Portpatrick Primary

Our responsible senior pupils are busy preparing and organising activitiesfor upcoming events.

Pupil Council & House Captains

Tilly and Freya (Libary Monitors) and Lewis and Atticus (House Captains) are working together to plan for World Book Day which is on Thursday 7th of March. The children have decided to offer pupils the opportunity to either come dressed as a book character or non-uniform for the day. They decided that pupils should have a choice so no-one felt they had to spend money to have an outfit if they didn’t want to. Our responsible leaders are also organising a mystery book activity to promote reading for pleasure. Watch this space!

STEM Leaders

We will be celebrating British Science Week on the 11th of March. Conor and Louise are organising resources and activties for our planned open afternoon. They are setting up for different experiment stations. Families will be invited in to join us for an afternoon of STEM activities on Tuesday 12th of March at 2pm.

Digital Leaders

Cameron and Scott are planning to hold a pupil training session to help pupils become more confident in logging on to the computer with secure passwords. They will also be helping their classmates log in to their Glow account and send an email. They are busy writing instructions that can be used to help us.

Eco Committee

Lacey and Rebecca are gathering cardboard ready for Mrs Dampney’s visit soon. She has asked that we recycle cardboard that we will soak and place around the roots of our fruit orchard to help keep a store of moisture to keep our fruit trees healthy and well hydrated.

UNCRC Rights of the Child – Article 29: Aims of Education

SHANARRI – Achieving, Responsible & Included

Iain Ritchie visited Portpatrick Primary yesterday, Thursday 22nd of February, to present the school with a very kind donation.

On New Years Day 2024, Iain organised a Loony Dook at Portpatrick Beach. Some of the pupils attended the dook and had raised money through sponsors to donate.

The boys and girls were delighted to receive the donation of £1,900 as part of the money raised from the dook!

A huge heart felt thank you from everyone at Portpatrick Primary!

UNCRC Rights of the Child: Article 6 Life, Survival and Development.

SHANARRI: Included & Responsible

Primary 5 – 7 pupils are busy preparing for a fabulous Scottish Opera peformance of The Vikings: A Quest for the Dragon’s Treasure on Thursday 21st of March. They have begun practicing songs and actions for their role as the sorcerers.

We will be using the online resources Scottish Opera provides to prepare the boys and girls for a day long rehearsal leading to a fully staged performance which will be guided by a team of Teaching Artists from Scottish Opera. They will provide a complete costume for each child taking part in the project.

The lyrics, music and action videos are available online for home practice. Why not have some fun learning along with your child!

Teaching Resources | Vikings! The Quest for The Dragon’s Treasure | Scottish Opera

Our families are invited to come along to the Ryan Centre to watch the wonderful show. Please note that we have an update on the time of the family show as 1:45pm to 2:15pm.

UNCRC Rights of the Child: Article 31 – Rest, Play, Culture and Arts

SHANARRI: Achieving & Included

We hope you can join us.

After a busy HMIE inspection week it was time to let down our hair and enjoy a little treat this afternoon. The boys and girls enjoyed some whole school STEM activities led by the P5-7 class.

We enjoyed building houses, learning how to control the new Spheros, making dioramas and a bridge building challenge.

To finish off the day we enjoyed a well earned ice-cream and a chat before we got ready to go home for our half term break.

A huge well done to the boys and girls for all of their hard work this week and a heartfelt thank you to parents, partners and everyone for their continued support for our fabulous school.

UNCRC Article 31 – Rest, Play, Arts and Culture

SDG 4. Quality Education

It was a day for Learning for Sustainability for P5 – 7 as we received a visit from the Galloway and South Ayrshire Biosphere team for a marine workshop.

The children learned about the delicate balance in our ocean eco-systems and the creature that live in the ocean habitat. We explored a hands-on experience to identify different native species.

We also learned more about the impact humans are having on the marine environment and what we can all do to play our part. We are developing as responsible citizens.

UNCRC Rights of the Child: Article 24 – Health, Water, Food & Environment

Our senior pupils went on an adventure to Glasgow for their overnight residential experience. We joined up with our friends from the North Rhins Partnership. It was an adventure just getting there with cars, buses and trains transporting us up to the Big Smoke.

