Tag Archives: Eco

Awards 30.11.18

Today, our awards were given for achievement and effort in numeracy. In addition to finding out about these winners, we also learned about some bug hotel work, in partnership  with Threave NTS,  from Primary 3 pupils.  Also celebrated, was swimming success for Jessica, Aulay and Ruari. The Wow Tracker (active routes to school) November monthly award was presented to Primary 5 for their results in walking to school.

  

 

Planters Project

This week saw lots of busy diggers in the grounds of Dalbeattie Primary School thanks to a bunch of hardworking volunteers who helped complete the final part of a project which was started in the spring. Dalbeattie Primary has fantastic areas for outdoor learning but the task of filling our 11 very large planters with plant stock for the first time was no little task. As the school also has a large allotment area with raised beds and a polytunnel for growing vegetables, it was decided to stock the 11 class planters with herbaceous plants which the children can weed and tend to over the years to come. However, such plants can be expensive so Dalbeattie Rotary Club of Dalbeattie came to the rescue with a fund of £750 to finance an initial order after the club was contacted by the school’s Eco Group. Also crucial to the project’s success has been the generous help and advice of Dumfries and Galloway Grounds staff Caroline McLachlan and Brian McAvennie. Brian very kindly offered to take delivery of our plants back in April and, with his dedicated team, has potted them up and cared for them all summer so that they would be better established for us to plant out in the autumn. Last Monday, the plants arrived back. It was amazing to see the size they had grown to; we are so grateful because with the summer we had, we would surely have lost the majority of the young plants without Brian’s help. Meanwhile, parent volunteers carried out the heavy work of weeding and digging over the planters before progressing to planting out. We are also very grateful to Wilkos in Castle Douglas for 10 bags of free compost and to BSW Timber who will be supplying us with bark. It’s been a busy week but the school is so grateful to our team of trusty volunteers: Andy Kalotka, Mr McMorran, Alison Houston, Simon Mein, Susan Robertson, Fiona Anderson, Ruaridh Benson, Laura Dickie, John Boynton, Fran Drummond, Lee Maxwell, Emma McGuire, Pamela Caldow, Victoria Cameron and Gayle Cooper. Thank you all!

Fairtrade visitor to P5

Mrs Dyson was delighted that Mrs Van Zwanenberg (a member of Kirkcudbright Fairtrade group) once again, was able to visit our school and work with pupils discussing issues around Fairtrade. Primary 5 pupils shared their knowledge with our guest speaker and Mrs Dyson was very impressed with the quality of questions they asked. Pupils learned more about how communities use the Fairtrade Premium. They also explored packaging of Fairtrade goods to identify what percentage of the product is made from Fairtrade ingredients. We would like to say a massive thank you to Mrs Van Zwanenberg for her support and input with our Fairtrade work at Dalbeattie Primary School.

     

     

     

P5 Fairtrade Games Event

Primary 5 pupils organised and ran a very successful Fairtrade Games Event. They had been learning about Fairtrade in class and wanted to continue to raise awareness throughout the school. They worked in teams to design and create their own game based around Fairtrade. Games included a Fairtrade Obstacle Race, Fairtrade Throw, Pin the Fairtrade product on the Fairtrade Mark while blindfolded, running games and a  Fairtrade Quiz. The whole school were invited to play their games. For 50p, pupils were allocated a 15 minute slot to play all the games. Mrs Dyson and Primary 5 pupils would like to say a big thank you to all who supported our event. 160 people came to play our games. We even had family members join in the fun. Primary 5 pupils have decided to spend the £80 raised to buy Fairtrade footballs for use by all pupils within our school. The school has kindly agreed to match our amount raised so that double the number of balls can be bought. We look forward to introducing Fairtrade footballs into Dalbeattie Primary School.

      

(Please click on each photo to enlarge and see everyone)

     

      

     

     

     

     

     

     

 

 

 

 

We are a FairAchiever School!

Exciting news as Dalbeattie Primary School has now been awarded FairAchiever status by the Fairtrade Foundation. Evidence of our Fairtrade work was submitted, with positive feedback given along with the issuing of our FairAchiever Award. We look forward to continuing our journey to raise awareness and promote Fairtrade, not only in our local community but in the wider community.

Releasing our butterflies.

The butterflies that we have looked after since they were tiny caterpillars were big enough to be released into the wild today.

We have watched them grow from tiny caterpillars, through their chrysalis stage and finally emerging as Painted Lady butterflies.

Today we took them to our playing field and watched as some immediately flew away and some stayed for a while to say goodbye.

They have given us so much enjoyment over the past 5 weeks.

Salmon In The Classroom

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.

 

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

Promoting Fairtrade

At Dalbeattie Primary School, we are continuing in our work to promote Fairtrade. A representative from Kirkcudbright Fairtrade Group, Mrs Van Zwanenberg, spoke at our whole school assembly about how we can help others by choosing to buy Fairtrade products like Fairtrade bananas. Primary 5D pupils explored the items in her shopping basket by finding out where the Fairtrade ingredients came from. They also watched a short film and discussed the benefits of Fairtrade. At assembly, Primary 5D pupils performed a short play to introduce the theme of a Fairtrade Break which the class will run next week. On Tuesday and Wednesday, P5D pupils will run a Fairtrade Tuck Shop offering toast with Fairtrade strawberry jam, Fairtrade biscuits and Fairtrade bananas. We appreciate all support in raising awareness of Fairtrade and involvement in our Fairtrade Break event.

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