Kirkcolm Primary School

The children in Primary 1 – 4 have been working hard on producing a radio show transmission with Dumfries and Galloway Youth Music Group as part of our Feis Rois traditional music programme.

This radio show is the culmination of a block of sessions which focussed on the development of early music and communication skills and health & wellbeing and promotes the enjoyment of music. Singing games, exploring musical instruments and games were included in each session.

We are pleased to introduce to you, the Kirkcolm Kids Radio Show.

# Confident Individuals

On Wednesday P1-4 ventured to Dumfries House in Cumnock for a fun-filled school trip in the sunshine (and snow for some of the day)! The first activity we enjoyed was ‘Animal Senses’ where we put our own senses to the test in some sticky, smelly and tasty activities. We then investigated animals’ senses and diets and found out how marine life use their senses to hunt for food. This led us on nicely to the topic of plastic pollution and its effect on marine life where the boys and girls blew Nia (the co-ordinator) away with all the information they had learned from Ms Whorlow’s weekly assemblies 🙂.We learned about how to correctly separate and recycle rubbish using the different bins – I am sure they could even keep mums and dads right with the red and blue bins now! 😂

We then braved the ever-changing weather conditions, to go to our next workshop on.. ‘The Weather’ 🙂!  We spoke about  the Beaufort Wind scale and how it can be used to measure the speed and the wind – we even managed a bit of running however it is fair to say that none of us were in fact ‘faster than the wind’! We used bubbles to decide on the wind direction, as you can imagine these were a BIG hit!! 😄

We then finished off a lovely day with a trip to the Adventure Playground, where we let off a bit of steam before our nice sunny and sleepy bus home. 

-Miss Douglas

Wow! What sporting superstars our pupils have been recently! Recently the boys and girls at Kirkcolm (and part of the wider trio) have worked their absolute socks off lately and gained some sporting success in a couple of tournaments so obviously we are going to have to big up these champions!

Football

On Friday, at the schools football tournament, our team (despite having only 1 after school football training session) managed to lock down third place (missing out second on sheer goal differences)! This success was against all the larger town schools and our fellow village school fellows and we are just so absolutely over the moon with the outstanding effort and determination from our boys!

Their successful efforts were a combination of Kirkcolm’s George, Oliver, Luke, Alfie and Calder over the course of a few weeks, working fantastically with pupils from both Leswalt and Portpatrick. Well done troops, all those break time tackles have paid off!

Badminton

Then we follow up with our badminton extra-ordinaires who entered into the badminton competition, kindly hosted by Alison Murray, who has been in helping to teach the pupils the ins and outs of the game as well as running an after school badminton session.

Kirkcolm Pupils cleaned up house!

In P5, Mr Jack Howie secured the title on 1st boy!

In P7, we locked down 1st girl with Miss Olivia Turtle!

Finally, our P7 boys just thought they’d clean up house in all positions with Calder Farquhar in 3rd, Luke Butler in 2nd and George Keith in 1st! 

We are pleased to announce that our North Rhins Football team were  ranked third place in the cluster schools football tournament on Friday.

Our North Rhins Football Team:

Left to Right:

Back Row – Ruby, Rose, Oliver, Aidan, Luke, Murray

Middle Row – Brandon, Alfie, George, Fraser

Front – Alexander

Our thanks  go to Rose’s dad for stepping into the role of coach and guiding and encouraging our football stars.  Thank you also, to Jamie Adams for providing football coaching at school and to all parents for transporting and supporting the players.

# Effective Contributors

Our gardening volunteers were super-keen to complete our bug hotel, or should we say ‘bug mansion’ as it’s so impressive.  The children worked hard to gather natural materials and construct the bug hotel ready for residents.  They mixed STEM engineering construction with Learning for Sustainability.  Not content with just that task, they also got stuck into tidying and weeding, ready for even more gardening challenges to come.  Thank you to Mrs Richardson for coordinating the activity.

Another Biodiversity Eco Schools Target achieved!

