Kirkcolm Primary School

Our very responsible pupils joined with their community to pay respects to the sacrifices of others on Remembrance Day.

Senior pupils attended a service with Reverent Burl, Councillor Willie Scobie and other community members.  Prayers were shared and a lone piper marked the end of  a minute’s silence.

The children read a Remembrance Day senses poem to the gathering before Olivia presented a poppy stem to ‘Tommy’.  Tommy is a silhouette figure that has been mounted on the lamp post adjacent to the village entrance.  It is hoped he will be a permanent fixture to greet those arriving into our village.

The remainder of the school walked up to the village war memorial to pay their respects there. Breagh and Oliver read a poem for all to reflect upon.  The children also marked the 1 minute silence.

Lest We Forget!

In line with COP26 happening this week on our very own home soil and what with this school being a massive promoter of being Eco friendly and learning for sustainability – it seemed only right we dedicated a whole afternoon on learning all about the purpose of COP26 this year and applying our own genius brains to solving the problem that is Climate Change!

We discussed what COP26 was and what we hoped the purpose of this weekend would be from all the nations involved. The boys and girls were very clued up from several inputs with Miss Whorlow and lot’s of Newsround.

We then watched this excellent video by BP Educational services, which not only highlighted the damage that climate change is doing, but showed us all the inspirational things that are happening all over the world in a bid to start tackling this issue and to reach that Net-Zero goal for our carbon emissions.

This got us inspired and we split off into small groups to make our own posters which showed the different ways we thought our own community could move towards being net-zero!

We are lucky at Kirkcolm to have such caring and eco-aware pupils that truly care about their environment and the world around them and they really showcased these skills today!

On Thursday we were lucky enough to have a Teams meeting input from the lovely Stacey who is Financial Capability Officer at Money Talks Scotland. This was an exciting opportunity for the pupils to chat and learn form people form outside agencies.

Stacey had a fab and interactive presentation which got the pupils thinking about what sort of things we ‘need‘ to spend money on and what are the more frivolous things our money goes on. I must say, I was very impressed and proud of the answers they were coming up – quite the savvy’ lot! 

We then took a quiz and had to figure out what the average price was for certain things across the whole of Scotland, this looked at rent, food shop and they’re on hobbies and we quickly realised just how much these things can add up! 

On a final note, we discussed ways we could act to keep our financial costs down and once again the pupils were filled with great ideas – very resourceful. Some of these included growing our own food or making our own clothes or cutting down on takeaways throughout the month. 

It was a great input and we are very glad for Stacey to make the time for us, the pupils proved themselves a money smart bunch! 

… Still couldn’t quite guess how much the average house was though! Something to come back to later in the year! £100?? If only! 

Our combined Eco Committees received a visit from Dumfries and Galloway Councillors Ros Surtees (Vice Chair of Education and Learning Committee) and Dougie Campbell (Environment Champion) yesterday.

Ms Surtees and Mr Campbell are keen to encourage schools throughout the region to become Eco Schools just like ours.  They have heard of the North Rhins Partnership’s good work in this area and wanted the opportunity to talk to our children as to how we have made being Eco schools so successful.  They hope to use our example as a model to promote others to participate in this very important award scheme.  It couldn’t be  more timely with COP26 very much on everyone’s agenda.

The children had a wealth of ideas and suggestions to share.  The councillors praised everyone for their passion and enthusiasm, saying what an inspiration and credit they are to us all. Olivia presented a PowerPoint message that she had created in her own time.  This was filled with strategies and tips we can all take onboard at home to help protect the planet. Aiden gave the message of the day when asked what he would say to schools that think they are too busy for Eco Schools, he replied, “You are never too busy for the world!”

Here are our responsible citizens engaged in purposeful discussion.

Have a look at Olivia’s presentation for yourselves here:

Eco Presentation – Copy

They really are our own ENVIRONMENT CHAMPIONS!

Today, as you are all probably well aware, we have had a very spooky afternoon here at Kirkcolm Primary. The pupils got dressed up, there was a significant amount of fake blood, face paint, some witches hat (home made and store bought) and even a make shift table!?

The children had a blast playing lots of different games in the hall this afternoon and splitting their time between that and some wholesome classic activities like your dunkin’ for apples in the classroom.

As you can see from the photos, they all had a great time and there was many a prize won across the 2 classes!

A huge big massive colossal thank you to the lovely House Captains of Leswalt and Kirkcolm for organising all this fun! You all did a fantastic job and we couldn’t be prouder of all the time and commitment you have poured into it all 🙂

Miley, Malcolm & Breagh – House Captain Extraordinaires

We are delighted to announce that the North Rhins Partnership of Leswalt, Kirkcolm and Portpatrick Primary schools have been awarded national recognition in Education Scotland’s annual Learning for Sustainability awards.

Having been shortlisted, we achieved a Highly Commended accolade within the Sustainability Learning Community Award category. This is an outstanding achievement, having competed against early learning, childcare, and school settings across the whole of Scotland.

