P4-7 got stuck in to an egg-cellent STEM problem solving challenge this afternoon. The children had to design a zip wire basket capable of transporting a Cadbury’s creme egg on a zip-wire run using just pipe cleaners and a key ring loop.
The boys and girls worked in small groups to problem solve using rudimentary materials. Every group designed a basket that securely held the egg in place.
Trial and error led to our changing one variable: The angle of the zip line.
We found that the egg would move down the zip line if it was at the correct angle. If the zip line was at a lesser angle , gravity would not move the egg down the zip line demonstrating inertia. Inertia is a law of physics that states an object will stay at rest until some kind of force acts upon it. Hence, we increased our angle from our initial position to allow the egg to reach the final travel point.
Last week Primary 1-3 at Portpatrick were celebrating British Science Week. The theme this year was all about innovation and future inventions. We started by having a little review of some of the fantastic inventions that already exist and how they have made life easier and in some cases better. To kick start British Science Week, we had a little look this super cool video showing an amazing and creative design, called the Rube Goldberg Machine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qybUFnY7Y8w
Pupils then took part in a range of STEM activities including a marble run, balloon rocket and the tallest tower competition.
Meanwhile, P4-7 were busy celebrating the Science Week from home, on their final week of remote learning. They had lots of different challenges to choose from, including: putting their STEM skills into action to design a solution to a real-life problem linking to the Global Goals; various science experiments and engineering challenging such as designing a marble run, making a pom-pom launcher, powering a boat using a chemical reaction and creating an underwater volcano; learning about stereotypes and exploring the world of work in relation to STEM careers; and exploring innovations that changed the world.
Have a keek at the photos below – we all had a brilliant week thinking about and exploring problems like real-life scientists and engineers!
Portpatrick Primary were full of fund raising spirit today to support Comic Relief. We all enjoyed a busy day of fun-filled Red Nose Day activities. First up, the boys and girls arrived in style, making a donation to dress either casually or as a superhero.
The children purchased the new eco-friendly, plastic free red noses and bought super hero masks to decorate.
Conor & Lewis -Masked Crusaders
Ruby Sporting New Eco-Nose
Next, we got stuck into baking Red Nose Day cakes. We applied our maths skills to measure and weigh the ingredients carefully. We cooperated, taking turns to blend the mixture. Everyone enjoyed decorating them with cherry noses and jelly lips & teeth before devouring them – yum!
Lewis, Conor and Atticus
Delicious!
As if that wasn’t enough fun and games, we then created our own ‘Super Hero City Scape’ scenes by recycling newspaper to make our artistic city skylines.
Fully focussed
Messy work
Up, Up and Away!
Pegasus
Superhero Crime Fighter
Is it a bird, is it a plane?
City Scape
Sky Scrapers
As an afternoon treat, we were entertained by our North Rhins’ Got Talent show. The boys and girls entered videos of themselves showcasing a personal talent. Among the skills on show were Alba and Izzy performing a beautiful dance duet routine and Atticus demonstrating his table tennis prowess. Our pupils at Portpatrick, carried out an in-house vote and these were amalgamated with the votes across the partnership. There were joint winners for our own school category:
Harry with his impressive golf swing.
Ava Lily with her skillful gymnastics display.
Confident AND Talented
All our boys and girls are talented in so many ways, and it was lovely to view a selection of these skills.
More fun photos for you to enjoy!
Weighing and Measuring
Working with grams
Taking Turns
Spooning the Mixture
What a likeness!
To date our wee school has raised an impressive £110 for worthy causes. Thank you all for your generosity and well done everyone!
It was so lovely to have the boys and girls from Primary 4 to 7 return to school today. The children had so much fun reconnecting socially with their friends. We took advantage of the good weather to have a ‘walk ‘n’ talk’ around our village. It was a real pleasure to see their smiles and listen to them chatter away as they were all able to play together once again.
