Author: Ms Whorlow

The final day has dawned crisp and bright for another rotation of exciting activities.

There were a few sleepy heads this morning, but everyone soon shook of the zzzz’s and were raring to go.

Blaze treated everyone to a beautiful song to start the day – A Million Dreams from the Greatest Showman – so lovely!

The last day was crammed packed with more adventures.  A very weary, but happy bunch piled on the bus for the journey home.  A few zzz’s could soon be heard from the back of the bus. 😉

What a fantastic time was had by all!

Photos:

 

d

Wow!  It’s been another super active day for our adventure heroes.  Have a look at everything they got up to outdoors. More to follow…

• Water sports
• Fencing
• Rifles
• Orienteering
• Climbing/Abseiling

What a fabulous start to our long awaited Lockerbie Manor residential trip!

The children arrived at school excited and eager for it all to begin. Everyone has settled in together so quickly and are having an absolute ball.

Day 1’s itinerary was:

• Rifle shooting
• Archery
• Climbing
• Obstacle
• Abseiling

Check out the photographs to see the super active, fun-packed time your wee toots are having:

Setting Off:

Abseiling:

Rifle Shooting

Archery

Having fun

 

Settling down for the night

Even more photos from yesterday:

 

And all that in just one day!

 

Dumfries and Galloway Council have just published their COP26 DG School Report on Learning for Sustainability which showcases learning activities that took place during COP26 across the region.  Our North Rhins Partnership is featured.  Why not have a read and see how our environmentally responsible children engaged with this event.

D&G COP26 Report Final

 

Following on from our Burns Supper celebration on the 25th of January, Mr Alec Ross arrived today to judge our annual poetry competition for the children.  He came dressed for the occasion in a dashing pair of tartan trews and many of the children also got into the spirit of the day with splashes of tartan and plaid being worn.

 

 

 

 

 

There were three categories to our event:

• Poetry handwriting
• Poetry recitation
• Poetry artwork

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 this year’s artwork was very high, with great imagination demonstrated by all.

It was quite a challenge to select winners from each primary as the standard was so high.  Here are this year’s results:

Portpatrick Primary Scots Celebration Competition Results – January 2022
Primary	Poem	Recitation Winner	Artwork Winner		Handwriting Winner
1
2	The Elephant	1.      Harry 2.      Arran 3.      Freya/Adam	1.       Arran 2.       Freya 3.       Harry		1.       Harry 2.       Adam 3.       Arran
3	Tae a Thistle	1.       Rebecca	1.       Rebecca		1.       Rebecca
4	Beasties	1.       Carter 2.       Louise 3.       Erin	1.       Erin 2.       Carter 3.       Louise		1.       Lacey 2.       Carter 3.       Erin
5	The Auld Troot	1.       Cameron 2.       Atticus 3.       Max	1.       Max 2.       Cameron 3.       Tilly		1.       Lewis 2.       Connor 3.       Tilly
6	The Moosie’s Prayer	1.       Katie 2.       Jack	1.       Katie 2.       Jack		1.       Katie 2.       Jack
7	Robert Burns Poems	1.       Maya 2.       Ava Lily 3.       Ruby	1.       Izzy 2.       Ruby 3.       Ava Lily		1.       Ruby 2.       Izzy 3.       Alba
Highly Commended Across All 3 Categories		Class 1 ·      Stephen ·      Jenna		Class 2 ·         Scott ·         Lilly

Regardless of results, everyone can be very proud of their achievement in being successful learners and confident individuals.

Sláinte

 

As part of our Eco Schools biodiversity targets, the whole school participated in this year’s RSPB Big School Birdwatch on Friday.

Armed with our bird spotter guides, we conducted our survey at three sites.  We took a walk to the woods at the church and continued up to Dunskey woods, and spent some time in our school grounds. On our way past, we noticed that Tilly’s Grandparents garden was a big hit with the local sparrows visiting their feeders.

We applied our maths skills to the task by taking tallies of each type of bird spotted.  We then submitted our results online and produced a graphical representation of our findings.  Not surprising for our location, crows and gulls were the most common birds we saw.

 

 

It is that time of year again where we celebrate our proud Scottish heritage.  Everyone came together today to enjoy a social Burns Supper served by our Lovely Laura.

