Our P6/7 pupils have been working hard over the past week to prepare a persuasive election speech in the hope they will be voted in as House Captain for the forthcoming year. Since we aren’t allowed assemblies at the moment, we ventured outside into the fresh air (luckily there were blue skies at this point!) to listen to the speeches. For Portree, we had Izzy and Lillie competing against each other; and for Dunskey, we had Robin, Maya and Ava Lily – so the competition was on!!

After the speeches, every pupil in the school got the opportunity to vote for 1 person to be House Captain for their house. After a tense 10 minutes (which apparently “felt like a lifetime” to our eagerly awaiting P6/7 pupils) the votes were counted and House Captains announced.

Our new Dunskey House Captain is Robin, and our new Portree House Captain is Izzy. Well done to everyone who worked their wee socks off to prepare and deliver some amazing speeches – it really was a very close vote (1 vote between the Dunskey candidates, and 2 votes between the Portree candidates!). Good luck to our new House Captain!

As part of our P4-P7 Health & Wellbeing topic, the children have been engaging in mindfulness and self-awareness activities.

We took care and attention to create a mindfulness rainbow mosaic through collaborative working. The overall effect is beautifully bright and colourful.

We also created self-portraits based on the emotions based cartoon Inside-Out.  One half of our faces reflects our outside physical appearance and the other half shows all the things that make us ‘me’ on the inside.

Here is a display of the the children’s lovely work.

Effective Contributors

Before school closure, the boys and girls had planted vegetables with Sian in our raised garden beds.  It was time to harvest some of the crop today.  We picked the courgettes and decided to make a hidden veggie smoothie for us all to enjoy.

We added banana, orange juice and ice to make a delicious blended drink full of vitamins and minerals.  Everyone was a Curious Kevin and took up the taste test challenge willingly.  There were some thumbs down, but also lots of thumbs up.  In fact many came back for more!

Confident Individuals

 

Just a quick post to share some beautiful photos of our second day back at school. Lots of smiles and laughter yet again before finishing off with a bit of Harry Potter  under the shade.

The pupils at Portpatrick Primary bounded through the door with excitement as we started back at school after 5 long months apart. Everyone was delighted to be reunited and smiles beamed from ear to ear as teachers welcomed children old and new.

For four new little stars it was their first day at ‘Big School’ and I can imagine that their will be some very tired little people tonight. We are thrilled to welcome Adam, Freya, Harry and Arran to our fabulous little school and partnership. We hope that today is just the start of many happy memories that we will share together as a school at Portpatrick Primary

Our day was filled with lots of fun activities including a walk through the village, playing and constructing, a little bit of yoga, some arts and crafts, reading stories and unsurprisingly, lots of lots of chatter !

We had so much fun sharing stories and learning about what activities and new skills we learnt during our time apart- but we are very excited to finally have things back to normal and most importantly being back together.

Below are some photos from our first day of the 2020/2021 term.

 

We received some very exciting new during the holidays – Eco Schools Scotland confirmed that we have attained ANOTHER Green Flag Award!! The boys and girls in the school, particularly those in the Eco Committee who have been the driving force behind a lot of the plans and activities, have worked incredibly hard over the last 2 years to try and achieve this. Waaaay back in September 2018 we created our  action plan focusing on the topics of Litter, Global Citizenship and School Grounds. Over the last 2 years we have completed a variety of Eco-friendly activities, including: a bring-and-buy sale where the money raised was donated to the Australian bush fire WWF Koala Protectors charity; a village litter pick; creating a willow-dome; planting tomato seeds; and purchasing gardening equipment with the money kindly donated from the Community Council.

Although we weren’t able to complete everything on our action plan due to the pesky Covid-19 virus, we gave it our best shot and Eco Schools Scotland were happy that we have demonstrated that our pupils are responsible citizens and have learned lots about environmental issues.