The children quickly checked in to the very comfortable youth hostel before setting off to the Kings Theatre to enjoy a fabulous performance of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

It was then time to take a short trip on the ‘Clockwork Orange’ underground to arrive at Ten Pin Bowling before dinner at the great world buffet that is Cosmo. The chocolate fountain, in particular, proved a great hit with many a visit.

The next day, the children visited Kelvingrove Museum. Our class really enjoyed visiting the Egyptian artefact exhibits which fits with the social studies theme they have selected to study this term. After that it was back to the youth hostel to collect our luggage. There was just enough time for a lunch treat at McDonalds before we all travelled home, tired but happy.

Thank you to everyone who helped make this great experience possible – Mrs Baillie, Mrs Henry, all the staff who gave up their personal time, and of-course to the children who were praised by members of the public for their excellent behaviour and manners as responsible citizens.

We are learning independence skills for life.

UNCRC Rights of the Child – Article 31: Rest, Play, Culture and Arts

Share the experience here.

Two primary 7 pupils from each of our partnership schools came together to attend the annual pupil’s rotary lunch at the North West Castle Hotel.

Tilly, Lewis, Charlie and Bentley got the chance to meet and enjoy a delicious lunch. We were entertained with a speech delivered by Val Plant. We learned many an interesting fact about Robert Burn’s life and his contribution to the world.

It was a great opportunity to catch up with our friends from our old partnership too: Jack Hamish, Faye and Alfie.

Our responsible pupils engaged in conversation with members of the rotary club as our table guests. It was very enjoyable afternoon.

Our thanks to the Rotary Club for inviting us to attend.

UNCRC Rights of the Child – 15 Setting Up and Joining Groups

The whole school looked to all things Scots to celebrate our national language heritage.

The children were each given a Scottish poem to learn, with three categories of challenge to undertake:

• Presentation of handwriting (copying out their poem as neatly as possible)
• Creating a piece of art or model based on the theme of the model
• Reciting their poem with expression and feeling

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 the children’s artwork was very high, with great imagination demonstrated by all.

It was quite a challenge for Mr and Mrs Ross to select winners from each primary as the standard was so high.  We are proud to say that each child achieved an award for their great effort. Mr Morrison officiated and Mrs Ross presented the certificates to the children.

The children held a showcase assembly to show off their achievements to a packed hall of friends and family. It was a very entertaining assembly for us all. We enjoyed P1 – 4 singing Ye Cannie Shove Yer Granny Aff The Bus and P5 – 7 doing a performance of Donald Where’s Yer Troosers? Confident winners from the different primary performed their poem to the delight of our audience. We ended with another round of the popular P5 – 7 song, this time with audience participation .

Our thanks to Mr & Mrs Ross for their continued help and support and our thanks to our families for supporting their children’s learning and achievement.

UNCRC Rights of the Child – Article 29: Aims of Education

The boys and girls were keen to get back to reading together as part of our assembly activities. Everyone enjoyed choosing their books and chatting about the stories to encourage reading for pleasure in their buddy reading groups.

Do you and your child find it hard to choose a book together? Why not try one of these recommendations of Best Books for 2024!

UNCRC Rights of the Child – Article 29: Aims of Education

Everyone had a fabulous time at our Christmas party today.  There were lots of delights for a buffet lunch with crackers and sweet treats too.

The children then enjoyed a party organised by our House Captains, Lewis and Atticus.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Party Game Winners:

• Christmas Baubles – Max
• Pass the Present – Max & Layo
• Best Dancer – Layo
• Musical Statues – Stephen
• Christmas Corners – Harry

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you to Park Kitchen and Senga for organising our lunch, to our house captains for their organisation.

Of-course, a big thank you must go to our very special visitor, Santa Claus, who came along to wish the boys and girls a very Merry Christmas and share gifts with the children.  We sung Jingle Bells to welcome Santa and wished him well for the big night.

The children were absolutely thrilled with their gifts!

 

 

 

 

 

UNCRC Rights of the Child – Article 31: Rest, Play, Culture & Arts