Last week we posted about the success of Giffnock Primary School pupils who qualified to compete at the East Renfrewshire Primary Tennis Finals.
They represented the Woodfarm cluster in the competition that is now into its 8th year.
The finals were held today and 22 primary schools played each other in a closely fought contest. Giffnock Primary ended up in an excellent third place. Well done to Heather, Erin, Ellis and Kyle from P4!
Giffnock Primary has taken part in British astronaut Tim Peake’s rocket seed experiment and now children can hear Tim read a bedtime story from space!
He may currently be orbiting the Earth, but Tim has still found time to put the kids to bed.
On Monday 30th May he’ll be reading Goodnight Spaceman by Michelle Robinson all the way from the International Space Station.
The story was inspired by Tim and his two sons, and is about two space-mad boys getting ready for bed – the perfect story for all those little ones who’ve loved watching Tim’s out of this world mission.
Find out more here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/grownups/bedtime-story-from-space
Rocket Science Project Day 35
Today was the last day of the Rocket Science project. All the team came to record the final measurements of the experiment: the percentage of seedlings still alive in each tray.
We are waiting for further information from the Royal Horticultural Society’s School Gardening team to tell us how to upload our data to their database and what we really want to know- which seeds were in space?! The children are definitely split between those who think our better growing seedlings from the red packet are the space seeds and those who think the seeds from the blue packet, which are not growing quite as well, are the ones which were on the International Space Station. We can’t wait to find out!
All in all this has been a fantastic opportunity for the children to take part in a real life science experiment and we hope we’ve managed to give the whole Giffnock Primary community a flavour of the project with our regular updates and pictures.
We’ll be sure to share with you when we know which seeds were in space!
Eager customers are queuing up to buy delicious fair trade Kilombero rice in school as part of the 90kg Rice Challenge. If the school sells 90kg of rice, we can raise enough money to cover the secondary education fees of one child in Malawi. Rice will be on sale until 4th June.
You can find out more about the challenge here:
http://jts.co.uk/90kg-rice-challenge
A team from P4 in Giffnock Primary has won the competition to represent the Woodfarm Cluster at the East Renfrewshire Cluster tennis competition. They will soon compete against other primary schools representing their clusters. Well done to Kyle, Ellis, Erin and Heather and good luck!
In January the Junior Road Safety Officers, Lily and Kirsty from P6, helped to install pollution monitors in Academy Road.
The monitors measured different types of air pollution. We have now discovered that at peak times, pollution levels are quite high.
The next step is to try and reduce this and so we held a competition to design a banner to encourage park and stride and walking.
The winners of the competition were Ellie from P6 and Jamie from P7. Their winning entries were turned into large banners which will be mounted outside the school playground.
Thanks to everybody who gave feedback about the March Parent-Teacher Meetings. The attached PDF summarises the responses.
Dear Parents / Carers,
The Pupils at Giffnock Primary School will be helping families in Malawi by participating in the JTS (Just Trading Scotland) 90kg Rice Challenge. Malawi is one of the poorest counties in Africa and a result, secondary education is not free. JTS works directly with farmers in Malawi to develop sustainable markets for long grain ‘Kilombero’ rice. The sale of just 90Kg of rice covers the fees for one child to attend secondary school for a year.
To support this cause, the Pupil Council representatives will be selling delicious fair trade Kilombero rice in school every morning between 9 – 9.30am on the following dates: (until stock runs out)
Monday 23rd May, Tuesday 24th May, Wednesday 25th May, Thursday 26th May, Wednesday 1st June, Thursday 2nd June, Friday 4th June
On Tuesday 24th May, rice will be on sale at the nursery between 12.45 and 1.15.
The rice will cost £3 per KG bag and it would be really helpful if pupils could bring the correct money to school in an envelope. The rice comes with a free recipe leaflet (created by the pupil council) and an entry into our prize draw. This rice is more expensive than a leading supermarket brand, but by buying the JTS rice you will know that the farmer who has grown the rice is getting a fair price for their product.
In addition to selling the rice, the pupils at Giffnock Primary school have been taking part in activities to raise awareness of ‘The Rights of The Child and Fair Trade and have been exploring the similarities and differences between Malawi and the U.K.
After purchasing the rice, it would be great if you could send in to school any recipes or photos of your cooked rice for our display.
Many Thanks Miss Bruce
We have previously posted about the success of Lucy Eccles (P2) and Dougal Sutherland (P3), in this national competition. The story is now in the Extra and can be seen here:
Day 28
The measurements recorded on Day 28 involved choosing 5 seedlings at random in each tray and counting the number of leaves on each. We could then work out an average number of leaves for the seedlings of each tray by dividing the total number of leaves by 5. We recorded this on our measurement chart as you can see from the picture. The trays are still being watered and turned every two days and the Rocket Science teams are doing a great job giving up some of their lunchtimes to come and look after the seedlings. The last measurement will be next week on Day 35 and then we will have to upload the data on to the experiment database with all the other schools and clubs which are taking part. We’re all looking forward to Tim Peake announcing which colour of packet the space seeds were in!
