Portpatrick Primary

Did you know that May is National Share a Story  month?

This is an annual celebration of the power and magic of storytelling. Organised by the Federation of Children’s Book Groups, it is a wonderful opportunity for families to share stories and books.

Spending just 10 minutes a day reading and sharing stories with children can make a crucial difference to their future plus it’s a lovely thing to do!

World Book Day are offering free Share A Story resources to help you join in including a Share A Story Reading Stars game, top tips for sharing stories, book review templates.

This year’s theme is Myths, Magic and Mayhem.

Here are some suggested reading titles for you:

• Mythical Book Suggestions
• Magic Book Suggestions 
• Mayhem Book Suggestions

Why not encourage your child to create their own mythical beast for this year’s competition! Click here for competition details.  The closing dates is the 1st of June, 2021.

Pupil Council Members thought it would be a good idea to share a digital library of books you might like to read together at home.

WBD-whole school digital-library

The Pupil Council members  planned an afternoon of sharing a story together in school to read for pleasure.

What a brilliant day out the North Rhins P7s enjoyed at Galloway Activity Centre on Friday! This was organised as a special treat as they had missed their last two residentials – and what a fabulous time they had together before they head off to S1 at Stranraer Academy.

Thankfully the high winds and rain of Thursday had abated and Friday dawned dry and reasonably bright. We met at Port Rodie and clambered upon the minibus to head down the road to Loch Ken.

Once there, we got kitted up with our laser guns and headsets for our first activity. Diving in and out of the wooden hides (and in Mrs F’s case headfirst over a tree trunk!) the teams worked to avoid being ‘killed’ by the opposition. Strategy meetings were held, tactics discussed and rounds of ‘ammo’ were fired… and yes the teachers were shot! All good fun. The teachers went from being quite cool and mature to being VERY into this game! Why had I never played this before? Highly recommended!

Next up, the children donned their wetsuits (many comedy moments were had with Mr Cloy!) and enjoyed a session of kayaking. They were naturals! Once they were kayaked-out, the suggested dare from Instructors Rob and Hannah to jump off the the end of the pontoon was met with great cheers all round. The phrase ‘drowned rats’ comes to mind as they all padded back up towards the centre to get changed into dry clothes.

A quick bite of lunch and it was time for the climbing wall and zipwire with instructors Rob and Ben. What a bunch of adrenaline seekers we have! Superb climbing and ‘zipping’! The offer was then there for those who wanted to have a 2nd,3rd and even 4th shot of the climbing wall.

We thanked Rob, Hannah and Ben for a great activity day and climbed aboard the bus to head to Castle Douglas for a bite to eat. Chip-shop dinners in hand, we stopped the bus by Carlingwark Loch and munched our tasty suppers, before heading back along the A75 towards home.

The kids were an absolute pleasure to be with, the activities were fantastic fun and the chip-shop tea rounded off a perfect day out! Just check out our pictures below to see for yourselves….Click on the images to enlarge 🙂

Mrs Ferguson & Miss McNicoll

The children at Portpatrick primary have been very busy today as they celebrated Outdoor Learning Day- albeit a day early to take advantage of the beautiful weather. Outdoor Classroom Day is a global movement to make time outdoors part of every child’s day. While we are no stranger to the outdoors in Portpatrick we like to participate in as much outdoor fun as we can.

In P1-4 pupils were practising their number bonds, multiplication and division skills. They children created Venn diagrams to explore multiples of numbers and used sticks and stones to explore the concept of multiplication and division.

In P4-7 pupil were taking part in some measure, area and estimating activities.

Using vocabulary inspired by the outdoor environment all pupils took part in some literacy writing. Thinking about our senses we took the time to write about the environment around us and P1-4 crated some incredible pieces of writing which started with the sentence, “As I sat on top of the hill I could see/hear/smell…”

The children were delighted to take part in the Great 2021 BUG HUNT in which they were able to identify different creatures, their habitats and discussed what they needed to survive.

In P.E. Pupils took part in Active Schools activities with Lewis in the afternoon playing lots of exciting team games.

It was another very successful day outdoors at Portpatrick.

For ‘I Love Nurses Day’ the pupils of Portpatrick were asked to create artwork to celebrate the wonderful contribution nurses make to our society, particularly this year!

