Our council is consulting on proposals to change the structure of the school week, so that there are four slightly longer days and one day per week that finishes at lunchtime.
Please come along and have your say at the local community drop in about the proposal for changes to the structure of the school week. You are invited to come along to:
Stranraer Academy on Wednesday 28th of August any time between  4.30pm and 7pm.
There will be information and staff available on the night and you will have the opportunity to fill in a survey to share your views and be part of the consultation process.
Please click the link below to access an information PowerPoint.
All the children had a great time and despite the change of date for our Sports Day, the turnout was fantastic! First of all we had the sprint race as well as 9 other races which included: Skipping, Sack, Egg & Spoon, Throw, Obstacle, Distance and Relay. After this we had the eagerly anticipated Parents’ race which was a fiercely competitive end to the day. Well done to house Portree who won the relay race and to all the boys and girls who participated and gave their all during Sports Day!
After a verification assessment today, we are delighted to announce we have been awarded our shiny, new Digital Schools Accreditation. Portpatrick, Kirkcolm and Leswalt are the first schools in Dumfries and Galloway to achieve this recognition for our ongoing commitment to a digital technologies approach for our school.
We can now share our certificate and new award badge.
On Thursday 30th May we were delighted to welcome visitors from UNICEF UK and family members to discuss how our school and school community have been working towards our Gold Accreditation. The P1-7s have been working very hard to ensure we are a Rights Respecting School. In our journey to becoming a Gold Accredited school we have completed activities such as rights assemblies, developing a rights mascot, sharing a rights homelink book, designing rights games, hosting a rights open afternoon and singing the ‘We’ve All Got Rights Song’ with sign language. Our pupils took full responsibility for showing our visitors around the school and carefully explaining and discussing all of the exciting things we have been up to.
As part of our learning and teaching during the visit, linked to our writing topic – Instructions, we gave ourselves the challenge of following instructions to make a paper Rights Fortune Teller. This proved quite tricky but by following the instructions carefully and with a little bit of help we managed to fold them successfully and began adding rights to test our peers!
We are very proud of the boys and girls for warmly welcoming our visitors and confidently sharing their super knowledge. As a little treat for all of their hard work we enjoyed a bowl of ice cream together as a school and recapped our Rights journey so far.
Great work everyone, we look forward to hearing back from UNICEF UK to find out if we have successfully achieved our Gold Accreditation.
UNCRC Rights of the Child: Article 4 Making Rights Real / Article 13 Sharing Thoughts Freely
Sustainable Development Goal: 4 – Good Education
SHANARRI – Achieving, Responsible, Respected, Included
On Tuesday 28th May our after school Life Skills Club continued. This week the P1-7s were invited to attend a skills session based on hospitality. We started by setting our table for a two course meal. The boys and girls had good knowledge of how to set a table from previous experiences but few had set a table for more than one course. We looked at an example of a table setting before getting to work setting our own place.
Once the table was set we got started on preparing our first course – melon boats. We discussed food hygiene and agreed that before we started we should always wash our hands. Everyone confidently used a knife to prepare their fruit after some discussion about knife safety. We showed skill and control when using a knife to cut and slice.
Then, we took our melon to our place setting and discussed how we would serve the plate to someone already sitting at the table. We also had a chat about table manners and how to show someone that you are finished with the food in front of you. We carefully cleared the plate from the person to our left, scraped any waste into the bin and neatly stacked the sink ready for washing up.
For our second course we made tortilla pizzas. Again, we used our chopping skills and got creative with our toppings. While these baked we returned to the table for a toast and a drink of something fizzy! We discussed the skills we had used during the session including listening, organising, cutting skills, focusing, being clean and using our manners. To finish off we enjoyed our delicious pizzas and cleared our table.
We didn’t forget our washing up, we ran out of time during our session but the dishes were still there in the morning to be rinsed, cleaned and dried before being put away.
Over the past 10 weeks P1-4 have enjoyed sessions with Paul and Becky from the Youth Music Institute, Feis Rois. They have joined us each week to teach us about Scottish and Gaelic music. We have investigated Scottish instruments, learned some new Scots and Gaelic words and took a tour of Scotland to learn the history of some of the songs we have been singing.
The boys and girls thoroughly enjoyed singing, playing games and even getting a chance to play some instruments while preparing for our Tartan Tour Showcase.
To round off our sessions we had a visit from a videographer who wanted to capture our last session and get some insights from the children and staff about the music program and its impact. We had some brave volunteers who were mic’d up and interviewed by Ruairidh about their experience.
A huge thank you to Paul and Becky from Feis Rois who travelled from Glasgow each week and provided such fun and engaging lessons.
UNCRC Rights of the Child: Article 31 Rest, Play, Culture and Arts
Sustainable Development Goal: 4 – Good Education
On Tuesday 21st May our new Life Skills Club started after school. The P1-7s were invited to attend the first skills session based on camping and organising. It was a beautiful afternoon to practice our team working and problem solving skills while putting up tents and packing an over-night bag. The boys and girls worked in small teams to look at the equipment they had before beginning to assemble their tents.
We faced a number of challenges including feeding the poles through the tent, the breeze trying to blow the tents away and working out how the inner sleep sections attached to the outer tent. However, with some team work, using previous experiences and problem solving we managed to successfully assemble one tent….. The larger of the tents was very tricky indeed! We learned that you must check (and double check) the length of the poles and the instructions before starting to assemble the tent. We will tackle this one again another time!
The boys and girls worked well together and were Percy Perseverance’s, remaining patient and not giving up! To finish our session we identified some of the skills we felt we used during this task: Team work, strength, listening, talking to each other and problem solving.
Great work team! Next week, we will be practising different skills during a Hospitality session.
Portpatrick Pupils were environmentally aware today. As part of our Eco Schools Scotland action plan on litter and waste, the children have been learning about the negative impact this has on biodiversity.
The children have been working in partnership with our local Community Safety Wardens to design litter awarness posters. These have been made into weather-proof posters to encourage everyone to be responsible to protect our environment & wildlife, and to keep our beautiful village looking spotless for everyone to enjoy. The community safety team escorted the pupils around the village to prominently display our posters for all to see.
We are responsible citizens and effective contributors.
UNCRC Rights of the Child – Article 24: Health, Water, Food & Environment
Sustainable Development Goals: 1 – Life Below Water, 15-Life on Land,