Our House Captains organised the seating plans, naming each table after  famous Scots poems.  The children also created flag banners and a thistle centre pieces to decorate the tables.   There was a wee show of tartan here an there in our attire today too.

In time honoured tradition, everyone stood as the haggis was piped in. Stephen presented the haggis to Mrs Henry, who wonderfully addressed the haggis for everyone’s entertainment.  The children were enthralled by her rousing performance of this classic Burns poem.

 

Next in the proceedings was the Selkirk Grace given by Lily.  Laura then served a delicious meal of haggis, neeps and tatties followed by shortbread and butterscotch mousse, which everyone very much enjoyed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once the meal was over, Atticus, Conor and Max gave the Toast to the Lassies, with a little bit of tongue-in-cheek teasing.  Izzy and Alba responded in kind with their Reply to the Laddies. The vote of thanks was delivered by Ruby and Lily. Everyone did extremely well, particularly those who had stepped in at the last minute due to some absences.

In further entertainment, Primary 1 – 4 sung The Three Craws.  Primary 5 – 7 sung The Jelly Piece Song.  To bring the event to close, everyone came together to sing Auld Lang’s Syne.

 

Judging of our poetry recitations and artwork will now be held on Wednesday 2nd of February.

We are delighted to inform you that our wonderfully eco-friendly pupils have achieved the requirements for the RSPB School’s Wild Challenge Silver Award.

This builds on our earlier success of achieving our Bronze level status.   We have now completed 12 wild activities to  become a Wild Challenge silver award holder.   There are two categories of challenge: Helping Nature and Experiencing nature.  Our activities range from habitat making to Sensing the World. We care about our wildlife and our environment.

There’s no stopping us!

 

P1-7 for Silver

 

This year our boys and girls have decided to go green with their choice of Christmas crafts they have made to sell at our annual stall in our local Christmas Craft Fayre today.

The children have foraged for natural materials in our woods and have recycled a wide range of materials to make our crafts – from paper tubes to corks.  Thank you to our families for donating the materials.

 

Busy crafting:

We are delighted to announce that the following festive treats will be available to buy on our stall:

• Handmade Christmas crackers complete with a hat, a joke and a Christmas ornament
• Cork and twig reindeer models
• Pinecone decorations
• Hand painted clay Christmas tree ornaments
• 4 Seasons calendars with our own artwork designs

Family helpers  volunteered their time to help run the café and craft stalls. Our responsible girls, also volunteered their time to set up and man the stalls.  Maya, Lily and Ruby got busy baking and sold their very delicious delights by asking only for donations. Parents and families also donated home baking for the café.  The bakes on offer were worthy of any Bake-Off contestant.  I can personally vouch for this having sampled more than a few of the treats on offer! The leftover baking was distributed to older members of our community.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Despite the chilly weather, there was a good turn out at the fayre. The cafe raised an impressive £335.54 for the parent council.  Maya, Lily and Ruby’s bake stall raised £31.25 and our pupil craft stall raised £56.00, giving a total of £87.25 for school funds.  Very well done to everyone!

We will be sending a shopping list home for the remaining craft items, just in case we can tempt some home sales to boost our fundraising even more! 🙂

Christmas Fundraiser sale

Thank you to everyone who contributed, gave their time, and purchased to help support fundraising for our school. We appreciate your efforts so much!

# Effective Contributors & Responsible Citizens

The boys and girls of Portpatrick Primary want to take care of our bird wildlife as the weather turns colder.

Everyone has been involved in making seed feeders for the birds. It was a bit of a messy process, but the children rolled up their sleeves and made feeders using pinecones and by shaping the seed/fat mix into balls with string attached to allow us to tie them to locations in our school grounds for the birds to enjoy.

Getting stuck into the mix:

It was an excuse to climb a tree or two to position our feeders for our feathered friends:

The children used the activity as an enterprise project and have worked out unit costs for each bird snack made.  We have made enough extra to sell at the upcoming village craft fayre on the 27th of November.  The boys and girls calculated an appropriate prices to produce a small profit.  Every one sold will help raise funds for our wee school.

# Responsible Citizens & Successful Learners