Author: Mrs McHarg

The Eco Committee organised and ran a Bring-and-Buy sale on Monday to raise money for the environmental charity, the Solway Heritage.

Pupils, families and friends of the school handed in unwanted books, toys, and household items that could be used by others. So far, we have raised a total of over £35! Well done everyone!

The sale will continue for the rest of the week, when we will announce the final total.

As part of our bid to achieve national accreditation for the Digital Schools Award, we have selected 4 Digital Leaders to help drive our work forward. They are responsible for supporting staff and pupils in the use of ICT by sharing their skills; helping to maintain ICT equipment; leading lunch time ICT clubs; and organising parent sessions to develop their skills and knowledge.

All the Digital Leaders from Portpatrick, Leswalt and Kirkcolm came together on Tuesday for a Digital Leaders training day. They were all so enthusiastic and keen to get going! Pupils were taught how to upload, print and laminate photographs, and how to access Glow and send an email attachment to a teacher for the blog. They worked in pairs to come up with activities for Safer Internet Day on 5th February, and shared their suggestions for lunchtime ICT clubs that they could run back at school.

Everyone had a thoroughly enjoyable morning mixing with other pupils from the different schools and are all away back to their own school ready and raring to go as our Digital Leaders!

Pupils at Portpatrick Primary put on their glamorous frocks and stylish shirts for their Christmas party on Wednesday. The afternoon kicked off with a festive feast provided by our school cook, Barbara. After filling our bellies with some sweet and savoury treats, we headed into the hall to start the fun and games!

We enjoyed various dances such as Military Two-Step, Canadian Barn Dance and Grand Old Duke of York, and played lots of fun games including Christmas Corners, Musical Islands, Pass the Parcel and the team game Christmas Story.

After a loud chorus of Jingle Bells, a special visitor came in to see the boys and girls! Santa had very kindly brought a present for each pupil. Everyone had a wonderful afternoon!

15 of the boys and girls attended the Portpatrick Church Community Carol Service on Sunday evening. The pupils performed Away in a Manger and gave a sneak preview of 2 of the songs from our Christmas show. The congregation and church members were very appreciative of the fantastic turn-out and many are looking forward to seeing the Christmas show in full next Monday. Afterwards, everybody headed through to the hall for some tasty mince pies! 

Primary 1-3 pupils were very excited this morning to receive their Bookbug (P1)/ Read, Write, Count (P2-3) gift bags. Parents were invited in as part of our launch of this Scottish Government initiative which aims to inspire a lifelong love of reading, writing and counting, and strengthen links between home and school learning by supporting parents in taking an active role in their child’s learning to give them the best start in life. They were shown the contents of the bags and given suggestions for helping to develop literacy and numeracy at home using these resources. After presenting the boys and girls with their bags, everyone headed down to the classroom where we spent some time exploring our new books and games. The pupils are really looking forward to using the contents of their bags at home!

Today P4-7 had a visit from Lisa who works for the NHS ‘Quit Your Way’ service (formerly known as Smoking Matters) as part of their Health and Wellbeing topic. She shared with pupils the government’s target of having less than 5% of the population classed as smokers by 2034, so we all need to spread the message: ‘Let’s be smoke free!’

Pupils participated in a true or false game, where they found out that nicotine is as addictive as heroin and cocaine. Our 2 forensic scientists Alba and Rowan (all suited up with lab coats and rubber gloves!) then poured some of the different chemicals contained in a cigarette into a mixing jug. The result was disgusting!! Pupils were shocked to find out that a cigarette actually contains over 4000 chemicals!

Rhian and Finlay volunteered to demonstrate the effects of smoking on your skin (with a little help from some technology) – they were unrecognisable in the pictures and Finlay thought that he looked as old as his Gran!! Everyone then had a go at the fitness test – we jogged on the spot for 20 seconds, then repeated this but with a straw in our mouth to breathe through and our noses pinched. The boys and girls couldn’t believe how tricky this was!!

Considering the effects on your health, your bank balance and your appearance, everyone agreed that smoking is definitely not for them!

