Kirkcolm Primary School

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

Gaspard’s Foxtrot Concert went live this week and the boys and girls spent a relaxing afternoon listening to the story and the accompanying musical score.

Afterwards we reflected on how well the orchestra as was able to create music that went so well with the story and helped bring it all to life!

We are very thankful for Scotland’s National Orchestra for creating this piece of music and live sessions to go along with it!

The boys and girls made the most of the lovely weather this afternoon and sat out in the sunshine with PC Wilson and PC Rush for some police safety talks.

P4-7 went first for an internet safety chat. After discussing the various types of social media they are aware of, they learned all about how to keep themselves safe online, including the reasons for not sharing personal information; how to make a secure password and why you shouldn’t share it with anyone; and the importance of not talking to strangers online.

P1-4 then headed outside for their road safety talk – very topical given our up and coming Mini Walk! They learned all about the Green Cross Code and practised how to cross the road from the safety of the playground. They were then given a special treat (at Miss Douglas’ request!) and got to see the police car with the siren and lights in action!!

Thank you to both PC Wilson and PC Rush for taking the time to come in and speak to the pupils and encouraging them to be responsible citizens.

Today P4-7 joined in with a Live Lesson session with the lovely people from the RSNO – Scotland’s National Orchestra. 

This involved an interactive session in which the pupils engaged in vocal warm ups and game with the staff from RSNO and as well as that they explored the affect music can have on you. The different ways it can make you feel. 

The follow up session involves the class actually getting to see the concert; Gaspard’s Foxtrot and we are all very excited! For some of us – it will even be our first orchestral concert! (me!) 

Here are some photos of the pupils getting warmed up and ready to go… 

The boys and girls donned their hi-vis vests and headed down to the beach this afternoon to carry out a litter pick, as part of our Eco Schools work.

We gathered 2 whole bin bags full of rubbish – we found rope, plastic bottles, sweetie wrappers, dog poop bags – we even found a shoe! There also was much hilarity when Alexander found someone’s pants!!

A big thank-you to the ONUS group for letting us borrow their litter pickers. And a huge well done to the boys and girls for being responsible citizens and keeping their community clean and tidy!

As some of you may have seen or heard, the pupils of P4-7 spent their Lockdown Remote schooling working with the lovely Feis Ros duo, this involved a series of remote Teams lessons through the week and gave a lovely singing uplift to the dreary lockdown weeks.!

The time together was summarised with an audio postcard – a collaboration between the Feis Ros team and the pupils, in which pupils told the story of ‘The Phantom Piper of Dunskey Castle’ and then the Feis Ros duo overlaid different music to this and bundled it up into a cute wee postcard!

We have finally received our audio postcards and each pupil was sent home with one! Just scan the QR code on a smart phone and it’ll take you to the link with the audio.

There are a lot more of these at school so please help yourselves!

Here are some photos of all the pupils with their audio cards and the selected team whose voices and artwork feature on the postcard – Great work troops!