Kirkcolm Primary School

Nice early start for us at Kirkcolm on Monday as we got suited and booted to go galavanting off to Heads of Ayr Farm Park for our school trip this year, and a smashing choice of location for all involved! 

After a some what lengthy bus drive we finally arrived at our destination and bundled off to enjoy some of the attractions. We got to walk around and enjoy all of the animals and wildlife the farm park had to offer. From the large pigs lounging around, the wild meerkats keeking their heads up and the lemurs with their bright eyes – it was an amazing experience for all. 

Not to mention the other attractions; sliding down hills on our doughnuts, zipping along the flying fox, exhausting ourselves on the trampoline and bouncing pillows and making use of all the gigantic and fantastic play park the area had to offer! Somewhere in-between all this we managed to fit in have our lunch in their lovely large cafe under the watchful eyes of some very cute and tiny primates!

We even got to round off our day in the large indoor play area complete with some very fun (and terrifying in my opinion…) slides and lots of obstacles to navigate around! Didn’t take long for myself and Miss Douglas to get the shoes kicked off to join in the fun! (it was truly exhausting, I have no idea how they do it for so long…) 

Finally, we toddled off to our bus exhausted and ready to get home and rest but very happy after a fun day out! What a great way to kick off the final week of school before the summer holidays and a 10/10 experience for everyone who went! 

On the 20th Of June 2022 Kirkcolm, Leswalt, and Portpatrick P7’s travel to Agnew park to participate in fun water games and water sports, held by Stranraer Water Sports Association (SWSA, For short)

After they loaded off the bus they went to meet the staff and equipped their wet suits.

They then enjoyed a few games before getting their life jackets on ready to have some great fun!

Then after all that and safety talk it’s finally time to hit the water! They enjoy splashing and kicking the water, almost making sure their shoes get soaked, until it’s time to submerge the rest of their body. Again assuring to get completely wet.

After the joyous screaming had passed it was time to move onto paddle boarding and kayaking! This was performed in two separate groups.

By the time that was over it was time to get their lunch bags, and dig in!!

As the saying goes, time flies by, and with all the excitement it quickly went on to heading back to the water and going on a final paddle board trip as a whole to take on a raft making challenge by joining all the paddleboards together.

Then after the long day of fun and games they ended it with some ice cream and a calm bus ride home.

Thank you to the instructors and volunteers at the watersports centre.  Thank you too to Mr White for our ice-cream treat!

-Taylor Smith (p7) and reporter extraordinaire!

Some Photos from our Resident Photographer as well:

Kirkcolm pupils came together to mark Clean Air Day yesterday as part of our Learning for Sustainability and Eco Schools activities.

We participated in a whole school assembly to learn about the factors that can lead to air pollution, how this can impact on our health and what we can do to reduce air pollution and support both healthy human and wildlife diversity.

Some suggestions from the children were:

• Reduce car use – walk or cycle instead
• Move towards electric forms of transport
• Use public transport instead of private cars
• Grow your own fruit and veg
• Try to by locally grown food
• Use non-carbon burning fuel for heating

Have a look at some of the wonderful ideas our clever cookies have come up with:

We then studied different kinds of lichen.  We learned that some are:

• Pollution Haters – Can only grow in clean air conditions
• Pollution Lovers – Can grow in polluted air conditions

(Click to enlarge)

The children went outdoors on a lichen hunt, classifying the types we observed growing in our school grounds.  We are pleased to report that we found lots of examples of the pollution hating, clean air loving lichen.  This demonstrates that we have good air quality!

# Successful Learners

Well today we decided to join forces with Leswalt and venture out on a litter pick in keeping in line with our Eco Schools plan and looking after our local area!

…Turns out our Local Area is very well looked after already as there was very little litter waiting to be found – to the point many pupils were ready to deem seaweed a piece of litter!? (‘The fish could get caught up in it’ …well I can’t actually argue with that!)

How blessed are we to have such a beautiful local area, free from anything ruining it! Let’s hope it stays that way but if there are ever any issues – you know what schools are ready and raring to go!

Big thank yous to all the mummies who came along to help out – Wilma, Ashley and Lucy were our Kirkcolm representatives – thank you for tagging a long with us and helping to litter spot!

A small flurry of pictures before the rain caught us in the end!

How lucky are we to be a hosting a visit from the lovely Kathryn Purchase for another amazing History Alive Session in our wee school – The younger class’s topic is Castles this session so Kathryn came along to deliver her expertise knowledge in the field! 

