Portpatrick Primary

Last Thursday, the boys and girls in Primary 1-4 took a stroll down into the village to have a look around our community. Our current topic is Portpatrick and we have been looking at what types of facilities we have around us and why, who are the people in our community and why are they important.

During our walk we made sure to talk about all of the above, however we had a very important task to complete. The boys and girls were conducting a survey on the types of houses we have within our community. They were able to correctly identified the different types of houses and discuss why we have more terrace and semi-detached housing in the main part of the village opposed to the detached houses we find more common on the likes of Heugh Drive .

Below are some photos from our walk.

Keep an eye out to see how we will use technology to help explain what we have been learning about and display our findings from our survey.

 

 

Portpatrick Primary opened its doors to family and friends this afternoon to share our learning on digital technologies and coding as part of Digital Coding Week.

There were many activities for everyone to participate in.

P1-3 were set the challenge of programming a code-n-go mouse to navigate a large scale map of Portpatrick village.  Everyone had to estimate and try step quantity and direction to reach landmark destinations the children had reproduced on the map.

P4-7 practiced and shared their skills on digital coding, using the free online courses available on www.code.org (select projects tab).  These are available to explore further at home.  The pupils are signed up for differentiated levels of challenge.

They also continued with their musical composition using Soundtrap; sharing and collaborating on making tracks.

The pupils practiced their keyboard skills by using www.dancemattypying.com. (This is also available online at home).

Throughout the range of activities, the children were applying their computational higher order thinking skills of:

• tinkering
• collaborating
• using logic
• creating algorithms
• perseverance
• debugging

Digital technologies and computational thinking are at the forefront of the skills demand for the future world of work that our pupils will be entering.  We are committed to helping our children prepare for the challenges and opportunities that are ahead of them.  By embedding digital technologies within our curriculum, we hope to support them in this goal.

Why not watch the Socialnomics 2018 video below to see for yourself the powerful message on how our world is changing?

# Successful Learners

 

P4-7 received a special visit from Paramedic Tanya Ellis today.  We learned a great deal of information about the role of emergency services, why we would contact them and what we would say if we had to call in an emergency.  The pupils considered carefully the dangers of making hoax 999 calls.

The workshop then moved on to practicing placing an unconscious person in the recovery position. All the boys and girls were able to achieve the required pose for their unconscious casualty.

Tanya then demonstrated carrying out C.P.R. on a dummy.  The children practiced performing compressions on the dummy for themselves.  We learned that the sequence is 30 compressions to 2 breaths.

The class then shared their knowledge on how to treat a range of injuries and emergencies such as burns, asthma attacks, breaks, bites and bleeding.

# Responsible Citizens

P4-7 had our first workshop sessions on Soundtrap with Mr John Dinnin. We learned how to use it to make our own music.  We used loops and instruments to make music track.  We shared them with  each other and asked each other to tell us if they liked our music.  We will get another 3 workshop days with Mr Dinnin.  Have a listen to Sophia’s music.

# Successful Learners

Written by Digital leader Rose P4

Click play below to listen to music made by Sophia.

Pupils have had a busy start to the year, applying for various jobs in the school and demonstrating they are keen to take on positions of responsibility. We received lots of applications for Pupil Council and monitor jobs; several pupils were keen to be interviewed for the Eco committee; lots of boys and girls in the senior class applied via the online application for Digital Leaders; and P6/7 pupils said their House Captain election speeches at assembly.

This year, we have decided that pupils will earn a ‘salary’ (in the form of merits – not cash!) for undertaking their job to give them further experience of the world of work.

After a difficult decision, we have selected our new committees for the year.

Our new Pupil Council members are:

As a new addition this year, we have introduced House Captains. They will help to motivate and lead their house to gain as many merit as possible throughout the year, and will help with the organisation of events such as parties. Our House Captains are:

 

Our new Eco Committee, hoping to take forwards our current action plan and achieve our Green Flag next year:

And finally, our new Digital Leaders who will help to develop ICT in classes and provide technical support in the school are:

Maya, Rose Findlay and Lillie (photo to follow)

P4-7 are continuing to explore instructions through a range of mediums.  Today, we used our STEM craft skills to construct a paper hat.  We were required to:

• Sequence diagram images in the correct order
• Carry out the construction stages to make a paper hat
• Record each step with a clearer, digital photograph
• Create a fuller, instruction text with all the required features i.e. Title, equipment, tips, stage photographs, written commands, sequencing connectives and imperative verbs.

The children then experimented with using ‘Sway’ to create their instruction text publication.  Here is an example made by Findlay T – P7. Click on the link below then select play.

How To Make A Paper Hat

Created by Findlay Thorburn p7

Go to this Sway

# Successful Learner

P4 -7  have been doing their coding course on code.org and they have also have been giving a robotic mouse instructions to find and collect cheese through a maze made by the pupils.  We are working with how to create and debug instructional algorithms as part of  learning about instruction texts in our language topic.

#Successful Learners

Post by Digital Leader Findlay Thorburn

 

 

Findlay, our experienced digital leader, has been showing the new digital leaders how to upload photos to a computer from the digital camera. The new digital leaders have been learning how to create and publish a blog with their glow accounts.

Our new digital leaders are Findlay, Lillie, Maya and Rose.

# Effective Contributors & Successful Learners

Blog posted by Findlay T – P7

  

As part of learning about instruction texts, P4-7 were set a technical challenge ‘a la British Bake Off’ style.

The children were given a pared down recipe instruction for pancakes with some basic instruction text features omitted from it.  The recipe did not detail equipment needed, had incomplete steps and no sequencing connectives etc.

We used the real-life experience of making the pancakes for ourselves to ‘debug’ the instructions provided.

The children will follow up the activity by creating their own improved recipe instructions using I.C.T. technology.  They will use the digital images we took in the activity to enhance their recipe with photographic illustrations.  They will then add in features such as sequencing connectives, imperative (bossy) verbs and fuller, step-by-step stages.

We shared our pancakes with the whole school.  They were our taste test judges and the verdict was they were all ‘Star Bakers!’

#Successful Learners

This afternoon we were delighted to welcome Cal Major into our school. Cal is currently travelling from Lands End to John O groats on her paddle board in a bid to raise awareness around the plastic pollution in our oceans.

“Paddle Against Plastic hopes to inspire and empower positive change, and bring hope and pride in being part of the solution.”

Cal, a veterinary surgeon, describes herself as an ocean advocate who is passionate about connecting people with the ocean and protecting it and its ecosystems.

Cal was speaking to the children about how plastic ends up in the sea, how we can help and how we can reduce our consumption of single use plastic.

Here are some of her top tips;

• Help to raise awareness of the issue in a positive way
• Participate in a beach clean
• Remove fishing nets from the beaches
• Buy a reusable water bottle
• Don’t flush litter down the toilet
• Take reusable bags with you when you go shopping

Cal then very kindly shared with us some fantastic videos of her journey. It was lovely to watch the images of our dramatic coastline as well as some clips of the animals that she has encountered along the way.

Her final message is not to feel guilty or negative about the current situation but to focus on what we can do instead of what we can’t. Every little helps as they say and doing something is better than nothing. Thanks again to Cal for giving up her time to come and visit us at Portpatrick Primary.