 

A huge well done to Rhian, Lewis, Liam, Max and Ruby who completed the Maths Week collage challenge at home. What a colourful and creative ways to show that maths really is everywhere!

Portpatrick Primary have been busy celebrating Maths Week Scotland which ran from 10^th – 16^th September. The aim of the week was to raise the profile of maths and awareness of how maths is everywhere. Each day was given a different theme for pupils to explore.

The week kicked off with pupils getting creative and exploring ‘Maths in Art.’ The younger classes studied artist Paul Klee’s work which uses various 2D shapes and then designed their own ‘Castle and Sun.’ The older pupils created some parabolic curve line designs, creating curved shapes from the intersection of straight lines. Some beautiful artwork was produced by pupils!

Pupils then explored ‘Maths in ICT’ and participated in the D&G RAiSE team’s Beebot challenge. The younger pupils programmed a Beebot to draw specific letters and spell out a given word, and the older pupils used Lego We Do to develop their skills in computational sequencing.

In the middle of the week parents and family members were invited into school to bake some tasty treats alongside pupils. The younger pupils practised counting out ingredients to make Rugby Slice, and the older pupils were practising weighing and reading scales to make Rocky Road.

Later in the week, pupils participated various active games exploring how Maths is in PE, exercising both our bodies and our minds! The older pupils calculated the distance, speed and time of some running races.

We had planned for ‘Maths Outside’ to finish off the week, but unfortunately the weather was against us! So instead we participated in some practical maths challenges around the school building, involving estimating and measuring.

Over the course of the week, some families were busy taking part in our ‘Maths is Everywhere’ homework challenge, finding examples of Maths in and around the home. Pupils brought in some fantastic and very creative collages.

Pupils had a great week of fun exploring Maths and we can truly say that Maths is everywhere!

(P1-3 photos to follow!)

The North Rhins Partnership schools came together at Kirkcolm on Tuesday for a day of fun in the sun – and what a glorious day it was! After the boys and girls of Leswalt and Portpatrick arrived, Leswalt showcased their singing in preparation for the end of term ceremony.

After break time, we got our sun cream and hats on and headed down to the beach, where we all did our bit for the environment by participating in the Great Plastic Pick-up for Scotland. Pupils collected lots of plastic, string and metal from the beach to help keep it clean. This will help in all 3 schools’ bid to achieve their Eco-Schools Green flag. Kerry Monteith from Dumfries & Galloway Council kindly brought along litter pickers and organised for the bags of rubbish to be uplifted. Whilst at the beach, some pupils got creative and made some beach art using seaweed and stones, such as castles, mermaids and fish.

We then made our way back to Kirkcolm Primary for a picnic lunch outside in the sun to re-fuel in preparation for the Partnership sports afternoon to come.

At 12.30pm we started our Inter-Schools sports, with lots of parents and families from the 3 schools cheering everyone along. We had a variety of races including sprint, egg and spoon, sack, skipping, distance and relay. Throughout the afternoon, pupils enjoyed water and a selection of fruit which was kindly provided by Lidl, who sponsored our afternoon. In the middle of our races, we stopped to catch our breath and say goodbye to our janitor at Kirkcolm, Mr Dougie Brawls, who was retiring from his post. Mr Brawls has worked at Kirkcolm Primary for many years and was loved by all in the school community for his cheery good nature. He was presented with gifts from staff, pupils and the Pa

rent Council to show our appreciation for all his hard-work over the years.

To finish off our fun-filled afternoon, we had a beach ball race between the 3 schools where pupils had to pass the ball over their head to the next person using their feet! After some very close competition throughout the afternoon, Kirkcolm Primary was victorious with a total of 283 points. All the boys and girls had a great day and thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to mix with the pupils from the other schools.

 

The boys and girls of Portpatrick Primary dressed up in their finery on Friday to celebrate the upcoming wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Earlier in the week they were busy making colourful hats and ties and beautiful fascinators in preparation for the day. We had a delicious buffet lunch to mark the special occasion and Barbara, our school cook, also made a gorgeous cake which was enjoyed by everyone.