Pupils sat beautifully for a chat and information session, getting to pick Kathryn’s brain and learn lots about their new topic! After that, the hands on session begun and as you can see, they wasted no time getting stuck into the props that Kathryn brought along…

A big thank you for History Alive for always being willing to come see us and providing such an exciting opportunity for the pupils – they really get to see and learn how Castle and Knights existed in those days and it makes for such a magical experience.

What a super start to the morning for P1-4! 

My oh my, we are counting our lucky stars here at Kirkcolm Primary that after that awful rain the night before, the skies cleared, the sun peeked out and by the end we were all sweltered!

After it being a bit touch and go today, we were happy to batter on and host another very successful sports day in our lush green grounds! Today marked a special occasion in being able to invite mums and dads, grannies and grandpas, uncles, aunties, neighbours – whoever(!) to come watch the boys and girls give it their all today! 

From where we were standing, it was obvious that the boys and girls had been practising hard and the quality of good sportsmanship was amazing – we were cheering on our friends and relatives and clapping every single person through that finish line so regardless of if they came away with a sticker and a place or not – they have all been absolute winners today in our eyes! 

Here are some photos of the fun today! Well done Kirkcolm! 

The results are as follows:

Order of races – Kirkcolm – June 22

Many moons ago, in the midst of online lessons, the upper school class here participated in an online Orchestral event which has us examine the music by The Royal Scottish National Orchestra and their production of Gaspard’s Foxtrot!

Then everything came full circle when we, along with a few other Primary Schools, ventured to Stranraer Academy to see the performance in real time! Pupils engaged in little games to test their reaction to music and then got to sit back and watch the story unfold and see the ways the orchestra could come together to create different emotions based on how they play the music and what a wonderful time it was! 

All pupils were entranced (as were staff) at this amazing performance and we are so grateful to the RNSO and Stranraer Academy for hosting us!

Small blip at the end where the bus was a tad late but thankfully the sun was shining so we made the most of it! 

Today, in light of the exciting events that are about to unfold over the course of this long weekend off school, we decided to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee ‘Kirkcolm Primary style’ in school! As you are all well aware, this weekend marks the Queens reign of 70 years on the Royal Throne.

Pupils have spent the week researching and learning about Queen Elizabeth the Second life and all her accomplishments along the way so today had to culminate in a day of utter fun!

Both classes did some singing and dancing with Mrs Ramsay in the morning to show off at the end of the day, made some Queen based art and we decorated some cupcakes in true red, white and blue fashion.

All pupils came to school in either red, white or blue or dressed as royalty and wow – did the pupils put their best foots forward. There were some amazing efforts from pupils across the schools!

What a day we have had, we even had a lovely picnic lunch outside in the sunshine! We combined our lunch with an annual One Planet Picnic, minimising our use of single use plastic for our take-away lunch.  Michelle provided compostable spoons for our yogurts.  We recycled our pots in our new council plastic collection bins.  We also used paper bags instead of plastic.  Those that brought in their own lunches used re-usable snack pots and water bottles.

Check out the photos below for the fun and we hope everyone has a lovely relaxing long weekend in the sunshine! We will see you all again come Monday! 🙂

Not to mention the special visit from Liz herself taking a tour of the playground!

Friday marked a very sad day for us all at Kirkcolm. We had to bid goodbye to our dear Mrs Jamieson from the office! Mrs Jamieson has been with us for 3 years now and she has been the back bone of this school in many ways! From phoning home for those of us having off days, booking our trips away ( making sure everything rums smoothly)  and keeping our staff right and our classrooms well stocked!

Not entirely sure how we will manage without her yet but we wish her all the best on her new adventure – The Academy are so blessed to have you helping them out now Mrs J!

We simply couldn’t let her leave with nothing so Mrs Baillie saw to it that she left here with her arms bursting with flowers, wine, chocolates and a gigantic (and extremely delicious) carrot cake courtesy of our amazing cook and baker; Michelle!

Thank you for everything Mrs Jamieson. You will be a friendly face for our pupils moving up now!

Our boys and girls have been enjoying the outdoor life today, planting all the kind donations of plants we have received from Home and Gardens & Tesco.  The children have written thank you letters to Tesco and Lidl today

Ever creative, Mrs Richardson has been repurposing tubs and containers to help make our grounds look blooming good.

We even found a larve.  We are not sure if it’s a moth or a butterfly.  We put it back carefully to keep it safe.

In addition, Aiden (P7) had recently written to the RSPB asking for a donation of literature.  They have replied today by kindly sending us a pack for each school.  It contains ‘best for bee’s’ annual flower seeds along with  bird identification guides and gardening with wildlife in mind helpsheets.

# Effective Contributors