Kirkcolm Primary School

Today both the P5-7 classes of Kirkcolm and Leswalt embarked on a trip to the local museum to get a hands on look at the role our local area played in World War 2! We have spent this term examining all the different aspects of WW2 through our social studies and through the fabulous work of Miss Douglas, we have managed to link up with Madeline at Stranraer Museum to see what they had to offer on the topic. 

Pupils learned about Stranraer in the past and during war time, they were able to explore the different artefacts the museum had and even get hands on with them! (pleased to report that everyone was very careful and respectful of the objects!)

There were 4 boxes with separate artefacts and pupils moved round in groups of 4 exploring the items of the boxes before trying to decide what person the artefacts were linked to. At the end they then had to become museum curators themselves and arrange the artefacts in a ‘mini’ exhibition.

Overall this was such a fantastic way to spend the morning and a great way to engage with what our local community has to offer. We are so grateful to the wonderful staff at Stranraer Museum for welcoming us in the morning and making use of their facilities and we hope to have many reasons to return in the future! 

Rory – ‘My favourite part was when we went into the replica Anderson shelter and heard all the sounds civilians would have heard during the war👂👂. We did an activity where we split up into groups and got a box with items in it and we had to guess who the items belonged to. Then we had to make displays with all the objects in them. We saw a biscuit tin radio which planes dropped on enemy camps to listen to messages.’ 

Bryleigh – ‘ The museum was amazing and had to so much cool things to see like, cheese pounders, gas masks, old shoes, pictures, jewellery, stones, and so much more! At the museum there was a very nice woman called Madeline she was the one who showed us around the museum and gave us tasks. My favourite part about the museum had to be when I saw the gas mask it was so cool and very interesting, although don’t try it on because I learned that there’s a chemical in there to stop the gas getting through and it’s bad for you! When  we were at the museum we did a task that we had to read and look at the stuff in a box and find out who the person was what I mean by that is what the job is and after you make a display with the stuff you had in your box, there were four boxes so we were spilt into four teams it was very fun! There was a Anderson shelter there and she showed us what an air raid siren sounded like. We learned more about rationing and we learned about the woman’s’ land army there and it was really fascinating! 🌍⚔🫡’

Allyssa – ‘One of the things Madeline showed us was a old phone that had recorded messages from people who had survived ww2‼️ in Stranraer and if you wanted to hear the messages you had to dial 14🔢. The last thing we did was we got into four groups and rotated around room to look at  artefacts🏺🏺 that you can hold and touch with your group and make a museum exhibit with our groups.’

Meta Skills 

Focusing Fergus

Critical Thinking Chris

Curiosity Carlos 

Articles

Article 17 – Access to Information 

Article 28 – Right to Education 

This afternoon we were delighted to welcome families into school to celebrate our Scots learning. 🤩 Throughout the month, pupils have been busy perfecting their Scots poems in their neatest handwriting and creating wonderfully imaginative artwork to bring their poems to life. Today we finally got to showcase all their hard work — and announce our winners for this year who were judged earlier in the week by our the lovely Mrs Marie Turtle who is no stranger to Kirkcolm Scots Poetry competition!

In between the announcement of the winners and certificate hand outs audience enjoyed Scots songs from both classes – Marie’s Wedding (P5-7) and If it Wisnae Forr Yer Wellies (P1-4) as well as some highland dancing from our own wee Orla Neil!  Overall, our Scots poetry week was a huge success so well done to all the weans for their effort, creativity, and confidence. And a big thank you to our families for the support and encouragement you give behind the scenes. 🏠! P1-4 winners – Tom, Jamie, Orla and Henry will be heading up to Kirkcolm Hub on Wednesday with Mrs Adams to entertain some of the community members while some winners will be chosen to represent the school at the annual Burns Poetry night at the Ryan Centre!

Oor affa guid winners were..

P1 – Mince and Tatties

Recitation winners:

1. Tom

2. Finn

3. Aila

Illustration winners:

1. Isla

2. Finn

3. Tom

Handwriting winners:

1. Tom

2. Finn

3. Andrew

P2 – Crocodile

Recitation winners:

1. Jamie

2. Frankie

3. Kendall

Illustration winners:

1. Frankie

2. Jamie

3. Arryn S

Handwriting winners:

1. Frankie

2. Arryn S

3. Jamie & Kendall

P3 -The Sair Finger

Recitation winners:

1. Jamie

2. Frankie

3. Kendall

Illustration winners:

1. Orla

2. Parker

3. Harlow

Handwriting winners:

1. Harlow

2. Orla

3. Kaylyn

P4 –  Street Talk

Recitation winners:

1. Henry

2. Sally

3. Ewan

Illustration winners:

1. Sally

2. Ewan

3. Henry & Scott

Handwriting winners:

1. Sally

2. Henry

3. Ewan

P5 – My Auld Buits

Recitation winners:

1. Rory

2. Ross

3. Freddie & Joey

Illustration winners:

1. Ross

2. Ian

3. Rory & Freddie

Handwriting winners:

1. Ross

2. Freddie

3. Joey & Rory

P6 – The Moosies Prayer

Recitation winners:

1. Fallon

2. Rebecca

3. Paige

Illustration winners:

1. Paige

2. Fallon

3. Cameron & Callum

Handwriting winners:

1. Paige

2. Callum

3. Rebecca

P7 –  Anything by Burns

Recitation winners:

1. Lyle

2. Arran

3. Allyssa

Illustration winners:

1. Ruby

2. Arran

3. Allyssa

Handwriting winners:

1. Lyle

2. Ruby

3. Allyssa

Today we had our annual schools Burns supper to celebrate the much loved Rabbie Burns in school! Pupils have been working very hard this entire January at learning their poems, creating their art work and beautiful handwriting and the effort has been fab to see – all shall be revealed on Friday’s assembly at 2:15 so please pop down to see the winners of the recitation, art and handwriting competitions if you are free! 