The boys and girls drew  posters to show their appreciation for our nurses and, as a special reward, they were given some healthy fruit in return. The children really enjoyed munching on their fruity snacks.

Thank you to Julie Currie and Morrisons for their kind donation.

On the 19th of May, National Numeracy Day 2021 will help the nation, at work, home and school get ‘number confident’.

National Numeracy empowers children and adults to get on with numbers so they can achieve number success and manage numbers in everyday life.

This event is the UK’s only annual day dedicated to everyday maths. This year, the event is a unique virtual festival and will be packed full of practical advice from celebrities and experts, inspirational stories from real-life learners and a host of free online events and resources.

Why not check out this Sway to find out how to take part?  Simply click on ‘play’ when it launches.

North Rhins National Numeracy Day

The National Numeracy Day 2021 features three themes crucial to the nation’s wellbeing:

Go to this Sway

You may recall that we informed you that three of our three Primary 6 girls, Ava Lily, Izzy and Maya had reached the final stages of the Poppyscotland Fundraising Heroes competition for their fundraising efforts for Remembrance Day.

We have just received an official email to inform us that the girls have won in their category: Best Fundraising Photograph!  This has earned them £500 in Amazon vouchers for our school.  The backstory to the photograph demonstrates the girls’ selfless initiative to raise funds for this very important charity.

Confirmation was received from Yvonne Caddell, Learning and Volunteer coordinator today.  She writes:

I am extremely delighted to announce that ‘The Pineapple Squad’ from Portpatrick Primary School have won the Fundraising Heroes! Competition 2020 in the category of ‘Best Fundraising-in-Action Photo’.

Our massive and warmest congratulations to Maya McNeill, Ava Lily Orr-Ewing and Isabella White.

I’m sure you will agree the girls truly deserved their win. This photo perfectly captures the girls’ enthusiasm for running their own initiative fundraising enterprise project. Looking at the results of the voting their school and local communities really got behind them and kept them in the lead throughout all of the weeks of voting!

All very best wishes and congratulations once again!

We are so proud of our girls for their dedication to others.  It is quite an achievement, particular when the winner was decided by a national voting poll.  Thank you to everyone who shared, voted and supported the girls in their efforts.

# Responsible Citizens

# Effective Contributors

The whole school took advantage of the beautiful afternoon to participate in some ‘Eco Time’ as part of World Earth Day.  This year’s theme is Restore Our Earth, which focuses on natural processes, emerging green technologies, and innovative thinking that can restore the world’s ecosystems.

Morrisons have kindly donated sunflower seed packets to local schools as part of their Seeds of Hope initiative.  The philosophy behind the Morrisons project is to ‘nourish your plant and nurture your mind’.  The school  decided that these two events aligned and would give us an excellent opportunity to both support natural biodiversity and ‘nurture’  our minds at the same time.  Sunflowers are a valuable source of food for birds, bees and insects,  so we are doing our bit to support biodiversity.

Everyone planted dwarf sunflowers which we will care for and nurture to grow seedlings.  We will then send these home so children can plant them in their gardens to enjoy and share with their family, supporting insect life in many gardens.

The children seeded our wooden planter and planted up large pots to  make a display we can all enjoy outside the dinner hall.  Everyone will be able to view the cheery sunflowers as they walk into school.

#Effective Contributors

As part of our Eco School action plan, pupils at Portpatrick Primary have been helping to clear up the local community by partaking in a whole school litter pick. Unfortunately this year we were unable to invite parents/community members to join in, however the children were in good spirits and still managed to collect some litter in and around the area. Thank you to the ONUS beach cleaning group who kindly lent us their litter pickers. We had a lovely afternoon in the sunshine- see below for photos.

The whole school got sprightly outdoors today as part of the Active Schools initiative to encourage walking in our local community area.  The activity also fits in with our Fresh Air Fridays.

The children selected local landmarks and sites to photograph to spell out a set of words.  Can you work out what the message is from the photographs below? Scroll down to reveal.        : )

We had such a fantastic afternoon in the sunshine.  Have a look at the photos to admire the pretty wee place where we live and go to school.

# Creative and Healthy!