Portpatrick Primary

As part of our ongoing Eco work, we were visited today by 2 members of the Coastwise Project.  The team delivered a workshop to both classes separately to help educate us about the problems plastic pollution is causing to our coastlines, seas and wildlife.  They shared information about recycling plastics and the alternatives we can use to avoid single use plastics.

The children had the opportunity to study aquatic life skulls and objects up close.  Our boys and girls are very aware of our responsibility to help sustain our world.

#Responsible Citizens

As part of our Litter Eco Targets, Primary 4-7 have taken positive action on the issue of dog fouling in our community.  We have used our technologies skills to email both the Chair of Portpatrick Community Council and our local Community Safety Wardens with the results of our dog fouling survey in the village.  We highlighted the problem and asked for support.

As a result, two Community Safety Officers, Andy and Caroline, attended our school for an action planning meeting today.  The officers were pleased with the standard of the dog fouling posters which were created by the whole school. They will laminate and mount these for us ready for display in our area to encourage responsible dog ownership.  Andy will judge and announce the winners of our poster competition.

We have agreed to conduct another combined litter and dog fouling survey using the Dumfries and Galloway council recommended rating scale that the community team use.  This will then be used to feed into the regional database.

The class agreed that it would be a great idea to invite a mechanical road sweeper to visit our village to help clear up the worst affected areas that we find.  It is planned that two pupils will attend a meeting to present our work to the Portpatrick Community Council.

Not content with all this positive Eco action, the class have also written persuasive letters to Dumfries and Galloway council asking them to encourage their supplier of individual milk cartons to stop using plastic straws which do not biodegrade.

#Responsible Citizens & Effective Contributors

 

P1-4 had the opportunity to learn about Scottish animals and their habitats on the ‘Wild About Scotland’ bus from Edinburgh Zoo. We met a badger, beaver and a wild cat, as well as getting to hold various antlers and feel animal pelts.

Our two hosts showed and taught us about the effect of plastic on our native wildlife and how we can best protect them by recycling and reducing our plastic usage. The boys and girls were all shocked by how many animals get caught in plastic and are keen to find out more ways we can help stop this at school and at home.

A big thank you to Edinburgh Zoo for letting us enjoy this experience.

#Responsible Citizens

The boys and girls got their Eco Warrior hats on today as we conducted a dog fouling survey of our village.  The pupils produced tally charts and bar graphs of the volume of dog fouling in our village in four zoned areas.  The results were surprising with 13 doggie parcels being found in the grassy path leading up to Military Road alone!  Thankfully, the harbour front area was completely clear.

The children have taken action by applying their persuasive writing skills to try to enlist the support of our local Community Council.  They used technology to send emails to the Chair with suggestions of possible strategies that might be applied, such as requesting that our local dog wardens carry out more spot inspections in our area.  They highlighted the economic impact on tourism if our village is not appealing to visitors as a result of dog mess.

We have also contacted the Community Safety Team and requested they visit us to help us combat this problem.

All the pupils are busy creating dog fouling posters that we hope to display in key locations in the village to encourage responsible dog ownership.

Watch this space!

# Responsible Citizens

 

The whole school travelled to Logan Gardens today for a ‘Lost Word’ experience.  Kate, our ranger from the Royal Botanical Society of Edinburgh, used poetry for an exploration of our local natural environment; looking at biodiversity in a different way.

The focus was on the book, The Lost Words, which is a collaborative project between writer Robert Macfarlane and artist Jackie Morris.  The Lost Words celebrates the relationship between language and the living world, and of nature’s power to spark the imagination. Robert Macfarlane has created a series of spell-poems – one for each ‘lost’ or underused word in nature – while Jackie Morris, inspired by her lifelong passion for Britain’s landscapes and wildlife, has painted  watercolours and used gold leaf to take the viewer on a visual journey of nature.  Every school in Scotland will receive a copy of this book as a result of a Crowd Funding project.

The children went for a poetry walk around the garden where Kate shared examples of poetry and art describing nature using figurative language.  The pupils were then set the challenge of using their senses to discover the nature around them, creating a word bank to share with the whole group of what they found.  The boys and girls also created natural sculpture artwork using foraged materials to represent their particular plant of study.

Everyone enjoyed the session and we were very lucky to have missed both the preceding hail storm and the following downpour.

#Successful Learners

The boys and girls were keen to wish the most important person in our school a happy birthday.  Barbara works very hard every day to make sure we all have delicious and nutritious snacks and lunches. The children wanted to show how much we all appreciate everything she does for us.  Happy Birthday Barbara.  We hope you have a lovely day!

#Effective Contributors

Mia, Katie and Jenna have been taking the initiative to work hard on their STAR Targets.  They arranged and presented a learning discussion to P1-3 on ‘stranger danger’.  They helped the younger pupils learn more about how to keep ourselves safe. The three girls were very informative and shared their street-wise solutions with the class to help us avoid any stranger danger situations.

# Responsible Citizens

 

P1-4 travelled to Leswalt Primary School to learn about the Sun, Moon and Earth through a Generation Science production. They all giggled their way through the show as we learned about the Earth’s orbit of the sun and all of the different time zones around the world.

P1-4 are now full of fascinating facts about the Sun, Moon and Earth. Did you know you can fit over one million Earths inside the sun! Ask them what fun facts they can remember!

#Successful Learners

Class 2 took advantage of the beautiful day and undertook a traffic survey in the village.  This is as part of our Data Handling topic in maths. Primary 2 joined us as participating in a traffic survey is one of their STAR award targets. We were able to see the volume of traffic in our village. We analysed our data results. We could determine that most vehicles were delivery trucks to the hotels during the morning and that there would be a greater volume of traffic at the weekend with visitors to the village for leisure. We predicted that there would be more cars just before 3pm when parents came to collect children from school.

We produced a bar graph of our results by hand and by using 2Simple software.  We were then able to compare the advantages and disadvantages of both methods.

While we were at it, we practiced our road safety using our Green Cross Code.

#Successful learners

 

The Stranraer cluster primary schools came together for the annual cross country competition at Green Valley.  The children were in a competitive frame of mind and gave it their all in each race.  Our pupils performed very well with everyone completing the challenge with a smile.

# Effective Contributors