Kirkcolm Primary School

Primary 7 pupils travelled to the Stranraer Campus of Dumfries & Galloway College this morning, as part of Scottish Careers Week. The event was organised by Skills Development Scotland and we were joined by Castle Kennedy, Glenluce and Sheuchan Primaries. After an introduction from Kathryn and Lucy (SDS), we had 3 activities that we worked our way around throughout the morning.

The first activity was learning where the Careers Advisers are located at Stranraer Academy and what their role is. We then played a ‘would you rather…?’ game considering different aspect of various jobs, e.g. would you rather have a job that involved people or animals? We then split into 3 small groups and were given items to look at and had to list any job linked to those items – the careers advisers were impressed that 1 group got over 20 jobs and said that was the most that any school had thought of! Finally, we looked at the My World of Work website and learned about the job profiles sections which helps us to learn about different career options.

Next, we were given a tour of the college. We explored the various college courses that are on offer, including childcare, cookery, carpentry and construction, mechanic, hairdressing and beauty.

Finally, we went into the Skills Development Scotland office in the college. We worked in teams to complete a problem solving challenge – we had to imagine we were stuck on a deserted island surrounded by sharks. There were 5 people on the island with us – a scientist, bodybuilder, banker, doctor and pensioner. The rowing boat that we had could only hold us and 3 others so we had to decide which 3 people we’d take on the boat with us. We used lots of skills throughout this challenge – communicating, listening, compromising, team work and problem solving.

To finish off the morning, we all gathered together and participated in a little competition to win a £10 Greggs voucher – we had 1 questions to answer regarding the careers management skills we had learned about and all slips were put into a box and the winner drawn. Unfortunately, our schools didn’t win, but we had a brilliant morning learning all about the various jobs and careers on offer to us, what options exist locally and how to get advice.

Today we ‘migrated’ our way to the Ryan Centre via the reliable transport method of bus, after picking up our Leswalt companions on the way, for a film afternoon in the theatre! Our Intu Film this year was Migration, from the producer who created the minions! We all had a super afternoon snuggled up in the cinema seats before our jaunt back home. Thanks to the people at the Ryan Centre for giving us this opportunity! 

Today to celebrate World Children’s Day both classes at Kirkcolm took part in a live assembly this morning.

This linked well with our work on Rights Respecting School work we have been doing over the past few years and continue to do through our assemblies with Mrs McHarg. The focus of World Children’s Day this year was looking at climate change and how we need to address issues with it in order to secure a safe future for the children of today.

Pupils in the upper class got well stuck into the tasks – we learned about initiatives other schools have been taking on where pupils identified an issue they were having that was having an environmental impact and how they made the changes they need to make to address it! Very inspiring stuff! Hopefully this keeps our pupils inspired to continue being the sustainability superstars they have always been! 

Article #3 – The Best Interests of the Child 

Article #24 – Health, Water, Food & Environment 

This Friday marked the start of a 4 week block of Tri Golf with our golfing pro – Stuart Fisher! We are very happy to welcome Stuart back into the school to deliver these sessions, it is a great way to get the pupils involved in a different hobbies and exploring something this area has a lot of to offer! 

Pupils started the block off by ensuring we could get the club to make contact with the ball! (Something I am not very skilled at admittedly) and some pupils took off flying with this while others got the hang of it over time! 

We are excited to keep developing our golf skills during these inputs 🙂 

The boys and girls of Kirkcolm primary school came to school in their pyjamas to support Children in need.

In the morning some pupils went around selling Pudsey merchandise for the whole week. By the end of the week the wristbands of Pudsey the bear were all sold out.

P1-4 held a toy sale the prices went from 20p to 1 pound and all the money went to Children in need.  They raised over £80 selling their toys!

Boys and girls got their face painted for 1 pound.  Marie and Ashley came in to help out with this – thank you.

We also had pancakes for sale at break, for the same price as the face painting.   There were bananas, strawberries, jam,  Nutella, syrup, honey and sprinkles to put on the pancakes.

