Kirkcolm Primary School

The upper class have been studying WW2 and as part of their topic they had to pick an area we looked at and crate their own personal project on it, and well… One pupil really went the extra mile! 

Young James Turtle CREATED this piece of work, it is a zeplin based on the type you would have seen being used in WW2 and created it in his own work shop entirely out of recycled wood from pallets! 

I am sure you will all agree with me that he has a bright future ahead of him in carpentry and get your orders in now! 

Well done to our P7 pupils who dazzled at the Curling Bonspiel on Monday! Pupils headed down to the North West Castle, kindly escorted by parent Lucy, to participate in some curling fun and engage in a bit of competition. 

There met up with Portpatrick, Leswalt, Sandhead, Sheuchan, Park, Belmont and Rephad teams and our wee buddies at Kirkcolm managed to swing second place!

With the outcome being; 

1st: Rephad 

2nd: Kirkcolm 

3rd: Sheuchan

Pupils also got a tasty lunch at the North West castle for their hard work and we hope this has inspired some of them to take up the sport themselves in their own free time to make use of the great resources we have here in this wee corner of Scotland! 

The second place winners; 

On Friday we got ourselves all sorted out with an early lunch to then head down to the Ryan Centre for a film afternoon! The film afternoon was courtesy of the folk at Intu Film, who kindly came in and did a session with the upper school on film making not long ago. 

We got snuggled up in the cosy theatre to watch Tad the Explorer and the Curse of the Mummy! We had a fab time and it was lovely to see some familiar faces from our partnership schools there! 

A lovely day to come back to and a chance to celebrate all things literature! Today was kindly organised by Olivia from Pupil Council and our two hard working librarians; Archie & Marley, who all worked hard to come up with come activities to help us celebrate World Book Day! 

They ran a character design competition which saw Ivan and Paige come out on top! As well as that, we drew a raffle for anybody who manage to take an accelerated reading test today which had Steven take winning place. All three earned an extra book token!

In class, the younger pupils took part on a main character treasure hunt outside organised by Miss Douglas and the big class participated in the BBC Live Lesson on World Book Day. Upper school pupils also enjoyed a Chill n’ Read session in class where they cosied up with a book and some hot chocolate and biscuits – a huge part of the true joy of reading when you get to curl up with a good book! All pupils took part in the David Walliams Live Lesson later on in the day where the wee people enjoyed their hot chocolate and biscuits! 

Overall, an indulgent calm day was had by all and we hope all the pupils get to make use of their book tokens and feel a tiny bit more inspired by books and what comes with the joy of reading! I have already heard some whispers of pupils thinking about writing their own books or already in the throws of writing so can’t wait to read what they’ve come up with one day! 

Well done to the boys who represented the school at the Active Schools Badminton competition! They have been regularly attending badminton sessions over the past few weeks and all their hard work paid off. James secured second place with a medal, Jack secured third place with a medal and Ivan came fourth overall out of a whopping over 50 who attended the competition!

Mrs Hall kindly came out to join us today to deliver the good news from the make It Appen competition which took place earlier in the school year. Pupils were charged with coming up with an idea for their own app with the best ideas getting made and published on the Make it Appen website! 

The winner of this was a pupil at Leswalt Primary but we were lucky enough to have Olivia Johnstone as a runner up! Well done Olivia – your idea was fab!

Mrs Hall also had certificates for some of the other pupils in school whose apps, while not placing, got recognition for their great ideas and this included Blaze, Ivan, Alistair, Paige Calum, Rory and young Henry! 

Well done troops – great effort all round!  

Have a look at some of the amazing app ideas pupils have came up with here; Make It Happen Club

We are so happy to welcome back Kathryn Purchase into our classroom for another fab History input for the pupils! Pupils have been working hard studying WW1 ad WW2 this term, we had made a good bit of headway through the topic but nothing compares to Kathryn’s expert knowledge which provides an insight that we cannot get anywhere else! 

We learned about how the War started and how this was linked to other events across the world like The Great Depression. We understood that The Treaty of Versailles, an outcome of the first World War, was one of the key factors in what started WW2. We looked at how this led to Hitler’s rise to power and the events that followed. 

The morning talk was very informative – so much information that the pupils seemed to soak up like a sponge! Then the fun really began for their eager eyes, they got to get hands on with all that fantastic props that Kathryn brings along with her – with WW2 being her most heavily stocked history topic! 

We finished off the session with a Q&A – as per expected, the pupils had lots and lots of questions to fire at Kathryn and they got their answer every time! 

Thanks for joining us today Kathryn, always a pleasure and until next time… 🙂 Here are  some photos below of today’s fun! 

All the hands up!

We were very thankful to start off the learning with Emily Conroy coming in to speak to the pupils about how to keep safe online. PC Conroy asked pupils who had phones and which different apps they used with Snapchat and Tik Tok being a firm fan favourite among the pupils! 

We discussed the terms of use for these apps and how to keep ourselves safe online and use these apps wisely if we have them. Tips included; 

• Keeping accounts private 
• Be careful online with the information you share 
• Don’t speak to people you don’t know
• Block or ban anybody who is speaking to you if you don’t want them too 

We also discussed the dangers that come with these apps;

• Pop ups and viruses 
• Possible fraud 
• Potentially bad people out there
• Any inappropriate images or content that could come up 

We finished off the sessions with a Q&A where pupils piled poor PC Conroy with a wide variety of questions! But, by the end they firmly knew the message and understood how to keep themselves safe online. We finished off the session with a short clip.

As well as that we watched yesterday’s Internet Safety Day Live Lesson on BBC Teach this afternoon and had a go at some of the activities surrounding it! Finally, we finished off the day with a quiz from the Digital Leaders 🙂

I think we are all Internet Safety Savvy now! 

Why not check our our Sway and select play to see our activity across our partnership.

Pupils in P5-7 at Kirkcolm, Leswalt and Portpatrick Primary Schools headed off to Abernethy Barcaple Outdoor Centre on Monday for an overnight residential stay.

The boys and girls participated in a range of activities whilst there including archery, abseiling, a challenge course, climbing wall, and team problem solving challenges. Pupils overcame fears and developed their team-working skills throughout the course of our trip. 

After a fun-filled day of activities, everyone enjoyed an evening game of hide and seek in the dark – at which point the staff watched as 50 children ran off into the darkness at a location they had never been before; cue panicking teachers! But thankfully all returned safe and sound, and no one was left to spend the night in the great outdoors! 

We then headed to our rooms to settle down for the night – and despite a lot of sugar being consumed, everyone was asleep by midnight much to the staff’s relief! 

The next day started bright and early with some pupils rising at 6.30am. After breakfast, we finished our final group activities and hopped onto the bus just after lunch time. It was a very quiet journey home with lots of tired little people catching 40 winks to make up for the lack of sleep the night before! 

Everyone had a brilliant time away and enjoyed mixing with pupils from all of our trio schools. 

We are very grateful that Ross McColm (parent of Sophie and Gregor) took time out of his break home to come in and have a chat with the pupils. Ross knew the boys and girls had been doing farming as their topic recently and he had some experience in that field himself! 

Ross spoke about how he works away for a company which builds gigantic industrial farming buildings in Saudi Arabia and has helped create the largest chicken farm in the world! 

This also served as a great cultural experience for the boys and girls to learn about a culture so completely different from our own and Ross was able to offer that experience to them. The afternoon was finished off with some Arabic sweet treats for the pupils to enjoy. 

Thank you very much for your time Ross and from the chatter today, it seems they enjoyed their afternoon!