Portpatrick Primary

There was an excellent turn out from our cluster primary schools at this year’s annual Primary 7 Rotary Quiz.

Teams of four from each school competed to be this year’s champions.  There were a number of categories such as:

• Geography
• Technology
• Entertainment
• Nature

The questions were very entertaining and wide ranging.  A good few of them challenged the grown-ups in the audience too.

The winners were as follows:

1. Rephad
2. Sandhead
3. Kirkcolm

Our partnership pupils enjoyed the social mingle. There was a great team spirit and a lively atmosphere . Well done to all the keen beans who took part.  Thank you to the Rotary Club for organising the event and funding the refreshments and prizes.  Thank you also to Rephad for hosting the event.  A good time was had by all.

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UNCRC Rights of the Child

We are delighted that Dumfries and Galloway Council selected Portpatrick Primary to film British Science week activities and share across the region.  Click on the link below to see for yourself –

https://fb.watch/jsgKgiSh61/

Primary 5 – 7 were invited to participate in an engineering project organised by the Institute of Civil Engineers and DG STEM.

Have a look at the activities they got up to as part of learning across disciplines.

# Successful Learners

S.T.E.M. Bridge Building

This DG STEM project, in partnership with the Institute of Civil Engineers required the children to:

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Portpatrick Primary showed charity spirit today to support Red Nose Day 2023.

The boys and girls came into school dressed in casual clothes for a donation of £1.

Our senior pupils sold official red noses at £2.50 to those who wished to buy them.

We raised £76 in total!

We then flexed our spelling and vocabularly muscles by seeing how many words we could make from a bigger word such as ‘laughter’.

House Captains Katie and Atticus organised a Red Nose Day themed scavenger hunt.  The children got active outdoors by hunting down clue words to make a joke answer.

Why did the boy eat his homework? –

Because his teacher said it was a piece of cake!

All the names of successful competitors were put into a hat. One name was drawn out and that lucky winner won an Easter egg.  Our winner was Jack!

It was great to support such a worthy cause, helping others.

# Responsible Citizens

P1 -7 headed off to the Glasgow Science Centre bright and early this morning for a day of science fun and learning.

We explored the Science mall with its vast array of interactive exhibits to learn about:

• Our physical world of forces, illusions and materials
• The human body – physiology, human health and the senses to develop an understanding of interrelationship between the body’s actions in response to outside conditions.
• Powering the future – making connections between the drive to use more sustainable energies to meet future challenges. We were able to make the link between human activity and protecting the planet.

Our responsible pupils took part in a community litter pick today.  Despite the driech weather, the children were enthusiastic and keen to help protect wildlife and keep our beaches clean.

Kerry Monteith, Ward Officer Stranraer and the Rhins, helped organise the event as part of the Keep Scotland Beautiful – Spring Clean Month with the aim of carrying out as many spring cleans across Stranraer and the Rhins as possible in March.  It was a real community initiative as we were joined by Brenda and Helen, volunteers from Onus SW Scotland (Oceans Need Us) too, linking in with our Eco Schools Litter target. The spring clean activities are a collective action between

We rootled amongst the seaweed and managed to gather a surprising amount of plastic rope, twine, broken shards of plastic and wrappers.  It was amazing how much was there.

We are doing our bit to help our community and the planet too!

# Responsible Citizens

Primary 7 pupils from across the Stranraer area came together for a curling bonspiel today.

There were two section games running concurrently :

• Rephad 1 vs Belmont
• Sheuchan vs Park 2

and

• Sandhead vs Park 1
• Portpatrick vs Rephad 2
• Leswalt vs Kirkcolm

The results were as follows:

• 1st – Rephad
• 2nd – Kirkcolm
• 3rd – Sheuchan

There was teamwork, sportsmanship and determination evident from all and  a great time was had by everyone.  Well done to all the competitors.

Thank you to the North West Castle for hosting and organising the event and for providing a delicious lunch for the competitors.  Thank you also to Mrs Ross for escorting our curlers.

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By kind invitation of Steve, P5 – 7 visited the Stoneykirk Aviation Musuem.  The learning experience fits with our Social Studies topic of World War II, as chosen by the children.

Steve led a guided tour around his very well equipped museum.  He took us round his exhibits, showing how technology has evolved since the early war years to the time of Concorde.   The children were able to handle genuine artefacts such as ration books, identity cards and bullets. As part of our tour, we learned of the significant role Wigtownshire played in the war effort.

The highlight of our experience was the impressive hanger with cockpits of planes dating from WWII onwards.  Steve has lovingly restored these by hand.  We saw the De Havilland plane made from wood, nicknamed the wooden wonder, when metal was so scarce during the war.

The boys and girls had so much fun climbing into the cockpits of the planes and getting a wee taste of what it was like for the pilots of these impressive machines.

Thank you so much to Steve for allowing us this opportunity.

# Successful Learners

Just a wee bit early, Portpatrick Primary kicked off British Science Week 2023 with a bang today.  We opened our doors to our families to offer a science carousel event.  We were joined by Karen Creighton of DG STEM. A Dumfries and Galloway cameraman was also in attendance, filming the event to share across our region as an example of good practice in STEM.

Our older pupils took on leadership roles as facilitators at each station, guiding the activities with the classmates.  There were also instructional QR code links to help reinforce the learning points for each activity.

Our Activity Stations

Have a look at the fun we had in our STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths) learning:

British Science Week 2023

This year’s British Science Week’s theme is all about making connections. Innovations in science, technology, engineering and maths are the foundation of this. Kirkcolm, Leswalt and Portpa…

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# Successful Learners

Our P5 – 7 STEM Gurus were at it again today.  This time we participated in a national Code Along linking with 21 other schools across Scotland.  The theme of this experiential learning activity was Networks and radio communication with Micro:Bits.

We selected coding blocks to allow our Micro:bits to communicate in pairs via radio signals.  We also introduced IF, THEN and ELSE controls into our coding blocks to create dicated option responses. dependent on these pairing.

# Successful Learners