The boys and girls at Portpatrick Primary have been busy celebrating World Book Day both in school and at home. In School the Primary 1-3 children have taken part in the Live Lesson/Reading from David Walliams, listened to their favourite books, completed the ‘In school’ scavenger hunt, made a road map of all the books that MC Grammar Raps in the very first ‘World Book Day Song’ and finished off by baking some delicious Gruffalo Crumble. It has been a fun filled couple of days in school for the Primary 1-3 children and we have thoroughly enjoyed learning and exploring our favourite books.
However, lets not forget about our P4-7 pupils, who still joined in on the action and celebrated World Book Day from home – they were given a range of activities to pick from to join in on the fun. On offer were tasks such as the Masked Reader, designing their favourite character from fruit/veg/a toilet roll tube, a Big Booky Breakfast, and lots more! Have a keek below for some photos from all of our pupils, to show how we celebrated the day in style!
It may have been an odd year, but nonetheless 2020 was a rather successful one for the North Rhins Primary Schools – we are delighted to announce that we have achieved our Bronze Award for Rights Respecting Schools! This is to recognise the work we have done so far and our commitment to learning more about and embedding the UNCRC Rights of the Child in the life and ethos of our schools.
Our work started waaaay back in January last year (pre-Covid times – can anyone remember what that was like?!) when pupils began learning about the Rights of the Child at assemblies. Then, when pesky Covid came on the scene, we were forced to continue our journey towards our Bronze Award online, with some home learning challenges on various different Rights of the Child.
When we were eventually allowed to return to school and class assemblies resumed, we then focused on ‘Respect’ – what this means and how to respect others’ rights. We learned how respect is at the centre of anti-bullying and we made a video to share with everyone, explaining what ‘RESPECT’ means to each of us; here is the link if you’d like to watch it and the finalised copy of our ‘Respect for All’ policy to have a read through:
Behind the scenes, staff have also been busy learning all about the Rights of the Child, how this permeates lots of what we do in school (including how it is embedded into our ‘Respect for All’ policy) and how we can use language and a restorative approach to further promote respecting everyone’s rights.
A huge thank-you to everyone who helped in achieving this award – we are very pleased to gain national accreditation and recognition for all of our hard work. We can’t wait to continue our Rights Respecting School journey towards our silver award – watch this space!
Pupil Council Members proudly showing off our Certificate
It was lovely to welcome the primary 1-3’s back to Portpatrick Primary today. It was nice to see all the children’s smiling faces. Below are some photos from our walk and trip to the beach this afternoon.
There was something new in the playground, awaiting the boys and girls on their first day back today! Back in September we were successful in receiving some funding from Maths Week Scotland. The only condition was that we had to use this to promote Maths, so we decided to purchase a new wall-mounted Snakes & Ladders board game with fancy magnetic counters. This will enable pupils to work with numbers to 100 in a fun way both at break times and during lessons if they go outdoors.
Have a keek below to see some smiling faces giving our new game the thumbs up!
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.
Portpatrick Primary School has been exceptionally busy celebrating Scottish history and culture over the past few weeks. To celebrate the birthday of Robert Burns, pupils have embraced learning about Scots language and explored both Scottish Saints as well as Robern Burns own life and legacy. Children have, as always, marked the occasion with the traditional competitions; Handwriting, Arts and Crafts and A Poem Recital. Despite restrictions, the children have fully embraced the Burns/Scots activities and have sent in photographs of the wonderful work they have been doing at home. Judging will commence on Friday with our special guest Alec Ross (former pupil at Portpatrick) and children will be invited to recite their poems live on Microsft Teams to celebrate the event. It is Alec’s own Birthday on Friday and so we hope to be able to give him something to smile about by providing him with an excellent exhibit of live entertainment.
Good luck to everyone who is taking part and I hope to see you all there. If you have not already done so could you please respond to the e-mail invitation to help with planning and organisation.
Below are some examples of the excellent work that has been produced by the boys and girls at our fabulous little school.
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Portpatrick Respect Movie.MOV
RfA Final Policy October2020.pdf
