Kirkcolm Primary School

Today we have been truly blessed with quite possibly one of the sunniest days for Sports Day we have seen yet – helps to make up for the fact we didn’t get a look in for one last year!

The pupils were fighting fit, fueled and watered and ready to go and we all have an absolute blast of a day! Every single boy and girl did their best and showed great sportsmanship. It was a lovely addition to have Leswalt pupils join us for Sports Day and definitely gave the pupils some added competition…

It was such a shame that we couldn’t invite family to this event but as you can see, myself and Mrs F from Leswalt were extremely snap happy for the occasion so we hope you can spot your wee person in these photos having a good time and doing their best!

Results are to follow tomorrow after the lovely ladies of the office are done tallying it all up…

Our children were treated to an open air musical concert performed by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra today.

Everyone sat outdoors in the fresh air whilst six musicians played new and familiar tunes for the children on a range of instruments.  The boys and girls were asked to identify and name the instruments and tunes whilst learning more about the instruments themselves. There was an oboe, a bassoon, a clarinet, a bass, a violin and a range of percussion instruments used in the recital.

There were tunes ranging from The Teddy Bear’s Picnic to The Hall of the Mountain King.  Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the performance and  agreed it was a such lovely experience.  Our thanks go to RSNO for travelling all this way to share their music with us.  It certainly made us all smile on a Thursday afternoon.

d

As part of our Eco Schools this plan, we have been looking at caring for our green space around us. Here at Kirkcolm, we are truly blessed with amazing grounds but with that comes great responsibility! Our gardens and bushes can have a tendency to really ‘shoot up’ when we aren’t looking so we have had to call in reinforcements in the form of Mrs Richardson who is a keen and knowledgeable gardener equipped to help us tackle the playground!

Mrs Richardson will be stopping by on Wednesday afternoons to assist the boys and girls with the tidy up and already they have made a great big dent in some of the overgrown bushes and planters! We dug up our daffodils to plant elsewhere, we found leeks and spring onions growing that we have passed onto Anne Marie and we have started a big ole compost heap! (that’s still missing a cover so if anybody has any old carpet cut offs or an old rug can you please let us know!)

A big thank you to Mrs Scott, a Leswalt mummy, who also joined the boys and girls on Wednesday afternoon to lend a much needed hand!

Hope the start of some very stunning playing areas through all the hard work of the boys and girl!

Here are some photos of the boys and girls hard at work in the sun…

We had a fantastic turnout for this year’s Kirkcolm 51st annual fundraising mini walk on Saturday.

Pupils and families from all three schools were invited to participate to help support their schools. There were entrants from nursery age to adults walking the 7.37km route together; some competitively and some just for fun.

First, second and third places are awarded for the boys and girls completing the course in the quickest time.  The results are as follows:

Boys:

1. George Keith – Kirkcolm P6
2. Danny Dougan – Kirkcolm P4
3. Ivan Turtle – Kirkcolm P3

Girls:

1. Ruth Turtle – Kirkcolm P7
2. Olivia Turtle – Kirkcolm P6
3. Izzy White – Portpatrick P6

The route followed along the Corsewall Estate Coastal Path. A very well done to everyone who walked or ran the course!

There has been a fantastic response to the fundraising effort; with each school hitting their target! The money will be put to very good use for each school to give children enjoyable experiences after a difficult year.

Our grateful thanks go out to so many people who helped organise and support the event:

• Our parents and families who planned and organised the mini-walk
• The Carrick-Buchanan and Milroy family for their kind  permission to walk on their land
• The volunteer  marshals
• Lidl and Tesco  for the donation of refreshments
• The Free Press who covered the event
• and to ALL the children and families who fundraised and participated to raise money for our three fantastic wee schools!  We applaud each and every one of you who took part.

Have a look at the fabulous photos courtesy of Jemima Johnstone.  See you next year! 🙂

Just to say a big thank you to all the families that donated shoe boxes to the pupils in P4-7 – thanks to you, we were able to create our diorama cut out view of the Titanic and I just thought we would share it here with you since we can’t have you in school to witness it in the flesh! 

The boys and girls worked very hard to make these and showed their usual creative flair for tasks and I am sure you can agree they have done an excellent job…

Did you know that May is National Share a Story  month?

This is an annual celebration of the power and magic of storytelling. Organised by the Federation of Children’s Book Groups, it is a wonderful opportunity for families to share stories and books.

Spending just 10 minutes a day reading and sharing stories with children can make a crucial difference to their future plus it’s a lovely thing to do!

World Book Day are offering free Share A Story resources to help you join in including a Share A Story Reading Stars game, top tips for sharing stories, book review templates.

This year’s theme is Myths, Magic and Mayhem.

Here are some suggested reading titles for you:

• Mythical Book Suggestions
• Magic Book Suggestions 
• Mayhem Book Suggestions

Why not encourage your child to create their own mythical beast for this year’s competition! Click here for competition details.  The closing dates is the 1st of June, 2021.

Pupil Council Members thought it would be a good idea to share a digital library of books you might like to read together at home.

