Kirkcolm Primary School

Kirkcolm Nursery and Primary School had a spot-tacular day raising money for Children in Need! Everyone came to school dressed in spotty clothing and we held a baking sale at break time to raise money for the charity. Ann-Marie, our cook, had the difficult decision of judging the ‘spottiest’ pupil in each class who received a prize!

We have also been selling Children in Need merchandise all week – the Pudsey ears and wristbands were so popular that we sold out!!

A fantastic grand total of £240.89 was raised by the pupils!!! Well done to everyone involved!

Jack Howie, along with mum and dad, won a trophy for Jersey Champion last week at the South West Dairy Show in Castle Douglas.  Jack also won a rosette for showing ‘Sambuca’ too.  Well done Jack… what a confident individual 🙂

What a day of frightening fun we’ve had today to celebrate Halloween at Kirkcolm Primary School! This morning, all classes including the Nursery took part in a parade of their Halloween costumes and the pupil council had the difficult decision of judging the best costume in each year group.

After this, P6/7 had planned some spooky Halloween-themed games for everybody to play. The first game saw the school split into teams to play ‘Roll the Mini-Pumpkin,’ where each pupil had to push the mini-pumpkin to the finish line using only their nose! Other games included Halloween Corners, Wrap the Mummy and Pass the Pumpkin. We rounded off the fun-filled day by dookin’ for apples.

Well done to P6/7 for organising the party! Everybody had a great day!

P6-7 have had a super busy term learning all about the Scottish Government and Elections. In the last week of term, our Social Studies topic culminated in our very own whole school election for House Captains.

Pupils have worked hard throughout the term to create their own political parties. They have spoken to groups of constituents in the school to help write meaningful and realistic pledges, created manifesto leaflets with catchy slogans, designed rosettes, and wrote and delivered persuasive speeches at assembly.

On Thursday afternoon the whole school attended our ‘polling station’ where they were each given a voting slip. Once voting was over, independent pupils opened the ballot box and counted the votes, and the results are in!!

The House Captain elected for Corsewall is Sophie Wilson, with Ellie Miller as Vice-Captain.

The House Captain elected for Loch Connell is Katie Butler, with Iona Wallace as Vice-Captain.

Well done to all the pupils involved – what a great way to end a very busy term!

Margaret Baillie (Mental Health Support Worker) joined P6-7 over the last 2 weeks to help deliver sessions about Mental Health. Pupils participated in discussions about different types of mental health disorders, how they aren’t always visible to others, and why it’s good to talk if we’re worried about anything.

Pupils tried out different strategies for improving their mental health, such as breathing techniques and visualisation, and we enjoyed a good boogie to the song ‘Despacito’ to show how exercise can make us feel better.

The pupils were given some goodies and leaflets to take away, with top tips about maintaining positive mental health. Huge thanks to Margaret for giving up her time to come in and work with the class.

Retired MSP and Presiding Officer Alex Fergusson popped into Kirkcolm this afternoon to share his experiences with P6-7 as part of their Government topic. Although some of the boys were disappointed to learn that it wasn’t ex-football player and manager Alex Ferguson who was coming in, we had a great afternoon learning more about the Scottish Parliament!

Mr Fergusson captivated pupils with his stories about representing the parliament in America where they celebrate ‘Scotland Week’ every April and people commented on his tartan ‘pants’; dancing with Princess Anne (and nearly tripping her up!); meeting the Queen and Prime Minister at that time, David Cameron; and being on TV when participating in debates – and the politician who used to fall asleep during those debates!

Pupils learned about some more serious topics, such as having to recall parliament (which had only been done once before) regarding the Lockerbie Bombing; how Mr Fergusson was part of the Rural Committee which he spoke very passionately about; and that he believes all political parties have good and bad ideas.

The final question came from Michaela – what advice would you give to someone wanting to become a politician? Mr Fergusson’s parting comment was that the best politicians have life experience, so do something else first before becoming a politician. Pupils thoroughly enjoyed their chat with Mr Fergusson, and many thanks to him for giving up his time to come in and speak to the class.

Tuesday saw P1-3’s turn to venture to Wigtown Book Festival! The pupils were entertained by 2 authors: Danny Scott and Renita Boyle. Danny Scott introduced his series of books ‘Scotland Starts FC’ and the children enjoyed joining in with the Mexican wave and cheering on others scoring goals. Next up was author Renita Boyle who got the children singing along and joining in with her silly stories and fun tales. They had a great morning full of lots of literary delights!

P4-7 had a wonderful morning at Wigtown Book Festival where 2 authors entertained the children.

The first author, Lari Don, introduced her trilogy of books ‘Spellchasers’ and treated pupils to an extract from her new book which was only released 10 days ago. She discussed the writing process that she goes through and explained that each book in the trilogy had to be bigger and better than the last. Pupils had to get their creative thinking hats on to suggest ideas for their own stories. Lari’s books are sometimes rooted in myths and legends, so she captivated the children with an African myth about a hippopotamus.

The second author, Rab Wilson, introduced the children to his Scots poetry. He read some of his own poems and shared some books written in Scots, then tested pupils on their knowledge of Scots language. He was very impressed with some of Kirkcolm pupils’ – Robin and Innes knew the Scots words for a turkey, a frog and a male sheep!

Some pupils bought a book as a memento of the day as they enjoyed listening to the authors so much! P1-3 are excited to go to the Book Festival tomorrow after hearing about our experience today!

P6-7 were treated to a Scottish Parliament Outreach workshop yesterday from an Education Officer from the parliament. Pupils got to explore and learn about replica artefacts from the Parliament, such as the parliamentary mace, voting slips and an Act of Parliament book. This led to discussions about how voting works and why constituents get 2 votes; and what matters are devolved to the Scottish Parliament.

Katie was then selected as the Presiding Officer who chaired a class debate about whether all school buses should have seat belts installed. Pupils were shown what happens when a motions is passed, sealed with wax and sent to the Queen.

Throughout the session, pupils took part in anonymous voting using electronic keypads to answer questions about the workings of the Parliament and democracy. At the end, Sophie was awarded the gold prize for answering the most questions correctly in the quickest time, Ellie received silver and Michaela got bronze.