Kirkcolm Primary School

What a fabulous end to the term! 

The troops at Kirkcolm Primary had a fantastic day to see out the school term today and get us all into the Christmas spirit of things for the festivities that will be upon us in a matter of days now! (Well that one really snuck up on us….) 

In the morning we handed out Christmas cards tot he community that both classes made yesterday. We hope if you got a card through your door and even if you didn’t – please know that we all here at Kirkcolm wish you a very merry Christmas! 

Following that (and a wee play park stop, understandably…) we then enjoyed our Christmas Parties – filled with lots of games and prizes and a right good dancing session; we all had lots of fun! The House Captains were dearly missed during these sessions as the poor pupils had to suffer the ruthless judging of their teachers during games! 

Finally at the end of the day, both classes snuggled up as best we could with some comfy pillows and blankets/snacks and sweeties for a movie afternoon. Miss Douglas’s class were in the spirit of things watching Nativity! Miss McNicoll’s class followed up their class novel this term with watching its film adaption; Wonder. 

Finally! We have some huge, whopping thank yous to give to BOTH Leswalt and Kirkcolm community councils who have very kindly gifted both schools with some extra additional Christmas treats, a selection box AND a £20 Argos Voucher for each pupil to spend at Argos. The pupils were absolutely over the moon with these gifts and the rest of us are so pleased to see them happy and healthy and grateful at the end of another busy term! 

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! 

The boys and girls of Kirkcolm and Leswalt arrived in school today full of Christmas cheer.  Some donned those ‘oh so lovely’ Christmas jumpers to celebrate the day, some wore a bauble or two and some came with a festive smile.  We started off having class assemblies to learn about the importance of Save the Children’s Christmas Jumper day and the good work that the charity does around the world.

We were then all treated to a delicious Christmas lunch served by Anne Marie and Tricia.  The children enjoyed turkey with all the trimmings and sprouts galore followed by chocolate brownies and ice cream for dessert – yum!

Have a look at all the happy faces tucking in.

We are delighted to inform you that our wonderfully eco-friendly pupils have achieved the requirements for the RSPB School’s Wild Challenge Bronze Award.

We have now completed 6 wild activities to  become a Wild Challenge bronze award holder.   There are two categories of challenge: Helping Nature and Experiencing Nature.  Our activities range from Planting for Wildlife to Sensing the World. We care about our wildlife and our environment.

Kirkcolm Primary for Bronze

Our very motivated Eco Council have organised this blog post to request your support for their environmental initiatives.  If you are able, they would very much appreciate your help.

Click on the links to access the documents they have created.

Thank you!

Be wild

Hedgehog homes and bug hotels eco group

Here is a hedgehog home that James Turtle has made at home. It is already in position waiting on a prickly critter taking up residence in a secluded part of our grounds –  fingers cross!

James chooses a location carefully

Des Res

Thank you!

We are celebrating World Children’s Day as part of our Rights Respecting Schools award journey. This is UNICEF’s annual day of action for children, by children.  The theme this year is ” Investing in our future means investing in our children”. 

Primary 1 to 4 were, as always, super keen to be involved.  The focus we took was to think about the role children play in caring for our environment now, and in the future.

The class listened to and watched Michael Foreman’s book called Dinosaurs and All that Rubbish which has an environmental theme.

You can watch and listen here too:

Dinosaurs and All That Rubbish. Children’s Environmental Book. – YouTube

Next, the children decided to take action and write a free-flow letter to our planet earth.  They told our planet all the things that they will do to take care of our home now and in the future.  They are powerful advocates for change.

Letters to the Earth are being written by people from all over the world. Children as young as 3, parents, teachers, scientists, journalists, musicians, indigenous leaders, activists, nurses, business leaders, priests, politicians, TV presenters, artists such as Yoko Ono, authors such as Ben Okri, fashion designers such as Vivienne Westwood, and more.  These are being shared on this website, if you would like to find out more:

Home | Letters to the Earth

We hope you enjoy our letters:

# Responsible Citizens

Couldn’t quite believe my eyes when I opened the door to welcome all these top class athletes into the school this morning! The boys and girls made a super effort today of dressing up in their sportiest clothing and we saw a range of different sports represented from the ever popular rugby and football to horse riders!

Over the week you may of noticed the odd Pudsey ear or wrist band floating about, that is because our House Captains have been ultra dedicated to selling merchandise to help raise funds! In addition to this, pupils have ran a ‘Guess The Name of the Bear’ competition for the chance to win a cuddly wee companion.

A huge thank you to all the kind donations towards the Bring n’ Buy afternoon – we are all astounded at the generosity from everyone in bringing in bits and pieces to sell on for others – this also fed in well to our Eco Plan where we are promoting the reuse and recycling of everything – toys included! Another successfully ran enterprise by our astounding team of House Captains across both Leswalt and Kirkcolm – thank you Miley, Taylor & co who all lent a hand!

Finally, each pupils contribution for putting their all into completing a whopping 5 round of Joe Wicks 5 minute exercise videos (I think we can all remember the intensity of these from the lockdown days….!) The whole school absolutely smashed it, with the upper class going that extra mile fitting in an additional 20 minute live workout this morning! 

Altogether we managed a grand total of £197.63 which is absolutely astounding for such a wee school out in the countryside! It means so much to a school that promotes the Rights of the Child and Global Goals as part of their ethos to be able to take part so enthusiastically on a day like today and even more to absolutely smash it out the park with our generosity!

Here are some photos of todays fun…

As COP26 has now drawn to a close, we are pleased to share a snapshot of our recent related learning projects across the North Rhins Partnership.

Our children are always so enthusiastic to do their bit to help protect our environment and to contribute towards global goals.

Click on the link below and select play in the top right.  🙂

# Responsible Citizens

# Effective Contributors

North Rhins Partnership

Leswalt Primary pupils have kept up-to-date with COP 26 in school . The pupils talked about how their recent Learning for Sustainability work, and the plans of the Eco-Committee, link to th…

Go to this Sway

Another addition to our Book Week Scotland celebrations was the much anticipated arrival and gifting of the Read, Write, Count bags! These bags have been lovingly made up by the folks up in Edinburgh to give the little ones in our school access to games and stories to help bring on their learning and make it enjoyable!

We hope you have all had some time to explore these at home and try out some of the fun activities included, you can see from their wee faces in these photos that they were overjoyed with their haul!

How great it was to see some odd socks worn today in support of the start of Anti-Bullying Week! So many boys and girls came in today showing their support in the fight to quash bullying all over the world.

We discussed the meaning behind odd socks and what we are trying to say with this statement in schools. To support individuality and acknowledge that it is our differences that make us and nobody should be judged for standing out!

We looked at the focus of this years week; One Kind Word and the in line with their health and wellbeing topic about friends and relationships we celebrated the friendships we have in class and each wrote something kind about all of our classmates.

Now we all have something to take home and look at to make us smile. What a kind bunch we are!

A very sustainable start to the morning! Today all of Kirkcolm gathered together in the upper classroom to watch a live lesson from the lovely gentlemen and creators of The 3 Engineers Company!

https://www.the3engineers.com/

Jon, Matt and Nick spoke a little about what they do as engineers and what the purpose of this lesson was – raising awareness about issues to do with sustainability.

They spoke about the books for children they help create which address areas of sustainability and how we can be eco conscious and help prevent climate change and pollution!

This was a great opportunity for the pupils to listen to engineers at work and feel inspired by their jobs and skill set, as well as getting to hear a lovely story about a young girl called Scout and her quest to save the world a little bit at a time! 🙂