Category Archives: Social Studies

-My Achievements, festival, Literacy and English, Social Studies

Robert Burns

January 18, 2016 Gayle Santi

Recently in Primary Seven, we have been learning about Scotland’s national poet, Robert Burns.

Burns was a man with ideas and took his ideas and made poems and songs. We have been listening to some of his poems and analysing them, finding out what they mean, and what they are based on.

Burns’ birthday is not long away, the 25th January. We have decided to create a Robert Burns wall, allowing our school to see what Primary Seven have been learning about and who Robert Burns was.

For homework, Mrs Santi, has given each pupil in class the choice to find out what Burns’ poems mean and re-writing his poems. Robert Burns was voted as the Greatest Scot by the Scottish public and is widely respected worldwide. He wrote his poems in different ways. Some he wrote in Scots and some in Standard English. Although he is popular and respected by people today, he was never treated this way when he was actually alive.

He lived in poverty and was very poor, however, this did not stop him from resuming poetry writing. He taught us resilience and showed his personal feelings. He is a very important person to the Scottish public and people in other countries across the world and is an iconic figure in music history. He influenced people and music in many, many ways.

Freddie Hyman

-My Achievements, Expressive Arts, Literacy and English, Social Studies

WWII Curricular Event

December 9, 2015 Gayle Santi

On Friday, Primary 7 turned our classroom into a World War Two registration room and invited our parents and grandparents to come and enjoy our WWII event. Our class held a World War II event. It was a chance to show our friends and family what we had been learning over the past few months. We had more than 20 visitors!

We set up a number of stations:
First of all, every visitor had to register for their identification card. We have learned that at any point during the war, if you were asked to display or show your ID badge, it was crucial that you had it on you.

Then, everybody had to register for their Rationing books and a specific store. At the store, they were able to learn about all the food that had to be rationed, and why. Everyone during the war had to register to a store to stop them using their rationing books in lots of different stores.

Everyone had the chance to make their own gas masks as well, which would be necessary during the Blitz. These were quite magnificent

Outside the classroom, we had a live radio broadcast by Amy Quigley and Lyla Gaizlie-Gardiner that followed the Blitz. And we also had information about the use of Propaganda posters and adverts and we got to show off our own.

On the whiteboard, we had a film showing each of us reading out some of our WWII evacuee letters and radio transcripts that we did in writing.

When our World War II event came to a close we sang songs that were very popular in World War II.

It was a great morning and all our parents and grandparents had a great time.

Class Trip, Social Studies

Our Trip to the People’s Palace – WWII Workshop

November 26, 2015 Gayle Santi

Today the Primary 7 class went to the People’s Palace as part of our World War Two topic in school.

To start the trip, we met Laura who asked us lots of questions about World War Two, to see how much we had been learning. We got lots of questions correct! We then split into two groups. One of the groups went to the dairy shop and learned all about rationing. We learnt that you had a ration book and had to get it stamped every time they did a shop, we also learnt that you would get a block of cheese that would have to be shared between a family of 5 or more 5 and it would have to last about 3 weeks. We asked about the other foods and what might happen if you had allergies or needed Kosher food.
While Group 1 were at the Dairy, the other group were given a clipboard with a piece of paper which had a series of questions to answer and they had to find the answers in the museum.

Once both groups had a turn at both areas, we all got together again to take part in some role play and some of us even got to dress up. There were four groups: Woman’s Land Army; children and babies with gasmasks; first aid kits and injuries and Anderson shelters. We learned a lot here and got some great photographs too.

After that we all got to have lunch in the Winter Gardens in the lunch area and we all got a lot of time to eat and enjoy some time with each other. After we had finished our lunch we all got to look at all the interesting plants and trees that you don’t normally see in parks and gardens. It was a great day and it will help us a lot with our own curricular event for WWII when the parents visit.

By Amy Quigley

The whole class!

Questions about WWII

The Dairy Shop

An Anderson Shelter

What to take with us?

Real life War experiences!

Social Studies

Scotland Street

June 2, 2015 Mrs Hughes

Primary Six have been working very hard learning all about The Victorians. We have had our own experience of what life was like for a Victorian child at school when we went to Scotland Street.

We learned that children who were lucky enough to go to school had a very hard time! They started each day by chanting their multiplication tables up to 12. They needed to do this to help them work with their money. Lessons were carried out on slates or using a quill pen. If you got any ink on your hands, spoke out of turn, were naughty or even late you got the belt or even worse, the cane! The classrooms were poorly light by gas laps and heated by a coal heater making it very cold, dark and grim. The children sat on wooden benches and the boys and girls were separated at the door. Their P.E was called Drill and they had to wear a dreadful uniform. The girls had lessons to help them become a good wife and mother a learned to cook and clean. The boys learned practical skills with lessons like woodwork.

We were all very scared of our teacher and we are so glad schools are not like that now!

The teacher was very very scary! Josh

Luckily, the teacher was happy with our work so we didn’t get the belt. I was so scared that my face turned very hot! Anna