Portpatrick Primary

Wow!  It’s been another super active day for our adventure heroes.  Have a look at everything they got up to outdoors. More to follow…

• Water sports
• Fencing
• Rifles
• Orienteering
• Climbing/Abseiling

What a fabulous start to our long awaited Lockerbie Manor residential trip!

The children arrived at school excited and eager for it all to begin. Everyone has settled in together so quickly and are having an absolute ball.

Day 1’s itinerary was:

• Rifle shooting
• Archery
• Climbing
• Obstacle
• Abseiling

Check out the photographs to see the super active, fun-packed time your wee toots are having:

Setting Off:

Abseiling:

Rifle Shooting

Archery

Having fun

 

Settling down for the night

Even more photos from yesterday:

 

And all that in just one day!

 

Dumfries and Galloway Council have just published their COP26 DG School Report on Learning for Sustainability which showcases learning activities that took place during COP26 across the region.  Our North Rhins Partnership is featured.  Why not have a read and see how our environmentally responsible children engaged with this event.

D&G COP26 Report Final

 

Following on from our Burns Supper celebration on the 25th of January, Mr Alec Ross arrived today to judge our annual poetry competition for the children.  He came dressed for the occasion in a dashing pair of tartan trews and many of the children also got into the spirit of the day with splashes of tartan and plaid being worn.

 

 

 

 

 

There were three categories to our event:

• Poetry handwriting
• Poetry recitation
• Poetry artwork

It was very clear to see that all of the children have worked very hard to learn their poems and use expression and action to bring them alive in an entertaining performance.  The level of creativity in this year’s artwork was very high, with great imagination demonstrated by all.

It was quite a challenge to select winners from each primary as the standard was so high.  Here are this year’s results:

Portpatrick Primary Scots Celebration Competition Results – January 2022
Primary	Poem	Recitation Winner	Artwork Winner		Handwriting Winner
1
2	The Elephant	1.      Harry 2.      Arran 3.      Freya/Adam	1.       Arran 2.       Freya 3.       Harry		1.       Harry 2.       Adam 3.       Arran
3	Tae a Thistle	1.       Rebecca	1.       Rebecca		1.       Rebecca
4	Beasties	1.       Carter 2.       Louise 3.       Erin	1.       Erin 2.       Carter 3.       Louise		1.       Lacey 2.       Carter 3.       Erin
5	The Auld Troot	1.       Cameron 2.       Atticus 3.       Max	1.       Max 2.       Cameron 3.       Tilly		1.       Lewis 2.       Connor 3.       Tilly
6	The Moosie’s Prayer	1.       Katie 2.       Jack	1.       Katie 2.       Jack		1.       Katie 2.       Jack
7	Robert Burns Poems	1.       Maya 2.       Ava Lily 3.       Ruby	1.       Izzy 2.       Ruby 3.       Ava Lily		1.       Ruby 2.       Izzy 3.       Alba
Highly Commended Across All 3 Categories		Class 1 ·      Stephen ·      Jenna		Class 2 ·         Scott ·         Lilly

Regardless of results, everyone can be very proud of their achievement in being successful learners and confident individuals.

Sláinte

 

As part of our Eco Schools biodiversity targets, the whole school participated in this year’s RSPB Big School Birdwatch on Friday.

Armed with our bird spotter guides, we conducted our survey at three sites.  We took a walk to the woods at the church and continued up to Dunskey woods, and spent some time in our school grounds. On our way past, we noticed that Tilly’s Grandparents garden was a big hit with the local sparrows visiting their feeders.

We applied our maths skills to the task by taking tallies of each type of bird spotted.  We then submitted our results online and produced a graphical representation of our findings.  Not surprising for our location, crows and gulls were the most common birds we saw.

 

 

It is that time of year again where we celebrate our proud Scottish heritage.  Everyone came together today to enjoy a social Burns Supper served by our Lovely Laura.

Our House Captains organised the seating plans, naming each table after  famous Scots poems.  The children also created flag banners and a thistle centre pieces to decorate the tables.   There was a wee show of tartan here an there in our attire today too.

In time honoured tradition, everyone stood as the haggis was piped in. Stephen presented the haggis to Mrs Henry, who wonderfully addressed the haggis for everyone’s entertainment.  The children were enthralled by her rousing performance of this classic Burns poem.

 

Next in the proceedings was the Selkirk Grace given by Lily.  Laura then served a delicious meal of haggis, neeps and tatties followed by shortbread and butterscotch mousse, which everyone very much enjoyed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once the meal was over, Atticus, Conor and Max gave the Toast to the Lassies, with a little bit of tongue-in-cheek teasing.  Izzy and Alba responded in kind with their Reply to the Laddies. The vote of thanks was delivered by Ruby and Lily. Everyone did extremely well, particularly those who had stepped in at the last minute due to some absences.

In further entertainment, Primary 1 – 4 sung The Three Craws.  Primary 5 – 7 sung The Jelly Piece Song.  To bring the event to close, everyone came together to sing Auld Lang’s Syne.

 

Judging of our poetry recitations and artwork will now be held on Wednesday 2nd of February.

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 .