on the occasion of Tommy Henderson’s 80th Birthday which also marked the end of this year’s season as the Museum closed its doors for the winter. Dalbeattie Museum has gifted the Primary School with this money as many of the Museum’s members worked on the ‘History of Dalbeattie Primary School’ book which was published earlier this year and they wanted to thank the school for the opportunity for school and Museum to work together on this successful project. Thank you!
