Kirkcolm Primary School

Thanks to Miss Whorlow, we were very lucky to welcome in Scott and Belle in association with the Scottish Youth Film Festival, promoting all aspects of film making with the P6/7 pupils across all the schools in the trio!

We spent the first half of the day exploring the theory behind film making,. Pupils learned about different genres of films, the purpose of film in evoking different emotions in us and different roles in making a film! (editor, director, producer, film crew, animators, actors of course…) There are 3 core ‘C’s and ‘S’s in film;

Camera                                   Story

Characters                             Sound

Colour                                    Setting

The pupils had to put their senses to good use by listening to movie clip sounds and trying to place what could be happening – clues to the setting and explore the different emotions it made them feel. We also explored other film clips (famously Star Wars!) to see how these 6 aspects of film are put to use in this clip and their importance.

We look at character development, different shots you can get in film and put our knowledge to the test in a quiz at the end! This brought the theory part of the day to an end and then pupils proceeded to get stuck in…

Pupils split into different groups to undertake their own filming challenged. Using iMovie on the iPad’s, each group was given a word to try and evoke in their own short film. Pupils had to think of what kind of shot they would use for this and put together their film so others could guess their word! 

This gave them a great opportunity to get a bit more creative and hands on using iMovie to edit together different clips! Definitely something we will be using moving forward. 

We cannot thank Belle and Scott enough for making the long journey down to us to deliver this session with the pupils! Pupil’s already raved at the end about what a good time they had and it’s been a great chance to continue to develop their STEM skills and perhaps even promote a career in film making! We may have young Speilbergs with us yet…?!

Everyone dressed up in their festive finery this afternoon for our annual Christmas party. House Captains, James and Noah, had planned lots of fun games for everyone to enjoy including: musical arms, wrap the snowman, pass the present and Christmas corners. We had a wee pitstop half way through to refuel on juice and crisps, before we were off again!

A special visitor even made an appearance at the party – we didn’t know if he’d have time to stop by given how busy he is at Christmas, but our chorus of Jingle Bells seemed to catch his attention! Santa very kindly brought a present for everyone and chatted to the boys and girls about what they had asked him for, for Christmas.

We finished off our party with a best dancer competition, with Rory and Rebecca having the best moves!

As part of the schools ongoing promotion of transition and partnership working, the tiny tots of the nursery came down to visit P1-4 in class for a wee transition morning decorating cookies for Christmas.

Boys and girls got to see what is soon to become some of their new classroom next school year and spend some time with the lovely Miss Douglas and their peers! 

As you can see from the photos, it was a very successful afternoon with some excellent cookies to show for their efforts! Well done troops! 

How lucky were we to be invited along to get to see Leswalt’s Christmas performance in the Village Hall yesterday!

We all took the bus over, got to see their lovely new school and go along to their concert and WOW – what a spectacle of the hard work the staff and pupils have put in over there!

We thoroughly enjoyed ‘Who Took All the Loo Roll’ – the singing was top notch and the acting was fantastic! We are very much inspired now to take on the return of our own school show next term! 

What a roaring success our Reverse Advent Calendar was this year! Once again, the donations have been generous and the box got filled up very quickly ready to be collected today! 

Alison Graham who works for Apex, based in Stranraer, came in to speak to learners about all the good work Apex does in supporting people in these difficult times. Alison was able to highlight to pupils the importance that their generosity can bring to others and outline some of the other good work that Apex involve themselves in with supporting those of us in need. 

This was great as it really put it into context the entire reason we try to promote these things in school to the pupils and made them even prouder of their contributions! 

Here are some photos of Alison and our House Captains with a fairly heavy and very full box ready to go! 

The younger pupil’s Feis Ros input has come to an end (for this term anyway!)

Pupils have had 8 weeks of learning and singing songs in class, lead by the fab people of Feis Ros. Pupils got to have a bit of fun before we break up for Christmas by being treated to some live music and Ceilidh dancing! 

Thanks very much to Feis Ros for these inputs and we look forward to welcoming them back in the new term. 

A huge thank you to Stranraer Community Council for their generous gifts to the pupils here at Kirkcolm! Eyes lit up when they saw these giant chocolate bars and safe to say, there were no refusals! 

Thank you to Alan Jenkins for running these out to us! 

Today we were happy to welcome Owain back into the upper school class for another installation of Christmas Unwrapped! This is a fab wee input for the pupils that looks into the Nativity story and explores all the information that might have been misconstrued over the years! 

This was a great hands on session for the pupils. They explored the Christmas story through a lot of active games and quizzes which has them working together and using their critical thinking skills. It culminated with a lovely art task in which pupils design their own Christmas tiles. 

We are very much loving being able to call the expert back in to help the pupils with their learning, and this has been yet another great example of it!

We were also very luck to have had our Christmas lunch today to get into the spirit of things but unfortunately through the insane haste of cracker pulling and turkey cutting, we didn’t manage to get any photos! Please forgive us – we will be better! 😳 We cannot thank Michelle enough for cooking up such a tasty feast and parents for the donations of crackers to pull – I am sure you will enjoy hearing those top jokes over the weekend!

The nursery pupils took to the stage this afternoon for their first Christmas performance to parents and family members since 2019, pre-covid! After taking to the stage and waving (and shouting!) at all the familiar faces in the audience, Nursery pupils sang some Christmas songs that they have been working hard to learn, aided by P5-7 pupils who narrated the Christmas story.

P1-4 and P5-7 then took turns to entertain everyone with their Christmas songs, with the performance culminating in a Christmas medley that the Nursery pupils joined in with.

It was a lovely afternoon and so nice to see everyone back in the building, sharing in the children’s achievements!

Pupils completed their final Sound Trap input of this session and wow – what a fantastic digital learning time it has been! Pupils have been developing their sound engineering skills with the guidance and help from Mr John Dinning and I, for one, am truly in awe of what they have produced. 

From music to this final sessions Podcast input – they have excelled themselves. They have learnt great teamworking skills and leadership qualities over these past few sessions and it was put to great use today! 

We cannot thank Mr Dinning enough for everything he has done with us over this past 4 weeks. We will certainly ensure to make as much use of these free accounts as we can and keep your eyes (and ears) peeled for our sessions making their way onto Spotify!