Kirkcolm Primary School

We are so happy to welcome back Kathryn Purchase into our classroom for another fab History input for the pupils! Pupils are about to buckle down and learn about WW2 this term for their social studies topic (a highly anticipated topic for them all!) and there is no better way to properly introduce this topic to the pupils. 📝

We learned about how the War started and how this was linked to other events across the world like The Great Depression and a direct consequence of WW1. We understood that The Treaty of Versailles, an outcome of the first World War, was one of the key factors in what started WW2. We looked at how this led to Hitler’s rise to power and the events that followed… 💣💥

The morning talk was very informative – we learned all about key elements from the way; the Blitz, rationing, The Nazi Party, the evacuees and the Holocaust. All things we are going to spend the next few weeks studying in a greater depth! 🔍

After this came the most exciting part – the pupils got to get stuck into all the fantastic props that Kathryn brings along with her to these sessions. There was a variety of costumes, rationing props, gun props that they were allowed to use for roleplay and to immerse themselves in the WW2 experience! 🪖

We finished off the session with a Q&A – as per expected, the pupils had lots and lots of questions to fire at Kathryn and they got their answer every time! 

Thanks for joining us today Kathryn, always a pleasure and until next time… 🙂 Here are some photos below of today’s fun! 

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Article 2 – No Discrimination 

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Today has been a very festive day indeed! 🎄

Today to celebrate Christmas Lunch Day – pupils all donned their festive apparel to get really into the swing of the Christmas spirit! We all settled in for an early lunch where crackers were pulled, turkey was consumed and paper hats were briefly worn! 

To continue on with the festive theme of today, this afternoon we embarked on a trip to see our friends at Leswalt perform their Christmas Show! They performed ‘Baubles’ for us and it was a spectacular performance and we wish them all the best for their evening performance later today! 

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Article 30 – Minority, Culture, Language & Religion 

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Wow! A huge thank you to Alan Jenkins for deliver a whoppingly large crate of 36 big bars of yummy Cadburys chocolate to Kirkcolm primary today! This very generous donation came from the Stranraer Development Trust along with The Millenium Centre, as a little Christmas treat for the boys and girls! We are very grateful for all these services provide for our little town and for us! 

Normally, we invite Owain out to our schools to deliver his Scripture Union sessions with the pupils based on learning about the true story of Christmas but today we did one better and both Kirkcolm and Leswalt pupils were able to join Owain and some of his lovely helpers from church in the Baptist Church this year to learn all about Christmas! ✝️

We discussed some of our own Christmas traditions first that we hold special for our families before Owain had the pupils act out in groups the story of the nativity! Pupils did an excellent job of remembering and demonstrating the key aspects of the story before they broke off into their groups and moved around 3 stations to learn about Christ Traditions! 

Such facts as… 

• On a candle wreath there are 5 candles which represent peace, joy, hope, love and the middle candle represents the birth of Jesus 
• The berries on a wreath represent the blood of Jesus 
• A Christingle represents all the gifts Jesus has brought to the world 

When they finished, we recapped our Learning and then we placed a candle on the map for our loved ones who we hope to see this year over the festive holidays! Huge thank to Owain and his lovely helpers for a fab and engaging session – as always! 

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Curiosity Carlos 

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Critical Thinking Chris 

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Collaborating Cora

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Article 12 – Respect for Children’s Views 

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Article 31 – Rest, Play & Culture 

Kirkcolm Primary parent council held their annual fundraising Christmas coffee morning on Saturday.

There was delicious home baking, Santat Claus, a wonderful raffle, Christmas crafts and some festive songs from the boys and girls.

In a short space of time over £1400 was raised to help fund projects to support all the boys and girls of Kirkcolm Primary. 

This was further added to with a very generous donation of £2000!  Wow!

Many thanks to all who supported this, helped or donated – what great community spirit!

UNCRC RIGHTS OF CHILD

A huge congratulations and well done to Paige Neill and Arran Farquhar who both managed to secure second place in the Active Schools Badminton competition! Paige and Arran have regularly been attending the club with Alison and have been training up their skills in the sport to smash it this week! 

A huge well done to all pupils who went and took part – it is a fab sport and a great opportunity to meet pupils from other schools! Paige came second in the P6 girls on Tuesday and Arran came second in the P7 boys on Wednesday. Here are the sporty bunch with their medals! 🏸🥈🥈

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Today we welcomed the lovely gentlemen from The Rotary Club to do some gardening with us! The Rotary Club has been working their way around all the schools in the local area to plant some purple crocuses in the playgrounds to bloom come March! This initiative has come about due to polio rates rising in warn torn countries and see a re-emersion of the illness which we have done so well in the past to wipe out.

Pupils had a wonderful time planting with the gentlemen all around the front of the school to help brighten up the grounds come Summer! This raises awareness for others and symbolises the global mission to eradicate polio by promoting vaccinations! We also learned that when vaccinations were given out, boys and girls got toys for their participation, so they used to get them to dip their fingers into purple dye to avoid double vaccinations! 💉

A fab way to spend an afternoon for a fab cause and some great chat (and sweeties…) Huge thank you to the Rotary Club to allowing us to participate with them and guiding the planting! 🌺🪻🌷

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Collaborating Cora 

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Focusing Fergus

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Article 13 – Freedom of Expression

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Today we were lucky enough to invite Frances Ross in, a clay artist, who is experienced in working with clay to deliver the FLOCK workshop to the upper class. 

This is the second year the Flock workshop has run, it is an opportunity for pupils to learn about the art of clay! Frances was able to tell the pupils all about the origins of clay and the many wide uses it has in today (e.g. our straighteners, our brakes on our cars…) 

Pupils had the chance to have a practice run with the clay making their first ‘pinch pot’ and turning it into strange looking monsters that they were able to take home (unfortunately the schools supplies do not extend to a Kiln and nobodies oven can reach 1000 degrees plus so these were not set for life and would dissolve back to nature eventually…) 

We then moved onto putting the skills to use to form a bird shell which took shape of a beak and tail feathers at either end. Pupils did a fantastic job at this – they listened so well and were able to apply their skills with ease! 

Finally, after establishing their bird shapes, they added some colour to their birds to finish them off! Frances then took these away with her to fire in a Kiln and all the bird sculptures from pupils collected over both this school year and previous were going to form an exhibition in Dumfries and Galloway where they can be viewed by many people! 

This was a great opportunity for pupils to explore a new skill and they seemed to really enjoy it! 

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Article 13 – Freedom of Expression

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This morning all of Kirkcolm Primary school once again boarded a bus (we have been busy wee bees this week! 🐝) and headed into town to the Millenium Centre! 

We were invited along to participate in a Pantomime put on by a Glasgow Company with their rendition of The Wizard of Oz! It was a fantastic modern take on the Wizard of Oz with musical numbers and a cracking modernised cast of Dorothy, the tin man, the cowardly lion and scarecrow! 🦁

Pupils really enjoyed themselves – and so did the staff – we were all particularly amused by Glinda the good witch with a very sassy edge! 🩷

A lovely treat to end the week with!

‘It was very funny!’ – Bryleigh 

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Focusing Fergus

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Article 31 – Rest, Play & Culture