Kirkcolm Primary School

Primary 5 – 7 from Kirkcolm and Portpatrick came together to take part in a Bonfire safety talk with Robert McCrorie from our local fire station.

Robert advised on how to behave responsibly with fireworks such as sparklers. Did you know that they can burn 15 times hotter than a kettle.  Robert told us to wear gloves, and safety glasses if we have them, tie hair back and don’t pick a sparkler up.  He said to put used sparklers in a bucket of sand or water.

We talked about what we can and can’t put on a bonfire.  We know not to put aerosol cans on as they can explode. Although we can use newspapers, we can’t burn magazines as they give off damaging gases.  We also can’t use straw bales as the lit stems can blow away and start a fire elsewhere. Robert told us what to do if our clothing catches fire. Ivan ably demonstrated how to Stop – Drop – Roll.

We are creating entries for the Firework Safety Competition to raise awareness of how to keep ourselves safe during the Bonfire celebrations.

Our thanks to Robert for taking the time to help us stay safe. 🙂

We learned about how to be safe, be kind and be smart with fireworks and bonfires.

UNCRC Rights of the Child – Article 29 Aims of Education

What a great trip we had to Barsolus today! Primary 7 were kindly invited to visit Gillian and the crew to learn how plants benefit humans and how farming practices work from field to fork.

Gillian explained about the seasonality of different crops and how Barsolus need to time planting of vegetables such as Brussel Sprouts perfectly so they are ready to harvest for our Christmas dinners!

Our pupils also found out how different varieties of vegetables impacts on soil health over time. As a result farmers are required to rotate crop growing on field every three years or so. We also talked about taking care not to release too much carbon from soil through the use of NPK fertilisers.

We learned about cooperative arrangements with Girvan Early Growers who rent fields from Barsolus for carrot growing.  They don’t have enough land around Girvan, so hire fields to grow and harvest their own crops.

Barsolus talked about working in more environmentally sustainable ways through the Government’s ‘greening policy’. Barsolus have chosen to interpret their green action by leaving areas to grow and develop naturally. Farmers have options on what solution they choose. Gillian also chatted about reducing the chemicals added to soil through the need to change to using less damaging types of fertiliser.

We had a game of ‘identify the veg’. The children were very knowledgeable. We then had a carrot pulling competition to see who could pick the biggest carrot. Scott chose three category winners:

Biggest carrot – Cara
Fattest carrot – Atticus
Longest carrot – Stephen

Cara was declared the supreme carrot champion.

Gillian very generously let the children fill a bag of veggie goodness to take home. There’ll be a few pots of soup on the go tonight. 🙂

Our thanks go to Wilma Benson for very ably escorting Leswalt and helping out our group.

We can’t thank Barsolus enough for a fabulous learning experience right on our doorstep!

UNCRC Rights of the Child – Article 24 Health, Food & The Environment

Maths Week Scotland 2023

The children of the North Rhins Partnership Schools got their calculating brains in gear to participate in Maths Week Scotland. Each school took part in a fantastic array of maths related a…

Go to this Sway

Why not see what we’ve been up to?  Click on the link then select play. 🙂

UNCRC Rights of the Child:

Article 29 – Aims of Education

Mr & Mrs Morrison popped into school yesterday with beautiful baby James, to visit the boys and girls. After lots of cuddles from the staff at lunch time, the pupils gathered at assembly to meet their new addition – there were lots of “Awwws” and “He’s so cute!” which he most definitely was!  Mr & Mrs Morrison were asked questions about looking after a baby, before heading home for James’ nap! It was lovely seeing them – we’re looking forward to their next visit and seeing how much baby James has grown!

Our newly appointed Eco Committee met for the first time today.

• P7 – Steven
• P6 – Ivan
• P5 – Ruby
• P4 – Cameron & Callum
• P3 – Ross
• P2 – Ewan
• P1 – Parker

After a successful interview process, our new members were happy to join us for our first meeting to agree our targets for our next Eco Flag application.  After carrying out an environmental review (environmental-review-general-KK) The group agreed that the targets we will focus on for the next two year action plan will be:

• Litter and Waste
• Global Citizenship
• Climate Action

The members were keen to get cracking and have already organised today’s litter survey in our school grounds, to be shortly followed by a litter pick as soon as possible.

Our Eco Committee members have already shown great enthusiasm and a willingness to take on responsibility.  They will visit both classes to chat about what has been agreed and discuss how everyone will have a role to play in helping us achieve our eco-friendly goals.

UNCRC Rights of the Child:

Article 12 – Respect for Children’s Views

Article 15 – Setting up or joining groups

Article 24 – Health, Water, Food & Environment

Our fabulous gardening club has kicked off with gusto for this year  with lots of ‘doing good to be green’!

Mrs Richardson is blogging the children’s activities on our Kirkcolm Primary School Parents Facebook group.  It’s great to read her updates on our pupil’s great efforts:

30/08/23 – We had a great turnout tonight of budding gardeners. We dug the potatoes up we planted earlier this year. We found some great bugs too!! Check out the chafer grub, a soil dwelling larve, common in lawns apparently. 

03/09/23 – Thank you to Mrs Richardson, Theolette Manson and Jennifer Service for coming along to help tidy up our garden area on Monday.  They made a great job of clearing and making way for new planting.

06/09/23 – We created a huge amount of waste from todays tidy up and it is a huge effort to cart it all to Stranraer tip. Instead we have created our own long term compost heap/bug haven in the woodland next to the orchard. This will help manage our own garden and teach the children about composting/recycling

We did a bit of everything at gardening club tonight and I set them homework! We hope to plant cabbages next week and slugs will be our enemy so I have asked the children to collect uncooked dried uncooked eggshells, used coffee granules and old hair from hairbrushes or hair from brushing a dog! (eek). I have asked them to bring anything collected next Wednesday (13^th Sept). I am determined to teach how to garden without chemicals! 

Keep up the great work everyone!

UNCRC Rights of the Child

• Article 15 – Setting up and joining clubs
• Article 25 – Health, water, food & environment

We’re all back to school looking that little bit taller, with our fresh hair cuts and new school clothes – teachers included! Staff were happy to welcome back old, familiar faces and some new P1 faces – Orla, Parker and Harlow, who we are sure will make fabulous additions to our Kirkcolm team 🙂

Today we spent the day getting back into routine and settling back in – by the end of the week we hope to be back into the swing of things, ploughing on with some learning 🙂

Here are some cute pics for you to enjoy!

Thanks very much to Sheila McGrory for all her hard work in making a little photobooth session come together so we could grab some memories before P7 leave us! As well as just having a bit of fun!

Big thanks to Debbie Smith for making the gowns and hats!

Thank you to Heather from the Nursery for allowing us use of the balloon arch! 

Finally – thank you to the amazing pupils and their excellent photogenic skills! 

Pupils also got to enjoy an ice cream treat after lunch courtesy of the parent council. 🙂