Kirkcolm Primary School

Saturday saw a very busy day of Christmas cheer and fun in the Christmas Fayre held in the school as well as carol singing and the big light switch on in the village at night.

Lots of the community turned up to the fayre and enjoyed the many stalls on offer including home baking, Christmas crafts and the nursery stall.  The whole school provided some entertainment to the guests via their fantastic Christmas songs they have been learning.  Thank yo to all who helped make the fayre such a success and thank you to all who came along too 🙂

The festive fun continued in to the night with carol singing at the top of the village outside the church.  Celebrations then continued in the village hall with the grand switching on of the Xmas lights, as well as the presentation of cheques to the community groups from the Windfarm Grants.  Our parent and pupil councils were there to receive their cheques and look forward to spending these very soon.  Again, thank you to all who help organise such fantastic events and also to those who come along to support it too.

What a successful night the Trio schools had at the girls’ badminton competition yesterday!!

Girls single results:

1^st – Rhian Palmer (Portpatrick)

2^nd – Kayleigh Williams (Leswalt)

3^rd – Ellie Miller (Kirkcolm)

Girls double results:

1^st – Katie Butler & Ellie Miller (Kirkcolm)

2^nd – Jenna Calderwood & Kayleigh Williams (Leswalt)

3^rd – Rhian Palmer & Jenna (Portpatrick)

A clean sweep for the North Rhins Partnership –well done girls!!

A huge well done to Iona, Katie, Robin, Ellie and Sophie who were placed 2^nd out of all the schools in Dumfries and Galloway in the Maths Week Scotland competition with their song ‘Born with Maths.’ They have won £50 for Kirkcolm School to spend on Maths resources. What a talented bunch!! (Video of the song to follow…)

P6-7 have had the pleasure of working with the traditional music company Feis Rois for the past 12 weeks. Anne from Feis Rois has been delivering Group Music Making sessions to the class, which has involved learning new songs and singing rounds, playing games to help develop rhythm, playing percussion instruments (with some pupils even bringing in their own instruments from home), and discussion about musical terms such as dynamics, pitch and tempo.

The 12 week block culminated in a performance yesterday which the whole school and parents were invited to come and watch. P6-7 enjoyed teaching the younger pupils a game called ‘San Mario’ that they loved learning!!

Huge thanks to Anne for all her hard work and input with the pupils. They really enjoyed the sessions and learned lots!

Kirkcolm School recently donated lots of spare books to a school in Africa. Our Art teacher, Mrs Copeland and her family are currently building a Nursery in Zambia and plan to then build a school. They will be raising funds to transport the books out to Africa. We hope to set up a link with the school in the future.

_{P1-3 went on a trip to the local post office today as part of their ‘People who Help Us’ topic. The children asked lots of questions and enjoyed finding out how letters get from the post-box to the person they are for. It takes 3 days for a letter to get to Santa in Lapland!!}

PC Pellett popped in to Kirkcolm on Thursday to speak to the P3-5 and P6-7 classes about online safety. We chatted about the different types of social media (Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram to name a few) and how to stay safe – having a strong password; not sharing personal information or pictures, including ones of us in our school uniform as this can give people clues about where we live; only accepting friends online who we actually know and trust; and having our security settings set to private so only friends can access our posts.

We also discussed cyber-bullying, with many pupils not realising that this is actually a criminal offence.

Finally, we watched a clip from the ‘Think U Know’ website called Jigsaw, which highlighted that it is just as important to stay safe online as it is to stay safe in the real world. The clip posed lots of thought-provoking questions to help us think about this – would you leave your front door open? Would you leave your pictures in a public place? Would you tell strangers where you live? Would you speak to a stranger as if they were your best friend?

Pupils were encouraged to explore the Think U Know website at home, as there is lots of educational games to play regarding internet safety.

Report by Katie and Sophie (P7):

On the 21^st of November 2017 the whole of Kirkcolm Primary travelled to the Stranraer Cinema to watch the film ‘Revolting Rhymes’ by Roald Dahl and illustrated by Quentin Blake.

When we gathered in the huge cinema we saw that there were other schools like Leswalt, Portpatrick, Sheuchan Primary and Belmont Primary. A tall man sat us down and the film began. We gathered a few thoughts of fellow pupils about how they felt before the film. “I thought it was going to be great because I am a Roald Dahl fan,” said Mrs MacPherson. “I thought it was going to be for younger kids,” reported Iona (P.7).

We watched the short film about a wolf telling his story about his dead nephews and how Little Red Riding shot them. When we all thought it was done, there turned out be a part 2!! It was about Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk who was neighbours with Cinderella (Cindy) and in the end they fell in love, got married and had 2 kids and they owned a marmalade & jam shop. It was a very entertaining film and we all thought the animations were amazing!

Here are some of the positive quotes after Revolting Rhymes. “Really funny!” Grace CB P.4. “Good! But you felt sorry for the people who got eaten.” Jak M P.5.  “A bit scary!” Sally D P.1. “It was interesting and creative.” Iona W P.7.  “It was pretty good… no …. AMAZING!!” Scott B P.7.

We have never been to the Film Festival before and we all agree that it was good … no … AMAZING!!!

As part of their topic “People who help us”, on Wednesday 22^nd November P1-3 went to visit Stranraer Police station. PC Pellet showed the children different parts of the police uniform and the children loved trying on the different outfits. Next they went to have a look at the custody suite and the cells to see what it is like to be locked up!  They were shown the breathalyser and the DNA machines and then all had their ‘mug shot’ taken. At the end they got to see the Surveillance room and watched the street cameras in action and tried to spot people they knew!  The children had a great time and asked lots of questions.

The whole school recently participated in the Ervie-Kirkcolm Church Christmas card competition. The winners, selected by Mrs Lesley Allen (church elder) are: Cody McCrae, Alba White, Ivy Richardson and Ruth Turtle. Their pictures will be used on the Christmas cards handed out by the church.

Well done to everyone for taking part!