Yesterday P6 went on the road for the first time during their Bikeability training. Everyone had a great time in the lovely weather!
You can find out more about Bikeability here:
Day for Change is for everyone
Friday 13th May
We need your help P4-7
Day for Change is Unicef UK’s annual fundraising appeal, raising money for our vital work to keep children safe. This year, the theme is children in emergencies.
The challenge is to collect as much loose change as you can – from around the house, down the sofa, in your pockets or anywhere else you can think of! You can involve your friends and family!
Please bring into class and put in your collection pot. It will be collected on Friday 20th May. Thanking you.
RRS Committee 
Rocket Science Day 23
Ellie, Ross and Niamh were the team responsible for watering and turning the seedlings on day 23. As you can see from the photos, the sunny weather is being enjoyed by the seedlings too and they are growing well. Our current results still suggest that the seeds from the red packet are growing slightly better than the ones from the blue packet, but there’s not much in it. We’re about to head into the last week of the experiment so watch out for our updates.
The finals of the National Competition on beating racism, which is run by the charity Show Racism the Red Card, were held yesterday at Hampden Park Football Stadium.
Giffnock Primary had two entries in competition. Dougal Sutherland’s poster was entered into the P3 to P5 category and Lucy Eccles’ poster was selected to go into the P1 to P2 category.
Dougal was awarded ‘Highly Commended’ for the P3-P5 category. Well done Dougal!
Then 6 year old Lucy Eccles not only won her age section for the competition but was overall winner of the Primary Schools in Scotland category! Lucy’s mum and dad came to the event with her to cheer her on. Courtesy of the charity, as the overall primary winner Lucy has won match day tickets for her family for the Scottish Cup Final.
Lucy’s teacher Mrs Reid says:-
“We are so very proud of Lucy and her design, her creativity was specially commented upon by one of the judges who is an artist. The competition was part of the resources we used in our religious and moral education programme.”
Depute Headteacher Ms Rawley:-
“Promoting equality is really important to us at Giffnock. Working with charities such as Show racism the Red Card can enhance our learning and teaching programmes as well as providing excellent professional development training for staff too. We thank the charity for all their hard work and for a wonderful day for Lucy and her family. Never forgotten!”
You can find out more here:
Well done to Jacob and his friends for their wonderful efforts at fundraising for Diabetes UK. They have completed their sponsored swim and at the moment have raised nearly £1,000.
If you’d like to make a donation please see the Diabetes UK website for further details.
Diabetes UK have also made resources which you can access online to find out more.
Rocket Science Project Day 21
The whole team were again involved today in collecting data for the project. The tallest seedling in each tray had to be measured in millimetres and its height recorded on our chart. It was a fiddly job but thanks to the paper Ikea measuring tapes the task was accomplished by all! Check out the data on our project chart, it makes very interesting reading. We still have two weeks’ worth of looking after our seedlings and some more measurements to record before the end of the project on 23rd May.
DAY 17
All the team were involved in counting the seedlings today. We recorded the number which are alive and growing in each tray and added the data to our Rocket Science chart. There are still more seedlings from the seeds which came from the red packet. Are these the seeds which were on the ISS with Tim Peake? Our next task is to measure the height of the tallest seedling in each tray on Day 21. Meanwhile our trios are all taking their turn to water and turn the trays every two days. The experiment is nearing the half-way stage and there’s still lots to do.
Our new after-school Bikeability Club is off to a good start with lots of enthusiasm from parents, staff and pupils. We have great support from parent helpers, and pupils wanting to build their cycle confidence skills have enjoyed the extra help and activities provided.
One key aspect of safe cycling is bicycle maintenance, as the bicycle should be checked regularly to make sure that things like brakes are working properly. The manual for cyclists has a section on this and you can see the whole manual on the link below. Pages 6-13 cover the basic safety checks.
This website has lots more information about Bikeability:
Today Aidan, Abbie and Sam were in charge of watering and turning the trays of seedlings and are now proudly wearing their I’m a Space Biologist stickers. As you can see from the picture the seedlings have started to grow their first true leaves and are now beginning to look like rocket lettuce. This morning’s nursery children went to visit the seeds and Freyja and Pete from Primary 6 talked to the children about the experiment.
Our next task is to record the percentage of seedlings which are alive on Day 17 and turn this into a percentage again. Keep checking for our updates- we’ve now made it on to the pages of the Barrhead news and The Extra as well as East Renfrewshire’s Twitter and Facebook feeds.
Giffnock Primary Parent Council ‘Quingo’ Family Night
Friday 3rd June
7-10pm
Giffnock North Social Club
Tickets on sale Friday 13th May!
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