Kirkcolm Primary School

Today, in light of the big event this weekend with the Kings Coronation, we felt it only right to treat pupils a fun day celebrating the upcoming Coronation of King Charles!

The day was jam packed! We began our day by learning about the formed Prince of Wales and his rise to the title of King! We watched an educational video on this and discussed how he was about to take on such a big role at the age of 73 (when most people retire!) Pupils knowledge then got put to the test in a King Charles Quiz where we teamed up the big with the wee. 

Then we had break time and after that we welcome Ansley McClure from Kirkcolm Community Trust into the school to present pupils with little Coronation teddies and mugs to commemorate the event in history! The generosity of the Trust is always welcomed and pupils were extremely grateful for their wee mementos. 

Then we had the nursery join us for some flag designing! Pupils were split into groups ranging from the teeny 2 year olds to the towering 12 year olds with a single objective – create your own red, white and blue flag design! They were given a variety of different materials to use and what huge amounts of creativity that we saw from all the school. Watching them all work together was lovely! Miss Gordon then came through to select the most creative flag and the winners were awarded with some chocolate – ofcourse!

After that we sat down to enjoy our buffet lunch prepared by Michelle and what a spread she put on for us! From goujons to sandwiches and wraps. Pupils were stuffed to the brim but managed to finish off their meal with a lovely chocolate muffin with some very patriotic icing. 

Next on the agenda was making crowns with our nursery cohort, children put their best colouring skills to the test and designed some beautiful crowns which we mounted to their wee heads! Just in time for their end of day song performance… 

A rendition of the Lion King’s ‘I Just Can’t Wait to be King!‘ – keeping in the spirit of things! 

We have had such a fun day today and it has been so fab getting to link up with the boys and girls of the nursery with transition coming up soon! We hope you all enjoy your long weekend and we will see you all fresh faced on Tuesday! 

We are delighted to announce we have been awarded our RSPB Wild Challenge Gold Award for our hard work supporting biodiversity in our school environment.

Our children completed a total of 18 challenges to Help Nature and Experience Nature , all of which promotes Learning for Sustainability, Sustainable Development Goals, outdoor learning and good health and wellbeing!

Feedback from the RSPB –  Congratulations on achieving your Gold Wild Challenge award! You have done so much during your Wild Challenge Journey to help and experience nature. Thank you for your amazing efforts. This accolade is only provided to schools who achieve our highest level of Wild Challenge.

We can now proudly display our Gold accolade for all to see.

Well done everyone!

# Effective Contributors & Responsible Citizens

UNCRC Rights of the Child Article 24 – Health, Water, Food and the Environment

Sustainable Development Goal 3 – Good Heath & Wellbeing, 13 – Life on Land

Our Primary 4 pupils were invited to participate in an Earth Day workshop at the Ryan Centre.  Along with pupils from our cluster schools, the children watched videos to learn more about alternative energies from wind turbines. They learned how blades are manufacturing, the role of blade technicians and how this all links to more sustainable energy sources.

The chidren then took part in a team exercise to build a model wind turbine from paper.  They also connected a motor powered by our breaths to light an led as a clean energy source.

# Responsible Citizens

UNCRC Rights of the Child  Article 29- Aims of Education

Sustainable Development Goal 12 – Responsible Consumption & Production

Sustainable Development Goal 13 – Climate Action

The DG Schools STEM Showcase for 2023 is now live.

We are proud to say that the North Rhins Partnership has been highlighted for our excellent learning in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths.

Click here or scan the QR code below to access a Thinklink to view our good work.  All you need to then do is click on the red hotspots for our school locations to access the content. You can also explore what has been happening in schools across the region in all things STEM.

# Rights of the Child 29 – Aims of Education

Pupils will be coming home very knowledgeable today about all things teeth and dental care related!

We had a lovely visit from Megan Bark, the Dental Health Officer, with the NHS initiative to help promote tooth brushing and good dental hygiene in schools. Megan was able to tell pupils all about the correct tooth brushing habits and help promote the reasons we brush our teeth in schools in addition to all the brushing they do at home! Megan was able to speak to both classes today and even got the puppets involved with the little people!

I must say – our pupils are very vigilant about their tooth brushing and have been doing a great job staying on top their dental care – let’s hope they keep it up! 

Despite the windy forces at work today, 11 hardy P5-7’s took themselves off to run the annual school’s cross country competition out at Green Valley today! We had glorious sunshine, slightly over shadowed by some harsh headwinds (or excellent tail winds if you are facing the right way…?) 

Pupils waited patiently for the schools to gather and then the races began, every single pupil tried their absolute best and the most evident thing to myself and the other members of staff was the team work the Kirkcolm pupils displayed – cheering each other on as loudly as they could! 

We had a tremendous victory from a rather small girl – in the form of our own Phoebe Manson who has proved that long legs don’t always win the race! Phoebe secured third place in the p5 girls race and earned herself a medal at the prize giving! 

A well done to all pupils for taking part and supporting each other and an extra special well done to Phoebe for her victory today! 

What a fabulous way to end the term with a musical jaunt out to the Ryan Centre! 

P5-7 attended a Music for All show put on by Stranraer Music for All as a means of exposing pupils to the wide range of instruments and trying to engage and inspire them using music!

We picked up our Leswalt friends and got a bus down to the theatre and assumed our seats to be delighted by various brass instruments, we heard a French Horn, a Trombone, a Trumpet and various other instruments. 

We learned how conductors orchestrate a band and some of us even had to go up and be our own conductors to the musicians there! Finally we used clapping to become the instruments and it was amazing seeing the effect the music could have when you changed certain sections pitch and tone! 

Overall, a lovely afternoon had out and a lovely way to end this term of hard work! 

The pupils headed out into the community today armed with bags and litter pickers to take part in the annual Spring Clean, ran by Keep Scotland Beautiful. Half of the school went into the village and the other half headed down to the beach, kindly supported by some parents who gave up their time to accompany us. Pupils found all sorts – from sweetie wrappers and plastic bottles, to rope and some glass. Some even managed a quick pit stop at the park to reward their efforts!

Our responsible citizens collected a grand total of 3 full binbags of rubbish from around the community to help make it look tidier. We entered our results into the Spring Clean League which all local schools are participating in as part of an inter-schools competition.  We are pleased to announce we achieved third place for the Scotland South region (D&G and Scottish Borders)!

Check out our pupils sporting their high-vis vests below!

P1-3 have been busy learning how to say various foods in French as part of their Modern Language topic. To round up the topic, pupils got the opportunity to taste some typical French foods today, including croissants, pain au chocolat, macarons, eclairs, crepes and … SNAILS!! (Or Escargot to give it it’s proper French name!).

Unsurprisingly, the majority of the pastries were given a score of 10/10, and the macarons were a big hit too! However, the same can’t be said for the snails – “disgusting,” “horrid,” and “they stink” were the general comments used to describe them! Most pupils used their cocktail stick to get the snail out of it’s shell, but most only gave it a lick before deciding it wasn’t for them! We did have 3 pupils who ate their snail though, and 1 who came back for seconds as it was apparently “so delicious!”

Have a keek below at the photos to see the fun the pupils had today!