Portpatrick Primary

Today we had the joy of giving the fabulous Kim a little surprise birthday treat. Kim was celebrating her 40^th birthday in school today and of course it couldn’t go unnoticed. It was a difficult secret to keep, with all children and staff trying not to acknowledge her birthday until later in the afternoon. Kim being Kim, got on with her day, and pretended like it was just another Friday at work.

Without knowing, the staff had organised for a surprise staff lunch (supplied by Connors Restaurant) and a beautiful big birthday cake. The children all made her a beautiful card and sang Happy Birthday on their way to lunch.

We wish you many happy returns from everyone at Portpatrick Primary. Forty and Fabulous!

The children at Portpatrick Primary are delighted to start the new term with some new features to the playground. Thank you to the parent council for organising the addition of our new goal posts to our ever expanding playground. Special thank you must go to the volunteers who put them together during the school holidays. We are very grateful!

Below are some photos of the children enjoying the new goal posts.

The children of Portpatrick Primary enjoyed a walk down to the Harbour hub today to enjoy a virtual pantomime – oh yes they did!   They snuggled up inside and  enjoyed watching “Lost in Pantoland”

On return to school the children enjoyed some strawberry Santas, kindly provided by Connor’s restaurant.  John Connor handed in the strawberries along with some amazing Rudolph cupcakes and Christmas cookies for the children to enjoy at their party tomorrow, or take home in a goody bag.

Many thanks for thinking of the school.  The strawberries were enjoyed by all!

World Kindness day was recently and the pupils in p5-7 took some time to reflect with Miss Hayes on what it means to be kind.  The class decided to write some letters and be kind to others in Thorneycroft. The children wrote and told them all about themselves and their lives .

Today the class were delighted to see their box returned to school , full of replies from residents. Each pupil got a lovely letter  from someone different in Thorneycroft. We read the letters out and were very grateful for the kindness shown back to Portpatrick Primary pupils

It was a lovely inter generational activity, which all really appreciated .

Portpatrick Primary is forever grateful to the local community throughout the year for their continued support. We are always astounded by the generosity of those around us and this year has been no different. Quite simply, we wouldn’t be who we are without you all.  Below is a quick summary of some of the things that have been happening in Portpatrick School in the month of December. Thank you so much to all involved both this month and every month of the year. We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year when it comes.

Downshire
As many of you may already know, the children created some lovely Christmas pictures which have been on display in The Downshire throughout the Christmas period. If you haven’t already seen them, be sure to have a quick look next time you are passing. On Christmas Jumper Day The Downshire Staff made their way up to the school grounds to kindly give the children a selection box gift and wish them a Merry Christmas. Thank you so much, the children were delighted!

Mount Stewart
A huge thank you to the Mount Stewart for helping us with our Christmas Video and also for inviting Santa before his isolation period to visit the boys and girls and give them a little gift. The Children were delighted with the special surprise and were equally as delighted with Santa’s generous gifts. All made better by the wonderful snow.

Scarlett Visuals
The children were very curious during the making of the video to learn about how to use a drone professionally. The children watched as Mark (The drone pilot) showed children how he operated the drone, the importance of having a licence for the drone and then gave a quick preview of the finished result. Massive thanks to Mark for giving up his time and generously helping us out with our Christmas video extravaganza. If you haven’t seen the video yet be sure to have a look. The end footage of our wonderful village is absolutely spectacular.

Portpatrick Primary 2021 Christmas Video – YouTube

Connors Restaurant
During our filming week we were lucky enough to do a short clip inside Connors restaurant. Thank you to John and Kirstin Connor who gave the children a lovely cookie treat to enjoy. It was very yummy and definitely helped to keep our energy up during filming.

Christingle
Many thanks to St Ninians Church of Portpatrick who dropped off a charitable festive activity for the children to take part in. Children learnt about the tradition of Christingle which aims to raise money for young people in need. We created Christingles and recognised the symbols within it. The orange representing the world, the red ribbon symbolising the love of Christ, the sweets and dried fruit representing all of god’s creations and the lit candle representing Jesus’s light in the world, bringing hope to people living in darkness.

Christmas Dinner
Served on Christmas jumper day and with lots of festive cheer, the children enjoyed a delicious Christmas Dinner delivered up by our wonderful Laura. Pupils had lots of fun taking selfies, pulling crackers (and faces) before telling jokes and donning the traditional party hats.

Mrs Cain and the Loreburn Community Garden, Portpatrick
Thank you to Mrs Cain and the Loreburn Community garden who have kindly donated some selection boxes to the children for Christmas. Again, we are very grateful for your generosity and the children will be delighted when these are distributed on Wednesday.

We are delighted to inform you that our wonderfully eco-friendly pupils have achieved the requirements for the RSPB School’s Wild Challenge Silver Award.

This builds on our earlier success of achieving our Bronze level status.   We have now completed 12 wild activities to  become a Wild Challenge silver award holder.   There are two categories of challenge: Helping Nature and Experiencing nature.  Our activities range from habitat making to Sensing the World. We care about our wildlife and our environment.

There’s no stopping us!

 

P1-7 for Silver

 

This year our boys and girls have decided to go green with their choice of Christmas crafts they have made to sell at our annual stall in our local Christmas Craft Fayre today.