WBD-whole school digital-library

After a suggestion from Pupil Council members, Luke B and Calder, we enjoyed a session of story sharing together to read for pleasure. Have a look at the lovely time the children had reading together.

We earned our Share A Story Certificates!

What a brilliant day out the North Rhins P7s enjoyed at Galloway Activity Centre on Friday! This was organised as a special treat as they had missed their last two residentials – and what a fabulous time they had together before they head off to S1 at Stranraer Academy.

Thankfully the high winds and rain of Thursday had abated and Friday dawned dry and reasonably bright. We met at Port Rodie and clambered upon the minibus to head down the road to Loch Ken.

Once there, we got kitted up with our laser guns and headsets for our first activity. Diving in and out of the wooden hides (and in Mrs F’s case headfirst over a tree trunk!) the teams worked to avoid being ‘killed’ by the opposition. Strategy meetings were held, tactics discussed and rounds of ‘ammo’ were fired… and yes the teachers were shot! All good fun. The teachers went from being quite cool and mature to being VERY into this game! Why had I never played this before? Highly recommended!

Next up, the children donned their wetsuits (many comedy moments were had with Mr Cloy from Leswalt!) and enjoyed a session of kayaking. They were naturals! Once they were kayaked-out, the suggested dare from Instructors Rob and Hannah to jump off the the end of the pontoon was met with great cheers all round. The phrase ‘drowned rats’ comes to mind as they all padded back up towards the centre to get changed into dry clothes.

A quick bite of lunch and it was time for the climbing wall and zipwire with instructors Rob and Ben. What a bunch of adrenaline seekers we have! Superb climbing and ‘zipping’! The offer was then there for those who wanted to have a 2nd,3rd and even 4th shot of the climbing wall. Even a few of us scaredy cats managed to drag ourselves up that wall and face our fears!

We thanked Rob, Hannah and Ben for a great activity day and climbed aboard the bus to head to Castle Douglas for a bite to eat. Chip-shop dinners in hand, we stopped the bus by Carlingwark Loch and munched our tasty suppers, before heading back along the A75 towards home.

The kids were an absolute pleasure to be with, the activities were fantastic fun and the chip-shop tea rounded off a perfect day out! Just check out our pictures below to see for yourselves….Click on the images to enlarge. 🙂

Mrs Ferguson & Miss McNicoll

Today we had a lovely day in the sun celebrating outdoor learning. Now this day normally falls on a Thursday but the clever Mrs F from Leswalt smartly pointed out that the weather forecast is absolutely dreadful for tomorrow so we thought we would just bring the celebrations a day forward so we could get our shorts on and enjoy the sunshine here at Kirkcolm!

Both classes spent the majority of the day outside in the sunshine! Miss Douglas’s P1-4 spent their morning down by the shore ALL the way up to lunch time starting with investigating symmetry and patterns using shells and then looking at measure and some very creative ways to measure down the beach! Next for literacy they got stuck into their Viking topic by writing secret messages in Viking code on the beach! So if you spot some runes on the beach… Good luck trying to work out what they say! After lunch they looked at light and shadows and created some beautiful chalk figures to show their silhouettes cast by their shadows and they they finished off the day with a good ole game of rounders in the sunshine!

P4-7 had the lovely Mrs McIllwraith in class with them all day, in the morning they went outside in the playground to draw some shapes of varying difficulty and size to investigate perimeter and area! The younger ones looked at how many leaves could cover the area of their shape while the older ones were looking at working out the exact area of different shapes and then they extended this to other items in the playground! For literacy we continued the work we had been doing on description and took it down to the beach to see how the natural surroundings of Kirkcolm could inspire us to write about the different senses we are experiencing. Finally, in the afternoon we got to grips with some rugby training…

See below for the photos of this sunny day well spent! 

On the 19th of May, National Numeracy Day 2021 will help the nation, at work, home and school get ‘number confident’.

National Numeracy empowers children and adults to get on with numbers so they can achieve number success and manage numbers in everyday life.

This event is the UK’s only annual day dedicated to everyday maths. This year, the event is a unique virtual festival and will be packed full of practical advice from celebrities and experts, inspirational stories from real-life learners and a host of free online events and resources.

Why not check out this Sway to find out how to take part?  Simply click on ‘play’ when it launches.

North Rhins National Numeracy Day

The National Numeracy Day 2021 features three themes crucial to the nation’s wellbeing:

Go to this Sway

As part of ‘I Love Nurses Day’ the pupils of Kirkcolm were kindly asked to participate on some poster drawing celebrating all the hard work the nurses of the NHS do for us, especially in this past year!

The boys and girls drew up some poster on Wednesday to show their appreciation for our nurses and as a special reward, they were given some healthy fruit in return! So, it was a Fruity Friday all round here at Kirkcolm today!

Here is a photo of some of the boys and girls with their poster designs and whats left of the fruit after the whole school have had a good tuck in already! Feeling very happy and healthy here at Kirkcolm Primary

Thank you Julie Currie for the opportunity