Our assessor sent a detailed letter to confirm our achievement and stated: “Congratulations Portpatrick Primary on successfully renewing your Green Flag Award! The work carried out during these past years has been extraordinary and it has been a real pleasure to assess your application… Your excellent Eco Committee are doing a brilliant job inspiring, engaging and informing the entire school community in a very effective way.” He also went on to say that aspects of our work were noted as being examples of good practice and that we may feature on their website or as case studies on social media to support other schools with their Eco Schools work.

A big thanks also needs to go to Sian Roberts, who has sat as the parent rep on the Eco Committee for the past 2 years. Sian has attended all of the meetings with the pupils and Mrs McHarg, and has very generously given up her own time to aid with our Eco activities in school, such as creating the willow dome and sourcing and planting trees with the pupils.

Well done to everyone involved – have a look below at the photo of some very happy faces with their Green Flag!

Today we said goodbye to our two P7 boys as they leave us to move on to secondary school.

We couldn’t let the occasion pass without taking the chance to wish them a fond farewell. Family and school staff turned out for a socially distanced gathering.  We all shared wonderful memories of our school year together and praised the boys for their many skills and talents.  They have both made the last year such a pleasure for us all. It was a bitter sweet day as we are sad to see them go, but we know they are more than ready for their next big adventure.

There were more goodbyes to say to others. We said farewell to Annabelle as she moves away with her big brother,Findlay, to start at a new school after the holidays. Our best wishes went  also to Mrs McColm and Mrs MacPherson who will be based at other schools after our return in August.  We thank them both for their hard work and dedication and we will certainly miss their cheery smiles.

Mrs Henry warranted a special mention too as she has been so dedicated, working away in school during closure for pupils.  She has been busy organising, tidying and keeping the home fires burning so that we are ready to go in August.  Thank you Mrs Henry.

Goodbye and Good Luck to all our leavers.

Ever imagined what our future world will be like?  Well, Ava Lily did!

The School of Science and Engineering at Dundee University along with the Institute of Civil Engineers organised a national competition called The Future of STEM.  Children were asked to imagine and design a poster describing how STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) could
change the world we live in.

The judges liked Ava Lily’s concept design so much that she  has been awarded joint third place from all the entries received.  This is an impressive achievement.  Congratulations for your forward thinking Ava Lily.

Ava Lily’s design has been shared on the University of Dundee’s web page.  Have a look at all the winners:

https://www.dundee.ac.uk/stories/winners-science-engineering-poster-competition

Here is her successful entry displaying creativity, ingenuity and imagination:

2020-06 ICE Poster Competition (1)

Click on the link above to see the competition entry details.

The announcement came on a noteworthy day.  Yesterday was Women in Engineering Day.  It also fits perfectly with our STEMs Clubs Week.  We are participating virtually using online resources provided by:

https://www.stem.org.uk/stem-clubs

Here is a link to all the STEM Clubs activities that are taking part this week.

STEM Clubs Week timetable – FINAL v5

Congratulations again Ava Lily!

 

In the course of 2 days a small team of 6 parents have formed a socially distant garden gang and totally transformed the overgrown nature area which was greatly  in need of some tidying up.

On Saturday 13th June the Karen and Steve, Kim and Marc and Kirstyn and John worked all day to remove the vegetation.  It resembled more like a rainforest than nature area to start with.  Armed with chainsaws and strimmers they got to work.  John Connor then had the power of persuasion to get William Halliday from Galloway treecare to head out to Portpatrick and donate his services to chip all the branches that had been cleared.  The wood chips generated will be recycled and used for paths inside the nature area .  Huge thanks must go to him for being so generous with his time and machinery.

Today, the garden gang were back in action.  Putting in another full day they managed to secure the services of a mini digger from Jewsons to clear the site of old roots .  The lifeboat crew helped supply some fuel for the digger and the big boys certainly enjoyed playing with the big toys!  Again, many thanks must go to Jewsons and the RNLI for their support of the school.

Tomorrow the team will be back, and starting to lay the paths.

What a top team, and what a top community spirit, all working together to benefit the boys and girls of Portpatrick Primary.  

Thank you, thank you,

thank you!