The awards recognise the commitment, professionalism and leadership that underpins Scotland’s success in innovating for Learning for Sustainability within educational settings.  Within Scotland’s curriculum, Learning for Sustainability (LfS) is recognised as an entitlement for all learners and a recent international study showed that our learners are world-leading global citizens.  The award is timely with the upcoming COP26 summit taking place in Glasgow in November.

The aim is to help us all recognise the amazing achievements of Scotland’s people and the settings, schools and communities that have demonstrated passion and commitment to building a socially-just, sustainable and equitable world.

The North Rhins Partnership was required to demonstrate our whole school/partnership approach that encourages individual and collective action to promote Learning for Sustainability.  This incorporated many factors such as supporting Global Goals, the UNCRC Rights of the Child, Rights Respecting Schools, Eco Schools and our strong pupil voice,; both within our school settings and as part of contributing to our wider community.  We are doing our bit to develop independent learners, effective contributors, confident individual and responsible citizens for the future!

As you may of heard from the thrilling math activities your children have reported home about, this week was a bit of a special one; it was Math Week Scotland! We took the opportunity to do away with our regular proceedings for the week and inspire the pupils by reminding them just how important math is in our day to day lives!

Math in Movement 

P1-4 celebrated math by combining it with their P.E – they measured certain movements and actions using standard and non standard units of measure!

P4-7 used navigation and compasses to ‘move’ their way from the school to the Church by recording their directional changes and steps along the way!

Math in Bake Off

P1-4 decided to apply their math measuring skills to making some culinary treats for the school in the form of some Banana Loaf Muffins! They used measuring skills to make their cake batter and then recorded how long it took to bake.

P4-7 applied their cooking skills to pizza and after watch a NFU live lesson about how we source our pizza ingredients (with a lovely live cow birth thrown in there as well!) we then used our knowledge of fractions and measure to make our pizzas.

Maths at Work

P1-4 were looking at using money and how shop keepers exchange money for goods at shops. They had fun getting to grips with recognising the different coins and designing their own menus.

P4-7 were looking at how we use numeracy in different jobs with Mrs Ramsay, exploring different STEM Ambassadors and the role numeracy plays in their day to day work. They even had a shot at dealing with their own budgets as Rollercoaster Tycoons CEO’s.

Fun Math Roadshow 

On Thursday, the entire school was treated to an input from the Fun Math Roadshow Crew. They got to grips with lot’s of problem solving activities and showed some real resilience in getting to the bottom of these math problems! Thank you very much to the D&G STEM team for coming in to deliver this session to the pupils across our wee Trio!

For our final Math Week day, we couldn’t say no to such a bright and sunny day amidst all this rain so both classes joined forces and ventured outside for a Math Nature Trail in the school grounds. It was a lovely wee math activity that really got them thinking and it was the ideal way to round out the fabulous week of learning!

As part of our Local and National Government topic, today we welcomed Aimee Dobie, the UK Parliament Outreach Education Officer.  We linked our activity to the UNCRC Rights of the Child and DYW (Developing the Young Workforce).

This built on the visits from Emma Currie, who spoke about her experiences with the Scottish Youth Parliament, Caroline Schofield who delivered a session from the Scottish Parliament and the work we have done in class this term. We have had a very busy and informative time!

Aimee had created a fun, informative PowerPoint to tell us more about the role of the UK Parliament and she also had a video message (created just for us!) from Alister Jack who is the MP for Dumfries and Galloway and the Secretary of State for Scotland.

We chatted about the skills required to be an MP (linking these to Employability Skills) , the importance of Parliament – why it is important- and what we can do to help our class and community now and in the future. The children learned how our laws are there to support us for our social and economic health; such as in education, healthcare and employment (UNCRC Article 26). Additionally, we learned about the cross section of experts that are invited to sit in the House of Lords from different career specialisms and industries; representing a diversity of backgrounds, cultures and genders. We also talked about how this linked to our very own Pupil Council and Eco Committee. Democracy at Primary School level (Article 15 – setting up and joining groups).

Many thanks to Aimee for an informative afternoon!

The upper class of Kirkcolm has been lucky enough this year to have the gentlemen from Wigtownshire Rugby Club coming to our school again to deliver some taster sessions in Rugby for the boys and girls!

Many of the pupils in the class already attend rugby training on the Sunday and it is a very popular sport in our wee school community. The boys and girls got to grips were certain games to practise their touch rugby skills and with a few more sessions ahead of them they will have plenty of time to develop their skills and we can build up to a proper wee game!

If any of the boys and girls would like to pursue this or feel they have found their passion – Rugby takes place every Sunday is the ruby park on London Road. There will be a taster session on Sunday the 3rd of October!

A warm welcome to the new found Eco Committe this year who will work hard and tirelessly to keep up our Eco School status, maintain that green flag and keep this school looking and feeling green and fresh!

Our committees have already done so much work in maintaining the litter issues in the playground and looking into different ways we as a small school and community can make a difference in our own way and we are all excited to see what they are in store to achieve this year…

The full gang altogether…