Kirkcolm Primary School

It’s been 9 long weeks since we last saw their little faces at school, and we were delighted to see so many happy smiling faces at the door of Kirkcolm Primary this morning, on P1-3’s first day back since the New Year – the building has been rather quiet without them!! They were all glad to see each other and be back with their friends. Miss Douglas had a lovely day planned to ease them in gently, which involved a trip to the beach this afternoon in the winter sunshine. Whilst at the beach, they collected some stones and brought them back to school to paint using bright, eye-catching colours. They are planning on placing their decorated stones along the Corsewall route for people to find later on this week to spread a bit of happiness and cheer – perhaps you could take a walk at the weekend and see how many you can find?!

We’re super happy to have P1-3 back with us at school and hope they all had a brilliant first day back – fingers crossed it’s not too much longer before P4-7 can join us!

Lockdown 2021 meant that we could not have our usual in school Scots poetry focus as all learning was taking part at home.  But, this did not stop us!  Our in inaugural  North Rhins inter school Scots poetry competition took place on Friday 29th January and was judged  by local Burns enthusiast, Mr Alec Ross.

This event took place on Microsoft Teams, where everyone could see the beautiful handwriting and creative artwork.  Pupils recited their poems with gusto, over the internet.  

Results were as follows – 

North Rhins Scots poetry results  – January 2021

P1 – ‘Wee rid motor’ – Recitation winners : 1. Harry McKie (PPK); 2. Rebecca Manson (KKM);Lily Bennewith (LES):  Illustration winner – Jessica Johnstone (KKM) : Handwriting winner – Rebecca Manson (KKM)

P2 – ‘Nessie’ – Recitation winners : 1. Colin McGregor (LES) / Aaron Farquhar (KKM);Rececca Connor (PPK) :  Illustration winner –Ben Thomson (LES) : Handwriting winner – Rachael Drummond (LES)

P3 – ‘The Circus’ – Recitation winners : 1. Carter Henderson (PPK); 2 .Ela Chang (LES);Ellie Bennewith (LES): Illustration winner – Erin Harbottle (PPK) : Handwriting winner – Erin Harbottle (PPK)

P4 – ‘Fireworks off the castle’ – Recitation winners : 1. Cameron McNeil (PPK); 2. Hamish McGregor (LES); Cara Jamieson (LES) :  Illustration winner – Carys McHallum (LES) : Handwriting winner – Faye Adams (LES)

P5 – ‘Magic Pizza’ – Recitation winners : 1. Noah Gaw (LES); 2. Thomas Agnew (LES);Olivia Johnstone (KKM):    Illustration winner – Jack Trafford (PPK) : Handwriting winner – Thomas Agnew (LES)

P6 – ‘The Whistle’ – Recitation winners : 1. Maya McNeil (PPK); 2. Malcolm McGregor (LES);Breagh Kirkpatrick (LES):   Illustration winner –Izzy and Alba White (PPK) : Handwriting winner – Malcolm McGregor (LES)

P7 – ‘Robert Burns’ – Recitation winners : 1.Jack Cloy (LES); 2. Gregor Reid (LES); Zack Ashton (KKM) :    Illustration winner – Zack Ashton (KKM) : Handwriting winner – Arla McCulloch (KKM).

Many thanks must go to all parents and carers at home for supporting the children in this.

Not even a lockdown can stop Kirkcolm Primary from getting into the Scottish spirit! We were determined to still celebrate our Scottish hero the way we do every other year and this involved the same challenges set for the pupils! 

The boys are girls all got involved in getting their handwriting and artwork done in time for the judging on Friday the 29th and I am sure they have all been hard at work learning their poems to recite them live on zoom for our poetry judging contest again both Leswalt AND Portpatrick pupils. Just to make things more interesting! We are very grateful towards Alec Ross for coming along to judge for us! On his 50th birthday no less! 

Here is a sample of the fantastic work we have had it so far and I look forward to seeing who comes out on top after Friday! 

Get practising troops! Let’s get a few Kirkcolm wins in there! 

As part of his STAR awards, Calder decided to show initiative and create his own Christmas quiz to raise funds for Kirkcolm Primary school.  Priced at 20p a go, Calder sold his quiz sheets during the last week of term.  He sold lots and lots.  So much so he raised an amazing £30 – that is an awful lot of 20 pences!