# Effective Contributors

To celebrate British Science Week on the Monday, we engaged with Mars Hour to celebrate Mars Day! This was hosted by ESA, ESERO-UK and Explorify to teach us about all things Mars related! We learned about different formations that can be found on the Red Planet itself as well as all things space travel.

Pupils got to see lots of different experiments live and in action! Such as seeing how rockets launch themselves into space to how meteors form craters on the surface of a planet. In addition to this we were able to hear from real-life ‘day job’ astronaut, Time Peake, about his experiences with space travel.

This gave pupils an idea on how the different mars missions allow us to gain information about the planet itself, how different features formed on the planet and facts about the planet itself (night temperature, day temperature etc.)

In class, P5-7 followed this us by designing our own Mars Rovers with some exceptional entries form pupils who really thought hard about space exploration essentials…

Later on in the week (after a brief interlude on the Tuesday to celebrate the joys of History… Sorry Science – oops!) We decided to put our engineering skills to the test in a challenge activity! With a wide variety of different supplies ranging from lollipop sticks and cardboard to tape and wood – pupils were tasked with designing and creating their own marble runs!

In mixed groups, the pupils set to work and wow – were us teachers ever so impressed with the finished products. Once again the pupils of Kirkcolm have proven themselves to be resourceful and inventive! We tested all of these at the end of the day and discussed what we thought we did well and ‘design tips’ for any future marble run endeavours…

Please see the photos below for exceptional teamwork skills and the finished product! (Surely even Dragon’s Den would be interested in these unique designs..?)

Thursday seen another day for the both classes to join forces for another STEM engineering activity (just can’t tear us apart, eh) This time, we focused on boats – and boats with a purpose! Pupils were split into groups again and given a wide variety of materials and were tasked with creating a boat that floated!? (surely the one thing a boat is intended to do…) Boys and girls designed their boats prior to choosing their materials and had to carefully consider the different properties of different materials (do they float or sink?) Altogether, we have an resounding success amongst all the groups with some very elaborate designs! Unfortunately, plans to venture outside were called off due to the rain but thankfully Friday had some sun in store for us… 

On Friday we took a wonder down tot he beach to get stuck into another engineering and design challenge. We used balance and skills to work in small groups to balance stones on top of each other to create some beach art! As pointed out by young Mr Butler – this form of art can be detrimental to the environment so we made sure we didn’t obstruct any wild life making homes down at the beach and we cleared away our art work when we were done. It was such an amazing way to end such an amazing week filled with science and developing our teamwork and leadership skills and it’s not everyday the whole school gets to work together on tasks. 

The boys and girls of Kirkcolm Primary rolled up their sleeves and got stuck in to some planting this week.  We applied to the Woodland Trust to receive a grant of 20 different tree saplings and 20 shrubs for our school grounds.  The aim of the project is to support biodiversity and to create natural habitats for wildlife in our area.  We have been gifted species such as rowan, birch and hawthorn to name but a few.

There was many a volunteer to help Mrs Richardson in the task in hand. It is hoped that the plants will flourish and give pleasure for years to come.

Mrs Manson has also been working behind the scenes to help support our insect species.  She has given up her own time and resources to create an insect-friendly bee and butterfly flowering garden at the entrance to the school.  Once the clumps have established this year, she has kindly offered to come and show the children how to divide their plants so that they can share them with Leswalt pupils so that they can create their own insect friendly flowering garden when they return there.

Work is also continuing on our Bug Mansion.  We are at the final stages of preparation and are just about ready to construct.  Watch this space…

# Effective Contributors & Responsible Citizens

As part of our Rights Respecting Schools Silver Award, our P6’s and House Captains from across our partnership took on some responsible training today.  The Diana Trust delivered a workshop on developing our older pupils as Anti-Bullying Ambassadors.

This is supported by HRH The Duke of Cambridge, The Diana Award Anti-Bullying Campaign engages schools to change the attitudes, behaviour and culture of bullying by building skills and confidence to identify and deal with different situations.

