Kirkcolm Primary School

Some of our p7 pupils from Kirkcolm welcomed Findlay from Portpatrick  to form a partnership curling team to take part in the inter school end of season tournament on Monday 6th March. 

 Scott from Kirkcolm has been going along to the after school curling club with Findlay in the North West Castle. 

In the first game they drew with Rephad and then went on to be beaten by Sheuchan.  Findlay played a great last stone in the final end to claw back a one.

It was  a great experience for them all and allowed the Primary 7 pupils to get to know each other a bit more, prior to moving on to Stranraer Academy.

Many thanks must go to Nancy Kirkpatrick for transporting and supervising the team, and sharing some photographs.

What a super busy day we’ve had celebrating World Book Day at Kirkcolm! Our library monitors, Lydia and Taylor, organised a real life ‘Where’s Wally’ treasure hunt around the school by hiding 5 characters in the building and pupils took it in turns to find them. All pupils who got the answers correct were entered into a prize draw and 1 name pulled out for each class – the winners will be announced at assembly next week. The library monitors also held a book sale in the hall, selling books for 20p each. Almost every pupil in the school went home with a new book to enjoy reading!

In class, pupils were given the challenge of logging into their new myON account to explore it, read a book and take a quiz. P5-7 pupils also brought in their favourite book and wrote a book review for it, trying to encourage other pupils to also read their book. Primary 7 pupils spent some of the morning with the Nursery boys and girls for a bit of paired reading in the library.

All pupils will come home tonight with a sticker and a £1 book token – they can use this to purchase a £1 book from WHSmith or put it towards the price of another book they wish to buy.

Today Kirkcolm primary was lucky enough to open its hall up to 4Front theatre in partnership with Scripture Union for a lively and engaging performance of The Fisherman’s Tail for all of our lovely pupils.

The boys and girls (joined both by nursery and all the partnership boys and girls from Leswalt) enjoyed a full hour of entertainment in the form of a lively play which told the story of Jesus of Nazareth from the perspective of his disciples who gave us their lives as fisherman to follow him. It went into detail of how Jesus gathered followers and performed miracles, all the way up to his crucification.

The story was told through a lot of very funny scenes with a lot of tongue in cheek humour and lively catchy songs that had all the kids clapping along and the toes tapping!

Today, as part of of a wider initiative to help young people become internet savvy and stay safe online. P5-7 took part in celebrating Internet Safety Day and engaging with tasks that make us think carefully about how we act online!

This years focus was on identity so we looked at what makes up our identity and how it can change and shift over time. We related this back to our internet identities and how the internet gives us the freedom to explore our identities and interests – but we have to make sure we do so safely!

We had a great time trying to guess peoples identities based on what they do online and had a good chat about how we can stay safe and what to do if we encounter other internet identities which may not be so nice!

Overall, P5-7 are pretty tech savvy and are positive they will be staying safe online!

Mrs B’s amazing group of North Rhins school have been selected to take part in some Podcast making using Soundtrap this term! This is exciting experience in linked to the opening of the Peter Pan Museum in Dumfries and the magical gardens that inspired the works of J. M. Barrie’s own enchanted lands in the famous novel, Peter Pan.

Given how near and dear this story is to the region we were over the moon to be asked to contribute to an online library of children’s stories of ‘enchanted lands’ and with the help of Mr Alan Cameron, we will be using the Podcast tool of Soundtrap to make our stories come to life in our own words!

Today was our first input with Mr Cameron and the pupils have been working hard in coming up with their own versions of Enchanted Lands filled with rich description so they were delighted at the opportunity to record some of their work.

This is the first visit of three and already everything is looking very promising so watch this space to hear what we produce in the end!

The boys and girls have been working extremely hard throughout the month of January, doing all things Scots! They had 3 challenges to complete – to learn their poem and practise reciting it with great gusto; to write out their poem in their best handwriting; and to create a piece of artwork linked to their poem.

On Monday, our judge (Mrs Noelle McClure) had the very difficult and unenviable decision of selecting the winners – we had a few joint winners as it was so close!

Today, we held our Scots Showcase assembly, where lots of parents and family members came into school to celebrate the pupils’ successes. They were presented with certificates and performed some lovely Scots songs to entertain the adults – P1-4 sang “Three Craws” and P5-7 performed the beautiful “My Heart’s in the Highlands.”