After lunch for desert they had shortbread shaped like Pudsey the bear and had pancakes as well.

by

Lyle Mcculloch

Alistair Swan

15.11.24

Over £200 was raised by the kind donations from the pupils and community! Well done.

A huge thank you to Marie and Ashley – our talented face painters! 🙂

Today, to mark the 11th of November, the pupils of Kirkcolm made their journey through the village and up to the War Memorial that sits within the Kirkcolm Ervie Church. Pupils had made a poppy wreath during assembly where we learned about the significance of the Poppy on Remembrance Day. 

Reverend Marlene kindly lead a service for the pupils where she performed a reading to mark the start of the 2 minute silence. The boys and girls stood and silently reflected on the lives lost at war as a mark of respect before we laid down our poppy wreath. 

Thank you to Marlene for leading this for us and well done to the boys and girls for being so respectful the entire time. We expect nothing less form our lovely bunch! 

All listening intently…

Following on from last terms Topic that spans this term additionally – we received an online input from Isabel Scott, who works for the Education Team of the Scottish Parliament. This input gave us a good deep dive into the role of the Scottish parliament, it helped us to understand what devolved the Scotland Parliament had and helped deepen our understanding of how elections work. Thanks to Isabel for this input and making the time for us! 

Okay maybe we are a day late but it’s fine! There is no better day for a costume contest and some treats than a Friday anyway…

Today pupils came to school dressed in their spookiest best – we had a lot of zombified professions as well as some classics! Pupils did their usual laps of the room while the house captains and teachers  made their judgements on the best costumes.  This was no easy task – as you can see from the photos everyone looked super spooky A big well done to the parents as well as the pupils – a lot of effort went into some of these costumes! 🧛‍♀️🦇🎃

The fabulously spooky winners were:
P1 – Kendall 
P2 – Orla 
P3 – Sally
P4 – Ross
p5 – Paige
P6 – Arran 
P7 – Alistair

Then we got stuck into some games altogether! Pupils had an absolute blast playing the games organised by the house captains. We kick started the games with a very competitive game of creepy corners, which features a lot of strategising but our final winner was Robert! Next up we played pass the pumpkin with two of the smallest pumpkins I have ever saw, our winners were Freddie (P1-4) and Bryleigh (P5-7). 👻💀

Haunted chairs was next on the agenda, when the music stopped chairs would mysteriously disappear and pupils had to find somewhere to sit but our final winner was Joey! Next was a new Halloween game called Capture the Pumpkin (a Halloween retake of the age-old classic Capture the Flag); teams has been redecided by our house captains and  after a lot of running around our winners were – Ivan, Arran, James, Jessica, Kaylyn, Arryn, Archie and Ross. 🏃‍♂️🏃‍♀️

After all that running around we were all feeling a bit hot and sweaty so we thought why not cool ourselves down by sticking our heads in a huge bowl of water, filled with apples!! 🍎 Both classes played Dookin’ for Apples, a fan favourite which was lots of fun! Those wearing face paint sadly had to sacrifice their carefully painted designs in attempt to retrieve an apple, which meant we had some very wet, soggy looking pandas leaving the playground at 3pm!! 🍎🐼

We finished the afternoon with a boogie and a laugh with the best dancer competition (which Miss Douglas is still convinced she should have won!!) Our winners were Arran and Bryleigh who were cutting some shapes on the dance floor so were well deserving of their prizes! 💃🕺

The credit  planning and hard work of this party has to go to the House captains, Ivan and Phoebe have been working hard from the very beginning to ensure everything was ready to go and they put on an excellent time for the whole school!  ⭐🤩

Well done team! 

#Article31 The right to rest relax and play

P5-7 welcomed Robert McCrorie from The Scottish Fire and Safety Service who delivered a talk on how to be safe around Bonfire Night. Robert discussed the safety issues we could experience with bonfires, fireworks and sparklers – he informed us of the ways we can ensure accidents do not take place in the first place but also how to deal with scary situations involving fires. Bryleigh demonstrated how to hold a sparkler correctly, where as Rory showed us an excellent Stop, Drop & Roll technique! 

This was very helpful and informative so we hope our pupils ensure everyone stays safe this year!