The aims of the session were:

• I know what bullying behaviour is and how to identify it
• I understand how bullying behaviour can make someone feel
• I can support students in school who are experiencing bullying behaviour

We defined what is meant by bullying behaviour as:

Repeated negative behaviour that is intended to make others feel upset, uncomfortable and unsafe.

The children had lots of rich discussion around this topic with our online trainer, Clio.  We talked about situations to determine whether they were bullying or not.  Pupils were shown that there are three steps to support a peer who might approach us with a problem – S.A.D.:

• Say – Thank you (for trusting us)
• Ask – Tell me what’s been going on?
• Do – What do you want to do?

Everyone was reminded that all school staff are always here to manage and deal with any situation that might arise. Our Ambassadors are there to help anyone experiencing bullying access support from an adult.  There is scope for our Ambassadors to work together to achieve 4 different challenge badges.

Childline is available for any child to call 24/7, 365 days a year on 08001111.  The Diana Award Crisis Messaging service provides a free text support service for children, also available at any time.  Simply text DA to 85258!

# Responsible Citizens

Today we were very blessed to be graced with the company of Kathryn from History Alive , who brought along all of her bits and bobs to delight us and teach all all about The Scottish Wars of Independence!

Kirkcolm and Leswalt upper joined forces in the hall to explore and learn, in great detail, the events that lead up to The Scottish Wars. Pupils have already done a lot of work about this in class and we were able to add to the discussions but we were no match for Kathryn’s expertise!

We learned about ancient Scotland and what life would look like in those days, all the way back to 1066 when William the Conquerer landed in Scotland and Scotland’s landscapes were full of trees and murky marshes everywhere.

We heard about how Edward the First tried to take control of Scotland and how the brave soldiers of Scotland fought back and finally, the culmination of the Battle of Bannockburn. Kathryn was able to really bring all this to life for both the teachers and the pupils and it was amazing to learn about these events in such depth.

After this, pupils were able to ask all sorts of questions and get stuck into the fantastic props that Kathryn brought along and as you can see from the photos below, they really took advantage of this!

We feel so lucky to be able to welcome Kathryn and her expertise back into the schools and it has been a fantastic opportunity for the pupils to see their history topic really come to life.

See below to try and pick out your own Scottish Warrior in full kit!

Kirkcolm Primary got British Science Week off to a flying start today.  John McGill of Computer Xplorers travelled down from Ayr to deliver two workshops to our boys and girls.

Both classes explored Lego Wedo, using Lego components and modules alongside coding blocks to construct models from schematics. They were able to automate their models to perform increasingly complex functions; building up from changing light colours and producing a range of sounds to performing motorised functions.  The older children applied the use of gears to control motor speed when constructing and programming a cooling fan  – small gear = fast speed, large gear cog = slower speed.

The activities helped support a wide range of skill development, for example:

Computational thinking:

• decomposition – breaking a complex problem down into steps
• abstraction – focussing on the important parts only
• algorithms – developing step by step solutions to problem solve

Meta Skills for learning, life and work (Skills 4.0)

• Self Management – focussing, adapting, initiative
• Social Intelligence – communicating, collaborating, leading
• Innovation – curiosity, creativity, sense making, critical thinking

To culminate the investigative session, linking with the theme of growth for this year’s British Science Week, the older children investigated the key question of:

‘How do certain organisms contribute to the life cycle of plants?

They had to:

• Explore how different organisms take an active role in plant reproduction
• Create and program a model of a bee and flower to represent the relationship between the pollinator and the plant
• Present and document the different models created to depict plants and their pollinators.

They built a robotic model incorporating gears and infra-red motion sensors etc.  The bee is programmed to fly to the flower, emitting a buzzing sound. The bee then detects the flower and stops to collect pollen before flying off to visit another flower, promoting cross-pollination.

Everyone agreed that the workshops were highly engaging and educational – an excellent start to our upcoming week dedicated to science and all things STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths).  Our thanks to the British Science Association for granting our funding application and to John from Computer Xplorers for providing such  fabulous sessions for us.

# Successful Learners