Below is a list of the placed winners – but well done to all the pupils in the school for all the effort you have put in over the last 3 weeks!

Primary 1

Poem – ‘Ode tae a spider’

1^st Sophie McColm

2^nd Jessie Townend

3^rd Lyle McCulloch

Illustration: Jessie Townend

Handwriting: Sophie McColm

Primary 2

Poem – ‘Twa legged mice’

1^st Jane Townend

2^nd = Phoebe Manson & Archie Ashton

3^rd = Alistair Swan & Ivan Turtle

Illustration: Phoebe Manson

Handwriting: Phoebe Manson

Primary 3

Poem – ‘Sair finger’

1^st Danny Dougan

2^nd = Lydia Adams & Sally Drummond

3^rd Jack Howie

Illustration: Danny Dougan

Handwriting: Lydia Adams

Primary 4

Poem – ‘The bogle’

1^st Peyton Parker

2^nd Noah McGrory-Thomson

3^rd = Olivia Johnstone & James Turtle

Illustration: Olivia Johnstone

Handwriting: Olivia Johnstone

Primary 5

Poem – ‘Wee Kirk moose’

1^st George Keith

2^nd Alexander MacPherson

3^rd = Miley Adams & Luke Butler

Illustration: George Keith

Handwriting: Emma Drummond

Primary 6

Poem – ‘Wullie wastle’

1^st Zack Ashton

2^nd Daniel Hall

3^rd = Ruth Turtle & Arla McCulloch

Illustration: Zack Ashton

Handwriting: Ruth Turtle

Primary 7

Poem – ‘Address to the haggis’

1^st Ivy Richardson

2^nd Abbie Akenhead

3^rd Abbi Johnstone

Illustration: Ivy Richardson

Handwriting: Ivy Richardson

What a guid auld time we had at oor Burns Lunch today – with our very capable Primary 7 pupils leading the proceedings from the top table.

Danny started off the lunch by welcoming everyone, followed by Alexander who gave the Selkirk Grace. Mr Nicoll kindly joined us and piped in the haggis, which was carried by the oldest and youngest pupils in the school – Jessie and Abbi. After Abbi’s recital of ‘Address to the Haggis,’ we sat down to a bonnie meal of haggis (or mince) and shortbread, kindly prepared by Anne-Marie.

After our bellies were full, we were all entertained with some Scots poetry recitals, Scots songs, and some very kind (and rather funny!) toasts. Our lunch came to a close with everyone joining hands to sing Auld Lang Syne.

Have a keek at the photos below, to see the fun everyone had! More photos to follow…

On Monday we had Team P7 Abbi(e!)s unite to represent the school at the Rotary Lunch at the North West Castle.

The girls left after break with Mrs McColm, who kindly offered to accompany them on their way, and were presented with a delicious lunch of either fish and chips or a ham salad and then had the pleasure of a presentation from Isabel Milroy with Royal Highland Education Trust about what RHET does for our schools in the local community.

The pupils engaged in some quizzes to test their knowledge about food waste and the girls had a smashing time and enjoyed their venture out and all the new things they learned from it!

A big thank you to Abbi and Abbie for always doing a good job of representing our wee school!

On Wednesday our P7 pupils flocked for their first taste of the Academy at the P7 Snowball.

This gave them a chance to socialise with P7 pupils from all the schools in the Stranraer Academy cluster since these will be their future peers for the next 5 or 6 years!

The boys and girls had a lovely night and as you can see – they scrub up well!

The boys and girls got dressed in their festive finery on Thursday afternoon for their annual Christmas Party! It all kicked off at 1pm with a delicious buffet, kindly made by Anne-Marie.

We then moved onto the party games, which were all planned, organised and ran by our very capable House Captains – Danny and Abbie. We enjoyed playing games such as: Christmas Corners, a Balloon Race, Pass the Present, Pin the Nose on Rudolph and Musical Statues. Pupils had also been busy learning some dances over the last few weeks in preparation for the party – they had a go at the Gay Gordons, Canadian Barn Dance and the Military Two-Step.

At half past 2, a special visitor arrived to a chorus of Jingle Bells to surprise the boys and girls – Santa came with a present for everyone who was on the nice list, which was all of them thankfully!!

We all had a wonderful afternoon! Have a look at the photos of our festive fun below!