Calder was kept busy marking them all at home.  Fourteen people got all of the answers correct (including Mrs Baillie!).  Calder put all the correct sheets in a box and pulled out a winner.  Callum Dougan in Primary 1 was the lucky winner.  Well done Callum, he won a prize kindly donated by the Farquhar family.

Great work Calder, I think we can tick off that target in your STAR awards now!

As some of you may have noticed if you have been so lucky as to have them pop through your letterbox, the pupils at Kirkcolm were hard at work making Christmas cards through the week to spread some Christmas cheer to the village!

So this morning we set off into the village (yes – really – in that weather!) and delivered as many as we could. We all actually had great fun doing this and we hope if you got a card from us (perhaps a slightly soggy one…) that you still enjoyed our Christmas wishes and if you did not then know that all of us here at Kirkcolm Primary are wishing you all a very Merry Christmas!

Finally, it’s the moooost wonderful time of the yeeeear! (and what a year it has been!)

Due to this year being the strangest one any of us has ever experienced, we were determined to still press on with our traditional Christmas party fun here at Kirkcolm. Now, things couldn’t be quite the same as years gone by and we regretfully had to wave goodbye to the social dancing and the 2 classes coming together to have fun and instead we each had our own separate parties, finished off with visits from some very general elves since the main man, Santa, couldn’t come in to pay us a visit this year!

On Wednesday P1-4 had their party in the hall, hosted by the House Captains, they got up to lot’s of different party games like Musical Bells, Pass the Present, Pin the Nose on Rudolph and Christmas Corners! Stopping way for a wee refreshment before pressing on with the rest of the games like Reindeer Relay (this one had me in stitches!), Musical Chairs and Best Dancer (some quite impressive moves out there from both classes!) P4-7 followed up with the same shenanigans on Thursday afternoon, once again hosted by our lovely House Captains.

We cannot begin to thank or praise Zack and Daniel for their extremely hard efforts in putting together these parties and hosting them. The preparation that must of went into them was a massive effort and the boys did so well sacrificing their own time to make sure everything was done in time and everybody had fun.

Not to mention the excellent work of the lovely elves who provided the boys and girls with great presents that they all really enjoyed! It was a delight to watch them open them!

Miss Douglas and myself went very snap happy during these parties so there are plenty of photos to share with you of the pupils dressed up the nine’s having a great time…

Today the boys and girls of P4-7 had their final input from Laura McClymont and have now certified themselves as fully capable Playmakers!

They spent the past week preparing their games and designing their posters. Today they got to demonstrate all their hard work to their peers and try out their games with each other. The boys and girls had a great time and the wide variety of games they came up with very creative and impressive!

Hopefully these will be activities they will be able to share with the younger pupils of the school outside in the playground…

Here are some photos of the groups with their final posters;

In keeping with the festive spirit, Morrisons recently donated Christmas selection boxes to the Kirkcolm Community Council – who have in turn, kindly donated them to the school and nursery pupils. Mrs Downie did her elf duties yesterday and delivered a whopping 48 selection boxes for the children.

After all of our recent donations to the Wigtownshire Food Bank, the boys and girls are very appreciative to be receiving a donation for themselves! We had lots of delighted faces today, who can’t wait to get their hands on more sugary chocolate treats – just in time for the holidays (parents and guardians – you are welcome)!!!

As part of our Eco Schools work learning about food and being responsible citizens, this Christmas we decided to run a ‘Reverse advent calendar’ – rather than the boys and girls getting a chocolate each day (they weren’t too impressed with this idea initially, I think many wanted the chocolate!!), they were asked to bring in a donation for the local food bank.

We spoke all about why it’s good to help charities, particularly people in need our local area, and learned about the work of the food bank. By the end, we were overwhelmed with our families’ generosity – we had pupils bringing in bags of donations as they realised how important it is to support the charity (despite only 1 item being requested per family!).

We are delighted to be able to deliver such a huge donation from our little school to the Wigtownshire food bank this Christmas – and we hope that it helps lots of families in the area.

Today we celebrated Christmas in all it’s glory with our delicious Christmas dinners and showed off our festive flair in our Christmas jumpers!

Tis’ the season to sparkle!