Today we toasted our cups and ate some haggis, neeps and tatties to celebrate Burns! Random pupils were selected from each class to say their poems out loud for the rest of the school and they all did a wonderful job of this! Both classes sang some traditional Scot’s songs, Orla entertained us all with her Highland dances and we heard some fantastic speeches wrote by the P6 and P7 pupils! 

Meta Skills 

Collaborating Cora

Leading Li

Articles

Article 31 – rest, Play, Culture & Arts 

Today we sent away Lyle and Arran to represent the school at the yearly Rotary Lunch along with Colin and Murray from Leswalt, accompanied by Mrs Kyle!

This is a fantastic opportunity for the pupils to engage with the members of The Rotary Club who consistently do so much for the schools and community of The Rhins. Today they listened to a talk from Bob Bruce about his 30 years serving in the Army, where he was in charge of 8000 soldiers (big responsibility!) Bruce also told them about how he now serves as the councillor of Edinburgh Castle. 

Boys also enjoyed a hearty lunch of fish and chips courtesy of the Castle! 🐟

Meta Skills 

Focusing Fergus

Critical Thinking Chris

Curiosity Carlos 

Articles

Article 17 – Access to Information 

Today we welcomed Millie Craig (Fallon’s big sister) into the class for a little STEM afternoon with the pupils! We are very lucky to have the Millie connection who kindly reached out to us offering to do some STEM work with the pupils. Millie works as a Spacecraft System Engineer after completing her degree Aero Space Engineering. 🔩🔧⚙️

Millie did a wonderful job of explaining an engineers role in society and all their contributions to how our daily lives functions. Especially how ‘system’ engineering means ensuring that all the ‘part’s are working together which was a key element for the pupils task later on… 🔎

We learned all about the different functions and structures of satellites and it went well beyond what we already knew or expected! 🔭

Pupils then got stuck into their Lego satellite manufacturing task and got busy. Split into 3 groups of 5 with each person being allocated a role, they had to create both a company and a construction chain to manufacture miniature satellites which then had to be shown to the ‘Company’ (me) for approval or faults.

📉 Then after their first ‘year’ manufacturing – they were allowed to make changes to their construction chain to try and increase productivity. 📈

Pupils had a great time, but tensions were definitely high! A lot of fast production and yelling definitely occurred during this time but it was a fantastic and it really taught pupils a lesson about how real life companies and construction has to work to be effective! 💡

Thank you again to Millie, our handy STEM Ambassador, for running this session with the pupils! We are super grateful.

Meta Skills 

Focusing Fergus

Critical Thinking Chris

Collaborating Cora

Curiosity Carlos 

Leading 

Initiative Ivy 

Articles

Article 28 – Access to Education 

Article 17 – Access to Information 

We are so happy to welcome back Kathryn Purchase into our classroom for another fab History input for the pupils! Pupils are about to buckle down and learn about WW2 this term for their social studies topic (a highly anticipated topic for them all!) and there is no better way to properly introduce this topic to the pupils. 📝

We learned about how the War started and how this was linked to other events across the world like The Great Depression and a direct consequence of WW1. 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 – we learned all about key elements from the way; the Blitz, rationing, The Nazi Party, the evacuees and the Holocaust. All things we are going to spend the next few weeks studying in a greater depth! 🔍

After this came the most exciting part – the pupils got to get stuck into all the fantastic props that Kathryn brings along with her to these sessions. There was a variety of costumes, rationing props, gun props that they were allowed to use for roleplay and to immerse themselves in the WW2 experience! 🪖

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! 

Meta Skills 

Focusing Fergus

Curiosity Carlos 

Sense-Making Samira 

Articles

Article 2 – No Discrimination 

Article 13 – Freedom of Expression 

Article 17 – Access to Information 

Article 19 – Protection from Violence 

Today has been a very festive day indeed! 🎄

Today to celebrate Christmas Lunch Day – pupils all donned their festive apparel to get really into the swing of the Christmas spirit! We all settled in for an early lunch where crackers were pulled, turkey was consumed and paper hats were briefly worn! 

To continue on with the festive theme of today, this afternoon we embarked on a trip to see our friends at Leswalt perform their Christmas Show! They performed ‘Baubles’ for us and it was a spectacular performance and we wish them all the best for their evening performance later today! 

Meta Skills 

Communicating Cate 

Articles

Article 30 – Minority, Culture, Language & Religion 

Article 31 – Rest, Play & Culture 

Wow! A huge thank you to Alan Jenkins for deliver a whoppingly large crate of 36 big bars of yummy Cadburys chocolate to Kirkcolm primary today! This very generous donation came from the Stranraer Development Trust along with The Millenium Centre, as a little Christmas treat for the boys and girls! We are very grateful for all these services provide for our little town and for us!