Primary 6 have been studying the life of Robert Burns and have enjoyed reading his most popular poem Tam O’ Shanter. On Burns’ Day the class helped to prepare haggis, neeps and tatties which they later devoured. When we visited the Burns House Museum in Mauchline the children had a chance to dress up and explore the rooms to find answers to a quiz, then take part in a drama workshop where they acted out Tam O’ Shanter. Everyone had a great time.
Children have enjoyed transforming the class into a Chocolate Factory. On Monday the 23rd of January parents are invited to come and experience the magical tour, where they will be sampling various sweets and chocolates as well as trying out the delicious chocolate fountain. Parents will also be entertained by the singing and dancing of our hard working Oompa Loompas.
Tuesday 17th February is the Open Evening at Kilmarnock Academy for this years Primary 7 pupils and parents. All are welcome. Good Luck everybody.
The Junior Road Safety Officers work hard to promote Health Well Being in the school and community with a variety of schemes to tackle road and traffic safety issues.
Our Junior Road Safety Officers continued on with their duties to improve school safety and travel. They also updated their display wall and submitted it into a competition being run by Travel and Roads safety Management. The updated wall encourages alternative travel methods to school and we hope to develop the next level of skills training in the Nursery with Scooter Skills. This wall earned them a runners up prize across East Ayrshire.
Sustran – Scotland’s Big Newsletter Story Competition
The J.R.S.O.s visited one of our Nursery feeder schools along with ‘Kirky’ our transition monkey to find out from the pupils of Riccarton if scooter to school would be of any interest to them. They surveyed 27 pupils and 19 scootered to nursery and would scooter to school, if allowed. However worryingly – more than half of them thought that pedestrians should move out the way to allow them to scoot on the pavements. I think the J.R.S.O.s have their work cut out for them.
Kilmarnock Academy pupils helped design and make a scooter rack which will be located beside the bike shed to allow storage and also we hope to encourage this as a playtime activity.
One of East Ayrshire’s Road Safety Team entered Kirkstyle into a competition to promote an ‘Active School Travel’ story for a Newsletter competition. The reason from submitting the article was because the school had an ongoing parking congestion and wished to promote sustainable active travel to try and offer alternative ways to get to school. The school developed a scooter skills programme using the expertise and skills of the J.R.S.O.s and used scooters purchased from Parent Council fundraising. The officers delivered the programme using Sustran’s scooter skills lessons; the pre training before cycling proficencey and also one part of the Ready, Steady Bike initiatives.
SCOOTER SKILLS WORKSHOPS
Kirkstyle Primary School in Kilmarnock organised and delivered basic scooter skills activity workshops at Primary 1 /Nursery induction days in June. The Parent Council raised funds to purchase scooters to promote scooting to school as one solution to help reduce the ongoing parking congestion at the school.
A member of staff and the two J.R.S.O.s in the school led the workshops. Small groups of nursery children, some of whom had never been on a scooter before, eagerly took on the challenge. None of the 25 children refused to take part and all the children received a certificate.
The workshops consisted of short discussions and hands on activities so that the children developed an understanding of the need to ride safely and not cause a nuisance to others while scooting. We hope it might be a winner and get some goodies as prizes range from puncture repair kits and Frisbees to bike lights and slap bands.
The Big Pedal – March 2012
The pupils have registered for the BIG PEDAL from the 5th – 23rd March 2012 the school will participate in this event. In March 2011, over 800 schools helped to pedal 600, 00 school journeys by bike in just 15 days. In 2012 we want Kirkstyle to be one of those schools. But will you be one of the riders? Can you help us top one million bike trips? Once again, every trip to school by bike will count towards a “virtual “stage race round the U.K. We’ll keep you posted on how you can take part nearer the time.
Kieran, P3 at Kirkstyle P.S was our Autumn SHOUT builder of the month, this means that Kieran built the most SHOUT points during July, August and September combined. Kieran built his points by using his SHOUT card at his local library, Bellfield SHOUT club and to swim at the Galleon. His prize for being the Autumn SHOUT builder is a meal for Kieran and his family at the Palace Theatre, followed by tickets for this year Pantomime, which was Cinderella. Kieran even had the chance to meet the cast!
If you would like any further information relating to the SHOUT card, please contact Cherryl on 01563 576715.
All of the pupils in Primaries 1 to 3 actively participated in this year’s performance of Little Angel gets her wings! The story came to life with the help of our budding actors and actresses and some superb solo singers accompanied by the choirs.
The angel begins her journey without her wings and can’t get to Bethlehem in enough time for the birth of the baby Jesus. However along the way the angel stops to help others, her acts of kindness towards the donkey, the lamb and the dove earn her the most amazing set of wings you’ve ever seen.
Our thanks went to the parents for their support with the performances because; the costumes were purchased with the proceeds from the Rag Bag recycling clothes collections and the microphones from last year’s ticket sales. A special thanks went to all the staff who worked hard practising songs, adding movements and actions to the story and creating the scenery. But the biggest thanks had to go to the pupils who gave three outstanding performances for large audiences.
Primary 5 and 5/6 were researching the Vikings last term. They painted a Viking scene for the classroom walls, built a Viking Longship, visited Vikingar at Largs, presented in words and music Viking Life and that’s only a small part of their experiences.
The Walls
Viking Longships
As enterprising homework the children were given 5 weeks to design and build – with adult help- a Viking Longship. The results were staggeringly good, as I’m sure those of you who were in school for parent’s evening will agree.
These pictures are just a small sample:
Vikingar the experience
If you are interested in Vikings then a trip to Vikingar in Largs is a must. The children split into 2 groups and while one was visiting the Longhouse and Halls of Valhalla the rest were meeting a Viking and dressing up as the poor and rich of the time.
On the way home while dodging the torrential downpours we stopped off to look at the Needle. This monument marks the site of the Viking Battle of Larg which took place in 1263.
Basketball stars rock on to the final
Eight schools battled it out at a basketball festival last week at Kilmarnock College’s Centre for Sporting Excellence, the first ‘finals’ event following the launch of the East Ayrshire Olympics programme.
And Onthank Primary – which goes under the banner of Brazil – emerged victorious, with Nether Robertland (Kazakhstan) second and Kirkstyle (Japan) in third place
See link below for story about the basketball festival
James McClelland
A local author arrived in school last week to speak to the whole school at Assembly and afterwards to Question Time in the Pr.2 Literacy groups. Primary 2 pupils had the opportunity to purchase signed copies of his books and the school have kept three copies of each for our own school library, for everyone to enjoy.
James McClelland is local to Ayrshire and his books about a young boy and his pet sabre toothed tiger are published locally in Darvel. The pupils listened to sections from his first two books; chapters involving diplodocus and the mighty T-rex after he had talked about his own childhood experience of writing. We hope that he has inspired some pupils to take the plunge and jump into stories and writing; using their imagination to take them on adventures.