The children have foraged for natural materials in our woods and have recycled a wide range of materials to make our crafts – from paper tubes to corks.  Thank you to our families for donating the materials.

 

Busy crafting:

We are delighted to announce that the following festive treats will be available to buy on our stall:

• Handmade Christmas crackers complete with a hat, a joke and a Christmas ornament
• Cork and twig reindeer models
• Pinecone decorations
• Hand painted clay Christmas tree ornaments
• 4 Seasons calendars with our own artwork designs

Family helpers  volunteered their time to help run the café and craft stalls. Our responsible girls, also volunteered their time to set up and man the stalls.  Maya, Lily and Ruby got busy baking and sold their very delicious delights by asking only for donations. Parents and families also donated home baking for the café.  The bakes on offer were worthy of any Bake-Off contestant.  I can personally vouch for this having sampled more than a few of the treats on offer! The leftover baking was distributed to older members of our community.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Despite the chilly weather, there was a good turn out at the fayre. The cafe raised an impressive £335.54 for the parent council.  Maya, Lily and Ruby’s bake stall raised £31.25 and our pupil craft stall raised £56.00, giving a total of £87.25 for school funds.  Very well done to everyone!

We will be sending a shopping list home for the remaining craft items, just in case we can tempt some home sales to boost our fundraising even more! 🙂

Christmas Fundraiser sale

Thank you to everyone who contributed, gave their time, and purchased to help support fundraising for our school. We appreciate your efforts so much!

# Effective Contributors & Responsible Citizens

The boys and girls of Portpatrick Primary want to take care of our bird wildlife as the weather turns colder.

Everyone has been involved in making seed feeders for the birds. It was a bit of a messy process, but the children rolled up their sleeves and made feeders using pinecones and by shaping the seed/fat mix into balls with string attached to allow us to tie them to locations in our school grounds for the birds to enjoy.

Getting stuck into the mix:

It was an excuse to climb a tree or two to position our feeders for our feathered friends:

The children used the activity as an enterprise project and have worked out unit costs for each bird snack made.  We have made enough extra to sell at the upcoming village craft fayre on the 27th of November.  The boys and girls calculated an appropriate prices to produce a small profit.  Every one sold will help raise funds for our wee school.

# Responsible Citizens & Successful Learners

 

Pupils at Portpatrick Primary were busy again last week celebrating Book Week and participating in Anti-Bullying Week.

Book Week Scotland is an annual celebration of books and reading, supported by Creative Scotland and SLIC. Children have enjoyed taking part in some of the online activities and celebrating the joy of books and reading. The upper class took part in the live lesson from engineers on sustainability linked to the story “Stop the litter”. The Roald Dahl Quiz was a hit- as always. This was followed by a competition testing children’s book knowledge by providing the blurb to some classic and favourite stories; the winner is the first to guess the title (Congratulations Izzy). The upper class also participated in this year’s writing competition. The story must feature a pair of wellies per the criteria, and we had some spectacular pieces written. The results will be announced in two weeks.

Children have also been taking part in this year’s Anti-Bullying Week, which coincided with Book Week this year. The theme was “One Kind Word”. Through assemblies and classroom activities, we have been revising what bullying is, how to deal with it, what to do, and how it is related to Rights Respecting School. See below for pictures of odd socks, kind words, friendship handprints, a friendship survey, random acts of kindness, and children celebrating their individual and unique qualities.

Anti-Bullying Week

Book Week

As part of providing opportunities for Pupil Voice, our House Captains and Pupil Council rolled up their sleeves and helped organise this year’s Children In Need fundraising activities.  Supporting charities and recognising the needs of others is part of our learning journey as a Rights Respecting School who supports Global Goals. Our event activities also align with World Children’s Day which is tomorrow.

Children in Need is a charity that provides grants and funding to projects based in the UK that have the aim of helping disadvantaged young people. This help comes in a wide variety of forms. For example, a lot of CIN’s invaluable work involves supporting charities that help children who have been affected by poverty, disabilities, abuse, and mental health difficulties.

The boys and girls came to school dressed in their sporty clothing ready to take part in Joe Wick’s Five Minute Workouts throughout the day. We had a range of sporting activities represented from workout style to ballet dancers.  The teachers also joined in ready to get active.

Ready for Action:

 

 

Lookin’ Good:

Workout Time:

We earned our ‘Work It Out’ certificate from Joe Wicks:

 

 

 

 

 

# Health & Wellbeing

If you are feeling energetic, why not join in with Joe Wick’s at home here!

With the kindness and generosity of our families we were able to combine our Eco Goal of Recycling and Reusing by running a Bring & Buy sale of pre-loved toys and books.  There were lots of smiling faces and enthusiasm to grab a bargain.  Our older pupils applied their maths skills to organise a float, calculate change and count the total raised.

The sale is open!

# Successful Learners

In total, including donations from families and the sales of merchandise,  our wee school has raised an impressive £170.10 which is fantastic for our wee school. Together, as a partnership, we raised a grand total of £523.28!

Very many thanks to everyone who contributed and supported the event in whatever way they could.

Sending you all a Pudsey hug!